America continues to punish sexy women

Many Americans have hang-ups about sex. They’d much rather their children be exposed to violent imagery than sexuality. They shun women who have worked as sexy models or porn performers and treat them like lepers.
In January, I documented a host of cases where women lost their jobs for having worked as strippers, nude models, lingerie models or porn performers, even years earlier. (See “Public treats porn performers, nude models like criminals.” I covered the same topic in April 2011 for the article “Being a porn actress isn’t a crime, so women shouldn’t be harassed because of it.”)
The harsh treatment continues.
In May, an English teacher at Martin County High School in Stuart, Fla., lost her job after one of her racy modeling photos came to the attention of the school’s principal. Olivia Sprauer, 26, who models under the name Victoria James, was forced to resign.
Thankfully, Sprauer is taking it all in stride and enjoying the publicity, according to the Huffington Post. You can check out her photos at Model Mayhem and her Facebook page.
Also last month, porn actress Chanel Preston had her bank account shut down because the bank didn’t like her line of work. Others in the porn industry have been denied loans on moral grounds, according to CNBC and AVN.
In December, the Daily Beast published a first-person account of a former Craigslist call girl, Melissa Petro. Petro, who left sex work in 2007 to become a public school teacher in New York City, made headlines in 2011 when she lost the teaching job after blogging about her past sex work on the Huffington Post. (See coverage of her firing by the Village Voice, the New York Times and Jezebel.)
Petro defended women who choose sex work and urged compassion for those in that line of work.
It’s time for Americans to live and let live and not be so judgmental of others and their lifestyles.

Photos: Victoria James (top) and Chanel Preston.