Is Stormy Daniels a prostitute?  This question has now been answered in the affirmative by the online media, and it is generally assumed that Trump gave her money for the one time (or few times) that he had sex with her.

Pornography Is Lucrative

Here is a fact that has not really been brought out in the media:  Stormy moves in an environment where it is normal for porn stars to have side gigs as hookers.  Whether she herself flew back and forth between LA and Vegas is irrelevant.  Many of the other porn stars in her world were going back and forth, and making big bucks — let’s say 20k for a weekend — at places like the late Dennis Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Carson City.

In fact, many pornstars found out they could make a lot more money hooking than performing, but continued to perform as a way of keeping their names in the public eye —  and to charge higher rates while hooking.  As I document in my book, Stormy’s World: Inside Porn (BPT Press, 2019), the whole culture of escorting pretty well permeated the porn space.

Sticks and Stones

Stormy has always seemed like a bit of a class act, and it may be that the Bunny Ranch was beneath her.  But here is the thing:  People have felt they could somehow denigrate Stormy by referring to her as a “porn hooker.”  This was a phrase used by Melania Trump, among others, in an effort to ease the sting of her husband having an affair within months of the birth of their child — then paying Stormy off not to squeal.  The person humiliated in this drama was not Stormy but Melania.

Melania had wanted to wound.  But is it so bad to be a “porn hooker,” whether Stormy was one or not?  No, in my view it is not so bad.  The term wrongly stigmatizes both hookers (escorts) and pornstars.

Acting in a porn shot is not the same as prostitution, because the pornstar couldn’t care less about whether her male partner gets off. She is performing for the hundreds of thousands of males out there whom she will never meet but who masturbate to her image.  Whatever you think of this, it is not the same as prostitution.

And there are lots of prostitutes who turn down film roles because they don’t want their mothers to see them.

Lust Is a Legitimate Emotion

I think it would be good to move this entire discussion away from the realm of morality to unrequited male and female lust.

Lust is a legitimate emotion, even though it is like throwing a stick of dynamite into the middle of a marriage.  Both men and women feel it throughout life.  It ceases to be requited in marriage after a few months, and this is what we have escorts and porn stars for. These are legitimate, and badly needed, occupations, and Stormy has contributed her share.