Stormy Daniels and the Evils of “Purity Culture”

Content Warning: This essay includes discussions of sexual assault, exploitation, and—obviously—Donald Trump's criminal accusations.

Stormy Daniels

I can’t imagine the widespread trauma and lingering hurt that Stormy Daniels’ testimony last week must’ve reawakened in some people. As key to the prosecution’s case in Donald Trump’s criminal indictment, she garnered national attention. Newscasters, commentators, and comedians hungrily consumed, and relentlessly regurgitated, salacious details of Daniels’ sexual encounter with Trump—an encounter that, on testimony, sure sounds like rape.

Yet I also can’t imagine the damage done by repeated mention of Daniels’ former longtime career. Even sources sympathetic to Daniels reflexively describe her as an “adult film actor” or “former porn star.” Journalists persistently describe the source of this story as one of Trump paying money to conceal sex with a porn star, as though her paying career matters. They even persist in using her stage name over her government name, Stephanie Clifford.

This bespeaks the importance of purity in American culture. From the Puritans to the present, Americans have believed that anybody sexually stained must forever bear that stain. Daniels joins the ranks of other would-be serious actors, like Traci Lords and Belle Delphine, whom nobody can ever write about without mentioning their previous “adult film” careers. They wear their sexual histories like Hester Prynne’s notorious scarlet letter.

Sex work is the only occupational category I know where a perfectly legal activity becomes criminal because money changes hands. Making adult films is perfectly legal, as millions of couples who’ve recorded themselves in the throes of passion already know. But making money from adult films makes participants into criminals, and worse, taints their ability to pursue future above-the-table employment. Once a sex worker, always a sex worker.

I remember once discussing with a loved one why prostitution is illegal. For clarity’s sake, I was younger and more libertarian back then; I believed prostitution should be decriminalized for free-market reasons. My loved one responded, with audible indignation: “Women are forced into prostitution because of poverty and systemic injustice!” I responded by asking who’s helped when we criminalize a commodity they have, that others willingly pay for.

Former President Donald Trump

Looking back at that conversation twenty-five years later, from a more progressive and justice-minded worldview, I realize that conversation cuts to the heart of society’s attitudes toward sex work. When our society classifies sex work as “crime,” it isn’t really about sex; it’s about finding more punitive ways to prevent poor people escaping poverty. Like laws against gambling, loitering, and drugs, anti-sex work laws are mainly enforced against the poor.

American society prizes purity. This overlaps heavily with something I’ve written before, about Mary Magdalene, but it bears repeating: once you’ve compromised your purity, Americans frequently refuse your return to polite society. The phrase “purity culture” comes from White evangelical Christianity, which fetishizes virginity, especially female virginity. But it also reflects the Temperence Movement’s attitudes toward alcohol: you’re either Wet or Dry, and once Wet, you’re never Dry again.

Thus you see not only the vilification of Stormy Daniels, but also Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Some conservative commentators seemingly have a knee-jerk need, when discussing AOC, to describe her as a former bartender. If you’ve ever done bar work, or even sat at one for any length of time, you know the work is poorly paid. But women working in bars also face constant sexual come-ons, catcalls, and requests for dates.

Stormy Daniels, like Monica Lewinsky before her, has become a synecdoche for male sexual malfeasance. Both Daniels and Lewinsky were exploited by powerful men who made promises of future networking and career opportunities which never materialized. Following her public disgrace in the 1990s, Lewinsky retreated into years-long seclusion, while the President who exploited her took a victory lap. Daniels, presumably more prepared for public scrutiny, has remained visible.

To be completely fair, we’ve witnessed some revision in public perception. Some men who traded sexual favors for insider access, like Ryan Adams and Joss Whedon, have faced consequences in recent years. Yet those examples remain outliers, and the prosecution of chromic exploiters like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein have chugged on, producing minimal outcomes, for years. Culpability still resides mostly on women, especially poor women.

The simple fact that Donald Trump is only now facing any charges for a sexual assault which occurred in 2006, speaks volumes about who faces consequences in American society. Stormy Daniels will probably forever remain a “former adult film performer,” while Trump flourished for decades after his assault. He had to fuck the entire country before anybody thought he deserved meaningful consequences for entrapping one woman and lying about it.