This is not a romantic comedy.
A former college geography professor with an apparent clown fetish resigned earlier this year after it was revealed he asked female students to paint their faces, according to a report.
Joseph Tokosh had held positions at two previous colleges and was on track to serve at Nicholls University in Louisiana before the student newspaper exposed his creepy behavior in March, according to USA Today. Tokosh quit the same day the article was published.
The professor had made no secret of his sexual fantasies before the report, posting about face painting and clowning on social media.
“I have a facepaint fetish and convince the cute girls in my class to let me paint their faces,” he once posted on Reddit.
Tokosh has open discussions about his fetishes online, joins Facebook groups for new students and posts videos on YouTube.
In one Reddit thread he said was unbelievable, he posted pictures of several women in white face paint, according to the newspaper.
During his academic career, he was reported to campus police twice and other students complained about him online — raising concerns about the university’s background check protocol when hiring staff.
Tokosh allegedly asked students if he could paint their faces for cash. He harasses a Kent State freshman when he refuses.Reddit
Sophie Levan first met Tokosh, then 28, in an incoming Facebook group at Kent State — where she previously worked — in 2017. Tokosh, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, was hired by the school in 2015.
Tokosh offered cash to any student willing to let him paint their faces.
“If anyone is looking for some extra money, I’m looking for people to practice face painting!” he wrote. “I will really pay you!”
Levan, then 18, accepted, attracted by the cash and his own interest in film makeup, he told USA Today.
Things quickly turned creepy. Levan, who revealed he was still a graduate student, said he asked if he could pick him up at his dorm and take him to the campus building where the geography department is located where he would paint his face.
Tokosh reportedly posted about his clown fetish and face painting online.Nicholls State University
Feeling uneasy, he refuses — and Tokosh becomes aggressive. After she stopped responding to his incessant requests to join him, she filed a police report with Kent State police in January 2018.
“I feel like the school wants to know about it,” Levan said. “I thought maybe they could prevent anything bad from happening because the other girls would go with him.”
Levan said he had been told to stop communicating with Tokosh and tell them if something important happened.
A few months later, around midnight, she suddenly received a text of a selfie of Tokosh’s sad-looking face covered in white. Although there is no message, his shirt reads “I’m not a failure.”
“There was some negative intent with sending the photo,” Levan said. “It’s definitely burned into my mind.”
Police had received similar reports from other students before Levan filed his report against Tokosh.
Tokosh told the Nicholls State TV station that face painting is part of the curriculum for her Geography class.USA Today
“He did not have any concerns for his safety, but just wanted this documented,” police said in the report, obtained by USA Today.
In July 2017, another student retweeted a message from the Kent State Twitter account asking for a Kent State love story: “A geography professor asked me on Facebook and asked if he could draw my face like a clown.”
When contacted by the outlet, the student said he believed Tokoksh found him on the freshman Facebook page where he often posts. He now wants her to file a police report as well.
Tokosh ended up leaving Kent State not because of creepy progress, but after pleading no contest to entering a peer’s office without permission and taking a USB drive, according to USA Today.
But the clown didn’t stop when he started his new gig at Northern Illinois State and Nicholls State in 2022, despite many of his social media posts online before being hired.
Tokosh reportedly posted pictures of girls whose faces he had painted online.Reddit
A student journalist with Nicholls Worth discovered that “Joeography” — a word he would use to promote his class material — was also the username of a Reddit user who posted about “clown fetishes” and photos of women with their faces painted on.
Additionally, a YouTube account under the name “Joe Tokosh” posted at least two videos in 2020 of a man throwing pies at women — including a young woman also seen in a screenshot from Tokosh’s Reddit account.
Nicholls Worth editor-in-chief Sally-Anne Torres interviewed six female students who shared their experiences with Tokosh. Some said they agreed in exchange for extra credit. The women said he sometimes laughed when they painted their faces in his office.
“It’s not just this innocent thing that a lot of these girls think about,” Torres said. “As a professor or teacher, that is someone the students should trust. He used his power to destroy that trust and do these things, and it makes me angry because of them.”
The student paper published a story titled, “Geography professor suspended immediately, students allege sexual harassment” on March 27.
When a student reporter from the campus TV station confronted Tokosh, he told the students that face painting was needed for his geography class to better understand other cultures.
“That was an assignment in one of my classes where they actually came up with their own face paint and makeup designs inspired by the culture and they performed it,” he said.
On the same day, Tokosh submitted his resignation, although he had been let go by the university for undisclosed reasons in February.
After the report, more students came forward to share their uncomfortable experiences, according to USA Today. He was not charged with any crime related to the face painting.
Tokosh declined to respond to any requests for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
