Susanna Gibson is running for Delegate to the Virginia Assembly, and until recently she was streaming sex and excretory acts online for money.

Now that the public has been informed of this fact, she is angry at Republicans for pointing this fact out, and the MSM is referring to the revelation as a “leak” or even “revenge porn.”

John wrote about this story yesterday, and I referred to it in my earlier post on the Burbank mayor.

You can make your own judgment about the appropriateness of a public official streaming her sex life for money–you already know mine–but what is striking to me about the way this story has been discussed is how it has already become an argument about how awful Republicans are.

Apparently Gibson’s performing sex acts for money in public is a “private matter,” and pointing it out is “revenge porn.”

The New York Times’ story calls the revelation of the tapes a “leak,” as if every Tom, Dick, and Harry didn’t have access to the streams on Chaturbate and Gibson didn’t offer to perform sex acts with her husband (or other men) for “tips.” She also offered to stream her urination for a few bucks as well.

Pointing this out is “an illegal invasion” of privacy? That’s quite a definition of privacy, my Dear.

Releasing damaging information about candidates of the opposing party into the heat of a campaign is an age-old political practice, but the sensational nature of the disclosure of sex tapes — reportedly featuring Ms. Gibson and her husband, a lawyer — is highly unusual. Ms. Gibson called the release of the tapes “the worst gutter politics.” The Post said it learned of the material from a “Republican operative” who denied a connection to Ms. Gibson’s opponent, David Owen, or to other political groups in Virginia.

Daniel P. Watkins, a lawyer for Ms. Gibson, said it was unlawful in the state to record someone in a state of undress and distribute it to a third party without that person’s consent.

“It’s illegal and it’s disgusting to disseminate this kind of material, and we’re working closely with the F.B.I. and local prosecutors to bring the wrongdoers to justice,” Mr. Watkins said.

The Republican who shared the tapes with the Washington Post didn’t record them. They were online, apparently all over the Internet. To say that there would be no expectation of privacy is an understatement. Gibson was freely streaming herself and then asking for money to go further.

The Washington Post explained the details of how the videos surfaced:

Chaturbate videos are streamed live on that site and are often archived on other publicly available sites. More than a dozen videos of the couple captured from the Chaturbate stream were archived on one of those sites — Recurbate — in September 2022, after she entered the race. The most recent were two videos archived on Sept. 30, 2022. It is unclear when the live stream occurred.

While still listed on Recurbate, those videos were no longer available for viewing as of Saturday, after a Republican operative alerted The Washington Post about them. But the videos remained live on another non-password-protected site, which The Post viewed. At least two other publicly available sites displayed explicit still photos from the videos, The Post confirmed.

Gibson, 40, can be seen in the videos soliciting “tips” for performing specific acts — in apparent violation of Chaturbate’s terms and conditions, which say: “Requesting or demanding specific acts for tips may result in a ban from the Platform for all parties involved.”

She was performing sex for money WHILE being a candidate for office.

Shame on the Republicans for pointing this fact out. Time to prosecute!

“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” she said. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”

Consider this for a moment: Donald Trump had a crude conversation with Billy Bush about how some women will do anything for a celebrity; he believed it was a private conversation, but it was taped, and became a campaign issue that almost finished him off. Gibson actively chose to stream sex acts to strangers, and she has an expectation of privacy?

Odd standard.

The Daily Wire has some of the gory details, including her soliciting funds to expose herself to strangers. This is what counts as private these days?

That a Democrat candidate did something embarrassing or morally questionable is in itself not especially noteworthy; that the New York Times could describe this as a “leak” and a potential “violation of privacy” is. The far less salacious Billy Bush tape was blasted around the world as vital information about Trump’s character (and, arguably, it was), but suddenly we are supposed to take seriously the claim that pointing out Gibson’s behavior is “revenge porn?”

Nobody filmed Gibson through a window doing something private. She literally streamed this all for strangers.

Her campaign website features several pictures of her and her husband with their two children, and on social media she has stated that she has a “family-friendly seal of approval.”

If left-leaning pundits want to argue that what Gibson did in streaming herself doing sex acts is perfectly acceptable, that’s fine. Many people would agree.

But for the media to give the tiniest credence to the “Republicans pounce” or even the claim that a Republican committed a “sex crime” in pointing this out is appalling.

But there it is. The Post let the accusation stand unchallenged. The story is now just as much about Republican “wrongdoing” as hers.

Is there ever a story where Democrats do something wrong that doesn’t turn into a “Republicans pounce” article?