Democrats and Media Allies Defining Deviance Down in Virginia

The bizarre story which broke last week of a Virginia House of Delegates candidate who had been moonlighting as an internet porn star brought with it a fresh round of frantic re-definitions and word games from the left. According to multiple sources – as well as explicit videos – Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner and Democrat nominee for Virginia’s 57th House district, has since at least last September been livestreaming herself engaging in sexual acts with her husband on an online website called “Chaturbate.” In archived footage of the couple, some of which was filmed after Gibson announced her candidacy, the 40-year-old mother of two asks her 5,700 followers on the site to donate “tokens” in exchange for performing certain sexual acts, saying the money will go “to a good cause.” The story quickly mushroomed into a national scandal. But instead of apologizing, Gibson and her campaign team doubled down. Shortly after the initial story from The Washington Post went live, Gibson claimed that she was the victim of a “sex crime.” She also called on the FBI to investigate the “leak” of her videos under Virginia’s “revenge porn” law, while accusing anyone who disseminated the clips of committing “an illegal invasion of my privacy.” It’s worth taking a moment to think about what exactly Gibson and her legal team are asserting. Apparently, it is now a “sex crime” simply to notice and report on the fact that Gibson willingly filmed explicit videos with the express purpose of posting them on the internet to make money. If Gibson is the victim of a “sex crime,” it is one she perpetrated on herself. Moreover, Gibson would have us believe that it is an “illegal invasion” of her “privacy” to report on videos intentionally uploaded for everyone to see. But once again, it was Gibson herself who brought the camera into her bedroom – meaning that she is the person who invaded her own privacy by publishing these videos online. Then there is Gibson’s claim that reports about her porn career violate Virginia’s law against “revenge porn,” a story her attorneys are now peddling to the press.  This attempt to convince the media that Gibson is a victim of her own actions is not only blatantly dishonest, it’s also an insult to actual victims of revenge porn. In a prior era, such a scandal would have immediately disqualified a candidate of either party from political office. But in today’s Democrat Party, Gibson’s conduct may actually have made her a hero to some. On the day this shocking story dropped, Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas – who infamously complained about not being able to log on to PornHub after the site removed access in Virginia earlier this year over the state’s age verification law – called on Gibson’s Twitter followers to “make this the biggest fundraising day of [her] campaign”. Unsurprisingly, the national media has come to Gibson’s defense as well, alternating between endorsing her victim narrative and outright defending her actions. In a piece for Politico Magazine, for instance, Jack Shafer portrayed Gibson’s actions as bravely “taboo-busting” – far from anything embarrassing or scandalous. “Today, people’s lives are more and more online,” he explained. “New generations of politicians have grown up in a world where it’s commonplace to record their every move and misadventure, so we can expect to see more of this in the coming years.” Even a particularly repulsive clip of Gibson offering to urinate on her husband for a sufficiently large donation is, according to Shafer, completely normal: “The transgression here isn’t connected to sex as much as it is to privacy — it’s like somebody giving you a chance to watch them vacate their bowels, something that remains taboo for complicated and long-term reasons that might not stand for long if some candidate decided to test it.” You read that right. According to our media elites over at Politico, filming yourself engaging in lewd sex acts for money is just part of the new “online culture” and will soon become perfectly acceptable. An opinion article published in local outlet The Virginia Mercury further claimed that any criticism of Gibson “is rooted in misogyny.” “There’s nothing illegal about adults live streaming sexual acts,” we are reminded. “Why should it matter that this married mom engaged in consensual sex with her husband and invited others to watch online?” The left has, so it would seem, completely discarded basic standards of decency for elected leaders. Even the ostensibly objective reporting on the story offered a favorable spin for Gibson. ABC News recently published the headline, “Some Virginia Democrats say livestreamed sex acts a distraction from election’s real stakes.” The Associated Press, meanwhile, declared: “Virginia candidate who livestreamed sex videos draws support from women and a leading Democrat.” At the end of the day, no matter how egregious Gibson’s conduct was, she’s still a Democrat. Accordingly, she’ll continue to get away with “defining deviancy down” (to cite the words of longtime Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who defined a long time ago what we are seeing today) while the media runs cover for her campaign. Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.