Two days after University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow was fired over revelations that he and his wife have been living secret lives as semi-professional porn stars, students and alumni are speaking out in support of the 63-year-old educator.
“He was a [private] citizen when he made those videos, he wasn’t a chancellor in those videos,” UWL political science major Easton Moberg told The Daily Beast. “He was doing his own personal thing, so I don’t like to see that punished.”
Gow, the longest-serving chancellor in the entire state system, and his wife, Carmen Wilson, married in 2014 and have produced and appeared in X-rated content for nearly that long. However, the self-described “plant-powered couple” only recently started posting their videos online, and an unidentified tipster who spotted the titillating footage promptly notified the UW Board of Regents.
Their YouTube channel, @SexyHappyCouple, shows Wilson, 56, and Gow making vegan food with various adult performers. For those interested in “fully explicit scenes,” the two—who never reference the University of Wisconsin during their performances—direct viewers to their OnlyFans and PornHub accounts. The two have also published two adult-oriented books, under pseudonyms, Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship, and Married with Benefits—Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures.
Jay Rothman, the president of the UW System, issued a statement on Wednesday announcing Gow’s termination as chancellor, and called his extracurricular activities “abhorrent.”
“In recent days, we learned of specific conduct by Dr. Gow that has subjected the university to significant reputational harm,” Rothman’s statement said.
UW System Board of Regents President Karen Walsh was equally outraged, saying she and the other boardmembers, who unanimously voted for Gow to be terminated, were “alarmed and disgusted” by his “reckless” actions, which Walsh called “wholly and undeniably inconsistent with his role as chancellor.”
But others who have crossed paths with Gow describe him as a compassionate, empathetic educator and say they don’t particularly care what he does on his own time.
As a freshman at UWL, theater major Ames Nelson found herself struggling with alcohol.
“I hadn’t tried alcohol until college,” Nelson told The Daily Beast. “I turned 21 in April and by that July I was in my first rehab program. It hit me like a train.”
When Nelson needed to leave school to seek help, she said Gow personally made certain she was readmitted once she was ready to return. And when she relapsed and had to go back for a second stay in rehab, Gow again cleared the way for her to come back, Nelson said.
“You don’t see that kind of forgiveness nowadays,” she said. “I’ve been sober for quite a few years now, too.”
Nelson, who graduated in 2013, remembers Gow riding a skateboard around campus and high-fiving everyone he passed. He was appropriately serious about serious matters, while at the same time being “really down-to-earth,” Nelson said. Her first reaction to the news about the reason for Gow’s firing “was to giggle like a 12-year-old, but then I was really upset,” she said. “For him to be fired over something silly like porn is not only ridiculous, but unanimously, too?”
Easton Moberg, a senior who also serves as a multimedia editor for the UWL student newspaper, The Racquet Press, said on Friday that Gow regularly showed up at “tons of events,” especially at the beginning of the semester, and described him as “well-loved on campus.”
Moberg said Gow always made himself accessible to anyone and everyone at the school. He noted that Gow had already announced that he would be retiring at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, and was going to return to the teaching faculty following 17 years as UWL chancellor.
“You had to be doing something right, to be the longest-running chancellor in the UW system,” Moberg told The Daily Beast. “I think he did what he needed to do, and definitely supported students and faculty along the way.”
To be sure, there are dissenting views among the student body about Gow’s life in porn, according to Moberg. He said he’s heard more than one person say they’re embarrassed by the situation, while others stand by Gow’s right to “do whatever he wants because that’s his freedom through the First Amendment.” Moberg said there have been sundry jokes flying around in the past 48 hours, adding to an oeuvre that first emerged after Gow invited adult film actress Nina Hartley to speak on campus in 2018.
“UWL, other than D-3 sports, will be known for this incident for a while,” Moberg said. “It’s kinda hard knowing that I’ll be ‘The Guy From the School Where the Chancellor Did Porn,’ but… I love our First Amendment, our freedom of expression, so it’s hard for me to criticize him when I really thrive under those same protections… At the same time, if I’m the head of the UW System Regents Board, I don’t want that happening, either. So it’s really a double-edged sword. But if I could pick a side, I’d side with protecting the First Amendment at all costs.”
In a Dec. 27 post on X, formerly Twitter, 2016 UWL graduate Randy Stringer Jr. said he “enjoyed [his] interactions with Gow,” and that he had “even guest lectured a few of my Communication courses.”
“It is insane to me to get fired for something like this, especially with 0 mention of UW [in the videos],” Stringer posted. “I find the boards [sic] words more disgusting then [sic] I do Gow’s actions.”
And in an interview on Friday with the Wisconsin State Journal, second-year UWL student Jason Mergen said, “It’s definitely not illegal. I think I’m surprised that he was so surprised at being fired, but that doesn’t mean he should’ve been sacked, either. He’s a good dude.”
A petition on Change.org, which seeks to undo Gow’s firing, has gathered 320 signatures as of Friday afternoon. And T-shirts reading “Free Joe Gow,” bearing an image of Gow’s face with a black bar across his eyes, have now appeared for sale online.
To Gow, somewhat appropriately, the entire thing has been an educational experience.
“What we’ve learned, really, in the last 24 hours is that people are very polarized around issues of consensual adult sexuality,” Gow told The Daily Beast. “I’ve heard from people, most of it’s been supportive, and good, and people say, ‘We understand what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and we think you should keep going.’ And then you hear from other people, a smaller group of people, who say, ‘This is shocking, and, This is evil,’ and it seems like there’s very little middle ground.”
The most supportive messages have come mostly from marginalized people, according to Gow.
“We had some wonderful emails from a trans person who said they’re a sex worker because they’re discriminated against in the workplace, and the only way they can make a living is through sex work,” Gow said. “My wife and I are very privileged, we don’t have to [do this], but it reminds you that there are a lot of people who do.”
He said the books he and his wife put out “have more nuance than the videos, obviously, and can explain what we’re thinking and how we view things.” There has been “strong interest” in the books amid the hubbub over the videos, Gow said, a turn of events he deemed “very healthy.”
Gow said he has been contacted by First Amendment attorneys since his firing, and will sit down with his wife in the coming days to consider their legal options.
“We have learned pretty powerfully, I think, that we were idealistic and thought our society had come a long way,” Gow said on Friday. “But for some people, that is definitely not the case.”
