The New York Post is doing its best to fan the flames of a scandal in NYC. Apparently a young woman with a bad dye job, Melissa Petro, got lifetime tenure as a teacher and then within seconds revealed on a blog that she was a prostitute. Oh, I’m sorry, a sex worker professional. Which for some reason doesn’t give lifetime tenure.
I know what you’re thinking: Why the hell am I reading this boring-ass blog, when I could be reading her blog about being a whore?
I KNOW!
That very valid point aside, I’m having a hard time getting excited about this whore-turned teacher-now-reassigned-to-a desk-job woman.
I fall firmly on the side of sex workers shouldn’t be teaching our children, and yet, there are so many more damning stories to come out of the New York City public school system, that I hesitate to throw the first (or the twentieth) stone. About the whoring, not about the dye job.
I have no idea if she was a good teacher, if her students loved her, if she inspired them in the way that commercials tell us good teachers do. If she did, then her being at a desk is a real shame. And none of the articles that I’ve read about her address this.
No, prostitution isn’t a great career choice and despite all reassurances that many whores have a heart of gold, there is absolutely an ick factor connected to it. And we do what we can to segregate the ick from our children.
Living in 2010 America, I know that there is no way that Melissa Petro will be allowed back in the classroom. And my suspicion is that she knew that when she blogged about her sex worker past. Maybe this is a way for her to get some crazy blog traffic and a steppingstone to publication.
In some ways, that is more disturbing than having a sex worker in the classroom.
By the way, did I ever tell you how I was involved in human trafficking? Details coming soon!
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