A teacher who displayed a sexually explicit brochure in his Grade 7 and 8 classrooms has been suspended and ordered to work from home by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).
Wade Vroom, who taught at Delta alternative school, put up the poster created by the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) with tips on how to perform safe oral sex on the classroom bulletin board in October, the Toronto Sun reports.
GRAPHIC: SEE THE POSTERS
The poster, titled "Use Your Head When Giving It: Blow Job Tips," offers advice with descriptive wording. One such description on oral sex states, "Deep throating, or taking a penis deep in your mouth so that it touches the back of your throat, can cause abrasions, making you more susceptible to STIs and HIV. Using a condom when deep throating can reduce your risk of infection, particularly gonorrhea and chlamydia."
The poster was taken down last Friday when the Sun contacted the TDSB.
According to ACT the brochures are intended only for adults and aimed exclusively at Toronto's gay community, with distribution reserved for establishments such as gay bars and bath houses, the Sun reports.
Vroom's personal website has been pulled from the web, but a cached version says he is an "occasional teacher with the TDSB and an independent filmmaker." It also says Vroom was a "workshop leader" at Toronto's Hot Docs festival where he guided teens through the production of their first short documentary.
The ACT website features various other links with information regarding HIV and AIDS prevention and how to have safer sex, including brochures titled "Condom Unwrapped: The ins and outs of condoms for gay and bisexual men" and "How can I make rimming (oral-anal contact) safer?" The website also features a number of posters advising gay men on how to use party drugs in a more safe way.
The TDSB, which has taken various initiatives to promote sex education for people of all sexual orientations, has run into trouble before on this front.
The board faced heavy criticism in Sept. 2012 when it was forced to remove a link from its website that directed students to resources on how to experiment with vegetables in sexual activities, according to the Toronto Star.
The TDSB also made headlines when a teacher handed out sexist and racist jokes for homework as part of a drama course. The teacher was also ordered to remain at home pending an investigation.
The board's webpage on Human Sexuality Program: LGBT Programs and Services and the page for the curriculum on "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Equity" were offline at the time this story was published.
THE POSTERS