In Franklin County, Missouri, a 28-year-old female teacher at St. Clair High School has been put on leave and was about to be fired for creating pornographic content on an OnlyFans account. The teacher, Brianna Coppage, resigned her position before she could be formally fired; which was probably a good decision. In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Coppage said, "I'm very aware that I am probably never going to teach again. I am sad about that. I do miss my students." Brianna Coppage was in her second year of teaching at the school; which likely means she was only two years into her teaching career. Just like that, her career is over.

Brianna Coppage also said she understood the risks associated with the account; which she kept radically separated from her professional life as best as she could. It's easy to blame Brianna Coopage for causing this problem for herself and destroying her own young career; and while I certainly would never condone or advise anyone creating an OnlyFans account, it's difficult to argue with the apparent necessity for a teacher making barely $42,000 a year. While the school district paid her significantly worse than a gas station manager, Coopage managed to make between $8,000 and $10,000 a month on OnlyFans. In other words, she was making more than twice as much on OnlyFans than she was teaching.

You have to eat, and if teaching isn't paying enough to put food on the table, it's not a huge stretch of imagination to see the draw of digital sex work that pays more than twice as much.

While Brianna Coopage's choice of a second job is wrong and necessitates her firing or forced resignation, the only ones who should feel shame are the school board and the legislature of the State of Missouri. They are literally paying their teachers so little that they are practically forcing them into sex work in order to earn a living and making the teacher shortage even worse in the process because these teachers will never teach in a classroom (outside of California) again.

Undoubtedly, Brianna Coppage's OnlyFans is probably bringing in $50,000 a month with all of this publicity. Despite that, I sincerely hope she finds she finds a way out of sex work with a successful career that will sustain her longer than sex work.