by Caitlin Donovan – Staff Writer – [email protected]
CBS headlines blare, “Porn star teacher loses appeal to return to her job!” The way the declaration is worded might lead a reader to believe that Stacie Halas taught students how to be porn stars or was a teacher by day, porn star by night. The reality is not quite so sensational.
Halas is no longer a porn star, but her superiors, as well as the attention grabbing headlines, choose to define her by her past. Halas worked in porn for an eight-month period from 2005 to 2006. She claimed her career choice resulted from being left destitute after her boyfriend abandoned her.
Students at Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard, Calif., discovered the porn videos starring their teacher and promptly told the school officials about them. The teachers showed the principal downloads of the sex videos from their smart phones and Halas was dismissed in March 2012. She enacted an appeal to get her job back, but lost it last month.
The principal cited dishonesty as a reason for Halas’s dismissal, but it is undeniable most of the dialogue about the reasoning behind Halas’s firing by both the judge, Julie Cabos-Owen, and District Superintendent Jeff Chaucer who dismissed Halas, has to do with the morality of her past career and whether or not it interfered with her as a teacher.
The accusation of dishonesty seems to be included only as an afterthought, or rather, as an excuse. It gives the illusion of objectivity, but the real reason she was fired is subjective morality.
The way Halas’s past is being roundly condemned seems to validate any decision to be dishonest she may have made. She did nothing illegal, yet she was well aware she would be denied opportunities because of this perfectly legal career she engaged in for the sake of her own survival.
According to statistics by Women’s Services and Resources, pornographic websites are 12 percent of the total websites on the Internet.  Twenty-five percent of all search requests are for porn and 20 percent of men admit to accessing pornography at work.  The facts are a significant portion of the world engages in viewing pornography for pleasure, yet it is the people they willingly objectify who pay the price. This is demonstrated by an incident with circumstances similar to Halas’s that happened last year.
Former Florida teacher Shawn Loftis was fired when the principal of the school he worked at came across pornographic videos he previously starred in while browsing online. The principal was obviously actively looking to participate in a pornographic experience or he would not have come across the video, but he condemned Loftis for being the object of that experience.
The students, who found the videos of Halas, obviously felt comfortable reporting what they had found and condemning Halas, even though doing so was the same as admitting they had been looking at porn in their spare time.
Those who view porn can be just as much a participant in the experience as those who perform, yet accountability for the supposed morality of their choices can differ. The students and possibly some of the teachers were perfectly willing to receive pleasure from viewing Halas as a sexual object, and openly admit to doing so.
The problem arose when Halas chose to be something other than a source of sexual pleasure. These people would have been willing to exploit her and benefit from her situation as long as she remained in the porn industry. They are essentially condemning her because she chose to no longer be a woman they could exploit for their own sexual gain.
Chaucer said Halas’s past would stop her from being a role model to students. But in a way, Chaucer is ensuring she will become a role model. An article published by The Hollywood Gossip, cheekily noted she could spoof her legal drama in her new videos.
If Halas is forced to return to porn, her example will then send the message to children that it is perfectly OK to reap the benefits of the porn industry, but those who are exploited to provide those benefits will face backlash if they try to do something else with their lives.
The children watching Halas now may learn the most important lesson of their lives from her situation: once society is done sexually exploiting a desperate woman, they throw her away.