Stormy Daniels, American hero

We have our own version of this hypocrisy in 2018. It extends much further than the absurd pseudo-zealotry of evangelical hucksters defending the president while claiming that Daniels has no right to offend the sensibilities of the American people by giving her account of their relationship. Porn is not a red or a blue state phenomenon. It is a big business; in internet terms, arguably the biggest business. Daniels herself expressed this perfectly when she acknowledged that by speaking about her alleged affair with the president, “I could automatically be alienating half of my fan base right at this very moment.”

She is probably right about this. And there is something viscerally disgusting about the fact that a woman who does something we consider disgraceful while almost universally accepting it as an unremarkable concomitant of modern life could inspire outrage for speaking candidly about our nation’s foremost exponent of pornographic values, just as there is something almost unspeakably vicious about the everyday reality in this country in which thousands of women in Daniels’ position find themselves the victims of discrimination when they apply for entry-level service jobs. The same waddling CVS regional managers who will happily sit doubled over their own flying fists in front of nude images or videos of their preferred starlets evidently feel uncomfortable allowing the same women to remind customers of the existence of the Coupon Center next to Aisle 3 when they are fully clothed.