Look at her. Look at the way she dresses. Blonde hair, fake boobs. And she’s in THAT business. A woman like that isn’t credible.
Adult actresses often endure this type of discrimination—with many even accepting it as the norm. When Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, implied that Stormy Daniels’ moral character should be determined by her looks and occupation, he echoed the very issues so many generations of women have gone up against.
Asked if he believed Daniels’ account of her alleged affair with Trump during a Tel Aviv speaking engagement, Giuliani made a show of disgust, saying, “Stormy Daniels? Pfft. Look at her.” Off-camera, a woman’s voice can be heard reprimanding him: “You have to respect on this stage every woman.”
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“Yes, I respect porn stars. Don’t you respect porn stars? Or do you think porn stars desecrate women, do you think porn stars don’t respect women, and therefore sell their bodies? I respect all human beings. I even have to respect criminals, but I’m sorry I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance,” Giuliani said.
Porn stars are also career women and women of substance. They’re working moms supporting their children, they’re young adults paying their way through college, they’re entrepreneurs and small business owners. The job does not make them degenerates, or criminals, or less than human. It is the shame of the porn consumer and the morally repugnant cultural attitudes regarding woman’s sexual behavior that breeds such hatred.
Giuliani’s comments are particularly hypocritical given that his client, Donald Trump, is not only a porn consumer but has actually appeared in three softcore porn videos. On top of that, he’s admitted to watching Paris Hilton’s sex tape with Melania (despite Hilton being a close family friend) and allegedly offered to pay ex-Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal for sex. MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski even claimed that she knows someone who spoke to Trump about living at the White House, and they said: “Donald Trump’s biggest complaint was that he’s not allowed to watch porn in the White House.” Giuliani looks down on women who create adult content but how does he feel about the people who consume it?
While Giuliani may not watch porn—however unlikely that is—porn’s online viewership continues to grow, with Pornhub receiving an average of 81 million visitors per day in 2017 (and 28.5 billion visitors for the year). Then again, facts don’t seem to matter much to Rudy, as he’s publicly stated.
“How can she be damaged? She has no reputation,” Giuliani said of Stormy Daniels, inflicting the very damage he questions. This belief—or disbelief, rather—is the same type of cultural oppression that has kept so many women quiet, preferring to suffer sexual harassment or abuse in silence rather than relive the nightmare again in public. Giuliani clearly doesn’t understand what respect means, and shrugs off his misogynistic attitude by calling it “old-fashioned.”
When porn stars heard Giuliani’s disparaging remarks about the adult industry, they responded with more diplomacy and intellect than the former New York mayor could possibly muster.
Riley Reyes, a performer and vice president of APAC (Adult Performers Advocacy Group), explains what it means to be a hired hand, in terms even Giuliani should understand: “All sorts of laborers sell their bodies in different ways. If you think a porn star is selling their body, but a coal miner or farmhand is not, your view of labor is obviously clouded by sex-negative thinking. He is wrong to say that porn stars don’t respect themselves. There is a great self-respect that comes from pursuing your career goals in spite of the stigma heaped on you by men like Giuliani.”
Adult star Brooklyn Chase calls Giuliani’s statements disappointing, saying: “I have sex for money, and maybe that doesn’t align with his values, but I have never judged an entire group of people as filth based off their occupation, and Giuliani certainly makes a case for that with lawyers and politicians, doesn’t he? I would love to see Mr. Giuliani thank someone like my husband for his service in war, tell him what a beautiful family he has, and then after that tell him his wife is a 2nd class citizen because I do porn.”
Kimmie KaBoom, the 2018 AVN Fan Award nominee, says she’s not surprised by Giuliani’s contempt for the adult industry and its entertainers: “We as adult entertainers just want to be treated equally as everyone else. We live our lives as an open book and most people are intimidated by that. It’s easy to ridicule something you can’t possibly understand. The adult industry is one of the largest industries of law-abiding, tax-paying, independent business owners.”
Meanwhile James Bartholet, who has performed in numerous XXX Trump parodies, calls the statements disgusting. “I’ve known Stormy Daniels and worked with her for many years, and she is a good person and very respectable,” he says. “To attack her like that is low, mean, and bullying, and typical of Trump and his cohorts. Like Stormy said on Saturday Night Live: ‘A Storm’s a-coming.’”
