We Shouldn’t Shame People For Making Sex Tapes

A Democratic candidate in a crucial race for the Virginia General Assembly denounced reports on Monday that she and her husband had performed live on a sexually explicit streaming site.

Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner running in her first election cycle, said in a statement that the leaks about the online activity were “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.”

The Washington Post and The Associated Press reported on Monday that tapes of live-streamed sexual activity had been recorded from a pornographic site and archived on another site. The New York Times has not independently verified the content of the videos. The Democratic Party of Virginia did not respond to a request for comment.

The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, and Barstool Sports (now) have reported on this and only one of them should. That's us. The other three are supposed to be among the most reputable news outlets in the world. They're not supposed to be chasing smut clicks. They're not supposed to shining a light on opposition dirty tricks of a candidate doing the dirty deed. 

What are we even talking about here? How is this a scandal in the year 2023? We live in a digital age. If the older generations were going to be bar millennials from office for making a sex tape with their significant other then they shouldn't have made us porn addicted and then handed everyone on the planet a handheld camera. 

People have made mistakes. Millennials are the pioneers of the iPhone era internet age. We didn't really appreciate how the internet worked. Susanna and her husband were just having a little fun being freaks. It was allegedly for a little extra cash. Things were hard in 2008. People forget how it was for millennials back then. Mountains of student debt and an economy that got nuked. They got by with what the good Lord gave them. Nothing illegal there. Susanna, a wife, mother, and nurse practitioner probably didn't anticipate it being released years later ahead of a state government run for office. Re-releasing it without consent of the creator is a federal offense, according to my boss. I hope she gets justice because this is a pathetic move by the opposition. If you've got to resort to sex tape leaks to win a seat in the Virginia State legislature then you probably weren't a good candidate to begin with. I think Susanna should just embrace the story. Lean into it. Her October surprise ahead of the election could be a slutty nurse costume and she'd get all the millennial votes.