New York Congressional Candidate Releases Porn Video Featuring Himself
Mike Itkis wants to decriminalize and legalize sex work, but he doesn’t just want to talk about it, he wants to be about it, you know? And so the third-party candidate running in Manhattan’s 12th District published his own sex tape on Pornhub—a 13-minute video of him having sex with performer Nicole Sage.
“If I would just talk about it, it wouldn’t demonstrate my commitment to the issue,” the 53-year-old candidate said. “And the fact I actually did it was a huge learning experience, and it actually influenced items on my platform.” What a hero. Please, everyone, a round of applause for this man.
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Itkis said the cause is so important that the stunt was necessary. “I’m very much an introvert,” he said. “I’m kind of a nerd who doesn’t like to be the center of attention if I can avoid it. But I thought the issues I’m trying to address are so important… I wanted to have my issues talked about in some way.” I’m an introvert too, I guess—it just doesn’t manifest in this same way.
On his website’s issues page, Itkis says he wants to take a sex-positive approach to domestic policy. Under sexual rights, it says “right to NOT become a parent in case of pregnancy.” Sounds great! But the rest of the bullet point reads: “redefine abortion debate as a right to unplanned sex.” Sir, did you mean non-procreative sex?
And somehow it gets worse. Under “abortion rights for women,” the site says “men should not be required to support biological children without prior agreement.” Even the City & State reporter said this sounds like an attack on child support.
Itkis is running against incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), whose campaign didn’t comment on the video, but the Republican candidate in the race did. “You gotta do what you gotta do,” Mike Zumbluskas said. “The media ignores everybody that’s not a Democrat in the city.”
Counterpoint: No person in or running for office should ever show voters their genitals, much less full-on videos of them having sex. It’s one thing if the candidate has previously done sex work, but releasing your own sex tape during a campaign doesn’t make the point you’re thinking it makes. It’s possible to support sex workers’ rights in other ways.
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