The Shocking Sexualization Of Female Politicians In Porn

Google the names Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Bernie Sanders and the word “porn” and the results are benign lists of links to articles and images that do little to degrade perceptions of the candidates’ competence or morality. Do the same for Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, or Sarah Palin and you’ll surface page after page of actual porn sites, using the women’s names and photographs of their faces to portray them in bestial and brutally sexually objectifying videos and photos. Additionally, and even more disturbingly, women politicians’ daughters are also made into the subjects of non-consensual pornography, sometimes simultaneously, as consequence of their mothers seeking office.

“These images treat female politicians not as individuals, but symbols of the idea of womanhood, which must always be subjugated to manhood,” explains Jaclyn Friedman, author of What You Really, Really Want and host of “Unscrewed,” a popular podcast on sexual politics. “We can’t seem to criticize female political candidates on their merits or lack thereof.”

When Porn And Political Strategy Collide

In an essay in The Offensive Internet: Speech, Privacy and Reputation, philosopher Martha Nussbaum writes about the misogynistic cultural drive to degrade powerful women by reducing them to body parts and sexual…