mopgoblin on 17/5/2008 at 03:25
Quote Posted by Stitch
Pictured in a mass-distributed magazine sounds pretty fucking public to me.
I don't think she should have been canned, but I can at least understand the argument. This at least has a few shades of gray.
I'm not arguing that the phrase "in public" isn't technically accurate, but it often (and especially if you're talking about nakedness or anything related to sex) has connotations of "in person" and "likely to be observed by random members of the public" (using "random" as opposed to "self-selected").
I'm not really seeing how there could be any shades of grey here, except from a perspective that there are legitimate grounds, other than preventing abuse, for employers or the state to limit what people can do with their own bodies.
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Dude, this a guy who thinks it's okay if she did porn.
As I see it, there really isn't any significant difference; in both cases, the teaching job isn't at all relevant from an ethical perspective. What is (or should be) "okay" doesn't really have anything to do with the reason that ultimately underlies the decision to fire her. On some level, there's a fear of a potential role model - a <em>female</em> role model - who doesn't see her sexuality as shameful, and that means she might be a threat to the ability for the existing gender roles to reproduce themselves.
