Embracing your identity as a sexual being is something we should all be more comfortable with. There’s nothing wrong with appreciating sex, sex work or anything of the like. However, there’s a time and place to do so, and when you’re the chancellor of a university, you are responsible for recognizing when and where this is. On Pornhub a few months before your intended retirement does not meet either of these criteria.

At just over 60 years old, Joe Gow was planning to step down after serving as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse for 17 years. In the months following this announcement, Gow uploaded a number of adult films with his wife, Carmen Wilson, though they’d been creating them privately for years.

Gow and Wilson never mentioned the university or their association with it in the videos, and he thought using pseudonyms and the privacy features of mature websites would prevent unwanted attention. Nonetheless, he was fired by the UW Board of Regents on Dec. 27, 2023.

Gow believes his termination, decided in a closed-door meeting, is a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.

While I do find issue with the fact that Gow wasn’t given the opportunity to plead his case to the Board of Regents, his termination shouldn’t be so shocking — to him or anyone else. The production and distribution of adult content is certainly protected by the First Amendment, but it comes with exceptions.

When you assume the role of a public figure, you also assume its responsibilities. Chancellors are the faces of universities; their character is directly tied to that of the institution for which they work. As such, chancellors must maintain respectable reputations and, unfortunately for Gow, distributing pornography does not do this.

It’s not fair that an institution’s association with pornographic videos can give it a bad reputation, but it’s the reality of the world we live in. It’s a societal norm that, as the chancellor of a university and public figure, you are required to adhere to regardless of its fairness.

Had Gow posted his adult videos with his wife prior to 2007, the year in which he was hired, the conversation would be different. It’d be unjust for the board to fire Gow for content he produced before he was chancellor.

But this isn’t the case. Gow waited until Oct. 30, 2023 — just a handful of months away from his retirement to a professor position — to upload content under the name “Sexy Happy Couple.”

Respectfully, Dr. Gow, would it have been too painful for you to wait until May 2024?

To upload adult content as a professor does not hold the same weight as it does for a chancellor. Professors aren’t public figures and they don’t represent the university at large, so if Gow had waited to post the content as a professor it might not have been an issue.

I’m not saying that Gow is an immoral person who deserved to be fired, nor am I disputing that his intentions were benevolent.

His decision to host former porn actress Nina Hartley during Free Speech Week in 2018 resulted in backlash, but I think it’s great to promote a sex-positive environment on campus to destigmatize conversations about sex.

Additionally, the books he and his wife published under the pseudonym Geri and Jay Hart are progressive in the way they dissect societal understandings of porn.

I support Gow and Wilson’s sex-positive viewpoints, and I appreciate that he used his position as chancellor to promote these viewpoints. Many of us have toxic relationships with sex and sexuality, and it’d be great if Randy Woodson were to promote sex positivity more thoroughly on campus. The condoms NC State freshman got in their welcome packs this year was a great step in this direction.

Still, uploading pornographic films goes too far.

Gow should have known the internet is not a safe space. It was ignorant of him to assume the content wouldn’t be discovered, and it was ignorant of him to pursue a porn career after the reprimanding he faced upon inviting Hartley to speak on his campus.

To me, Gow’s cluelessness is more shocking than the porn. If anything, the board should have cited Gow’s obliviousness for the reason they fired him rather than blaming the videos. That deserves the most attention.