Montreal Teacher Fired For Filming Nude Scenes... 50 Years Ago

MONTREAL, Canada—Jacqueline Laurent-Auger, now 73, spent the past 15 years teaching at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a private boys school, founded by Jesuits in 1928 but now putatively secular, and perhaps best known as the alma mater of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his son Justin. But despite her hard work and good reputation among students and faculty, her contract was not renewed for the current school year. Why? Because she appeared nude in several softcore European (mostly French) movies in the 1960s and '70s, including The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac, Hot and Naked, and Swedish Sex Games—and her enterprising students managed to find out that fact while searching the internet for... hockey scores? Brownie recipes? Who knows? But obviously, it couldn't be porn! "The availability on the Internet of erotic films in which she acted created an entirely new context that was not ideal for our students," the school said in an official statement. "After discussion and reflection, we concluded that adult films must remain just that, a product for adults... The fact that these films were shot 40 years ago doesn’t change their bold and suggestive—even explicit—character," adding that "the students’ discovery of their teacher’s films affected the atmosphere in class." Even so, when Laurent-Auger was informed of her dismissal last July, she asked if there had been any problem with her teaching, and was told there was not—suggesting that the "atmosphere in class" was in fact unaffected. "I did it as a young actress to make a little money," Laurent-Auger explained in an interview on Monday. "The idea of throwing someone out the door for something they did almost 50 years ago is idiotic. It makes me angry... This is petty and small-minded. We’re in the year 2014, not 1950." She wasn't the only one pissed off by the decision. At least one local blogger termed the school's decision "retroactive slut-shaming"—a telling comment from the province next door to the one that saw the birth of the "Slutwalk." "[I]f the logic of Brebeuf College is followed," wrote Esther Begin of The Montreal Journal, "the teacher was 'punished' for having explored, nearly a half-century earlier, a film art form, in this case the soft erotic movie (miles away from today's triple XXX hardcore porn), [whose popularity] was booming at the time and which aroused much more curiosity than scandal ... Work which, moreover, allowed her to earn enough money to continue studies abroad." Perhaps this should be a warning to all adult performers: If you plan to go into teaching when you're in your 60s, perhaps you'd better think twice about appearing in sex scenes today—or maybe work to change the public's perception of your current profession! Pictured, l-r: Jacqueline Laurent-Auger, now and then.