During this week when it will be all Trump, all the time, this article in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow from back in 2018 shows what a pathetic creep Trump is and how his cronies worked out a system for concealing his affairs with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate, and other women.
Trump and McDougal began an affair, which McDougal later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to The New Yorker by John Crawford, a friend of McDougal’s. When I showed McDougal the document, she expressed surprise that I had obtained it but confirmed that the handwriting was her own.
The interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them. McDougal describes their affair as entirely consensual. But her account provides a detailed look at how Trump and his allies used clandestine hotel-room meetings, payoffs, and complex legal agreements to keep affairs—sometimes multiple affairs he carried out simultaneously—out of the press.
On November 4, 2016, four days before the election, the Wall Street Journal reported that American Media, Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for exclusive rights to McDougal’s story, which it never ran. Purchasing a story in order to bury it is a practice that many in the tabloid industry call “catch and kill.” This is a favorite tactic of the C.E.O. and chairman of A.M.I., David Pecker, who describes the President as “a personal friend.”
…As the pool party at the Playboy Mansion came to an end, Trump asked for McDougal’s telephone number. For McDougal, who grew up in a small town in Michigan and worked as a preschool teacher before beginning her modelling career, such advances were not unusual. John Crawford, McDougal’s friend, who also helped broker her deal with A.M.I., said that Trump was “another powerful guy hitting on her, a gal who’s paid to be at work.” Trump and McDougal began talking frequently on the phone, and soon had what McDougal described as their first date: dinner in a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. McDougal wrote that Trump impressed her. “I was so nervous! I was into his intelligence + charm. Such a polite man,” she wrote. “We talked for a couple hours – then, it was “ON”! We got naked + had sex.” As McDougal was getting dressed to leave, Trump did something that surprised her. “He offered me money,” she wrote. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks – I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you – NOT for money’ – He told me ‘you are special.’
It is pathetic that Trump assumes that the only reason women will have sex with him is if they are paid to do so.
Farrow goes on.
Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” alleged that Trump assaulted her at a private dinner meeting, in December of 2007, at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Trump, Zervos has claimed, kissed her, groped her breast, and suggested that they lie down to “watch some telly-telly.” After Zervos rebuffed Trump’s advances, she said that he “began thrusting his genitals” against her. (Zervos recently sued Trump for defamation after he denied her account.) …
Another adult-film actress, whose screen name is Alana Evans, claimed that Trump invited her to join them in his hotel room that weekend. A third adult-film performer, known as Jessica Drake, alleged that Trump asked her to his hotel room, met her and two women she brought with her in pajamas, and then “grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking for permission.” He then offered Drake ten thousand dollars in exchange for her company. (Trump denied the incident.)
…Trump also promised to buy McDougal an apartment in New York as a Christmas present. Clifford, likewise, said that Trump promised to buy her a condo in Tampa. For Trump, showing off real estate and other branded products was sometimes a prelude to sexual advances. Zervos and a real-estate investor named Rachel Crooks have both claimed that Trump kissed them on the mouth during professional encounters at Trump Tower. Four other women have claimed that Trump forcibly touched or kissed them during tours or events at Mar-a-Lago, his property in Palm Beach, Florida. (Trump has denied any wrongdoing pertaining to the women.)
McDougal ended the relationship in April, 2007, after nine months. According to Crawford, the breakup was prompted in part by McDougal’s feelings of guilt. “She couldn’t look at herself in the mirror anymore,” Crawford said. “And she was concerned about what her mother thought of her.” The decision was reinforced by a series of comments Trump made that McDougal found disrespectful, according to several of her friends. When she raised her concern about her mother’s disapproval to Trump, he replied, “What, that old hag?” (McDougal, hurt, pointed out that Trump and her mother were close in age.) On the night of the Miss Universe pageant McDougal attended, McDougal and a friend rode with Trump in his limousine and the friend mentioned a relationship she had had with an African-American man. According to multiple sources, Trump remarked that the friend liked “the big black dick” and began commenting on her attractiveness and breast size. The interactions angered the friend and deeply offended McDougal.
The actor Stormy Daniels, who is part of the case the Trump currently is under indictment for, may turn out to be Trump’s nemesis because she seems fearless and is willing to engage with Trump and his supporters in public.
Stormy Daniels reacted Friday to the criminal indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump with a play on his infamous taped remarks seemingly confessing to sexually assaulting women.
“This pussy grabbed back,” Daniels—the porn star paid $130,000 by Trump fixer Michael Cohen in return for silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with the future president—told TheTimes of London in a paywalled article.
One month before the 2016 presidential election, a 2005 recording of Trump telling “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that “when you’re a star,” women let you “do anything” to them,” including “grab ’em by the pussy” surfaced.
More than two dozen women and a 13-year-old girl have accused Trump—a 2024 Republican presidential candidate—of sexual misconduct, including assault.
…“Whatever the outcome is, it’s going to cause violence, and there’s going to be injuries and death,” Daniels warned. “There’s the potential for a lot of good to come from this. But either way, a lot of bad is going to come from it, too.”
However, Daniels says she’s undaunted by the prospect of facing Trump in court.
“I’ve seen him naked,” she explained. “There’s no way he could be scarier with his clothes on.”
And then there was this exchange she had on Twitter with a Trump supporter.
True. He used a 3 inch one. https://t.co/X3YvAu6jID
— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) March 26, 2023
That Trump is utterly crude and boorish should be utterly obvious to anyone by now. But the details of his awful behavior towards women still have the capacity to be revolting. The little details, like his publicly referring to Daniels at his rally speeches as ‘horse face’ or telling McDougal that her mother is an ‘old hag’, are disgusting. While I can understand that a certain type of man may find this kind of demeaning behavior appealing, it is astonishing to me that there are women who still support Trump, given how frequently their looks are insulted by angry and frustrated men like him.
I think you don’t understand the mindset of his kind of sex worker client. Apart from anything else, note that Trump mentioned money only AFTER they did the deed. They don’t pay the women to have sex with them -- they pay them to leave afterwards.
Turns out women are not some monolithic, intra-supportive mass organism with only one brain between them. Who knew?
Trump’s transactions with prostitutes are not “affairs” -- the media tries to implicitly whitewash his behavior by calling it something more palatable and you’re playing along.
McDougal ended the relationship in April, 2007, after nine months.
Maybe she really did like him. Still sounds quite traumatic.
And for how many of these, uh, encounters, was he married to someone else? About 80% of white evangelicals voted for him. Twice….
Marcus @#2,
None of the women named were sex workers, though Trump seemed to act like they were.
Even with sex workers, he should not treat them that way.
@4: Yeah, that’s just one more indicator of how utterly empty and phony their so-called morality really is, and probably always has been.
It is pathetic that Trump assumes that the only reason women will have sex with him is if they are paid to do so.
I don’t think it’s pathetic, I think it’s realistic, given the sort of human he has shown himself to be. Maybe he’s more self-aware than we assume. Either that, or he just assumes that everyone is a transactionalist like he is; IOW, people naturally want some of his money, and sex is what they are willing to trade for it.
#1
-- And stay silent.
This is the part that I find the most shocking in this article.
@Marcus Ranum @2
Some are clearly affairs. The one with McDougal should qualify as an affair . Even the one with Daniels was consesusal with a quid pro(not directly money) expectation .
I suppose you are referring to the non-consensual ones.
Some are clearly affairs.
Sure. Now ask yourself how many “affairs” end with non-disclosures and hush money.
With regard to how long McDougal was seeing Trump -- wouldn’t it make sense she was waiting to see if he’d get her on Celebrity Apprentice or otherwise promote her career, until she realized that he was a deadbeat? I recall reading somewhere that one of Trump’s pickup lines is that he could boost a woman’s career. Who wouldn’t want to be the next Hope Hicks?
McDougal may have felt emotionally involved in Trump, but:
Trump was clearly being all romantical and not the least wee bit transactional. Some “affair.”
Anyway -- I made my point. Keep parroting the media’s spin if it makes you happy.
@marcus ranum
Sure. You know better than what McDougal herself has said what it was for her. Her words matter less than your deductions and suppositions I suppose.
As far as women supporting Trump, it probably makes more sense if you consider the hateful and dehumanizing way some parts of the right wing talk about women they think have sex frequently. Their ideas about this are so spiteful and divorced from reality that they’re willing to seriously contemplate banning contraceptives and outlaw abortions at 6 weeks. Even when rape and incest are involved. Remember, some of their opposition to abortion is based on the incredibly bizarre idea that some women have several dozen abortions.
You can’t get to any of these places without dehumanising women. Trump supporters probably think the things he says are based on the behavior of the women he’s targeting. Everyone else can see that it’s not.
@Mano, 5:
Eh?
From the OP:
“Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate”, i.e. sex worker.
“adult-film actress, whose screen name is Alana Evans”, i.e. sex worker
“adult-film performer, known as Jessica Drake”, i.e. sex worker
“[Stormy] Daniels—the porn star”, i.e. sex worker.
That’s FOUR women named in your own post who, based only on the content of the post, were at some point sex workers.
If you don’t think getting paid to get your kit off to pose for photos for a porn mag, or getting paid for literally having sex with strangers while someone films it is “sex work” -- what is?
@mjr,10 and Deepak Shetty, 11:
I think you are arguing at cross purposes. I think you may both be right. Consider:
mjr, 2:
Deepak Shetty, 11:
(my emphasis)
Here’s how I see this:
To Trump, these women are prostitutes. In fact, it’s entirely possible that on some level, Trump considers ALL women to be prostitutes, including his wives. In either case -- Marcus is right, these aren’t “affairs”, these examples of business genius Trump paying WAY over the going rate for sex*.
Not all women are in fact prostitutes though, e.g. Summer Zervos. But some definitely are. It’s possible that McDougal deludes herself that she wasn’t a sex worker, but Trump was under no such delusion. Stormy Daniels is entertainingly under no such delusion about herself- she revels in it, hilariously, on Twitter. But it’s entirely possible that McDougal really did like Trump, because, y’know, some women are fucking stupid. Or she may not be stupid, just be ashamed of being involved in such a transactional “relationship” and is lying, trying to make excuses for it because she doesn’t want people thinking she was a sex worker. Too late love, is my response to that.
*It’s astonishing to me that so-called billionaire so-called deal-making genius Trump can’t conduct a simple transaction like buying sex off a woman without buggering it up AND paying six figure sums for what should be in the low four digits AT MOST. I’m put in mind of Hugh Grant -- only because he had the bad luck to be literally arrested in the act did it come out that he paid for sex. Now, a few things should be obvious from his example:
1. that wasn’t the first time Grant did that.
2. it likely wasn’t the last
3. he is definitely not the only famous bloke doing that
4. he is almost the only famous bloke known for doing that.
In other words -- rich, famous guys who you’d think could get it for free are hiring sex workers all the time, without any major issues. Like I said, they pay them to go away afterwards (and thank you Captain Obvious @8, fuckin duh). I very much doubt they’re paying them six digits. On the other hand, not many of them run for President. On the gripping hand: Bill Clinton. You’re not telling me that guy didn’t have sex workers in his past… All this just screams about Trump’s universal incompetence. Can’t wait to see what he does when he wins the next election…
@sonofrojblake
And yet , by the accounts she didn’t ask for money , and continued it for sometime. Its irrelevant what Trump thinks for this to be an affair- The way he treats women , who would be surprised if he thinks that of his spouses too?
An affair where one party eventually expects (the status/respectability of) marriage and the other just expects sex is still an affair is it not? Monetary favors (gifts etc) are part of most such affairs -- is that sex work too?
What happens after the end of the affair is also irrelevant to what it was.
Speaking of being a creep:
If you don’t think getting paid to get your kit off to pose for photos for a porn mag
Women being paid by a magazine to pose nude in a photo is neither porn or sex work. It’s modeling for a very narrow demographic.
Equating naked women with prostitutes is generally how misogynists think, as evidenced by tiny offering payment for having touched his mushroom.
Hey, remember Gary Hart? Monkey Business?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/
@Deepak Shetty, 15:
Possibly, but that’s not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about is a situation where one party expected… I have no idea what McDougal expected, and neither do you, and the other not only expected sex but explicitly offered to pay for it from the very outset making it absolutely crystal clear to anyone but a moron just what value they placed on the “relationship”. Now -- as mjr said, you can try calling that “an affair”, but you’re doing Trump a massive favour by doing so, and you might like to reflect on why you’re making excuses for him.
@Tethys, 16:
Ah, you bought Playboy “for the articles”, eh?
Except, I explicitly said, AND YOU QUOTED ME “to pose for photos for a porn mag”
Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Playboy, Hustler, Razzle, Reader’s Wives, Asian Babes -- all the women in all those magazines with their clothes off, they’re all perfectly equivalent, are they? Kate Moss and Jenna Jameson did exactly the same kind of work -- sure. (Note: I googled “worlds most famous porn model”, and recognised precisely none of the names that came up, so I had to pick one I actually could remember from back in the day in the hope that the point would be clear. Insert the name of your favourite porn model if you like.)
It’s obvious to the point of egregious to point out that naked women in magazines are not, per se, pornography, and “model”, even “nude model” is absolutely not equivalent to “prostitute”.
But it’s also disingenuous to the point of comically naive (or more likely just dishonest) to try to pretend that being a Playboy Playmate isn’t sex work. What next? Stripping isn’t sex work? Lap dancing? It’s a serious question -- where do YOU draw the line? And more importantly, why?
@ sonofrojblake
Is it really sex work if the woman doesn’t physically have sex or even feel sexy? I mean people get off on all sorts of things, I encountered someone who thought thick woolley tights were sexy, which meant I was sexy for a lot of winter, nowt to do with me or my perceptions, I was just going about my daily business trying to keep warm in inclement weather.
So… if a stripper/lap dancer doesn’t feel sexy, that’s not sex work? There’s some pretty narrow definitions going on right here.
You just wearing thick wooly tights for your own reasons? Not sex work, very obviously. You starting an OnlyFans page where you charge people money to look at photos/videos of you posing in thick wooly tights? Yeah, sex work. Kind of important is the bit where you get paid. Y’know, like McDougal did when she got her kit off for the porn mag.
Not, I should point out, that I’ve ever said there’s anything wrong with sex work -- you do you and let others do them. No judgement here, for sure, not on that score, not from me. I am curious where and why other people draw the line, though.
@sonofrojblake
v/s
So you have no idea , you discount everything McDougal says and yet you are sure of your position ?
Trump did not offer money upfront -- he did it after the fact and it was as likely for keep it quiet as it could have been for services rendered. But her description of what happened is not the normal sex work description and for you to insist that it must be is just weird.
McDougal’s “I’m not that kind of girl” schtick puts me in mind of the story told of Lord Beaverbrook, who supposedy asked an actress if she’d “live with” (i.e. fuck) a stranger for a million pounds (back when a million pounds was a lot of money…), to which she said “of course”, so he followed up with “how about a fiver?”, and she furiously said “Of course not, what sort of woman do you think I am?”, to which he zinged, “We’ve already established that. Now we are trying to determine the degree.”
Also attributed to George Bernard Shaw, Churchill, Groucho, Mark Twain, WC Fields and others.
@ sonofrojblake
Well you asked, and no I wouldn’t class a stripper as sex work, a lapdancer is more borderline as there is physical contact. I don’t have any problem with any of this work assuming it really is entered into freely, which given capitalism is sadly not always the case, but for me sex involves physical contact. It is complicated by the use of many of these job descriptions as euphemisms for prostitution, and by prstitution being an add on to the otherwise non-physical jobs in some (many? I don’t know), but I don’t think they are synonymous. My view is partly formed by a few pole dancers that I know who love the actual activity, as well as the acrobatic fitness the job gives them (along with the pay of course), but who wouldn’t add prostitution to the job description.
It isn’t??
@sonofrojblake
So effectively
If I gave you a huge, life changing amount of money for a maybe slightly unpleasant (ymmv) activity that does you no lasting harm and that will usually take a very short duration of time (sigh) , arent you going to say “yes”?
If then I say well actually no , same activity but for a pittance , arent you going to say “no”?
I think i can deduce more about people who seem to be impressed by this anecdote than by what it tries to imply.
@Jazzlet, 22:
Fair enough. Your definition differs from mine.
Meanwhile:
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-sex-work-open-society
The definition from that page: “Sex workers are adults who receive money or goods in exchange for consensual sexual services or erotic performances“. And in the photo of sex workers protesting in London in 2019 that is at the top of that page, someone’s holding a placard which says “#yesastripper”. So y’know -- actual sex workers seem to disagree with your definition. You’re entitled to your opinion, but I’d be interested to know why you think you’re right and people who actually do the job are wrong.
@Deepak Shetty, 20:
Not at all. I believe her when she says he fucked her. I’m sceptical of the “charming and intelligent part”, but hey, it’s entirely possible she’s as dumb as a box of rocks and to her The Defendant did indeed come across that way.
{tap tap} Is this thing on? See my multiple observations that’s what payments to prostitutes are for in such cases.
Ooh, where to start.
1. “the normal sex work description” -- I would respectfully suggest that when you pay a prostitute the transaction transpires slightly differently than when The Defendant does, not least because he seems to be prepared to pay considerably more than I expect you do.
2. you seem to be trying to wheedle round to the position that I consider McDougal a sex worker because she let The Defendant fuck her. Not at all. She was a sex worker before she met him (whether she liked to think of herself that way or not) and that’s likely 90%+ of the reason he was interested in her in the first place. Consider: if she’d been behind the counter in a KFC, The Defendant would likely not look twice at her. But she was a certified Playboy Playmate -- to The Defendant that’s not just a sexually attractive woman, that’s bragging rights. This is of course speculation, and the polite, intelligent and charming Donald Trump might have been interested in her purely for her intellect. Read that sentence out loud without laughing or gagging, I challenge you.
3. I’m not insisting that SHE considered fucking The Defendant to be sex work. I’m making the trivial observation that HE clearly considered it that way. If you think that’s weird (he literally offered her money after they had sex!) then I think it’s you that’s being odd.
@Deepak Shetty, 24:
Let’s be absolutely clear what you just said:
Penetrative sex with someone you don’t voluntarily want to have penetrative sex with is, and I’m quoting you directly:
Wow.
Maybe don’t apply for that job as a rape crisis counsellor, eh?
That anecdote’s point, that you seem to have missed, is that no means no.. but some people have a price. And the comedy comes from the prissy woman being tricked into admitting upfront that she’s one of the people who yes, does have a price. It’s pricking the pomposity and self-righteousness of those who would judge sex workers, in my reading. How do YOU interpret it?
@ sonofrojblake
I did explain that part of my opinion was based on the views of several pole dancers that I have known. As for the disregarding “what actual strippers think”, well it isn’t unusual for members of a work community to have different views about what their job involves and should be called. I am not insisting that others accept my opinion, just saying that where you draw the line varies.The pole dancers I have known varied in their views, but as far as they were concerned they were exploiting idiots and getting paid for it, not particularly well paid, but better than eg bar tending and a hell of a lot more fun.
Let me put it another way: the situation is usually described as “Trump had an affair with…” not “McDougal had a affair with…”
Trump had sex with McDougal and she may have been having an affair with him, but we’re talking about Trump and Trump’s actions and calling Trump’s actions “an affair” is frankly an insult to anyone who has had an affair, ever.
We can agree on that.
Playboy is not porn anymore than Victorias Secret catalog is porn. Modeling nude or barely clad is not prostitution. Classifying women as sex workers because you saw their boobs is objectification. I personally don’t see the appeal in looking at naked women as I own all those bits, and see them daily. Beaches and saunas all over Europe are clothing optional. Seeing naked people is quite common.
Equating female nudity with sexuality is a very western cultural idea. The idea that if women flaunt their bodies, or openly enjoy casual sex they have been devalued and commodified as prostitutes is a basic sexist double standard. Why shouldn’t women profit from their bodies, since merely having a female body guarantees that they will be objectified by their culture regardless of their preference?
“Classifying women as sex workers because you saw their boobs is objectification”
Well yes. Do point to where someone has done that, because I’ve not seen an example of that here.
Classifying women as sex workers because they’re PAID to show their boobs, on the other hand, is just observing reality.
And not understanding the difference is either disingenuous or just bloody stupid. I *think* you’re the former, but I’m open to correction.
Sonofrojblake @13
The idea that photos of naked boobs make you a prostitute or sex worker is nonsensical. Being paid for displaying your body for an artist, fashion designer, or photographer etc, does not transform a model into a sex worker.
I suggest checking your rational for claiming that posing for a playboy centerfold is equivalent to making porn. There is nothing sexy about a photo shoot but the expression on the models face. Just because dudes use the photos to masturbate doesn’t make nude modeling porn.
Tethys, to interject into this weird digression,
There may be some nebulous line between erotica and pornography where you and sonofrojblake see the demarcation differently, but you surely can’t dispute Playboy was prurient.
I do know that when I was a highschooler, it was considered porn of the soft variety.
Pornography is being paid to be filmed having sex. Having nude photos taken is not sex, it’s modeling.
Any prurience is in the beholder, not the model.
Tethys, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotica
#33 Tethys
No it isn’t.
dictionary dot com /browse/pornography (trying to stop these triggering the link filter)
“sexually explicit videos, photographs, writings, or the like, whose purpose is to elicit sexual arousal.”
oxfordlearnersdictionaries dot com /definition/english/pornography?q=pornography
“magazines, DVDs, websites, etc. that describe or show naked people and sexual acts in order to make people feel sexually excited, especially in a way that many other people find offensive”
merriam-webster dot com /dictionary/pornography
1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2: material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction”
Note the common element: eliciting arousal. Pornography applies to all ‘masturbation aid’ media, with the recording of actual sex acts being further classified as hardcore pornography. Similarly, sex work is a general term for all jobs that involve intentionally arousing its viewership, which is why stripping and similar is included. Your issue is that your definitions are too strict.
Me, 30:
I stand corrected.
Hilarious, isn’t it, that there’s a person here who actually thinks there was no such thing as pornography -- no way for it to even exist in principle -- until 1888.
Meanwhile, a point of interest for grownups -- the etymology of the word “pornography” is literally “paintings of prostitutes”. And its English usage dates to 1842.
@Tethys, 31:
On reflection, I’m intrigued by this:
The implication is that you think there IS something sexy about the shooting of a pornographic film. You either have an extremely sheltered upbringing, absolutely no intellectual curiosity or imagination at all, or an extremely warped idea of what constitutes “sexy”. If I were a betting man, my money would be on “all of the above”.
(And in case, as I suspect is very likely, you don’t understand why I’m getting at -- it may come as a suprise to you that shooting pornographic films is famously very much NOT a sexy way to spend your time, unless you have the aforementioned fucked up idea of what “sexy” means.)
Many people have said Trump can be charming if he wants to be, and in interviews from his middle age -- which is when McDougal met him -- he does come across as reasonably intelligent.
Your obvious contempt for Karen McDougal suggests otherwise.
@KG, 39:
Not if you can read English. Let me quote you quoting me, only this time I’ll add some boldface to help you see what you obviously missed.
My obvious contempt for Karen McDougal is absolutely not because she’s a (former?) sex worker. If it were, in order to have any consistency I’d have to be similarly contemptuous of Stormy Daniels, and I’m very much not -- she’s brilliant. Check out her Twitter feed, it’s comedy gold. There are some important differences between them, however. Mainly, in this context, Stormy Daniels isn’t ashamed of what she did for a living -- she owns it. By contrast, Karen McDougal clearly is, with her “I’m not that sort of girl” schtick. Also, she apparently let Trump fuck her not because she hoped to get something out of it (which is obviously why Daniels did it, given that she’s on record as thinking, just before the act, “ugh, here we go”), but rather that she actually liked him. Hence my contempt. NOTHING to do with her definitely being a (former?) sex worker at all. It’s bad enough people like Trump enough to vote for him -- I’ve already got contempt for that kind of person. Liking him enough to want to do that? Words fail.
I’m going to agree with KG’s #39
Especially after reading this Uber-creepy reply from sonofrojblake
The implication is that you think there IS something sexy about the shooting of a pornographic film. You either have an extremely sheltered upbringing, absolutely no intellectual curiosity or imagination at all, or an extremely warped idea of what constitutes “sexy”. If I were a betting
Ew, swine.
Are you going to acknowledge your mistaken understanding of the terms pornography and sex work? This ^ is just silly.
Short 41: “I’m going to agree with something that’s already been demonstrated to be false, and double down on not understanding what pornography is OR that’s it’s a deeply unsexy business in all its forms”.
Tethys, you make it VERY hard to guess whether you’re doing it on purpose or whether you really are that stupid.
sonofrojblake, you’re not exhausting the universe of possibility.
It is possible that Tethys thinks differently about these things.
(Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentially_contested_concept )
Tethys “thinks differently” about my opinion of sex workers in general, having been explicitly told what it is? Or “thinks differently” about my reasons for having contempt for Karen McDougal, having been explicitly told what they are?
Or possibly “thinks differently” about whether anything other than filmed activity constitutes pornography?
I mean yeah, on all those scores Tethys “thinks differently”, but there’s another way of putting that -- “is wrong”. None of those things are matters of opinion. The first two are factually what I think about those things, and it’s not really for anyone else to tell me I don’t think those things, and the third is simply a matter of verifiable fact. Like I said -- very hard to tell whether they’re doing it on purpose to appear comedically prudish and sheltered.
They are all matters of opinion.
Eh? It’s a “matter of opinion” whether the word “pornography” refers to anything other than films? I mean -- yeah, I guess, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion of what ANY word means, but if you’re to have any hope of communicating meaningfully with other people -- and I recognise that that’s more of an aspiration than a hope for you and Tethys -- then some general agreement on what words mean is necessary.
And as for it being a matter of anyone else’s opinion what my thoughts are on something, after I’ve stated clearly what they are, that seems… charitably, hard to defend as a position. Or, less charitably, self-evident bullshit. You are of course entitled to your opinion of sex workers. You’re not entitled to your opinion of what MY opinion is.
…
So, that’s your opinion about my opinion about YOUR opinion.
(I’ll spare you my opinion about your opinion about my opinion about YOUR opinion)
To which the only sensible response is: fuck off John.
Let’s learn some words! First the etymology of the word Pornography, which comes from French via Greek.
The important context is that in most of the ancient Mediterranean societies, including Ancient Greek culture, did not give slaves clothing, though nudity in various public spaces and situations was quite common.
The difference between Playboy/Victoria’s Secret/Haute Couture, and Pornography is the explicit sex content. Simply being nude does not qualify as Porn, even if you’ve grown up in a highly toxic patriarchal society that literally commodifies the female body.
Creepy sonofrojblake clearly thinks that women are valued according to his perception of their sexuality, and insists that his creepy opinions are just being normal in deciding just which of those women are amoral dirty prostitutes. (Or naive prudes, stupid, uptight,…)
The second word is ~
https://twitter.com/mbismark/status/1316915088465547271?lang=en
None of the 34 charges in the indictment against tfg involve criminal sexual activity. They all involve cooking his books and submitting false financials, including the various laws about taxes and campaign funds.
I continue to note the multiple offensive comments all spend time focused on shaming only the female sexuality (and me personally) as good or bad based entirely on sonofrojblakes skeevy swine projection.
Tethys, I gave you multiple present dictionary entries for pornography. In return, you gave a classic fallacy of etymology. Porn used to require actual sex. It no longer does.
We already know some words! Specifically, we already know how those words are commonly used in the modern world, rather than 19th century France or ancient Greece! Isn’t language evolution exciting?
You seem unable to process the fact that I agree with you on that. The Venus de Milo, for example, or Michelangelo’s David are, to all but the most fucked up Americans, obviously not porn. You can keep banging on your point that “nudity != porn” all you like, but you’ll have to keep your fingers in your ears and keep going “lalalala” to avoid the fact that that’s not at issue and never has been.
As I said to you in the first response I made to you in this thread -- you bought Playboy “for the articles”, eh? You seemed (unsurprisingly) not to understand this comment at the time. Let me help you: Playboy famously published many articles and stories by respectable journalists and authors. It was able to attract them by paying considerably more than the going rate for such work in other magazines. It was able to do THAT because it sold a lot of advertising, and it was able to do that because it sold very well indeed to an audience with money. And it was able to do THAT because in amongst all the oh-so-interesting articles, there were photos of chicks with their kit off. Now: all of that construction was a ploy to give plausible deniability to blokes who wouldn’t be seen dead buying “Hustler”. “I buy it for the articles” is something we call “a joke”, because -- and this is important -- it isn’t fooling anyone. Nobody -- not those writers, not the publishers, not the women in the pictures, not the “readers”, and certainly not Hugh Hefner himself, really, is or was ever under any illusions why any man ever really bought a copy of Playboy. Hint: it wasn’t for the articles.
Now: you can huff and puff and say “Playboy is not a porn mag” until you’re blue in the face. Just know that in doing so, you are in a tiny, bizarre, deluded and most importantly wrong minority.
“Clearly” is obviously another word you’re struggling with. Women aren’t valued, even by me, according to my perception of their sexuality. I’m baffled how you’d come to this conclusion. Once again: I have contempt for Karen McDougal, but not for Stormy Daniels. My perception of their sexuality is more or less identical -- they both present as outwardly attractive hetero sex workers. My contempt for one and respect for the other is based entirely on their actions and attitudes -- Daniels brooks no criticism of her choice of work and expresses contempt for Trump, for which I admire her (I’m less admiring of her new career as a “paranormal investigator”, but that’s not relevant here). McDougal does the “I’m not that kind of girl” nonsense and expresses admiration for and attraction to Trump. THAT is what earns her my contempt. I’m not sure why you perceive any of this as having anything at all to do with their sexuality -- that’s all coming from you, which is honestly a bit creepy. Not everything is about sex, y’know?
“amoral dirty prostitutes” is an attitude I assume you hold. I, on the other hand, explicitly stated, in post 19, the following:
Your problem here is that I don’t judge sex workers (progressives prefer to avoid the term “prostitutes” -- didn’t you get the memo?) as amoral or dirty, and say so, clearly and distinctly. And I don’t see anything creepy in identifying as a sex worker someone who’s been not just a model for, but a paid representative of, a porn mag. It’s not, for me, a judgement. For you, maybe, but like I said -- that’s YOUR attitude, not mine.
And the relevance of that is…?
I think that rather than a blind spot the problem here is you seeing something that isn’t there. Nobody here is shaming anyone for their sexuality, certainly not me. I’m shaming ONE person for their absolutely diabolical character in (a) pretending not to be something they observable are, presumably on the grounds that THEY are ashamed of it, and (b) pursuing a “romantic” relationship with observably one of the most odious people I’ve ever heard of, even after that person made it clear on their FIRST sexual encounter that he considered her someone from whom he was buying sex.
I’m certainly not shaming you for your sexuality -- how could I? The subject hasn’t come up, isn’t relevant, and doesn’t interest me. I’m shaming you for saying things like:
… a statement so stultifyingly stupid as to beggar belief.
Hey swine, keep digging.
It’s obvious you feel no need question the foul internalized misogyny you’ve displayed about women and nudity. Clearly you think it’s just fine and perfectly logical to classify all women who model without clothing as prostitutes, pornography, etc….
The eye sees what it wants to see.
Good grief. “Clearly” again. You saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. You appear to be reading things I didn’t write, hallucinating opinions I’ve never expressed then reacting angrily to those delusions. Meanwhile:
“Clearly” you didn’t read (or possibly did read but didn’t understand), the following:
From 17, where I said: “It’s obvious to the point of egregious to point out that naked women in magazines are not, per se, pornography, and “model”, even “nude model” is absolutely not equivalent to “prostitute”. ”
I honestly don’t know how much clearer I can be. I mean, you can stamp your tiny foot and insist that I think the opposite of what I said, but I’m afraid you’ll have to come up with some justification other than that you said so. I’ve told you what I think. It IS what I think.
And from 52: You -- “Simply being nude does not qualify as Porn”
Me -- “You seem unable to process the fact that I agree with you on that. The Venus de Milo, for example, or Michelangelo’s David are, to all but the most fucked up Americans, obviously not porn. You can keep banging on your point that “nudity != porn” all you like, but you’ll have to keep your fingers in your ears and keep going “lalalala” to avoid the fact that that’s not at issue and never has been.”
You, on the other hand, are insistent to classify NO women who model without clothing as participating in pornography, since the images they’re contributing aren’t moving. Way to uphold and perpetuate the patriarchy, sister. Porn barons like Hefner just LOVE women like you.
I’m curious -- have you ever seen the content of, for example, “Hustler”, which I’m told is/was a popular American pornographic magazine that did NOT try to portray a thin veneer of respectability like “Playboy” did? Would you characterise the women in there, or any of the thousands of other similar publications, as participating in producing pornography? If not -- and to be consistent with everything you’ve said here your answer has to be “no” -- why not?
I recognise that porn is a tricky thing to define -- “I know it when I see it”, as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964. But to just flatly say “it’s NOT PORN” about one of the most famous dirty mags of the last century is just wrong. And to double down and claim, as you did in #33, that anything that’s not filmed isn’t porn -- well then you just look stupid. But hey, to steal your phrase -- keep digging.
You need to drop the idea that pornography necessarily equals prostitution.
I’ll add my 2 cents. Sex workers have sex for money . Strippers and pole dancers are basically dancers . Dancers, actresses and nurses used to be considered to be prostitutes even if they didn’t have sex . Everyone knows about the “ casting couch” for actresses, 19th century descriptions of the way ballet dancers were treated are horrible and up until fairly recently it was considered ok to harass nurses while they were working. There are lots of cartoons depicting that which were supposed to be funny! That only changed during the late 70s . Nude models are considered to be civil servants in England , they aren’t prostitutes either. Quentin Crisp’s biographical film “ The Naked Civil Servant “ mentions that.
Holms
You need to drop the idea that pornography necessarily equals prostitution.
I have not equated porn with prostitution, except for citing the etymology where the nudity itself is an indicator of their social status as sex slaves/commodities.
Posing for Playboy is neither.
@56 -- premium grade bullshit, right there.
And yet, inconveniently for this argument, actual strippers -- at least some -- seem to consider themselves sex workers. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/understanding-sex-work-open-society
I also suspect people who actually are dancers would object to being put in the same category as strippers -- but I can’t evidence that like I can evidence the former point, so it remains merely my opinion.
Ah, we’re back to the “here’s what this word meant in the 19th century” argument.
I’m not sure where you live, brightmoon, but I live in England and can tell you through barely stifled laughter that no, nude models are NOT “considered to be civil servants”. They’re not considered to be sex workers either, as it goes, but we’ve established Tethys goes blind when I type that, so I may be wasting my time. You do understand that “The Naked Civil Servant” was a comedy, right? And that some of what was said in it was something called “jokes”? Or are you perhaps labouring under the misapprehension that there’s a list somewhere of the stately homos of England?
@Tethys: you’ve already stated your wrong opinion that Playboy is not porn, since it’s not filmed sexual activity. Still laughing at that one, thanks.
#57 Tethys
Yes, and I linked to the fallacy of etymology for your perusal and benefit. Again.
Holms, just shut it.
The etymology of pornography is not part of my contention that sonofrojblake is very creepy and misogynistic in his diatribes about women and their categorization, particularly Janet McDougal.
I really don’t care how the creepy swine defines either porn or prostitution, since it’s abundantly clear that he can’t tell the difference between pornography, prostitution, consensual sex with a married man, and simply modeling naked and female.
Tethys, just shut it. (If that can be directed at me, it’s good for you too.) I have not attempted to talk about your ‘creepiness’ argument, I have only commented on your belief that pornography necessarily involves explicit sex. It doesn’t. Consider hardcore pornography and softcore -- or just soft -- pornography. Both are called pornography.
Lets learn some words!
“it’s abundantly clear that he can’t tell the difference between pornography, prostitution, consensual sex with a married man, and simply modeling naked and female.”
“its abundantly clear” means “Tethys has for reasons of her own decided without evidence that this is true, and will stamp her little feet and pout and insist it IS true in the teeth of evidence to the contrary”.
I bet you’re fun at parties.