He told her he could help her career. He told her that he could get her on his TV show, that he would help her cheat, feeding her some inside information so she would win the competition the contestants vied for. There was a price, of course.
She rebuked his sexual advances, telling him to “get dressed”, she verbally jousted with him, trying to see if she could keep the conversation on a professional track, she tried to play his game, even spanking him for his behavior, and finally she removed herself from his presence by going to the bathroom. When she came out, he was down to his underwear. “Don’t you want the job?”
Stormy Daniels sounds like a woman who was worn down. She accepted a dinner date with Donald Trump, assuming it would be in a restaurant but was then directed to meet him in his hotel suite. There was no dinner served. She was the one on the menu. She hadn’t wanted to go, but her publicist pushed her, “What could possibly go wrong?” he had told her. Apparently, a lot.
Stormy Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, was raised in rural Louisiana by a single mother in what she described as extreme poverty. She was the editor of her high school newspaper, but to make money when she was old enough, she started dancing in a strip club. From there she was asked to do an adult film with a friend of hers from the club, and she agreed. After shooting the project she was offered a contract with Wicked Pictures, one of the leading producers of adult films, which she accepted. She is not ashamed of her decisions, her career choice, or her life. But she regrets that day when Wicked Pictures sponsored a golf tournament, and she was at one of the holes welcoming the players and offering water. That’s where she met Donald Trump.
Stormy does not say she was raped or forced into sex, even though he was standing between her and the door, even though he was offering her a big break in her career if she had sex with him, dangling the prospect of a spot on the popular US reality TV show, The Apprentice. Not raped or forced, how about coerced?
Because Stormy Daniels is a porn star, there has already been a lot said about her and her story, well before this week. It’s quintessential tabloid fodder, not something that most women could relate to, but something many people are intrigued by.
And if you search her on Google and land on some of her work sites, you will soon wonder how to wipe your history. I know. Given her line of work, how many women honestly feel they can relate to her? That may have changed this week after she has testified under oath in the Southern District of New York for the campaign finance fraud case against Donald Trump. It is the story at the heart of the case, alleging that Trump had paid money to keep her story out of the press in those crucial few weeks between the Access Hollywood tape release and the US Presidential Election, and that he had hid the payment.
Her highly anticipated arrival on the witness stand did not disappoint. And yes, the salacious nature of some of her testimony was hard to un-hear, causing even seasoned journalists like Rachel Maddow to blush as they reported on it. But if you strip back the side show (no pun intended), you heard the story of a woman put in a compromising situation in which she eventually compromised. She “consented” by just giving in, she didn’t say “yes” and she didn’t say “no”, she just let it happen.
The position she was put in is all too familiar to women from all walks of life, in all careers. The pay for play gamebook comes in a variety of formats, but the essential scam is the same. Trying to stop this behaviour and address this imbalance at the very crossroads of power is the essence of the #metoo movement. Since its surge in 2017, women from every imaginable job and industry have united and bonded together by sharing this all-too-common saga.
Even as Harvey Weinstein’s conviction was turned around a few weeks ago, and people wonder if the #metoomovement is waning, we get reminded that it will never stop until men stop behaving badly.
Activists look for accountability for perpetrators, better systemic responses to all forms or coercion and violence, and better laws protecting women.
As a survivor of a sexual assault by a man who said he would help my career, and an activist for the last 6 years, I have told many women I stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Today, I stand with Stormy Daniels.
*This commentary is based on Stormy Daniels testimony this week, which Donald Trump refutes.