PASADENA>> Pasadena City College’s porn professor Hugo Schwyzer announced he will take time off from teaching to deal with the fallout from a sexting scandal involving an adult film actress who offered to have sex with him in the college classroom.

Screen shots of Schwyzer’s text exchanges with the porn actress began appearing on several internet sites in early August. The actress, identified as Christina Parreira, by therealpornwikileaks.com, said Schwyzer asked her to participate in a threesome with him and porn actor James Deen.

Schwyzer and Parreira met online, the website reported.

Deen spoke to Schwyzer’s PCC class, “Navigating Porn,” in February. Schwyzer, 46, admitted sexting Parreira, 27, and acknowledged sending explicit photographs.

In a Facebook exchange between the actress and Schwyzer, she offered to have sex with him in front of his class and film it.

“Perfect,” Schwyzer replied. He went on to explain how his students would love to watch.

Schwyzer said Wednesday he has withdrawn from teaching because he suffered a psychological breakdown and attempted suicide as a result of the texts and several extramarital affairs.

He said the breakdown was also prompted by a resurgence of his bipolar disease and borderline personality disorder, which he said he has suffered from since he was 19 years old.

“I was 19 when I was first diagnosed and I had many episodes until my worst one at 31,” Schwyzer said, adding that he had stopped taking his bipolar medication. “I thought I was cured, maybe I grew out of it because I literally had nearly 15 years of no serious problems. I got into a stable marriage, managed to stay married to the same woman, managed to stay faithful, which for me is like a miracle, and I stayed sober. … It’s very much like cancer, it can be in remission, and it came back with a vengeance.”

He said teaching the porn class also was a dangerous “trigger” that lead him to stray from his marriage.

Schwyzer said he plans to use the sick leave he has accumulated in 20 years at the college and hopes to return to teaching history classes in the spring.

“I want to make clear that it’s my real hope to get well this fall, to work on myself,” Schwyzer said from his mother’s house in Carmel, where he said he plans to recuperate. “My message right now is I got sick again. … I’m certainly in no shape to teach.”

Though he also cited years of online hatred for his writings and pressure from college to stop teaching his infamous Humanities 3, which he called “Navigating Pornography,” Schwyzer said he ultimately decided to take a break from the porn class and teaching about feminist issues altogether because he feels hypocritical.

Schwyzer had already earned the hatred of many feminist groups after admitting having inappropriate relationships with many of his students when he first began teaching at PCC. He also published an account of a 1998 episode in which when he tried to kill himself and his girlfriend. Schwyzer deleted the blog post after it went viral, but republished it on his blog this week to “answer a lot of questions.”

Schwyzer said none of his recent affairs involved PCC students.

But as someone trying to be a role model for students, he said the publication of pictures of himself masturbating and several explicit text messages were the final straws in his decision to take a break from teaching about sex and gender.

“I’m a young dad, I’m supposed to be the guy who’s got his s*** together, yes there is a bad boy past but not anymore. Well, the truth is he hasn’t pulled it all together, the truth is he’s doing a lot of the same things,” Schwyzer said. “That makes me a fraud.”

Schwyzer said he hopes to write again in the future, but not about gender issues and possibly under a pseudonym.

Response to Schwyzer’s actions have been mixed, he said. On a Facebook page dedicated to the “Navigating Pornography” class, many students wrote posts supporting him. However, on a blog post about his decision not to return to teaching in the fall, many said he “let people down” and they feel “betrayed.”

Michael Bloom, of the Pasadena Recovery Center, said Schwyzer’s actions are consistent with someone suffering from a manic depressive disorder. He said Schwyzer’s environment and choice of teaching subject only added to his psychological burden.

“You sexually act out, that’s one of the signs of mania,” Bloom said. “These type of behaviors, that’s what happens when somebody spirals down.”

PCC spokesman Juan Gutierrez said via email that the college had not received notice of Schwyzer’s planned sick leave and was not aware of his mental health issues. Gutierrez continued to deny that a “Navigating Pornography” class existed at the college.

“We have not received any direct indication that professor Schwyzer will not be at PCC in the fall,” Gutierrez said. “Should professor Schwyzer indicate that he is in need of any support from the college regarding this situation or health issues, we will extend that support in any way possible.”