So, let’s talk about this Ted Cruz porn fiasco.
A slip of a public figure’s finger occasionally reveals more about their inner lives than any official statement could, by way of their social media habits. After failed 2016 presidential candidate Cruz apparently “liked” a hardcore porn tweet in the early morning hours of Tuesday, we’re all forced to ask ourselves what more there could be to unpack about a man who seems to have waged war against masturbation itself. He, or an aide running his account, smashed that like button on some porn and the internet lost its mind.
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This could have gone unnoticed, but the person who runs the account for Magic Bullet Records, an independent record label, was also awake and got a screenshot around 1AM EST. As a result of this, Cruz’s old college roomie had to relive some trauma, and around 2AM, Cruz’s spokesperson scrambled to un-like what had been liked. She also reported the tweet to Twitter, for some reason, even though nudity and sex aren’t against Twitter’s terms of service, which only forbid use of pornographic images in profile pictures and headers.
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Thanks to the hard work of Reddit sleuths, I found that the video in question was originally titled “Dick for Two” (NSFW, obviously), a 30-minute film from Miami-based production company Reality Kings. In the video, porn star Cory Chase walks in on a couple—Bruce Venture and Kacey Jordan—mid-coitus on her white couch. Instead of throwing these hornballs out of her house, she decides to hide just of sight and make the most of an awkward situation.
Corey Price, VP of Pornhub (the parent network of Reality Kings), said in a statement provided to Motherboard that in light of the now-viral like, they’re making the video publically available instead of keeping it behind a premium paywall: “Now our fans can check out the same video a Presidential nominee, and current Senator, watched in its entirety. Rest assured, there will be no staffing issues on our end and/or inadvertent button pushing.”
The video is “the fastest porn video to reach one million views,” Price said. “That number will only climb as the day unravels.” The title is now, “TED CRUZ DID NOTHING WRONG! – CORY CHASE LIKED BY TED CRUZ.”
I’ve reached out to each of the stars of “Dick for Two,” and am waiting to hear back. Chase tweeted that she’s been without power because of Hurricane Irma.
Venture tweeted that he’s seen the screenshot, and sends his thanks to Cruz.
The social media manager of @SexuallPosts would also like to express his gratitude. “Yeah it’s really quite funny lol,” the person running the @SexuallPosts account, Kyle (who requested their last name not be used), told me in a Twitter direct message. Kyle said they didn’t get to sleep much last night, because they stayed up reading all of the replies. “We just run twitter accounts for affiliate and influencer marketing purposes so let’s just say it’s been a really fun ride. Love seeing things go viral.” The account gained around 7,000 new followers overnight, Kyle told me.
But it’s difficult to thank a man who refuses to take the credit. NBC News journalist Frank Thorp V reported that, in an interview with Cruz this morning, Cruz called it a “a staffing issue,” and that “it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button.”
If this is true, someone might get fired. But even then, reporting the content to Twitter is a misguided, malicious response and indicative of a greater attitude toward porn and sex—especially since Twitter rules don’t prohibit sex acts or nudity, outside of advertiser policies.
“Personally I think the world would be a better place if politicians were honest about their own porn habits, instead of falling over themselves to broadcast their disgust at this perfectly legal activity that over half of adults take part in,” sex blogger and author Girl on the Net (her widely-used pseudonym) told me in an email, after tweeting her disgust that Cruz’s spokesperson reported the content. “Particularly weaselly ones, like Ted Cruz, don’t just distance themselves from porn but try to prevent anyone else from enjoying it. By reporting the (perfectly legal, well-within-twitter-rules) tweet, Cruz has tried to punish a porn account for a mistake either he or a member of his team made. Is there anything more slimy?”
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