Racy movies? That was in the past

At the prestigious Le Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a Montreal private school that has educated many of Quebec’s elite, a theatre instructor, 73-yearold Jaqueline Laurent-Auger, has been let go — her contract not renewed, more specifically. The issue, according to Ms. Laurent-Auger and a press release issued by the school, is that, decades ago, Ms. Laurent-Auger starred in several films that included sex scenes where she appeared nude.

On first blush, this sounds a lot like the case of Samantha Ardente. Ms. Ardente was a staff worker at a Quebec high school until students there discovered that she was also a pornographic actress. In 2011, the school board fired Ms. Ardente on the basis that her extracurricular activities were incompatible with the school’s values, and also apparently out of some concern that she would face harassment. (She has since made pornography her full-time career.)

The two examples, despite surface similarities, are really quite different. I disagreed with the decision to fire Ms. Ardente, but at least could understand the school’s position. The films were recent and ... detailed. Nothing was left to the imagination. The sexual acts were also arguably objectifying to women (beyond what some argue is the default objectification inherent in all pornography). What Ms. Ardente had done was not illegal, but it did pose problems for the school, especially once male students began confronting her about her work. Firing her was not right, but you can understand why the school did it. Her pornography truly did present a conundrum for the school.

But it’s hard to see what possible justification there was for letting go Ms. Laurent-Auger. Her films were sexual, but not pornographic (I haven’t seen them, but they are apparently typical of the “soft-core” films of the era). They were also decades ago, at the very start of a long and successful career. Ms. LaurentAuger is also, to say the least, hardly the first young woman (or man) to appear nude on film.

And yet, in 2014, the school is suddenly concerned about continuing to employ her, as it would compromise the school’s values.

There are indeed values at stake here, but not the ones that the school is worried about. In a press release regarding the situation, the school said, “As educators, we had to ask what message is transmitted to all our students, boys and girls, from the first year of high school to the fifth, by the fact that the teacher of their drama workshops could now be seen on the Internet in the most suggestive of scenes.” Translated: Her appearance, nude, online, sends a bad message to our students.

That’s interesting, and dangerous. Teenagers — exactly the age range as attendsB rébeuf — have access to smartphones unheard of when Ms. Laurent-Auger had her closeup. These phones carry high resolution cameras and can instantly transmit images. This has given rise to “sexting” — the electronic transmission of nude or sexually suggestive images via smartphones and social media. Sexting is not quite the bogeyman it is made out to be, with studies suggesting that no more than 20% of teenagers participate (and perhaps as low as 2.5%). Even so, it stands to reason that some ofB rébeuf ’s student body (no pun intended) occasionally takes a picture or video of their naughty parts and shares them with peers.

If the pictures are being exchanged for personal enjoyment by willing participants, even though such behaviour could qualify as producing and distributing child pornography, I wouldn’t be particularly alarmed. But as too many sad stories have shown us, such images, taken in the heat of the moment, can come back to haunt teenagers. An explicit photo shared with

I wonder how many of her students ‘sext’

one person is suddenly being shared with many, or posted publicly online, or discussed among peers. It’s the nightmare scenario for the 21st century cyberbullying victim. One of your early sexual experiences literally becomes an object of public consumption and ridicule, and it lasts forever. These sexual images never go away.

One can only imagine that any school, including an elite private school likeB rébeuf, would come to the aid of a student subjected to such torment. Even if they had willingly taken and shared the photo or video, tormenting the student would be forbidden, and dealt with as effectively as possible. That may not be nearly effectively enough ... but the school would try. It wouldn’t kick the student out on the basis of values and what message their sexting sent.

But now, would a student atB rébeuf event report such harassment? Or would they do their best to absorb the abuse, lest they do hear about values and how the student doesn’t belong there?

Ms. Laurent-Auger should not have been fired. If students had questions about her decision to strip nude, she could easily have addressed them while discussing the broader reality of this being a fairly common thing for young performers. If any students subjected her to harassment, the students should have been punished. This isn’t hard.

Clearly, for the school, letting Ms. Laurent-Auger go was the easy thing to do. The problem went away. But it won’t be long until it’s not a senior citizen who posed nude, but one of its own elite students. We shall see what the school has to say about values then.