When your publication is famous for sexualizing teenagers and breathlessly reporting on A-listers going braless, it shouldn’t be possible to stoop even lower. And yet, the Daily Mail has recently managed to defy expectations by turning their everyday misogyny into a blood sport, breaking out their trusty slut-detector and shaming grown women for the crime of ever having sex.
To rewind for anyone who’s unfamiliar with the Daily Mail’s lady coverage: It’s shit. No tabloid, barring TMZ, is as blatantly horny for its subjects. Recent, absolutely run-of-the-mill headlines include “Aubrey Plaza is pretty in pink as she flaunts her trim physique in sexy fuchsia set around New York: The Legion actress put her long legs on display” and “Jessica Simpson flaunts cleavage in $2K Vetements dress to see Broadway musical Frozen with family.” These bulletins read somewhere between an anatomy lecture and a visit to the zoo, as celebrities are cornered, analyzed, and praised for their sexiest body parts.
But for all their fascination with boobs and butts, the Daily Mail also puts forth retrograde, prudish values when it comes to female sexuality and women’s sex lives. These old-fashioned ideas are most clearly articulated by columnist Piers Morgan.
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When he’s not Catholic-splaining to the pontifex, Morgan likes to help us ladies out by explaining how feminists ought to behave. In one deranged article, Morgan criticized Emily Ratajkowski for citing feminism and her personal “freedom and choice” in a description of a sexy photo shoot, writing, “The truth, surely, is that deliberately exposing yourself to instant and inevitable sexual objectification by millions of complete strangers is the complete opposite of feminism.” Read on, and you’ll be subjected to Morgan’s own interpretation of “the genesis and evolution of feminism.” Or better yet, don’t.
If he isn’t checking his Emily Ratajkowski Google Alert, Morgan can often be heard going on and on about Kim Kardashian’s sexy social media posts, offering to buy her clothes and telling her to “put them away.” (Morgan, for what it’s worth, once posed nude with a piece of cloth covering his privates in an ad for a meat-scented Burger King cologne designed to boost the male libido—though his curves had to be Photoshopped.)
While Morgan seems to take issue with any woman who’s overly sexualized, one of his issues with Kardashian is that she’s attempting to be a mother and a sex symbol. Policing how moms and wives behave is well-worn territory for Morgan and his kind, and this Madonna/Whore dichotomy is intrinsic to the Daily Mail’s coverage. Madonnas are respectable, polished ladies like Ivanka Trump, who the Daily Mail often praises for her devoted parenting and classy couture. The tabloid has described Ivanka as elegant, glamorous, and picture-perfect, essentially acting as hype men for her Instagram posts and designer outfits. Whores are women who model in sexy photo shoots, share revealing photo shoots, wear form-fitting clothing and go on dates.
Women who are slated into the second category are open season for ogling, lectures, and slut-shaming. Recently, two women have had their dirty laundry aired all over the Daily Mail. These cases feel particularly egregious for a bunch of reasons: They’re incredibly invasive, and they seem to be suggesting that women should be embarrassed by the revelation that, in the past, they may or may not have had sex. This week, the Daily Mail joined Page Six in putting Vanessa Trump on blast because of her high-school ex-boyfriend Valentin Rivera, who was a member of the Latin Kings gang. When she was just 16, Vanessa wrote letters to her then-boyfriend while he was in prison. The letters, obtained by Page Six and also published by the Daily Mail, are incredibly personal, with teenage musings about holding Rivera in her arms and starting a family together.
While this all makes for a juicy story, it’s fairly cruel to taunt Trump for her adolescent love life, right when coverage of her ex-husband’s alleged extramarital affair has just started to die down.
Vanessa Trump filed for divorce from Donald Trump Jr. in March, with the Aubrey O’Day scandal breaking later that same month. While it’s hard to have sympathy for a woman who chose to marry Donald Trump Jr., it couldn’t have been easy for Vanessa to see her adulterous ex’s feet analyzed in a pop star’s old Twitter post (it wasn’t easy for any of us). At the end of the day, not only did Trump Jr. allegedly sabotage his own marriage, he’s also the one who’s actively seeking attention—and yet Vanessa Trump’s high-school love letters are being mass-printed by tabloid scavengers with a pro-Trump bent.
As Vanessa Trump is being dragged further into the spotlight, Meghan Markle, the woman of the hour, is having her moment marred by some truly trashy gossip. With the royal wedding just over a week away, the Sun published a list of “sex secret lovers of Prince Harry’s bride,” aka exes. The Daily Mail combed through this exclusive and teared into their favorite revelation: that Markle went on a single date with a former adult film star. The resulting article is premised on the idea that working in porn is something to be ashamed of—and that Markle should be absolutely mortified by a date she went on in 2004.
“For any girl on the eve of her wedding it would be a shattering blow, from which recovery would be painful,” the post dramatically begins. “For Meghan Markle, eight days before she marries Prince Harry in front of the Queen and the Royal Family and not forgetting a global TV audience of millions, the agony must be even more acute. Yesterday she awoke to learn details had emerged of a gallery of men she is said to have dated—all of whose identities, until now, she had managed to keep hidden.” Once again, we’re expected to be aghast at a woman’s sex life. The agony!
The article goes on to elaborate on her one-time date’s past life in adult entertainment, arguing that his career “really adds to her humiliation.” The Daily Mail also takes pains to point out that “His first three films were ‘aimed’ at the gay market… Indeed, he claims to have won an award for Best Gay Solo Video in 1997.” Far from a “porn star,” as the Daily Mail labels him, Simon Rex briefly worked in the adult industry when he was “18 and 19,” before transitioning into mainstream film and television roles, including the Scary Movie films. There’s no reason to believe that Markle knew about his past, not that there’s anything wrong with what Rex did—despite the Daily Mail’s insistence on treating this “revelation” as the dirtiest of secrets.
Of course, it’s clear from reading this article—as it is from most Daily Mail coverage—what the tabloid thinks of any woman who has a past. “Just how did this 36-year-old American divorcee and small-screen actress capture the eye of Prince Harry?” the writer asks, even including a vile little quote attributed to “one figure close to the Royals”: “She’s not a virginal bride like Diana, who was only just out of her teens when she married Charles, but a mature woman of experience with one failed marriage behind her.”
