Another Chancellor bites the dust

[Hegemony]

We live in dangerous times when our employers censure us for our behavior outside the office.

Has there ever been a time when chancellors making porn tapes has not been censurable and censured by employers? I would not say these are "dangerous moral times." I'd say these are times when public decency is only hanging on by a thread.

[ciao_yall]

This might also have been found by someone looking on YouTube for vegan cooking. They came upon them, saw the invite to the OnlyFans account and voila.

So it wasn't THAT private in the sense that if you are on OnlyFans looking for porn, well, hey, fancy meeting you here, too! I won't tell if you won't tell.

That said, there is something to be said for "Community Standards." But people used to be fired for things like being gay, married to someone of a different race, or discovered living "in sin."

[marshwiggle]

This might also have been found by someone looking on YouTube for vegan cooking. They came upon them, saw the invite to the OnlyFans account and voila.

So it wasn't THAT private in the sense that if you are on OnlyFans looking for porn, well, hey, fancy meeting you here, too! I won't tell if you won't tell.

That said, there is something to be said for "Community Standards." But people used to be fired for things like being gay, married to someone of a different race, or discovered living "in sin."

I think that illustrates the point that how common something is determines how serious it is seen to be, because that determines how much people will focus on it.

So, if it becomes common for chancellors to be in porn, then it will be less of a "firing issue" because it won't get any special attention from people. But until that point, it's not the automatic association an institution wants the public to have with their figurehead.

[ciao_yall]

This might also have been found by someone looking on YouTube for vegan cooking. They came upon them, saw the invite to the OnlyFans account and voila.

So it wasn't THAT private in the sense that if you are on OnlyFans looking for porn, well, hey, fancy meeting you here, too! I won't tell if you won't tell.

That said, there is something to be said for "Community Standards." But people used to be fired for things like being gay, married to someone of a different race, or discovered living "in sin."

I think that illustrates the point that how common something is determines how serious it is seen to be, because that determines how much people will focus on it.

So, if it becomes common for chancellors to be in porn, then it will be less of a "firing issue" because it won't get any special attention from people. But until that point, it's not the automatic association an institution wants the public to have with their figurehead.

Um, I think it's less about something being common and social mores changing as we learn more about diversity, humanity, and all that fun stuff.

[Wahoo Redux]

We live in dangerous times when our employers censure us for our behavior outside the office.

Has there ever been a time when chancellors making porn tapes has not been censurable and censured by employers? I would not say these are "dangerous moral times." I'd say these are times when public decency is only hanging on by a thread.

That's an excellent point.

But everything is changed in the age of the Internet.  If moral outrage was a force in society it is now a broadcast event.  We have two endless threads and numerous individual threads on moral outrage and the personal and professional ruination it brings.

The couple in this instance made a poor choice, I think, but they did nothing illegal.  Heck, I'm not sure it is even immoral, stupid and grotesque, sure, but not immoral.  Human sexuality is usually stupid and grotesque anyway, even in the privacy of wedded bliss.  But nothing illegal----It was maybe never right that public decency should be the end of anybody's career.

[marshwiggle]

The couple in this instance made a poor choice, I think, but they did nothing illegal. 

One additional point is that the position of chancellor is almost entirely ceremonial, which means it's ALL about image. Think of all of the chancellors hired with no academic background, and sometimes with no PhD, because it's all about the way they are seen to enhance the image of the institution. For that reason, anything that affects the image of the chancellor affects the image of the institution, and if that is negative, it negates most if not all of their value.

Think of all of the celebrities who were spokespeople or in ads for various brands who then were accused of something unseemly. They pretty quickly get dropped like a hot potato.

[Wahoo Redux]

The couple in this instance made a poor choice, I think, but they did nothing illegal. 

One additional point is that the position of chancellor is almost entirely ceremonial, which means it's ALL about image. Think of all of the chancellors hired with no academic background, and sometimes with no PhD, because it's all about the way they are seen to enhance the image of the institution. For that reason, anything that affects the image of the chancellor affects the image of the institution, and if that is negative, it negates most if not all of their value.

Think of all of the celebrities who were spokespeople or in ads for various brands who then were accused of something unseemly. They pretty quickly get dropped like a hot potato.

It's another excellent point.

But I am not sure the problem is with the pornographers but with the viewing public and our hypocritical insistence on an old Puritan mentality.  I looked it up, and approximately 20% of all online searches are for pornography.  And something like 75% of American adults are sexually active.  So Gow and the Mrs. are involved in some pretty standard activities. 

This scandal, like most of our scandals, is a scandal only if we make it a scandal. We can act outraged if we want, but it is a manufactured outrage.

[Hegemony]

Aw, come on. Making pornography — being in pornography — is a lot different from looking at pornography. There's that old line about "what happens in the privacy of your own home" — the chancellor and his wife having sex (with other people? group sex? something like that) is no longer in the privacy of their own home. It is publicizing it all for the world to see — ugh! Authority, dignity, and gravitas are out the window, and they are a laughing stock. I would not want to employ anyone who had such bad judgment. While we're all trying to restore public respect for higher education, this is fast taking us in the other direction. I can promise that John Q. Public is not hearing about this and saying, "Their admirable respect for their First Amendment Rights makes me believe in the lofty goals of public education even more fervently!"

[marshwiggle]

But I am not sure the problem is with the pornographers but with the viewing public and our hypocritical insistence on an old Puritan mentality.  I looked it up, and approximately 20% of all online searches are for pornography. 

Apparently, about 90% of dollar bills contain cocaine residue. Does that mean most of the public snort coke through their greenbacks?

That statistic, like the porn statistic, reflect the fact that there are people who snort coke a lot, and people who search for porn a lot, while many people don't ever do it.

And then, as Hegemony said

Aw, come on. Making pornography — being in pornography — is a lot different from looking at pornography.

The fact that "revenge porn", (i.e. posting naked images of someone without their permission)  is seen as such a bad thing shows that most people are far from OK with having their own bodies out there for the world to see.

Chancellor and spouse are very far out of the mainstream on this.
 

This scandal, like most of our scandals, is a scandal only if we make it a scandal. We can act outraged if we want, but it is a manufactured outrage.

You can't unsee things. And the public will always think of Gow as "PornoChancellor" or something, which the institution needs like a hole in the head.

I nominate Hegemony for the HOF for this:

I can promise that John Q. Public is not hearing about this and saying, "Their admirable respect for their First Amendment Rights makes me believe in the lofty goals of public education even more fervently!"

It makes me think of Dennis from the Holy Grail.

[Wahoo Redux]

My Marshbuddy and his analogies to try and make his point.

I will happily concede that PornChancellor made a very stupid decision (probably because of some psychological issues) given the current realities of the world, particularly the Tower, and is now paying the price.  Did he really not see the headlines coming?

But this should not deter us thinking objectively about what the real problem is.

This is what my other buddy Wikipedia says about the coke business

According to the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, the initial source of the contamination likely comes from money used in the Illegal drug trade in circulation, and the U.S. Federal Reserve unwittingly spreading the substance to clean currency by mixing notes together via counting machines, in addition to simple proximity.[10]

But yeah, I see a little hypocrisy in how we deal with mind-altering substances, now that you mention it.  It's funny to listen to my father-in-law after his nightly fifth or sixth beer talk about the evils of legalizing marijuana.

True, some peeps never search porn (I assume you are one of these) but a great many do----we simply do not get 20% of the massive cyberworld being pornographic without a lot of people searching there.

And the bigger point is still the same: Gow and wife did nothing illegal or really unusual; when they performed it was protected free speech whether we like it or not; it was not revenge porn which is a completely different thing; they just got caught, and the Sirens of Outrage began to wail. 

[marshwiggle]

And the bigger point is still the same: Gow and wife did nothing illegal or really unusual; when they performed it was protected free speech whether we like it or not; it was not revenge porn which is a completely different thing; they just got caught, and the Sirens of Outrage began to wail. 

It is also not illegal to avoid all personal hygiene, and it's not really unusual among people without homes. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with a soother in one's mouth, and it's not really unusual among toddlers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with manure on one's boots, and it's not really unusual among farmers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

We could go on all day about things that are perfectly legal, and common among subsets of the population, but which most institutions would not want to see in people they employ, because they don't believe that their audience is primarily made up of that sub-population where that behaviour would be unremarkable.


Is there some reason to believe that the university's target audience of potential students and their families are commonly involved in homemade porn production?

[Wahoo Redux]

It is also not illegal to avoid all personal hygiene, and it's not really unusual among people without homes. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with a soother in one's mouth, and it's not really unusual among toddlers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with manure on one's boots, and it's not really unusual among farmers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

We could go on all day about things that are perfectly legal, and common among subsets of the population, but which most institutions would not want to see in people they employ, because they don't believe that their audience is primarily made up of that sub-population where that behaviour would be unremarkable.


Is there some reason to believe that the university's target audience of potential students and their families are commonly involved in homemade porn production?

If the chancellor is walking around with BO, a soother, and manure on his own time, not on campus, whose business is it?

Amateur porn is a pretty big thing on the Internet. 

Newsweek claims that 88% of homemade pornography ends up online.

The study found more than 10,000 of the 12,000 sexually explicit videos and images it tracked were copied from an original source and plastered onto public websites. The sexual material in the study was first uploaded privately or anonymously to the Internet, mostly on social networking and webcam sites, and then harvested by so-called "parasite websites."

And this is a bit old, so the numbers have only gone up since 2006, and the site has some pretty funny material:

In 2006, estimated revenues for sex-related entertainment businesses were just under $13 billion in the US. These estimates included video sales and rentals, Internet sales, cable, pay-per-view, phone sex, exotic dance clubs magazines, and novelty stores.

28,258 users are watching pornography every second.

$3,075.64 is spent on porn every second on the Internet.

Here is a very current review of the statistics.  It is biblically based and predictably highlights the psychological dysfunction and addiction associated with pornography, so it should make you happy.

Key pornography statistics
*46 million US adults watch porn frequently online.
*75.8% of Americans have at one point watched porn online.
*1 in 4 Americans have watched porn online in the past month.
*93% of boys are exposed to porn in some form before they turn 18.
*69.3% of men report to watch porn for sexual excitement.
*42.3% of women report that they watched porn without it being on purpose (involuntary exposure).
*1 in 3 men, and 1 in 5 women have watched porn due to peer pressure (because friends wanted to watch it).
*Almost 40% of men watched porn to learn about sex, while 21% of women did the same.
*10% of Americans show signs of porn addiction.
*87% of men between 18-35 report to watch porn on a weekly basis.

So yeah, there are a bunch of people about to attend, attending, or have attended UW-La Crosse who took naughty pictures and posted them online, and at this point I would aver that 100% of the student body have at least looked at porn online, and 99% of the student body look at all sorts of naked bodies online on a regular basis.  AND we've got something called "virtual reality porn" in our very near futures.  That's gonna do it for sure.

[Sun_Worshiper]

And the bigger point is still the same: Gow and wife did nothing illegal or really unusual; when they performed it was protected free speech whether we like it or not; it was not revenge porn which is a completely different thing; they just got caught, and the Sirens of Outrage began to wail. 

It is also not illegal to avoid all personal hygiene, and it's not really unusual among people without homes. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with a soother in one's mouth, and it's not really unusual among toddlers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

It's not illegal to walk around with manure on one's boots, and it's not really unusual among farmers. But it doesn't create an image that most institutions would want anyone employed by them to present.

We could go on all day about things that are perfectly legal, and common among subsets of the population, but which most institutions would not want to see in people they employ, because they don't believe that their audience is primarily made up of that sub-population where that behaviour would be unremarkable.


Is there some reason to believe that the university's target audience of potential students and their families are commonly involved in homemade porn production?

Like many people (I'd bet most) they probably spend plenty of time watching it.

[Hegemony]

Wahoo's excuses remind me of the kid who complains, "But why won't you let me [do ill-advised thing]? Everybody else is doing it!"

And I am surprised at the recourse to First Amendment rights. As we all should know, these apply to whether the government can declare certain kinds of expression illegal. They do not apply to whether the person can suffer consequences for those rights. Declaring that the Iluminati are controlling our minds through tiny voices emanating from our fillings is protected by First Amendment rights, but that doesn't mean that an employer needs to retain a Chancellor who starts making videos to this effect.

I think Wahoo's real point must be "Making porn videos is unobjectionable, so nothing bad should happen to those who make them." Or maybe " "Making porn videos should be unobjectionable...", since obviously the practice is demonstrably objectionable to some here and to some in the public, including the people firing the Chancellor.

I wouldn't argue that making porn should be made illegal. But just looking at it in the most pragmatic way, for a chancellor to do it is a PR disaster, and retaining a high official who did it would be a second PR disaster. Good thing Wahoo is not in charge of PR. (And have I worked in PR, as well as in higher education? I have. But it doesn't take a professional to see that it is a disaster, whether or not one thinks it should be. I dare say the university is in charge of promoting the cause of higher education, not in charge of lobbying to change the public's mind about the value of making porn.)

[Wahoo Redux]

Wahoo's excuses remind me of the kid who complains, "But why won't you let me [do ill-advised thing]? Everybody else is doing it!"

I don't post homemade porn online, so that's not it.

And I am surprised at the recourse to First Amendment rights. As we all should know, these apply to whether the government can declare certain kinds of expression illegal. They do not apply to whether the person can suffer consequences for those rights.

And I readily acknowledged that this was very bad judgment on the PornChancellor's part.

And yes, the legal definition of Free Speech has been explained ad nauseum on this site already.

I think Wahoo's real point must be "Making porn videos is unobjectionable, so nothing bad should happen to those who make them." Or maybe " "Making porn videos should be unobjectionable...",

Kind'a. Porn is grotesque. It is distasteful and often outright sickening.  But I think it is ridiculous to raise the red flags of outrage over a practice as old as people (remember the pornographic mosaics in Pompeii) that simply records a practice that almost everyone on the planet involves themselves in at some point in their lives. 

This would not be a hill that I would die on, especially since this example is so egregious----I just find it silly and hypocritical, is all.  Whoever does the firing probably has a pornographic image or two buried on their hard drives at home, at least some of them do.

since obviously the practice is demonstrably objectionable to some here and to some in the public, including the people firing the Chancellor.

This may not / maybe should not be the pornographer's problem, however.  People are outraged by all sorts of things.  That doesn't mean we should stop doing them.

I wouldn't argue that making porn should be made illegal. But just looking at it in the most pragmatic way, for a chancellor to do it is a PR disaster, and retaining a high official who did it would be a second PR disaster.

Agreed.  It was stupid of Gow and his wife.  I wonder if they had some other crazy motive...

Good thing Wahoo is not in charge of PR. (And have I worked in PR, as well as in higher education? I have.

Me too.  I should have stayed in PR, actually.  It was an easy job and transferable to other industries.

But it doesn't take a professional to see that it is a disaster, whether or not one thinks it should be. I dare say the university is in charge of promoting the cause of higher education, not in charge of lobbying to change the public's mind about the value of making porn.)

Always acknowledged it was a disaster.  Not suggesting the university change anybody's mind about porn----strawman.  What I worry about are employers telling us what we can do off the clock by dangling our careers in front of us no matter how distasteful and egregious the legal activity we humiliate ourselves with might be.