Houston, Texas, Police Sergeant Stacey Suro, who moonlighted as a model, was suspended after half-naked and nude pictures of her appeared on the website ModelMayhem.com. The police department learned, on Wednesday, that she had posted almost 100 pictures, some nude, on the web site where she went by the name ‘Tessoro,’ reports the Daily Mail. KPRC Local 2, which obtained the pictures, reported that Suro was in fetish, bondage and other sexy positions.
I’m not really sure why this is the case, but it seems people in general are unwilling to acknowledge that public servants are sexual human beings. This is particularly true in Houston, when even the barest whiff of sexuality surrounding a public servant is the stuff of scandal. The fourth-largest city in the country is notoriously uptight- and severely conflicted when it comes to public expressions of sexuality. The population is very religious, and yet there are an astonishing number of euphemistically-entitled “gentleman’s clubs”…a fancy name for strip clubs. Houston’s mayor, Annise Parker is openly and proudly lesbian, which certainly demonstrates just how conflicted the Bayou City is when it comes to sexuality. Public servants are by and large expected to be asexual, one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs with no real life.
When news came out that Stacey Suro, a Houston police officer and a 42-year-old single mom, had posed for semi- and completely nude pictures, the scandal was ON. Making matters even more titillating (heh…he said “titillating”) was the report from a Houston TV station that Suro had also been photographed in “fetish, bondage and other sexy positions.”
Oh, the humanity….
Lest anyone go all weepy in defense of Ms. Suro, we should probably remember that no one forced her to disrobe in front of a camera. She made her own choices, and as a Houston police officer (as mi Facebook compadre Phil Sevetson observed), Ms. Suro should be regarded as the agent of her own demise. It’s not because posing for the picture is wrong, lewd, or immoral, but because we’re talking about Houston, where the Champions of Moral Rectitude and Female Chastity and Honor still hold sway.
1) It’s Houston. Don’t expect them to be understanding about this.
2) Alternate lifestyles are not fully accepted by Joe Sixpack or his wife. Until they are, expect this kind of reaction to continue.
3) Dumbass move, for the above reasons.
4) It’s not a privacy violation; the pictures were apparently available to the general public.
Well, they were available to the general public…if the general public had purchased a membership and obtained a password…which raises another question. How is it more acceptable for a member of the general public to pay for the “privilege” of perusing a for-profit soft porn site…but unacceptable for a woman (who also happens to be a police officer) to be featured on said site? Is being physically attractive and using that attractiveness and sexuality to one’s advantage a good thing if you’re a private citizen and a bad thing if you’re a police officer? Then again, Americans excel at holding public servants to standards they would never dream of holding themselves to. I think that says more about society that it does about Ms. Suro.
Perhaps it’s time for people in Houston to examine their hypocrisy…and perhaps it’s time for Ms. Suro to admit that she made a serious error in judgment. Personally, I don’t believe that there’s anything wrong with what Ms. Suro did, but she knew the rules and chose to violate them. Right, wrong, or indifferent, Ms. Suro is responsible for the choices she made.
I have only one question: would the same weeping and gnashing of teeth have resulted if a male police officer had done the same thing? I’m just curious.
