The Washington Post committed a random act of journalism on Monday in “Va. Dem. House candidate performed sex online with husband for tips” by Lauren Vozzella that revealed Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner running in a competitive Virginia House of Delegates race, had an account on the porn site Chaturbate with the username HotWifeExperience in which she and her husband had sex and performed sex acts.
Given the depravity of the left, liberals in Virginia rallied to her defense and endorsed Gibson’s pornography addiction and attacked the revelation as a leak and went hook, line, and sinker with the Richmond suburbanite’s claim this was an “invasion of privacy.” Naturally, this included CBSNews.com and The New York Times.
CBSNews.com also used an Associated Press write-up (which was also cross-posted by outlets such as ABCNews.com and Yahoo!), but used a different, more sympathetic headline: “Virginia election candidate responds after leak of tapes showing her performing sex acts with husband: ‘It won't silence me’”.
But the original headline? “Candidate in high-stakes Virginia election performed sex acts with husband in live videos”.
The New York Times, always one for weird columns about love and intimacy, was crestfallen in “State House Candidate in Virginia Condemns Leak of Sex Tapes.”
The subhead for Trip Gabriel’s article made it even more abundant which side the paper was on: “Susanna Gibson, a Democrat running in one of seven tossup House seats in the closely divided legislature, denounced the ‘illegal invasion of my privacy.’”
Instead of explaining to Times readers what was posted on an open porn site anyone without restricted internet settings could visit (and would be akin to complaining about the publication of tweets from a public account is an invasion of privacy), Gabriel fretted in his lede that Gibson had to spend time “denounc[ing] reports...she and her husband had performed live on a sexually explicit streaming site.”
He continued (click “expand”):
Gibson...said in a statement that the leaks about the online activity were “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.”
The Washington Post and The Associated Press reported on Monday that tapes of live-streamed sexual activity had been recorded from a pornographic site and archived on another site. The New York Times has not independently verified the content of the videos. The Democratic Party of Virginia did not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Gibson, 40, who appears on her campaign website in hospital scrubs as well as at home with her husband and two young children, is running for the House of Delegates in one of only a handful of competitive races[.]
(....)
Releasing damaging information about candidates of the opposing party into the heat of a campaign is an age-old political practice, but the sensational nature of the disclosure of sex tapes — reportedly featuring Ms. Gibson and her husband, a lawyer — is highly unusual. Ms. Gibson called the release of the tapes “the worst gutter politics.” The Post said it learned of the material from a “Republican operative” who denied a connection to Ms. Gibson’s opponent, David Owen, or to other political groups in Virginia.
In contrast, The Post led with the NSFW details (click “expand”):
A Democrat running for a crucial seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates performed sex acts with her husband for a live online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with “tips” for specific requests, according to online videos viewed by The Washington Post.
Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and mother of two young children running in a highly competitive suburban Richmond district, streamed sex acts on Chaturbate, a platform that says it takes its name from “the act of masturbating while chatting online.”
Chaturbate videos are streamed live on that site and are often archived on other publicly available sites. More than a dozen videos of the couple captured from the Chaturbate stream were archived on one of those sites — Recurbate — in September 2022, after she entered the race. The most recent were two videos archived on Sept. 30, 2022. It is unclear when the live stream occurred.
While still listed on Recurbate, those videos were no longer available for viewing as of Saturday, after a Republican operative alerted The Washington Post about them. But the videos remained live on another non-password-protected site, which The Post viewed. At least two other publicly available sites displayed explicit still photos from the videos, The Post confirmed.
Gibson, 40, can be seen in the videos soliciting “tips” for performing specific acts — in apparent violation of Chaturbate’s terms and conditions, which say: “Requesting or demanding specific acts for tips may result in a ban from the Platform for all parties involved.”
In at least two videos, she tells viewers she is “raising money for a good cause.”
In multiple videos, Gibson interrupts sex acts to type into a bedside computer. Speaking directly into the screen, she urges viewers to provide tips, which are paid through “tokens” purchased through the site. In at least two videos, she agrees to perform certain acts only in a “private room,” an arrangement that requires the viewer to pay more.
“I need, like, more tokens before I let him do that,” she responds to a request that they perform a certain act. “One token, no. More. Raising money for a good cause.”
Almost immediately, as tips apparently arrive, she says “thank you” five times and tells her husband she will agree to that act.
Gibson takes the lead in addressing viewers on videos viewed by The Post, but in one case her husband, an attorney, chimes in with, “C’mon, guys,” to echo her entreaties for tips.
Gibson also said in her statement that her “political opponents and their Republicans allies” “won’t intimidate me and...won’t silence me” despite “hav[ing] proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”
She added the publication of her as a sex fiend was “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family” and a violation of Virginia law.
Exit question: Since when was “speak[ing] up” seen as a positive if it’s referring to porn?
