At a small rural Missouri high school, two English teachers shared a secret: Both were posting adult content on OnlyFans, the subscription-based website known for sexually explicit content. The site and others like it provide an opportunity for those willing to dabble in pornography to earn extra money—sometimes lots of it. The money is handy, especially in relatively low-paying fields like teaching, and many post the content anonymously while trying to maintain their day jobs. But as the AP reports, some outed teachers, as well as people in other prominent fields such as law, have lost their jobs, raising questions about personal freedoms and how far employers can go to avoid stigma related to their employees' after-hour activities.
At St. Clair High School southwest of St. Louis, it all came crashing down this fall for 28-year-old Brianna Coppage and 31-year-old Megan Gaither. "You're tainted and seen as a liability," Gaither wrote on Facebook after she was suspended. Coppage resigned. The industry has seen a boom since the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now believed that 2 million to 3 million people produce content for subscriptions sites such as OnlyFans, Just for Fans, and Clips4Sale, said Mike Stabile, spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry.
"I think that there was a time prior to the pandemic where the idea that someone might become a porn star was akin to saying that someone might be abducted by aliens," Stabile said. "I think that what the pandemic and the sort of explosion of fan content showed was that a lot of people were open to doing it." It frequently proves risky, though. A recent report from the trade association found 3 in 5 adult entertainment performers have experienced employment discrimination. The report, based on a survey of more than 600 people in the industry, said 64% of adult creators have no other significant source of income, while there were no details on the occupations of those who did.
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Whether fired adult content creators have a legal recourse is unclear, given that employers have wide latitude to terminate employees. In South Bend, Indiana, 42-year-old Sarah Seales said she was fired last year from her job teaching science to elementary school children through a Department of Defense youth program called STARBASE after she began posting on OnlyFans to make money to support her twins. Attorney Mark Nicholson, who specializes in revenge porn cases, interviewed Seales and hired her to work on his firm's podcast. They ultimately decided against suing the blogger who drew attention to Seales' side gig. "If we pay our teachers as much as we pay athletes," Nicholson said, "maybe she wouldn't have had to open up an OnlyFans." Read the full story.
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