The Correct Answer To 'That Democrat Did Porns On The Internet!' Is 'YUP!'

Yes, and?

Evan and I are arguing in the chatcave. I think if you want to run for office and do Internet porns, great! But if a Republican operative points a reporter to the porns — to which you had more than 5000 online subscribers — that’s not a “dirty trick” or “revenge porn” or even, in the candidate’s response, a “sex crime.” If you want to run for office presumably shortly after making internet porn with your husband (the Ben Shapiros of the world, who are running fucking riot, say they were made as recently as last year, but I’m not going to search out their proof), then the answer to “THAT LADY DID INTERNET PORNS!” should be “YUP!”

Simply, this wasn’t a private tape between Susanna Gibson, running for Virginia’s House of Delegates, and her husband that got leaked onto the internet for “revenge,” even if the Republican operative who pointed a Washington Post reporter to them intended to harm her campaign. That’s just not what revenge porn is — disseminating private acts — even if Gibson’s lawyer can point to a case that distinguishes between “seeing” and “recording.”

Asked why Gibson had a reasonable expectation of privacy on Chaturbate, Watkins pointed to a 2021 Virginia Court of Appeals ruling that found it was unlawful for a man to secretly record his girlfriend during a consensual sexual encounter even if he did not show the video to others.

In that case, Ronnie Lee Johnson v. Commonwealth of Virginia, the court found that consent to being seen is not the same as consent to being recorded, writing that there was a “stark distinction between an image existing only in someone’s memory … [and] a permanent file that may be shared or re-viewed indefinitely.”

There’s just no expectation of privacy when you’re having sex in front of 5700 people. Gibson’s not running for EMT, she’s running for public office, and it was going to come up. Do you and I care if she fucks her husband for an audience for pay? No, we don’t! We’re almost certainly with this adult entertainment lawyer, quoted in WaPo!

“I think it’s fantastic you have someone running who has an open sex life. It’s actually very refreshing,” added [Corey] Silverstein, who is based in Michigan but practices around the country and the world.

Should you make this her biggest fundraising day ever? Sure why not!

But again, I think if you do sex work and then run for office, the proper answer isn’t “oh no you outed me,” the proper answer is FUCK YEH I DID! You can’t have secret stuff when you’re running for office. You can have out loud, fuck yeah, let’s do this stuff when you’re running for office. So let’s do it!

Do sex work and run for office. I love it! But “do sex work and run for office and nobody’s allowed to tell anyone you did sex work or that’s ‘revenge porn’ and ‘a sex crime’” seems to me like one of those times our side is out of touch. It’s either shameful — we don’t think it is! — or it’s not. But if it’s not shameful — and see above, RIGHT THERE, we don’t think it is! — then the Ben Shapiros of the world can wank themselves silly. It’s no skin off our palms.

[Washington Post]