Pasadena City College porn professor admits sexting, extramarital affairs, will take time off
PASADENA - Pasadena City College's porn
professor Hugo Schwyzer announced he will
take time off from teaching to deal with the
fallout from a sexting scandal involving an
adult film actress who offered to have sex
with him in the college classroom.
Screen shots of Schwyzer's text exchanges
with the porn actress began appearing on
several internet sites in early August. The
actress, identified as Christina Parreira, by
therealpornwikileaks.com, said Schwyzer
asked her to participate in a threesome with
him and porn actor James Deen.
Schwyzer and Parreira met online, the
website reported.
Deen spoke to Schwyzer's PCC class,
"Navigating Porn," in February. Schwyzer, 46,
admitted sexting Parreira, 27, and
acknowledged sending explicit photographs.
In a Facebook exchange between the actress
and Schwyzer, she offered to have sex with
him in front of his class and film it.
"Perfect," Schwyzer replied. He went on to
explain how his students would love to
watch.
Schwyzer said Wednesday he has withdrawn
from teaching because he suffered a
psychological breakdown and attempted
suicide as a result of the texts and several
extramarital affairs.
He said the breakdown was also prompted by
a resurgence of his bipolar disease and
borderline personality disorder,which he said he has suffered from since he
was 19 years old.
"I was 19 when I was first diagnosed and I
had many episodes until my worst one at
31," Schwyzer said, adding that he had
stopped taking his bipolar medication. "I
thought I was cured, maybe I grew out of it
because I literally had nearly 15 years of no
serious problems. I got into a stable
marriage, managed to stay married to the
same woman, managed to stay faithful,
which for me is like a miracle, and I stayed
sober. ... It's very much like cancer, it can be
in remission, and it came back with a
vengeance."
He said teaching the porn class also was a
dangerous "trigger" that lead him to stray
from his marriage.
Schwyzer said he plans to use the sick leave
he has accumulated in 20 years at the
college and hopes to return to teaching
history classes in the spring.
"I want to make clear that it's my real hope
to get well this fall, to work on myself,"
Schwyzer said from his mother's house in
Carmel, where he said he plans to
recuperate. "My message right now is I got
sick again. ... I'm certainly in no shape to
teach."
Though he also cited years of online hatred
for his writings and pressure from college to
stop teaching his infamous Humanities 3,
which he called "Navigating Pornography,"
Schwyzer said he ultimately decided to take a
break from the porn class and teaching about
feminist issues altogether because he feels
hypocritical.
Schwyzer had already earned the hatred of
many feminist groups after admitting having
inappropriate relationships with many of his
students when he first began teaching at
PCC. He also published an account of a 1998
episode in which when he tried to kill himself
and his girlfriend. Schwyzer deleted the blog
post after it went viral, but republished it on
his blog this week to "answer a lot of
questions."
Schwyzer said none of his recent affairs
involved PCC students.
But as someone trying to be a role model for
students, he said the publication of pictures
of himself masturbating and several explicit
text messages were the final straws in his
decision to take a break from teaching about
sex and gender.
"I'm a young dad, I'm supposed to be the
guy who's got his s*** together, yes there is
a bad boy past but not anymore. Well, the
truth is he hasn't pulled it all together, the
truth is he's doing a lot of the same things,"
Schwyzer said. "That makes me a fraud."
Schwyzer said he hopes to write again in the
future, but not about gender issues and
possibly under a pseudonym.
Response to Schwyzer's actions have been
mixed, he said. On a Facebook page
dedicated to the "Navigating Pornography"
class, many students wrote posts supporting
him. However, on a blog post about his
decision not to return to teaching in the fall,
many said he "let people down" and they
feel "betrayed."
Michael Bloom, of the Pasadena Recovery
Center, said Schwyzer's actions are
consistent with someone suffering from a
manic depressive disorder. He said
Schwyzer's environment and choice of
teaching subject only added to his
psychological burden.
"You sexually act out, that's one of the signs
of mania," Bloom said. "These type of
behaviors, that's what happens when
somebody spirals down."
PCC spokesman Juan Gutierrez said via email
that the college had not received notice of
Schwyzer's planned sick leave and was not
aware of his mental health issues. Gutierrez
continued to deny that a "Navigating
Pornography" class existed at the college.
"We have not received any direct indication
that professor Schwyzer will not be at PCC in
the fall," Gutierrez said. "Should professor
Schwyzer indicate that he is in need of any
support from the college regarding this
situation or health issues, we will extend
that support in any way possible."
