Tell me what she did to deserve this kind of humiliation?

Maybe you've heard this story already.  Goes like this.  Fifth grade teacher out west, by accounts a good and well-liked teacher, burns a DVD for her students, a wrap-up of their year together.  She makes copies and mails them out to all the kids' homes.  Nice teacherly thing to do, right?  Why she's considered a good and well-liked teacher.  Except that somewhere in the middle of the scenes of fun and frolic, learning and striving, there's a scene of the teacher at home, on her couch.

Naked.

And obviously in the grip of sexual passion.

The teacher did not intend for that scene to be in there.  I don't know how it did get on the DVD.  Probably she saved something to the wrong folder and wasn't careful enough when she was clicking on files to copy.  Kind of amateur mistake could happen to anyone.  It might have been a YouTube video or a clip from a family vacation to Disney World.   But it happened to be what it was.  Then she didn't play the final version through to review it.  Another mistake.  The real mistake.  She's a teacher.  She knows the rule.  Always double-check your work.

She watches it later.  Or someone watches it and tells her what she's done.  Too late, naturally.  In a panic, she starts calling parents, begs them to return the DVDs or destroy them.  She's on the phone in tears.  Most humiliating day of her life.

But someone didn't return their copy or trash it.  They sent it to a local TV station.

The station does a story.

And they show the scene!

Pixilated, blurred, so you can't see anything definite, including her face.  But you can tell she's naked.  You can tell she's a youngish woman with light brown hair.  You can tell she's having an intimate moment. 

And then they name her.

How do they get to do that?  Show the video or give out her name?

She's not a public figure.  She hasn't been arrested and it doesn't appear the police are thinking of charging her with anything.  What would they charge her with?  From the station's story, it doesn't even sound as if she's in trouble with her school district.  To me, and I would guess to most reasonable adults, what she did was the equivalent of accidentally leaving her curtains open on a day a parade happened to be passing by her house.  She goofed, but it's up to the grown-ups outside to look the other way and not let themselves become Peeping Toms.  All the DVDs should have been returned or thrown away and all the adults in her life should have gone about pretending it didn't happen.

Instead, she's on television starring in a soft core porn short.

On the internet too.  The station's story has been picked up by its network and they put in on their website, with the video and a screen capture, pixilated and blurred, but still clearly the image of a youngish woman with light brown hair, naked and aroused.  If you know who it is, and you would know because the network gives her name too, you could tell it was her.

What you can't tell is what exactly is happening to arouse her or who's making it happen---if anybody, because something else you can't tell is if she's with someone.  Looks like one body and one set of legs to me.  She's facing the camera...Well, she's facing the ceiling, but you get the picture.  I suppose there could be somebody under her or off to the side out of the frame.  The camera's at the far end of the couch, but raised a bit so that it's looking down at her at angle, so the somebody with her might be holding the camera.  But it's an awfully steady shot.  Whoever it is might just have superhuman self-control.  Maybe they're using a tripod.  But maybe she was using a tripod.  Maybe the camera's on top of a computer or on a shelf.   She may have been filming herself.  Not that it matters, except that she's married.  She's identified as being a Mrs, at any rate.  Story doesn't say if there's a Mr, but if there is and he was the someone with her, under her, beside her, holding the camera, shouldn't he get a mention, as in this was something between a wife and her husband, not an audition for Playboy?  Even if she was alone, isn't it likely that he was her intended audience?  Maybe he was out of town and found or was supposed to find a pleasant surprise in his email?

What I'm saying is, the reporter doesn't present this as part of a married couple's sex life---and do I need to add the word private before sex life?---he presents it as something she did.

As if all on her own decided to ask for trouble.

Of course, not mentioning the husband does something else.  It keeps the focus on her as a naked woman posing for a camera instead of allowing it to broaden to her as a person with a life.

And about that life?  What if her husband wasn't the intended audience?  What if he wasn't there, under, next to, in front of, wherever?  What if the someone under, next to, in front of her wasn't him.  Or a him?  Or one him?

Besides broadcasting to the world her mistake, making her into a public spectacle, and giving everybody who knows her a rough idea of what she looks like naked, the station and the network might have let the world in on her private soap opera.

Why do they get to do that?

Where are her lawyers and why aren't they on TV cackling with anticipatory glee at the prospect of a whopping big settlement in the law suit?

Even if the network and the station are legally covered, how did they justify adding to her embarrassment and humiliation?

No, don't tell me.

This isn't about her.  This isn't about sex.  It's about the children.

You can probably guess, probably hear in your heads, how it goes.  The reporter, in earnest and unctuous tones, framing it as a story about shocked parents and traumatized eleven year olds.  "What do we tell the children?"  The reporter's even found a father to blather on pompously about the problems he had explaining it to his kids, how he had to stay up all night discussing "the birds and the bees," as if it's the worst thing in the world, having to talk about sex with your own children when they're on the brink of adolescence.   This father is angry, not just at the teacher, but at the school district, which so far hasn't contacted him to offer "counseling."

Counseling?

What happened, guy?  Kids walk in on you when you were watching the DVD by yourself?

I don't know what I'd have told my kids at that age about something like that.  Part of the reason I don't know is that I don't know what they'd have seen.  I don't know how explicit the scene is or how long it goes on.  The story doesn't say.  The reporter doesn't even hint at what's going on.  He and the anchors just call the whole thing "a sex tape."  I'm a cynic.  I'm convinced that if it was something really dirty they'd have found a way of cluing the audience in.  So this is what I think:  It's her, alone, and it's quick.  From the blurred screen shot, it looks to me that you can't see much, maybe some flashes of her breasts.  I think you'd have to be more sexually experienced than your average fifth grader to know what you're looking at isn't more than what curious kids might see in an ad in Cosmo or on HBO, and what would you tell them if they happened to cast their innocent little eyes upon either of those?

It's complicated by the fact that in this case they know the naked woman and she's their teacher, but I think that may actually make it easier to deal with.

"Kids, even teachers are human and they have lives of their own that are none of our business.  Your teacher didn't mean for you to see this so for her sake we'll pretend we didn't."

Maybe it's clear that she's masturbating or doing it reverse cowboy or taking part in an orgy, in which case there'd be some questions I'd have trouble answering off the top of my head.

I don't think it would keep the whole family up late into the night though.

There are questions I couldn't answer.

Like, what kind of creep wouldn't have trashed the DVD like she asked but hand it over to the TV news instead?  My money's on the pompous father demanding counseling for his children because how else did the reporter find him and why is he the only parent on camera or quoted in a story supposedly about shocked and outraged parents?

And what do the reporter and the producers at the station and the network think the teacher did that she deserves to be humiliated like this?

I know the answer to the question why did they air the story?

Sex sells.

But why do they think her sex life is their story to sell?

The main question I've got no answer for, however, is the one I've been asking all the way through this post.

How come the station and the network can get away with this?

__________________

For the record:  No links.  You can find the story yourself, too easily enough, if you're inclined.  You don't really need to.  I've given a pretty good account.  Left out one thing though.

That pompous father?  The story doesn't give his full name.  He's just referred to as "Joe," with the quotation marks to imply that "Joe" might not be his real name.  "Joe's" face isn't shown either.

So this is how it goes.  If you're a woman and you get naked in front of a camera even for your own private viewing, your name and essentially your face are going to wind up all over the place.  But if you're a man and you volunteer to go on TV and publicly condemn that woman (and remember I'm convinced this is the guy who dropped the dime to begin with), you get to keep your identity a secret and wear a mask to the stoning.

Comments

[Apostate]

This isn't about her. This isn't about sex. It's about the children.

I disagree. This IS about her, this IS about sex, and this is about the moral panic that ensues when women are revealed to be independent sexual agents.

You get it right in your last paragraph and in the rest of the post. This is sexual shaming at its finest. She deserved to be humiliated because she didn't act the part of the good woman and pretend she wasn't a sexual creature in some private part of her life. How dare she!

How disgusting, by the way, that not only did someone send it to the TV station - I can understand an individual being an asshole - but that they made a story out of it and used the image - which means more than a few assholes had to come together to make this happen. How fucking disgusting.

Stoning is right.

I blame the patriarchy.

[Sean Paul Kelley]

Excellent post in every way, Lance. Thank you.

[Timmy Mac]

I'll do you one better in re: talking about sex with one's kids. In the age where everyone's taking naked pictures of themselves and emailing them to friends, this might be a really teachable moment for showing your kids why they might not want to do so.

[actor212]

To quote the bard, Don Henley:

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry

[dt]

I called the station to express my outrage at how they reported the story. Yes, keep the disgruntled dad's identity secret, but air the accidental private footage the teacher mistakenly put on the DVD. If this were a male teacher on the tape, it wouldn't have been aired. And if the dad was really outraged, why send it to press? Mean mean mean. We have enough problems finding good teachers, this is just cruel and unnecessary. However... its the fault of the "news" station for thinking this is OK.

Here is their number.

cbs13.com
2713 Kovr Dr
Broderick, CA 95605-1600
(916) 374-1313

[Walter Biggins]

Thanks, Lance. What a great post about such a tawdry affair.

[opit]

Sounds like voyeurism to me.
Isn't such supposedly an offense to 'public decency' ? And the distributors are always the ones charged. Just sayin'.

[Chris The Cop]

Good points all, Lance, but...

What in the name of God makes you want to film yourself having sex? (Not you Lance---now THERE's a mental picture)

[CathiefromCanada]

In the reporter's video blog, he patronizingly explains why this story is news, its because she's a teacher, and so she is held to a HIGHER STANDARD, just like journalists are too, and therefore...well, he didn't really explain why a teacher having sex is news but apparently those poor little kiddies were just so upset, therefore they and their teacher had to become a national news story -- which he also boasts about, too. What a smug, slimy, self-important character.

[Arthur]

actor212.. Why is the "news" station using a 900 phone number?

Do they charge us when we call in & complain?

[Clay]

Arthur, that's not a 900 number, that's the area code for Sacramento.

I could understand an argument being made on reporting the content of the story without naming the teacher or using the tape. I cannot understand why the tape was used or why the teacher was named.

[actor212]

Do they charge us when we call in & complain?

Hm. I smell a profit to be made here...

Start a company. Make a really shitty product. Charge people to call into complain about it. maybe hire Catbert for customer service rep.

Call it "MicroSoft".

[Lori]

Lance,

What you didn't capture is how unbelievably smarmy the coverage is. The opening graphic of the story contains the phrase "XXX Mistake". Just grotesque. One of the other news stories says that the clip is 6 seconds long.

The guy who is outraged is clearly trying to set up a law suit against the school district. He actually asked his child if that was his teacher - as if a responsible parent would request that their child either watch or think about the tape again. A fifth grade boy with that in his head is going to have enough to deal with without dad piling on his sexual neurosis. Unbelievable.

And of course, she can't sue without further compromising her ability to get a teaching job. She has no need of her name getting out further in the public, and that would do it.

[evil is evil]

To Chris the cop, some of us will do anything to get laid.

Somewhere in Hong Kong or Singapore there are photographs of me having sex with four separate Chinese women. Aspen, last day of their vacation and NO sex.
Their condition was I had to be photographed in THE act. That really screwed with my mind, but I sorta got into it shortly.

One was very upset and horrified. So after I showered after the third one, I started to leave. She started to cry and her pals forced me to one more act. She wanted sex on the damn balcony in the middle of the winter in Aspen.

I ate enough speed that I didn't sleep for three days.

Yeah, I can see letting hubby making a video. There is also a photograph of me about two years after returning to the US after going to Vietnam as a teetotaler, nonsmoker, no drugs, conservative patriot.

I have hair past my shoulders, a full beard, I'm holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand with a roach and a bottle of beer with a cigarette in the other hand. My brother in law tried to blackmail me with a copy of the photograph. I told him I'd pay him $200 if he could get me 5 clear copies blown up to poster size.

He, also, didn't believe that I would drive from Oregon to Florida to collect $500 he'd promised to repay. He was wrong on that too.

Fuck 'em all but nine. Six for pallbearers, two for road guards and one to call cadence.

Tip to horny men. If you simply cannot get laid, move to Denver and go up to Aspen, Vail, Copper Mountain etc but wait till Thursday night. The tour buyer women have 7 days. The first night they will only date doctors, the second night only doctors and lawyers, the third night doctors, lawyers and accountants, the fourth night doctors, lawyers, accountants and dentists. The fifth night is "O my god, I don't have anything to tell the girls at work." Helps if you are a long haired hippy working construction and making more money doing concrete work in the middle of the winter than a lawyer made in a year.

[willow329]

Why? Well, duh. Any woman who would film herself nakedandaroused is obviously a dirty, filthy slut worthy of slut-shaming and humiliation and shouldn't be teaching our precious, innocent kids donchaknow. /sarcasm

I'm so, so, so angry I have steam coming out of my ears. I dunno if I wanna smash things or cry first.

[Chris The Cop]

evil: LMAO. Expand that post a few thousand more words and you've got yourself a Hunter Thompson novel.
And I have to admit: you did make me think that well, maybe it's not such a weird idea...

willow: you've got to chill here. I'm not saying filming herself makes this school teacher "a dirty, filthy slut" etc, I'm just at a loss for why someone would do it. (At least I was until I read evil's comment: 4 at once - GODDAMN)

Apostate: I don't think that not wanting my daughters aged 7 and 9 to see (hypothetically) their teacher having sex means that I am engaging in "moral panic that ensues when women are revealed to be independent sexual agents."

BUT... there was still no reason to broadcast the story, no reason at all.

[willow329]

Chris The Cop: I'm sorry I wasn't clearer in my comment. This certainly wasn't aimed at you. It was just supposed to be the (paraphrased, sarcastic) thought processes of the folks who decided this should be on TV.

Again, I totally apologize. My goal is to someday be able to write things so that other people understand what I meant.

[WTF?]

you're kidding, right? A teacher distributes autopornography to her students, and you're getting all kinds of pearl-clutching indignant at how the media is treating her? What in the world do you expect? You're worried about how humiliated she feels? Tell me this, how much humiliation do you think she should feel? Would you prefer it to be none at all? That the community she just shrug it off as "the kind of mistake anyone could make?" What irresponsible nonsense.

Look, we hold those people who act in loco parentis to a high moral standard and well we should. That she even stores her home-brewed porn on the same disk as those of her students is frankly repulsive.

[Ann Bartow]

Thanks for this. My theory about why the situation unspooled as it did is somewhat different than "sex sells" and has to do with ubiquitous pornography and the Madonna/whore dichotomy. But your post is still great, and I'm going to send a link to a lot of friends.

[Rana]

Dude, what part of "accident" do you not understand?

Heaven help you if you ever have a day when you are less than perfect, or when your idea of perfection fails to mesh up with someone else who has the ability to cause you trouble because of it.

Remember "to err is human"? Or "judge not, lest ye be judged?"

Also: don't kids watch the news? So, where's your scorn for them? Or the man who passed this on to them? Aren't they also "distributors"? On, in their case, they have NO excuse - their actions are deliberate and done to boost their own sense of righteous self-importance.

Kinda like yours, in fact.

[Batocchio]

Horrible. Poor woman. And sadly, you're so right in that last paragraph.

[clio]

John 8:3-11

...scribes and Pharisees...[said] unto him,
Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act...the law commanded us that such should be stoned...
Jesus...said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

...they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one...
Jesus said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more...

Isn't it delightful that in this tired old world there are some perfect people: 'Joe,' the reporter and the TV execs who decided this story was worth airtime.

[mapaghimagsik]

Teachers have always been held to wacky standards, especially in small towns. Single and want to date? Find another town.

The "news" station. If this is the news, we're screwed.