'My past was not illegal': Gay porn teacher allowed back to class, a year after being sacked

A teacher fired last year when his gay porn career came to light has been reinstated.

Shawn Loftis, a substitute math teacher at Florida's Nautilus Middle School has been told he can come back to class after being sacked last year when the principal came across his past work on the internet.

It transpired that Loftis had acted in and directed a series of gay porn films called World Of Men, with titles including Mo' Bubble Butt, Humping Iron, and Desperate Husbands.

Loftis, of Miami Beach, started up Collin O'Neal Productions in 2005. Under the O’Neal pseudonym he would travel the globe to exotic locales such as Lebanon and Serbia, celebrating gay porn's ability to transcend border.

Between scenes of the International Relations graduate cavorting with local hunks, he'd give viewers tours of famous monuments and settings, complete with historical context.

And on the side he worked as a reporter for CNN iReport, famous for his 'citizen reporting'.

He sold the porn film company in March 2010 to pursue his real passion of teaching, but January last year he was told he would not be allowed to return to school for five years.

Now the decision has been reversed. Not only can Loftis take up his substitute position once more, he can now apply to be a full-time teacher.

He said he hopes to guide students away from making the same mistakes as he, adding that what he did was not illegal.

Speaking to the LA Weekly, he said: ‘This is my past and I left it behind. I can use my experiences in life to teach kids.

‘The key point is that they said when you go back to the classroom and a student brings this up to you, you will be able to handle that. I thought that was highly progressive of them.

‘I'm proud of my state. I was really shocked that the state of Florida was going to do this. I'm happy.'

Loftis added that during his state hearing in Orlando, most of the cases involved teachers accused of felony crimes such as drug use and theft.

He said: ‘There's no debating whether you were convicted of using drugs or stole something, but there is debate on whether my past was illegal. It was not.’