A Tenured Professor’s Adult Videos Got Him Fired. Now He’s Ready to Speak About What’s Next.

When I last spoke to Joseph Gow, the longtime university administrator had seen the porn videos he made with his wife go viral; lost his job as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse as a result of that virality; and launched a spirited First Amendment defense of a public employee’s right to have sex on-camera. The 64-year-old Gow and his wife, fellow academic Carmen Wilson, had hired adult performers to make porn with them. The wholesomely horny videos (published under their username “Sexy Happy Couple”) mix vanilla sex scenes with vegan cooking segments (fully clothed, natch).

Last week, the board of regents of the University of Wisconsin System voted unanimously to strip Gow of his tenured professorship after the university system alleged “unethical and potentially illegal conduct” related to the porn, as well as violations of IT policies with his university laptop.

I spoke to Gow over Zoom about Wisconsin Republicans, how much money he’s making on OnlyFans, and what comes next. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

(I offered the University of Wisconsin System a chance to comment. It did not respond in time for publication.)

Dan Kois: What reason did the board of regents give in their ruling to strip your tenure and fire you?

Joseph Gow: They didn’t really do any kind of written ruling. We had a hearing a week ago with the regents themselves, and they didn’t ask a single question of me. When we got down to that vote, I guess I had hoped that in that 17-, 18-member board, there would be one or two people, at least, who’d say, “Hey, this isn’t right.” But it was a unanimous vote, so here I am, without that job anymore.

The university made allegations about you misusing your laptop and other violations.

Those are the kinds of things that they try to drum up to draw attention away from the fact that I never mentioned the university or my role as chancellor in any videos that we made. In the Supreme Court case they cite, Roe v. San Diego, that shows that a public employer can fire an employee for speech that is disruptive—that was a San Diego police officer who appeared in porn with his uniform on and then stripped out of it. So it was really clear: This guy’s a San Diego policeman. Nobody’s going to know, Hey, he’s chancellor of a university, unless they know me personally.

You are not stripping off your academic robes in the videos.

Yeah, that’s exactly right. Whoever turned us in, it’s kind of like somebody said, “I’m going to go check out a nude beach,” and they go out on the beach and they leave their clothes on and they look around and they say, “This is horrible.” And that’s what happened with us.

You told me when we spoke in the spring that you felt certain that Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature were pressuring regents into this action. Do you still think that’s the case?

Oh, more so than ever. They haven’t made any statements lately, but there are statements on the record of state senators, Republicans, when this came out: “This guy should be fired immediately!” The system president doesn’t want to anger the people on the right who are leading the way with funding.

Are you planning to fight this decision?

Well, I’m really lucky to have an attorney provided by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. They want to file a lawsuit, and we’re happy to do that. It’ll be a federal suit, a First Amendment case.

You’re no longer collecting a state paycheck. How is your OnlyFans doing?

Thankfully, every time this gets talked about, people are curious, and it’s great because it’s a human curiosity. We make a little bit of money there, and we’re going to need it now, because my health insurance—and my wife’s—will be taken away.

We make about $2,000 to $3,000 a month. There are some people on there that are making millions of dollars, but we’re not doing it that way. We just have the videos available if you want to pay and watch them. We’re not doing any kind of custom interactions. People were like, “Can I call you up and talk to you and pay you?” That isn’t our thing. We’re not interested in that. We’re flattered that people want that, but it is just not what we’re about.

You’ve had a lot of downtime this summer as you were waiting for the regents to rule. Have you two been making new videos?

No, we haven’t. At the risk of sounding like the academic I am, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is in effect. When you observe something, you change it. Before, we just did what we wanted to do. But now we know everybody’s watching.

It is interesting that the back-and-forth and interaction that seems to be really required to make a living in adult entertainment is not something that particularly turns you two on.

I would say to somebody who was younger and maybe did want to do that: Be prepared to work very hard. It’s very competitive. People want a relationship, to have that interaction, and it takes a lot of time and energy.

If you want to be successful on OnlyFans, just like as a university professor, you need to have office hours.

That’s exactly right. Yeah. Nightline did a story with us and a woman who was a high school teacher in Missouri, I believe, who was on OnlyFans—much younger—and got fired from her job. And she said, “Well, that’s OK because I’m making $2 million a year with OnlyFans.” I was like, “What?”

That’s not the experience of a 60-year-old person on OnlyFans, I guess.

No, not at all. And we don’t desire that. Really, why we got into this was, we did want to experiment with free speech and ultimately see whether my university system would live up to the commitments they’ve made. And we know now they don’t.

You said this when we talked last time, that one of the reasons you started putting your videos online was an interest in free speech. It seems very unusual to me for a person to take a risk with their livelihood on this academic debate. Do you wish you hadn’t taken that risk? Or do you feel it was worth it?

I think this is a good thing. It’s not easy. But when I got into academia, I came in as a speech professor, a communications professor. I have a journalism degree as well, and I really do believe in our First Amendment freedoms, and it makes this a great country. In those years of being an administrator, I watched the world change very significantly, with the rise of the internet and new platforms like OnlyFans. And so we reached a point where we said, “Well, this is a revolution. Let’s be a part of it.”

And so here we are, and you pay a price for that. But I wanted to get back to teaching and talking and researching. And even though this thing that we’re involved in right now is not in a classroom, I think in many ways it is still teaching and talking and researching. People are paying attention and they want to have a dialogue. And I’m here with you right now, and I enjoy that greatly, talking about these issues. I really wouldn’t want to just be sitting at home.

Carmen, are you in the room like last time?

Gow: Yes, she’s here.

What great vegan recipe have you been cooking recently?

Gow: What was on the pizza we had last night?

Carmen Wilson: Well, we get a CSA box. Are you familiar with CSA, community-supported agriculture?

Yeah.

Wilson: We get all of this stuff that I probably wouldn’t necessarily buy.