Stormy Daniels testimony reveals the triumph of #MeToo

[marmar]

Stormy Daniels testimony reveals the triumph of #MeToo
The media's coverage of a key witness against Donald Trump has been surprisingly nuanced and thoughtful

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MAY 9, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Until her long-anticipated testimony at Donald Trump's Manhattan fraud trial Tuesday, the mainstream media had leaned on misleading terms like "affair" and "tryst" to describe the alleged 2006 sexual encounter between Stormy Daniels and the criminal defendant. So I was braced for callous reactions to her time on the witness stand, where the adult film actress described an encounter with Trump far more harrowing than titillating.

....(snip)....

But when I observed the media response, I was glad to see that, despite such anxiety-producing ambiguity, mainstream journalists openly grappled with the darker implications of what Daniels recounted. The headline at the Washington Post report by Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett spelled out that Daniels' testimony "at times sounded like a nonconsensual sexual encounter." On MSNBC, host Nicole Wallace expressed regret for previously reducing Daniels to her job, noting that she's also a mother and a human being. One of the New York Times live reporters noted that earlier versions of her story were less "ominous," but then immediately offered context: "Experts on traumatic sexual experiences say that a person's perception of such encounters can change over time, and that the most traumatic details may emerge only later." David Graham at the Atlantic wrote that Daniels described Trump as a man "dripping with sexual entitlement and presumption."

This all feels like a shift from how such matters were written about less than a decade ago. In the past, most journalists took a legalistic, black-and-white approach to the issue of sexual consent. If a description of an encounter didn't meet a criminal definition of sexual assault, it was assumed both parties were willing and eager. Sex was treated as either fully consensual or rape, ignoring the icky truth that there are a lot of nonconsensual-but-not-provably-illegal encounters.

....(snip)....

This is also why it matters now that the media is willing to deal with the complexities of the testimony Daniels offered Tuesday. This isn't just a salacious tabloid story. It cuts right to the heart of the bigger, more impactful issue of what it means to let men like Trump have power. This is the same man who, after all, made a promise to end abortion rights — and it was one of the few promises he kept. His misogyny and male entitlement matter not just to the unfortunate women who cross his path, but the millions who now have lost basic rights to bodily autonomy. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/05/09/stormy-daniels-testimony-reveals-the-triumph-of-metoo/

[niyad]

1. Thank you for posting this.

[mopinko]

2. i keep saying- the worm has turned.

we all beef about the press, but looky here.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. I've been thinking ... her testimony should have closed with #MeToo.

But because she's done porn, she wouldn't be taken seriously enough in some quarters.