Stormy Daniels’ important story of who President Donald Trump is and what he has done – an alleged cheater who had an affair while his wife raised their baby and then had his lawyer pay, perhaps illegally, to cover it up with a non-disclosure agreement right before the 2016 presidential election, after having this ex-paramour physically threatened – is being trivialized and buried by the “discussion” of who Daniels is and what she’s done.

Why? Because Stormy Daniels is a sex worker. And in the United States, being a sex worker is the adult equivalent of having cooties.

Our culture is simultaneously obsessed with and horrified by porn. Even those who regularly watch it privately disparage it publicly. In the U.S., sex work, especially porn, is a joke, a punchline, a moral failing, despite its massive economic influences. Those who engage in it – especially women – are consistently disrespected and dismissed.

How Exactly Has Daniels Been Disparaged?

Let us count the ways:

1. She can only be described with the word “porn” somewhere within two words of her name.
2. The very act of searching her biography will give you the cooties: as The New York Times warned, “an internet search for the particulars is not recommended.”
3. But even respected publications reporting on her don’t properly research her biography: The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, described her as a “former adult-film star” (our emphasis). A quick Google search disproves this.
4. Her stage name is always given with an immediate “clarification” that her “real name” is Stephanie Clifford. But when did you ever see an article about John Wayne that was careful to point out that his “real name” was “Marion”?
5. She is described as a “porn star” without acknowledgement that she really is a star, with numerous AVN awards, lucrative contracts, and crossover spots in mainstream media (like this Maroon 5 video). Some porn connoisseurs argue she’s poised to exceed Jenna Jameson’s popularity. But Republican strategist Mike Murphy said derisively and erroneously, “Porn actress…People go straight to ‘porn star.’ I like to see a few awards before you use that moniker.”
6. Nor is there ever acknowledgment that she is a fine comic actor, a skilled director and producer, a nationally ranked equestrian, or a registered Republican.
7. The fact that she ran for office is sometimes characterized as a publicity stunt rather than the sophisticated political commentary it actually was. Considering the election to public office of Ronald Regan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, and now Donald Trump, her run should be taken more seriously.
8. A reporter on MSNBC (Kelly O’Donnell) prefaced her report on the newsworthy legal story by saying she “drew the short stick” and thus got stuck covering the “porn star” that day.
9. Even Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, writing ultimately about female empowerment, went to great lengths to find the silliest and most salacious possible films (e.g. Sexbots) that Daniels and other erotic actors have made, while saying nothing else about them as people. As if the sex itself were the problem with Trump.
10. For the worst of it, look no further than Daniels’ Twitter account, where the haters, trolls and bots can’t even be bothered to spell their insults correctly (see “skanc” and “cun“). But her comebacks are a master class in self-defense. In a recent CNN interview, she said, “So when someone says, ‘Hey, you’re a whore…’ I’m like, ‘That is ‘successful whore’ to you!'”

So according to her mainstream coverage and public reception, no, Daniels is not a person. She’s a joke, tainted by the stain of sex work, who is not be taken seriously. And she’s not the only one.

Other Women Branded with the Scarlet Letter “P”

Karen McDougal – She also has cooties, though a milder case. Dougal (who similarly seems to have signed a nondisclosure agreement about an affair she allegedly had with Mr. Tump) was a Playboy model, which means she let people see her naked for money. So she must always and forever be described, within two words of her name, as a Playboy model or Playmate, often without any other humanizing characteristics.

But Dougal contains multitudes: she is a fitness model; has appeared-among other places-on the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine; has a small but real vanilla acting career; and owns and manages Pharmore Alternatives, a company selling various health and wellness supplement. Before all this she was a teacher.

All this is easily discovered but rarely mentioned in references to her. She, too, is not a person.

Jennifer Drake – The President allegedly groped and propositioned her. But she has sex on camera for money, so she must also always be described as a simply porn star without any further discussion. You would not know that she is a decent actor, or that she has produced a lengthy series of videos devoted to sexual education, or that she is a major spokesperson for the adult film industry.

Melania Trump – She barely escaped the scarlet letter of porn. But it wasn’t for the media’s lack of trying. The New York Post ran a series of nude photos from over twenty years ago before the 2016 election. Memes littered social media unfairly comparing buttoned up First Ladies to a naked 25-year-old Melania Knauss. One of the biggest criticisms of her was that she allowed people to see her naked for money. She was even falsely accused of having previously worked as a prostitute.

But even though one could argue she currently has sex for money (i.e. legally with Trump, albeit not publicly), the fact that she has not let us see her naked recently, combined with the elevating imprimatur of the White House (despite the crassness of its main occupant), means Melania no longer has cooties. But just barely.

Question, Resist, and Push Back Against Shame

It does not require a massive dose of feminist theory to appreciate that slut shaming like all of the above is the immediate, reflexive cultural response to any woman doing anything to challenge the existing power structure.

You can see it in contemporary writings about Marie Antoinette (in Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama describes pornographic etchings of her that were widely circulated). You’ve seen it in discussions of Hillary Clinton (many on the right have claimed, throughout her entire career, that Clinton is a lesbian, in order to try to reduce her to an “aberrant, man-hating” set of sexual behaviors). And you can see it in references to every important woman before, after, and in between (David Brock confessed in his book, Blinded by the Right, that he had printed “virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation” he could to make Anita Hill seem “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.“).

So when you see a woman characterized as “just a porn star,” a “skank,” a “slut,” “loose,” or “immoral” – particularly when nothing else is said about her – translate those code words. On the surface they seem derogatory. But they actually mean “has agency,” “is not afraid to speak her mind,” “derives power from her own sexuality,” and “gives established power structures the finger.”

Sex workers, such as the escorts that can be found on websites like Lovesita.com, provide a valuable service. Moreover, sex work is one of the oldest professions in the world, and therefore the women that choose to enter this intriguing industry deserve respect.

Reclaim the word “slut.” Stand up for the women who stand up for themselves. Or even the women who, confident in their sexuality, lie down for themselves. Do it like Daniels does:

Dr. Alan, a psychologist specializing in the way people interact with ‘progress’ in general and technology in particular, describes himself as educated beyond his competence and opinionated beyond his education. Besides being an MVP commenter on EMandLO.com, he is currently working on a book about how increased healthy life expectancy will influence family structure.