While browsing lingerie at Eden Fantasys recently, Jill and I decided to visit SexIs, their newsmagazine covering a wide variety of sex-related topics, from sexual health to politics. We came across this article, from April 29, 2011, written by Rayne Millaray.
In the article, Millaray writes about Judy Buranich, an English teacher at a public high school in Middleburg, Pennsylvania. Though popular with her students and former students, and despite the fact that she has been a presumably valued member of the Midd-West School District for more than thirty years, Ms. Buranich came under fire when it was discovered that she wrote erotic romance on the side.
In the article, Wendy Apple, both a former student taught by Ms. Buranich and the parent of a current student, calls her once-secret second career “unethical [and] totally unacceptable.” Having done a little research, I found a number of articles on the story from various news agencies, many of which elaborate on the negative reaction parents had upon learning that their children’s teacher was an accomplished erotica writer.
Huffington Post’s article, for example, quotes one Kelly Hornberger: “It’s unbeliveable… I can’t even imagine someone would write such stuff… And I don’t want my son sitting in her class thinking, is she looking at him in a certain way…”
Seriously? Look, I know we live in sex-negative, socially conservative times, but this is ridiculous. Is the average person so ignorant and ass-backward that he or she believes that someone who writes dirty stories intended for and marketed to adults actually contemplates sex with children? Are people that hopelessly out of touch with human sexuality?
Or, as I suspect is frequently the case, are people so instinctively worried about being viewed by others as sexually open-minded that they make boneheaded blanket judgments like the one made by Kelly Hornberger? Incidentally “Hornberger” sounds like something you might call a person who is preoccupied with sex. Not that I advocate making fun of people’s names or anything.
According to The Daily Item, parents aren’t questioning Ms. Buranich’s abilities as either an English teacher or as a novelist. According to parent Deanna Stepp, “What we’re [suggesting] is that the two jobs are not compatible with one another.” I might be persuaded to concede that “high school English teacher” and “erotica writer” are in fact not compatible professions; fortunately, as former student Matthew Hile told WNEP, “She wrote under a pen name. She didn’t try to make herself famous in the town. She didn’t try to sell her books to kids. She didn’t try to push her belief on to the students.”
While the manner in which Ms. Buranich’s supplemental career became public knowledge isn’t made clear in any of the articles I read, I’m sure that her detractors will point out that, regardless of how, the truth did in fact come out. As a result, teenagers in Middleburg now know that the self-professed mild-mannered English teacher writes erotica on the side. These teenagers will not need therapy to deal with this discovery. They will not develop an unhealthy interest in sex as a result – as teenagers, they have likely already developed a healthy interest in it – nor will they become potential victims of a predatory sex offender as suggested by Kelly Hornberger. Like most individuals who encounter human sexuality in the wild, they will shrug it off and continue to live their lives. Perhaps knowledge of their teacher’s side profession will spark their interest and they will pay more attention in her class.
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that Jill and I are very sex-positive people. We are socially liberal on a lot of issues, especially those that concern sexuality. Recall the story of One Million Moms.com and their petition to force three major drugstore chains to stop selling sex toys on their website. As parents ourselves, we understand the desire to protect one’s children from harm, but we can’t help but get a Chicken Little vibe from Ms. Buranich and her story.
Over the last decade especially, it seems that sex-related hysteria amongst suburban American parents is at an all-time high. Does anyone remember the moral panic over those cheap bracelets that could be traded for sexual favors? How about the mass freakout over Rainbow Parties, which gained notoriety after they were discussed by Oprah?
As no evidence ever emerged that either of these phenomena truly existed, the only explanation that I have is that such urban legends were created as a means of regulating teenage sexuality (and presumably adult sexuality in some fashion). By whipping well-meaning but frightened Middle American parents into a paranoid frenzy, the conservative element in this country has forced parents to be involved in their children’s lives. I am in no way saying that getting parents involved in their children’s after-school activities is in and of itself a bad thing, but I am most definitely saying that fear of sex is at least partially responsible for the type of shocking social dysfunction at which Americans seem to excel.
We have a personal interest in this story; Like Ms. Buranich, Jill is a public school teacher. She’s not just any public school teacher; she’s a kindergarten teacher. Specifically, Jill is a kindergarten teacher who writes erotic stories; witness her Open Box, a piece of short fiction that she wrote for this blog, and which was recently read by the inimitable Lady Grinning Soul as part of her excellent Christmas podcast.
Any consideration that Ms. Buranich may have been given because her students are teenagers and likely already have their own thoughts on sex and sexuality would not apply to Jill, whose students are five years old and unable to protect themselves from a teacher who is at the mercy of her wanton sexuality – or at least, that is how I imagine my wife would be perceived were her non-vanilla, erotica-writing side made public.
At the end of the day, what a teacher chooses to do in his or her private life, i.e. when he or she is not actively working with impressionable children, should not influence perception of his or her day job. Public school teachers make so little money as it is, and the thought that they should be forced to choose between the job they love and the job that actually puts food on the table, is the latest in a long line of indignities with which our educators are forced to deal.
Now that that’s out of the way, we’re going to do a little more browsing, and hopefully order something naughty from Eden Fantasys.
– Jack
This post was sponsored by EdenFantasys.com.
The inability of people to be able to believe that other people have the ability to separate sex and work is beginning to grate. (If that makes any sense whatsoever.) Just like most people on the planet, those who write about sex are perfectly well equipped to keep that apart from their day to day life. If human beings couldn’t manage this basic distinction then no one who had ever had sex would be fit to parent a child – which is in and of itself such a huge contradiction that I want to scream.
But the other thing that always springs to mind when I hear stories like this, of hysteria due to sexual deviance – and being a Savage Love listener/reader I hear them a lot – is just how different America and the UK are. I don’t even hear about things like that here… and I can’t help but wonder why. Perhaps we are more liberal… but we’re not THAT liberal. Or maybe we just like to play it cool and turn a blind eye; I don’t know. But I find it interesting.
Thank you for writing about this. The more people that do, the better.
And finally! You know I’m a kindergarten teacher too, right? I love that: a kindergarten teacher read smut by another kindergarten teacher. And, just for the record, I’m a damn good teacher. As I’m sure Jill is as well.
It’s stuff like this that makes me glad I don’t teach anymore. The attitude of these parents pisses me off almost as much as the narrow minded bigots who think homosexuals are deviant and lusting over everyone else.
I’d like to know just how this teacher’s second career came to light. I know from reading blogs like this that the authors strive to keep their real identities hidden as much as possible.
With all the crap that is going on with coaches molesting young children and teachers having sex with young students that’s all they can pin on this chick?!?! WTF?!?! Leave her alone!!!
It’s been my experience that teachers are expected remain “teachers” at all times. There can be no trace of a personal life (save for being seen doing something benign like food shopping.) I have male and female co-workers that are panic stricken if seen entering/leaving Victoria’s Secret…and they sell perfume, body wash and comfy clothes in addition to the small section of lingerie they have. It’s incredibly frustrating, and the total disconnect from self that appears to be required has (for me) caused some major issues.
I knew when I chose the profession (because it was drilled into our heads by college professors) that better than average behavior in one’s personal life was expected. For example, we were told if one were to have arrests for underage drinking on file that it would most like ruin any hope of securing full-time work.
What I didn’t anticipate was exactly how soul crushing it would be to hide/kill off parts of myself, or how almost impossible it would be (for me) to hide those parts of myself and then attempt to find them again when they are needed.
…just my random thoughts on the topic.
I find myself wondering (often) how those in other occupations would handle the responsibility/obligation of living such a sterilized life.
Excellent post, well written, and you make good points. When Vincent was a teacher, we had to be careful as well – we weren’t able to go to the “funny” theater as often as we would have liked and ended up closing shop on the old sex blog for that very reason. Plus, another factor not in his favor with all this – he’s a MAN. Had we gotten caught with a sex blog or at the “funny” theater, the fact that he’s male would have been even more detrimental. It’s terrible that people can’t indulge in things they truly enjoy for fear of their jobs because our society is so sexually repressed…
Also, LGS reading your story was SEXY! that accent gets me all verklempt…
OH! and I had to come back and comment on the “shag bands” as they were known here. I loved them, haha. Reading this totally took me back. Also to the train that ripped mine… making me very confused about how I was supposed to lose my virginity.
Why are we so petrified of being integrated people, of admitting that teachers and clergy and coaches and what have you are sexual beings? And not just that they ARE, but that we WANT them to be?
I would prefer that my son be taught by a person with an open, integrated relationship to her or his sexuality than by someone who was deep in a closet of shame any day.
Both of my parents were teachers, and I do believe it was a major reason why I was so repressed in sexual expression (or indeed any form of rebellious expression) in my youth, so as not to embarrass them… heh, not that that stopped my younger sister! but I was always more sensitive to it.
I have to be careful in my profession as well (nursing), especially as I deal with very vulnerable individuals in the course of my work. Not *as* careful, though, and it’s odd, but many more ‘deviants’ of the lifestyle are attracted to my particular specialty and I have to say they are elegantly suited for the work (not to draw generalisations, just noting it as I see it).
~Kazi xxx