Does Stormy Daniels have anything in common with Maya Angelou, Cyndi Lauper, and Kathleen Hannah? Does she deserve to be more than a punchline in counterpunches? Is it time for Feminism to move beyond SWERFS? Can a sex worker be a victim of sexual assault? Absolutely!
Other Fem Fridays we have written about were strippers before they were famous. This includes Cyndi Lauper and Kathleen Hannah. Other Fem Fridays were sex workers in other aspects of the adult entertainment industry. This includes Dr Maya Angelou. Scorn and judgement by other women or victims of sexual assault? That is most of them.
The common bond that I find most disturbing is what she has in common with prior Fem Friday Features Brooke Shields and the scrubbed Monica Lewinsky piece. All three women face a disturbing lack of empathy and support from self proclaimed pro feminism liberals and progressives. Earlier in this article I used the term SWERF. A SWERF (Sex Worker-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) is one who supports feminism but oppose sex work and will not include sex workers into the folds of equality and protection. We will speak about sex work later.
Refusing to Stay Silent
Most of us know the basics. Trump, Stormy, Hotel Room, Hush Money. But we need to take a deeper dive into the courage and odds she faced. Being Gen X, Stormy is old enough to remember what happened when Donna Rice, Anita Hill, and Monica Lewinsky were swept in the middle of scandals involving Gary Hart, Clarence Thomas, and Bill Clinton. The women were painted in the media as the problem. It was so easy to call them a tramp, slut, whore, tart, bimbo, floozy and even a spy. They are the jezebel and the pariah. No one could blame these women for the words they did not say as every move they made was hounded and power threatened them.
She knew the score. And if anyone thinks she has nothing to lose they are wrong. She has a career directing and writing adult entertainment and she has a daughter.
2011 was when Stormy first decided to let the truth of her story and the potential monstrous actions of Trump be told. She needed this truth to be told and was about to go public with InTouch magazine. Then in a Vegas parking garage something very chilling happened. In a 60 Minutes interview, Stormy tells the horrifying story.
“I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. Taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, getting all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, ‘Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.’ And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, ‘That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.’ And then he was gone.”
In addition to her parking garage incident Trump’s then attorney, Michael Cohen, reportedly intimidated InTouch to kill the story.
She continues to try to tell her story again in 2016. Editor in Chief of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, was one of the people she pitched her story to. She did not know he was a friend and ally to Trump. He allegedly collaborated with Michael Cohen with Trump’s financial involvement to offer her a deal. They would buy the rights to her story and she signs an NDA.
Is it unreasonable to assume that having Cohen in her life again is a triggering event? Could another parking garage be in her near future if she does not take this deal? What if Trump does get elected? Is the most powerful man in the world more dangerous than an alleged billionaire rumored to have mob ties in Fear City? Was she for sale or was this the price to keep her child safe?
In 2018 something changed. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump’s alleged payment to Cohen. There were even photos of the checks! The story is out there and she has cover. A modicum of safety and an opportunity to be heard…and believed.
She took her shot and paid the price but a few involved in potential silencing of a victim went to prison and others were indicted in the process.
Why Stormy’s Story Matters
In 2023 a documentary about Stormy Daniels was released on Peacock . It was simply named, Stormy. We learn some important things about her that makes the night in the hotel horrifying.
In the documentary she says she was sexually abused by a man in her neighborhood when she was 9 years old. She said that the man who hurt her did it to other girls as well.
And that night in the hotel room, Stormy says she was taken back to that moment. Remember, she was a woman in her 20’s that night and Trump was 60 and far more powerful than her.
“I didn’t say no because I just, I was 9 years old again.”
Then she says something that is very similar to victims of sexual assault. Shame and self blame. “To this day, I blame myself and I have not forgiven myself because I didn’t shut his ass down in that moment, so maybe make him pause before he tried it with someone else. The hardest part about all of this is I feel like I am partially responsible for every woman that could have come after me.”
And the cost for speaking up. There is the common slut shaming and threats against her life and that of her daughter. In 2018 she sued Trump for defamation. She stood her ground and a judge dismissed the case forcing her to pay Trump $600,000 in legal fees. At the time of the 2023 documentary it was still a debt hanging over her that could cost her her home. Women who come forward are often not believed by the justice system leaving them in greater peril than they were before.
In the documentary, Seth Rogan speaks of her bravery. “She’s someone who made an enemy of the most powerful guy on the planet and didn’t, like, cower.”
Her own need to speak out, she had this to say, “I won’t give up because I’m telling the truth. And I kind of don’t even know if it matters anymore…I am here today to tell my story and even if I just change a few people’s minds, it’s fine. If not, at least my daughter can look back on this and know the truth.”
Unfortunately, I agree with her. Even is the truth will out it may not matter. We have made her a punchline in Trump jokes. He had sex with a porn star! That is our collective takeaway. She is a prop in a story to vilify him. He is a man who had a one nighter with a porn star. Not a powerful man and former president who is on the record of having said grab them by the pussy may have disregarded consent and later intimidated her and coerced her into silence under duress. A woman, a mother, and a human being deserving of dignity, respect, and consent. We hold her to a different standard and offer less empathy than we offer E. Jean Carroll.
Both claim to have lost agency to him, both faced mockery, intimidation, and threats. Why is one a victim and the other a punchline and a prop?
Sex Workers Deserve Rights and Dignity
The UN has this to day about the sex industry.
“The issues of sex work, sexual exploitation, and trafficking are complex issues which have significant legal, social, and health consequences. Due to such complexity, it is important that we do not conflate these three issues which deserve to be considered in their own right. We cannot consider sex work the same way we consider trafficking or sexual exploitation which are human rights abuses and crimes.”
National Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, feminist activist, and lawyer, Gloria Allred said the following about sex worker’s rights.
“Feminists need to listen to and amplify the voices of sex workers so that they can work as potential partners in policymaking and discussions about their circumstances. After all, why must sex be immoral if paid when it is perfectly legal if done for free? “
Progressives and liberals have, in many ways, politicized sexual assault just as much as conservatives have. Potential victims are treated differently if we like the man in power and what you do for a living matters too. It shouldn’t.
The Personal Connection
There are several touch points in my life with sex workers.
When I was a minister I had a single mom in my church speak to me privately after service one Sunday. She confided in me that she was a dancer at a gentleman’s club the next town over. She wanted to attend the church and take greater part in it. I told her she was welcome and I had her back. Less than a year later her occupation was discovered. Many in my board shunned her and felt her presence near our youth outreach was a “bad look”. I had her back as I reminded them the most likely way she was discovered is that one of the upstanding men in our church went there and saw her. And like Jesus and the woman about to be stoned, we are discussing her and not him. But I lost and so did she as she felt unwelcome in yet another space that had a sign claiming all are welcome.
In my life I have had the privilege of having relationships with some amazing women. I fell in love with a few of them. Three of them were sex workers. I was engaged to be married to one of them in my late 40’s. She was an amazing woman and no longer working in the industry when we met, but it had been a recent transition.
I got to meet some of her friends from that time. I also got to hear how her ex husband and others spoke of her for her prior profession. A profession that allowed her abusive ex husband to live a better life when they were together. Her friends were wonderful women and some of them had amazing partners. But outside their circle, they were treated as less. They were not welcome.
I remember talking to a female friend of mine who is a progressive feminist about an instance of sexual assault my former fiancée endured. My friend looked at me and said, “How can someone who did what she did be raped?”
My heart sank. There are, in her view, instances where occupation removes right to consent. Really?
Shortly after the Dobbs decision I got involved with a swiftly growing grass roots group fighting for reproductive rights. I ended up being one of the state leaders for this national organization. Myself, a millennial woman in leadership and a gen z woman in our team worked together on moving the needle towards stronger inclusion and proper verbiage for our trans sisters and non binary siblings. But there were two other issues.
There was a lack of listening to the perspectives of black woman and a dim view was held on sex workers. A very dim view.
Trusting in me, the two women had a private conversation with me. The Gen Z woman was a sex worker. Only me and the other woman knew in our group. She had to keep her source of income a secret from a feminist organization. She felt excluded. The two women saw me in a meeting stand up for sex workers and their bodily autonomy.
After multiple conversations and attempts to move the needle toward greater inclusion for women of color and sex workers, we knew we were losing. We left in a joint resignation later.
Gloria Allred once said, “I have been the victim of many of the injustices that women who are my clients have had. That is how I understand how this is impacting their lives economically, psychologically, often physically. It’s all personal. For me, if one woman is denied her rights, we’re all being denied our rights.”
This is personal.
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