Lost my job for swinging!!

[Lovely Jubblies]

Please please please can somebody in here help? I know this isn't a legal site, of course, but just don't know where else to turn.

My hubby and I have had profiles up on one or two Swing websites, as well as having a Yahoo profile with pics and info saying that we'd like to meet others. We're not 'hardened' swingers by any stretch of the imagination, and are actually more interested in getting to know someone socially before doing anything sexual.

However, I have been stalked and harrassed for the past 8 years by a woman who is known to me, who has managed to trace my accounts (she spends hours each day trawling the internet for information about me). Last week I lost my job of 18 years after she reported finding one of my swing profiles (on a site requiring membership) as well as finding erotic pics of me on an amateur pic-posting site. I was dismissed on the spot and given a letter citing 'Immorality', 'distribution of pornography' and 'soliciting participants for obscene, immoral, pornographic and/or sexually offensive acts on the internet'. I should point out that although my first name was in my description, my full name, address or place of work were NEVER mentioned.

I have removed all traces of me that I can find, but surely my First Amendment rights have been violated? Not only that, but I believe I am being dismissed on sexual grounds (I am bisexual and my ad stated that I was looking for other bisexual friends). I'm maintaining that as 99% of bisexual people don't go around advertising their sexual orientation, it's not unreasonable for me to use a swing site to look for friends of the same persuasion.

I called into work the day after being dismissed to collect some things, and people stopped me saying that 'things will work out' and 'they're sorry' about what happened. Even if I fight to get my job back, I don't believe I can return because everybody now knows about my private life.

Can anybody offer me any advice, please? I'm desperate. I've been told to attend a hearing to plead for my job back, and part of the conditions set are that I must not post sexual pics or use Swinger sites again. Surely an employer can't have that kind of control over my private life, can they?

Thanks for reading this. Hope none of you have to go through the trauma this is causing me.

[CuriousInOregon]

Wow you did get stuck in quite the spot didnt you, I have to say from a Personal stand point that I would not want that job back, Knowing that everyone there now would know my personal and private life, Of course you do what you have to financially to sustain of course, I dont know anything about your company but I do know that MOST of the companys today are "at will" meaning they can fire you for any or NO reason at all and you cant do a damn thing, I would say that if you feel you have had your right violeted call an attorney have a no cost consultation and see what the lawyer has to say about the situation, Could be you can fight for Wages if not your job..... Good Luck Not that I am much help but I offer when I can

Curious~

[TeamSoBe]

Do you have an employment contract?

[Lovely Jubblies]

Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I had to sign a contract, but I got the job shortly after leaving school and don't have a copy or recollect what was contained in it! I've been worried by seeing the 'at will' rule too. I'm employed by the Local Government and am not sure if that applies (knowing my luck, it does), but still, the letter of dismissal that I received gave specific reasons. Anyway, I know this isn't a legal site, I really just posted on here because I believe this is an issue that affects any of us who are in any way involved in the 'lifestyle' and are employed :-(

[jdc50]

Well a lot of goverment jobs local, state or federal do have morality clauses. I think you would be better off going after the woman who caused all the problems. You could get a Protection Order preventing her from doing the things, contacting you etc.

If the employer did not give you a separation check you might be entitled to something. Contact the Labor department for your state and see what they have to say.

Good luck

[Lovely Jubblies]

I'll give it a go, thanks. As for going after this woman - I've been trying that for 8 years with no success. My own County Court have told me that they will not serve same-sex Injunctions, and the Police have told me that they are powerless to act without a full admission of guilt from the woman. Even though she has threatened to kill me several times (and she could do it!), they say they can't act until she actually touches me!

[good times]

Sorry to say, but I doubt that you have any recourse. As an employer myself, I am pretty sure that I can require my employees to meet any reasonable (judged by the mainstream population) moral standards I choose as a condition of their continued employment. It is not unusual now days for an employer to fire an employee for having nude pictures of themselves on the internet. The rational being that putting nude pictures of themselves on the internet would be considered pornography by the majority of the population, and I don't know of many companies or organizations that would allow their company to be associated with pornographers.

[wetpanties]

You need to see a LABOR Attorney not an ambulance chaser. 1) Any pictures posted on a pay site are not public and have no bearing on your public job. If they are no longer posted - they aren't there and probably can't be used against you - who knows - they probably never exisited and if they did, it probably wasn't even you. The cost for your former employer to fight a lawsuit could be millions and if your attorney filesa multi million dollar lawsuit against your former employer and the person who falsely accused you of something you diddn't do who knows what would happen.

[2jersey]

You can't/shouldn't go back to work for this company, but you may have cause for a civil lawsuit claiming wrongful termination and seeking monetary damages.

Your employment is probably at will. This generally means that you can be terminated at any time without cause or reason. Your employer cannot, however, violate certain anti-discrimination laws - and discrimination is a basis on which you might proceed with a wrongful termination lawsuit.

You might want to do some research on the ACLU website:
http://www.aclu.org/index.html

Gay rights are a big national issue currently, and the ACLU might even be interested in the details of your case.
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SSurvey...SURVEY_ID=2580

Ultimately, you will probably need to consult an attorney who specializes in employment law in your state. If nothing else, you might be able to persuade your employer to adjust your termination status to 'not-for-cause', merely because you can seek unemployment benefits and the termination will weigh less heavily on your future employment possibilities.

[Lovely Jubblies]

Originally Posted by good times

Sorry to say, but I doubt that you have any recourse. As an employer myself, I am pretty sure that I can require my employees to meet any reasonable (judged by the mainstream population) moral standards I choose as a condition of their continued employment. It is not unusual now days for an employer to fire an employee for having nude pictures of themselves on the internet. The rational being that putting nude pictures of themselves on the internet would be considered pornography by the majority of the population, and I don't know of many companies or organizations that would allow their company to be associated with pornographers.

Thanks for the reply. Whilst I can sort of understand where you're coming from, you yourself have a Swinger profile, which is surely something the mainstream population would find disagreeable and against mainstream moral standards? Does that mean you'd fire yourself? lol. As for the nude pics - the pics I posted were erotic (they were tasteful pics, run through Photoshop to add artistic effect and did not include any sexual situations). If images of naked women per se were pornographic then wouldn't that lead to the loss of a lot of works of art that currently hang in the world's art galleries? Again, using your profile as an example - there's nothing in there that would identify you if I didn't know you (which of course, I don't). But does that mean your profile would be any more tolerable by the 'mainstream' public because you're not easily identifiable? Does the fact that somebody identifies you make you more or less morally acceptable? Surely we have a right to do what we like in private as long as the law isn't broken? The rationale you mention that the mainstream population would see naked pictures as 'pornography' stands just as equally as the rationale that the same mainstream public don't believe swinging to be morally right (but you still have a profile and admitted that you could require any of your employees to meet 'reasonable mainstream moral standards'). I'm not picking (sorry if it looks that way!), it just seems a little hypocritical.

Also, I work in Local Government (non-public facing) so I'm not sure if all of the same employment laws apply.

[good times]

Originally Posted by Lovely Jubblies

Thanks for the reply. Whilst I can sort of understand where you're coming from, you yourself have a Swinger profile, which is surely something the mainstream population would find disagreeable and against mainstream moral standards? Does that mean you'd fire yourself? lol. As for the nude pics - the pics I posted were erotic (they were tasteful pics, run through Photoshop to add artistic effect and did not include any sexual situations). If images of naked women per se were pornographic then wouldn't that lead to the loss of a lot of works of art that currently hang in the world's art galleries? Again, using your profile as an example - there's nothing in there that would identify you if I didn't know you (which of course, I don't). But does that mean your profile would be any more tolerable by the 'mainstream' public because you're not easily identifiable? Does the fact that somebody identifies you make you more or less morally acceptable? Surely we have a right to do what we like in private as long as the law isn't broken? The rationale you mention that the mainstream population would see naked pictures as 'pornography' stands just as equally as the rationale that the same mainstream public don't believe swinging to be morally right (but you still have a profile and admitted that you could require any of your employees to meet 'reasonable mainstream moral standards'). I'm not picking (sorry if it looks that way!), it just seems a little hypocritical.

Also, I work in Local Government (non-public facing) so I'm not sure if all of the same employment laws apply.

You are correct; we have a profile with pictures online. We do not have any nude pictures were we are identifiable though. My wife works for a large company, and she has been told that if their were ever to surface any nude pictures of her on line, she would be fired. Do I think it is right or fair that our employers can do this? In the case of swinging, no, but then again, I am sure that I have a line that if an employee crossed I would have to fire him/her too. For example, if I had an employee that started a racist web sight I would have no problem firing him for it. The problem is that their is the way we think it should be, and then their is the way it is, and their is a vast range of differing opinions in between. When we do something, which is outside of what the mainstream thinks is acceptable, we run the risk of suffering the consequences, whether we think it is fair or not. In your case I don't think it is fair, but we are a minority.

[intuition897]

My question, LJ, is, just how far are you willing to pursue the matter? Because pursuit of any kind will inevitibly result in your "outing" yourself. Personally, for myself and my hubby, I couldn't care less if it became public knowledge. We can handle the fallout, and to tell the truth, it would be a relief of sorts. But with kids and our family and friends in the picture, it becomes trickier. We don't want our hobby to negatively impact anyone else.

So how far could you see yourself pursuing it? What are you willing to risk?

[2jersey]

Originally Posted by intuition897

My question, LJ, is, just how far are you willing to pursue the matter? Because pursuit of any kind will inevitibly result in your "outing" yourself. Personally, for myself and my hubby, I couldn't care less if it became public knowledge. We can handle the fallout, and to tell the truth, it would be a relief of sorts. But with kids and our family and friends in the picture, it becomes trickier. We don't want our hobby to negatively impact anyone else.

So how far could you see yourself pursuing it? What are you willing to risk?

From their initial post, it seems as though they have already been outed. From this quote, it seems that her employer did not handle the matter discreetly. We're assuming the people at work who expressed their sorrow to her know the facts of the situation - and people talk...

Lovely Jubblies

I called into work the day after being dismissed to collect some things, and people stopped me saying that 'things will work out' and 'they're sorry' about what happened.

[Lovely Jubblies]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. To answer the last couple of posts - it's not really a question of 'being outed' to friends and family. That's of little concern to us. However, what I didn't want was people I work with judging me based on my private life. As this is totally different to being, say, a mass murderer who has been found out, I will happily fight for my right to have a private life, even if life that involves consensual sexual contact with others. Besides - if I were a single woman and was on Adult dating sites (whether that's with topless pictures or not), would my employers have a legal right to stop me from dating that way? If so, wouldn't that mean the end of adult dating?

[2jersey]

Originally Posted by Lovely Jubblies

Thanks for the feedback, guys. To answer the last couple of posts - it's not really a question of 'being outed' to friends and family. That's of little concern to us. However, what I didn't want was people I work with judging me based on my private life. As this is totally different to being, say, a mass murderer who has been found out, I will happily fight for my right to have a private life, even if life that involves consensual sexual contact with others. Besides - if I were a single woman and was on Adult dating sites (whether that's with topless pictures or not), would my employers have a legal right to stop me from dating that way? If so, wouldn't that mean the end of adult dating?

You are openly seeking sexual relations outside of your marriage. And you have posted nude photos of yourself on the internet. If you were single, and had not posted nude photos - you would probably not be under scrutiny.

Of course you have a right to privacy. But you made the choice to advertise the sexual aspect of your private life on the internet. Psycho lady came about your profiles and photos in a legal way, as did your employer.

We don't blame you for believing that your employer is overstepping rational boundaries by interfering with your sex life. But we are not surprised by your employer's actions - and they are probably acting in a legal manner.