[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0AbGR7b_Rs?wmode=transparent]
Many people take risks in publicly talking about sex. I am thankful and fortunate to have a platform and profession that allows me to speak on the topic, while sadly this isn't the same for everyone. Anonymous bloggers have been unmasked due to glitches in technology, revealing their everyday identity and then fired for the content of their intended to be private, created outside of work and beyond office hours sex projects. After months of press, Melissa Petro has resigned from the NYC school system a few days before her possible dismissal for writing openly about her past experiences as a sex worker prior to becoming an elementary school teacher at PS 70 in the Bronx.
From October 2006-Jan 2007, Petro sold sexual services on Craigslist, but insists this work ended prior to becoming a teacher. Petro chronicled this period in her life through a blog on the Huffington Post. The controversy began in September 2010 when the content of her blog and current status as a NYC teacher made headlines in the New York Post. There has long been a difficult tension between adults that work with children or create content for children and those same adults engaging in adult behaviors with and for other adults. In my latest exhibition, Comics Stripped, many featured artists created images for children while simultaneously creating erotic content for adults. Artists such as Wesley Morse, famous for making Bazooka Joe comics also made Tijuana Bibles or crudely printed, sexually explicit pocket-sized comics in the 1930s. My c0-curator on Comics Stripped, Craig Yoe, wrote an entire book on the topic in Clean Cartoonists, Dirty Drawings.
To learn more about Melissa Petro's case http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bx_teach_admits_an_ex_hooker_HAs5wQMrW8KdcAfpgrK3WP and resignation: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/teacher-with-sex-worker-past-resigns/
While children should be exposed to sexual content in an age appropriate manner, childhood is also a time of experimentation. This past week a 2nd grade school teacher was placed on leave for not noticing that the children in his class were engaging in oral sex and removing their clothing. Troy Flint, a representative for the school system, has been quoted "It's an incident of kids expressing their natural curiosity that went too far because an adult didn't step in." In this same week, performer Ke$ha told the London Times "I knew everything about sex before I was even 7...My mom left me at home when I was 14 with a credit card and a box of condoms and the keys to the car and said, 'Don't get pregnant and don't drink and drive." For many, the most shocking aspect of the Ke$ha quote and the incident in the California 2nd grade class, was the age at which these children began experimenting with sexuality, speaking to a larger need for age appropriate sex education beginning at an early age.
To learn more about kids acting out sex in class: http://www.theeagle.com/nation/California-school-eyes-accounts-of-sex-by-seco...
To learn more about Ke$ha talking about sex: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2011/01/18/2011-01-18_kesha_i_knew_everything_about_sex_before_i_was_even_seven.htm
Nurse, Amber Van Brunt has recently been fired for unethical behavior for having sex with Chris Reiter, a married patient she was caring for, who was stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease. While the relationship was consensual and conducted during her off hours, she will have her nursing license revoked for 20 years. Reiter passed away in May 2010.
What are your thoughts on this case and how would you compare this to Melissa Petro's case?
To learn more about the nurse fired for having sex with dying patient: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/17/nurse-fights-for-license-after-sex-with-dyi...
An Australian couple was rescued this week when their unapproved floating device, an inflatable doll, was pulled away in the currents of the Yarra River. While this many appear a one of case of rafting with an inflatable door, there is a yearly race in Russia on the Vuoksa River, which attracts hundreds of participants.
To learn more about the sex raft rescue:http://gawker.com/5735070/couple-rescued-after-sex-doll-rafting-mishap
To learn more about the Russian sex doll raft race: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/30/disqualification_shame/