Susanna Gibson, a Democrat running in one of seven tossup House seats in the closely divided legislature, denounced the “illegal invasion of my privacy.”

A Democratic candidate in a crucial race for the Virginia General Assembly denounced reports on Monday that she and her husband had performed live on a sexually explicit streaming site.

Susanna Gibson, a nurse practitioner running in her first election cycle, 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 that will determine control of the General Assembly. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, and Democrats narrowly control the State Senate, but both chambers are up for grabs in November.

  • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Missing the point entirely. Sex tapes between consenting adults shouldn’t be an issue, and leaking them to shame, denigrate or otherwise harm someone should be a sex crime that puts you on a list. There’s a fair chance that it is under Virginia law, but I expect governor Glenn “Voter fraud is NBD when my kid does it twice” Youngkin to ignore the law when he likes the criminal.

    • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, but this wasn’t a private sex act. She and her husband performed publicly on chaturbate.

      By “leaking” the tape, they literally just pointed people to one of those sites that automatically archives chaturbate shows.

      I completely agree that that’s irrelevant to politics, but it feels like a stretch to call the taping of a public broadcast to be revenge porn.

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Automating crime doesn’t make it not crime. Giving some people permission to watch you fuck doesn’t give everyone permission to watch you fuck. Please take some time to look at yourself and consider why you want so badly for this to be fine when it’s obviously not.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Giving some people permission to watch you fuck doesn’t give everyone permission to watch you fuck.

          Again, it was public on chaturbate, they literally gave everyone in the world over 18 permission to watch them fuck. This is a matter of whether giving everyone in the world permission to watch you fuck entitles them to tape it and reshare it or replay it. Morally that’s a lot more nuanced than a private sex show.

          Also, from other comments in here it seems like legally based on the terms of service they agreed to they explicitly did give permission for their public performance to enter the public domain.

          Please take some time to look at yourself and consider why you want so badly for this to be fine when it’s obviously not.

          Please take some time to go fuck yourself (on or off stream) for not so subtly implying that I have any emotional stake in this, instead of just trying to have a nuanced discussion about the ethics around recording a public performance.

      • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        I think that’s the problem, it wasn’t an automatic archive.

        She and her husband were streaming on Chaturbate. Someone archived the videos.

        A month after she announced her candidacy, someone took the archived copies and uploaded them.

        A little different than if she or her husband did it themselves or if it were automatic. The timing seems retributive.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Are you sure it’s not from an automated archive? The news sites I saw made it sounds like they were just pulling stills from recurbate or one the similar clones that are just automated archives.

          No doubt the timing of the story being raise was retributive, but it’s not illegal to point out something a candidate did publicly that might be embarrassing to them.

          • Jordan Lund@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            If it were automated, it wouldn’t have waited until one month after she filed as a candidate. ;)