How Porn Helped Trump Win
Or the Crisis of Masculinity in the American Left
To some extent, this is admittedly a click-bait title. I don’t actually think that porn actresses aided Trump’s victory directly, (in fact they mobilized against Trump) but I do believe that the proliferation of pornography is a cause and symptom of a larger crisis in broad-based gender identity that emboldens Trump’s base. The argument I want to make is that there is a connection between the entrenchment of certain aggressive manifestations of masculinity (so-called ‘toxic masculinity’), the social acceptance of porn (and sex work more broadly), the objectification of the female body, and banning abortions or limiting access to contraception as an urge to control female bodies.
There’s a lot to parse out here, partially because of the discomfort many men feel discussing masculinity. In a recent poll I conducted on my instagram stories (@punksaround) a majority of AMAB men said that they were uncomfortable discussing masculinity, criticizing the sex trade, or presenting too masculine with people on the left for fear of being ostracized or making people upset. Anecdotally, when I made a post that argued that sex work is inherently exploitative and that the people who consume pornography are complicit (often indirectly) in the perpetuation of a violent trade, I received a message from an angry comrade accusing me of calling them a rapist for liking porn. Some topics are so taboo that people are afraid to touch them, and some just invoke a plethora of deep insecurities.
I asked “Men (AMAB): Do you feel comfortable, like you can 100% be yourself in leftist spaces/ circles?” Here are some of the responses…
“I see absolutely no way through the rejection of masculinity as a whole. There’s a complete inability among my friends to filter out the toxic aspects. I have a friend who doesn’t like to be called “man” anymore, but all other male terms are ok. I don’t have a single idea on how to approach it without being ostracized.”
“No, but only partially because I’m a man.”
“I shouldn’t but I do but also I kinda don’t go to many of these spaces anymore.”
“Once you start to criticize the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) stuff within the context of the elite/government, and especially the sex trade and pornography people in those spaces start to get upset real fast. Questioning that stuff to a point but not being a dick about it like Jordan Peterson and any of those right-wing wackos, but it's hard to even question that stuff and talk through ideas for fear of being grouped in with the manosphere types.”
People who know me and have heard me speak on TIR or other platforms know that I am critical of the sex trade. It’s worth clarifying before getting started that my criticism is directed at the trade as it exists, not at particular sex workers and/or porn actresses—in a world where people live paycheck to paycheck, it is hard to blame anyone for resorting to the sale of their body as a means of getting ahead. For a broader interrogation of the sex trade, I recommend reading up on Proletarian Feminism.
To assess how porn helped Trump win, we have to first dive into the very complicated and frankly undertheorized topic of masculinity today. In a recent interview on Al Jazeera, reporter Ryan Grim rightly pointed out that influencers who engage and stream around traditional masculine interests – bodybuilding, video games, health and wellness— have turned increasingly Republican and right-wing. In a 24-hour stream cycle, it’s easy to see how their ideas could be boosted, widely adopted, and defended among each other for their fans. Take someone like Andrew Tate for example. Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, former kickboxer, and businessman has cultivated a wide following within the so-called “manosphere” of online male influencers who often place the blame on women for the behavior of people like Harvey Weinstein. Tate is just one among an encompassing group of men who have gained influence by tethering their sense of masculinity to a traditionalist machismo aesthetic, repackaged as “alpha male” aspirations. Tate provides the secular version of what Christian fundamentalists already believe about women.
People like Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, and Paul Watson, are symptoms of a larger entrenchment of male hegemony, and one must seriously step back and ask why. Why have these men become so popular, what is appealing about their message? To answer that, they need to be understood within a broader cultural zeitgeist, which requires a lot of uncomfortable generalizations about what is masculine and feminine, and confrontations with how the left positions itself within these conversations of masculinity and identity politics. For so long leftists have easily dismissed these people as fringe “toxicly masculine” influencers whose followers we don’t want to be a part of our movement anyway.
The cooptation of masculinity by the right occurs through the capture of certain material and rhetorical identity signifiers. Everybody uses symbols to convey their identity to the public. It’s not always the case, but often those who identify with the LGBTQIA community wear bright, colorful clothes to communicate their membership in that community. In the same way, it’s common for non-binary AFAB people to cut their hair short to subvert traditional gender hair designations as a coded form of gender-bending. On the other hand, AMAB non-binary folk often wear dresses and grow their hair out long to signify their embrace of a more feminine identity. I am not criticizing any of these signifiers, but I am trying to establish the fact that identities are coded with a plethora of material and rhetorical symbols, whether we like it or not, that carry deep meaning to the communities to which people aspire to belong, and for those outside of the community, either voluntarily or excluded. I can safely assume that a man on the street wearing a dress identifies as someone other than a man. I may not always be right, but for the sake of argument let's accept that it's a safe assumption.
The traditional signifiers of masculinity include muscles, profundity, competitiveness, and humor. The problem is that the way that men seek to embody these traits often puts them in conflict with the competing identities of the left. I once made a joke that if I entered into a queer café flexing my muscles, advocating discipline, and ‘mansplaining’ the benefits of MMA, it would at least turn some heads if not incur an accusation of ableism. Indeed, as the respondents at the beginning of this article suggested, there are few left spaces where men with a traditionalist sense of masculinity feel comfortable communally calibrating the right and wrong expressions of their identity with people who are not men. Why risk offending everyone at the queer café and being accused of ‘mansplaining’ when you can just stay home and stream with the boys? In that setting, one can be authentic–there’s no need for code-switching.
To be clear, we all code-switch, and in a world where everyone desperately craves attention and community (whether they want to admit it or not) it's difficult to tell which code is someone’s genuine self. The outward and forward expression of masculinity by people like Tate presents itself to impressionable boys as authentic as their gaming circle. Even if they might be initially taken back by what he has to say, his unrestricted opinion captures a masculine proclivity for outward emotional confidence and assertiveness. This aggressive entrenchment of traditional masculinity as tied to other traits like assertiveness, emotional control, and dominance raises a chicken-or-egg question: are these traditional expressions of masculinity inherently aggressive, or have they been made aggressive by people like Andrew Tate? History tells us that masculinity can be incredibly constructive if its expressions are genuinely directed toward cultivation, community building, compassion, and paternalism (as opposed to patriarchy). The problem is that these positive expressions of masculinity do not mesh well with American individualism, which, blended with traditional masculinity, instead incentivizes material wealth and social influence, captured by trivial things like body counts and money.
“If you want to be like me–train!” A Soviet poster promoting healthy expressions of masculinity.
The obsession with material dominance like sexual proclivity and money implies that traditional demonstrations of masculinity–bodybuilding, physical fitness, profundity– become merely a means to a material end. As “bodies” women constitute a major part of that material end and are thus approached as objects to be subdued and conquered. If one has the stomach to browse some of the rhetoric of people within the “manosphere” it becomes apparent that their view of women is based on an almost biological sense of inferiority. Tate in particular has stated that he views women as “intrinsically lazy,” adding that there is “no such thing as an independent female.”
The sense of subservience is reinforced by the notion that women can be compelled to do anything for men so long as they are “alpha males.” The term alpha male captures the individualist achievement and self-advancement that embodies all of the traditional masculine traits listed above. To quote Scarface, the alpha male par excellence, “in this country… when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, you get the women.” The alpha male psyche summarizes the simple causal chain of material acquisitions as a measurement of masculine achievement: money, power, and women. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The existence of sex work, as the sale of one’s body-as-commodity, confirms the trinity.
The implication is that influencers in the manosphere believe that women are easily bought and wooed by influence and wealth, and if we are to believe Tate and his gloating about his sexual proclivity, there is reason for impressionable boys to believe it. What Tate depicts as a slavish and almost genetic female appeal to wealth and power is not intrinsic to women, but a condition created by women’s historical and systemic unequal access to the spoils of finance capitalism and real social influence (not to say social media influence). If real intellectual, economic, and cultural capital and respect are perceived to be outside of the realm of possibility for women, how can they achieve notoriety? One way is to conform to the traditional male gaze, to render oneself a passive body available for consumption: social media thirst traps, self-deprecating content, and, of course, pornography. We all know how easy it is for women to go viral for showing their bodies on social media, and it's because they are catering to an insatiable and seemingly entitled male demand. What is ‘empowering’ to her is a confirmation of inferiority to him. Finally, when a woman does not fulfill that demand of her own volition, you get sexualized memes of Kamala Harris or AOC and AI-generated sexual content that uses a woman’s likeness without her permission.
[Without getting too much into the weeds, I recommend readers check out my previous article with Milena on Proletarian Feminism in addition to Engels’ own writing on the historical processes of female subjugation and patriarchy as a component of capitalist development.]
The assumption that women can be bought became most vivid during Donald Trump’s $130,000 hush-money case against porn actress Stormy Daniels. Men on the right defended the President by pointing out that Daniels willingly forfeited her ability to speak up by accepting money. People on the left, as though suddenly liberated from their sense of exceptionality for sex work, declared correctly that wealth should not be able to hold a woman hostage.
After being convicted of 34 felony counts it became clear to the Trump camp that government departments could be a tool in the culture war. If pornography and sex work itself became a point of empowerment, in which Daniels courted the support of Trump's enemies– if her case could be weaponized– then it implied that women had acquired too much power over the industry itself. It had to be reined in, controlled, or even eliminated by men. The genie escaped the bottle, and now men must put it back in.
Project 2025, the controversial initiative prompted by a conservative think-tank, which Trump has disavowed, nevertheless lists the banning of pornography as one of its major goals. At first glance, this might look confusing and contradictory. Still, in the past few decades, the porn industry has spiraled into a self-promoting and lucrative market with new platforms like Onlyfans, which claims to place the means of production into the hands of the worker. Porn actress Mia Khalifa has referred to it as “socialism for porn” hailing it as a more equal-access alternative to the traditional male-dominated porn industry. While it has promoted Amrapali Gan as a token CEO, Onlyfans is still majority-owned by Silicon Valley investors and founder Tim Stokely, who rake in a handsome profit of at least 20% of all proceeds from purchased content. Indeed, content creators seeking to supplement their income are told that porn is easy, empowering, and in the hands of the creator.
The contradiction rests in this: while gig-economy platforms like Onlyfans have culturally encouraged female empowerment and liberation through the sale of their content, economically the system remains incredibly male-dominated and exploitative. President Trump and the Project 2025 authors know that culture plays an enormous political role in the United States and that even though women remain economically subservient to men by all indications, their cultural sense of liberation remains a danger. In the most obnoxious sense imaginable, right-wing bigot Nicholas Fuentes’ tweet “Your body my choice” takes on a new meaning in the context of the sex trade: ‘my finance buys access to your body.’ This is how people like Andrew Tate fit into the equation, as cultural bastions of a type of masculinity that conforms to traditional notions of economic, cultural, and social patriarchy that see the purchase of women as a sign of species dominance.
So while I am not claiming that the porn industry directly helped Trump win, I am describing a system in which pornography feeds into a cultural sense of male entitlement and reinforces the assumption that women can be penetrated physically and emotionally by the highest bidder and that their acquiescence is a capitulation that gives men access to them. The more women resist this from a point of pan-masculine critique, the more people like Trump double down, and the more emboldened the Tates of the country get. The increasing popularity of people like Tate reinforces the manosphere’s capture of coded masculinity, a vicious cycle in which the alienation, or restriction of masculine expression on the left pushes impressional boys into the embrace of a type of masculinity that cultivates and rewards resentment, patriarchy, and material definitions of success.
So what can be done? It may seem like I am placing the onus of responsibility on the left, but responsibility is 50/50. On the one hand, the masculinity promoted by people like Tate and Trump must be combatted particularly by other men, and this will require a critical assessment and stance on things like porn and sex work that are responsible for the commodification of women. The positive manifestations of masculinity like communal support, physical fitness, and paternalism must be accepted and encouraged, but it takes a patient community to help forge them into constructive expressions and assets that work in the service of the community rather than individual gratification. At the same time, the non-masculine leftist must be more patient and understanding of the way boys are acculturated and seek a more conciliatory approach, avoiding the application of terms like ‘mansplaining’ that tend to alienate otherwise well-intended men. The task before us is to break the chain depicted above at the point of inherited masculinity to manosphere capture.
