Stormy Daniels, whose birthday is today, is one reason.
As I’m writing this, a father and his two daughters came down to go fishing at our lake-front public dock.
“Could I get some bait?”
No, not worms, not yet, but I offered them a shovel if they wanted to dig for some in the garden space out front.
They hadn’t been out there on the dock five minutes before dad came back in and asked for a can.
For worms?
“No, for fish.”
I gave him an empty coffee can.
“Do you have anything bigger? We’re more optimistic than that.”
I gave him a five-gallon bucket and smiled, watching him – as he happily headed back down on the dock to rejoin his daughters – and thinking, on this beautiful Saturday morning as I rejoin my computer and this article in progress, that those girls are going to achieve something of meaningful significance with their lives.
Of that I’m optimistic.
Because they’ve a dad, who takes them fishing.
And asks for a bigger bucket.
Not so Stephanie Gregory Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, who chose her stage name (she’s been a stripper, began as such at age 17) after seeing a Jack Daniel’s commercial. She’s been an actor (lesbian scenes, since diversified), pole dancer, porn starlet, and is most infamously known for an alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump.
Daniels’ parents divorced when she was four. She was subsequently raised by her mother. “She describes her childhood as rough.”
Rougher still is the life-style of those who choose, or are sex-trafficked chosen, to be systematically stripped of who they are.
Aurora Snow, reflecting on her 13 years in her profession in an article in part entitled “My Hard Life in Porn,” wrote “I’ve smiled through scenes but afterward often went home sick, curled up in a ball and physically nauseated. There is always a price to pay; the kind of damage we’ve inflicted on our bodies won’t catch up with us for years.
“Adult actresses are prone to internal tears.”
How ironic in the month of March, annually set aside as “Women’s History Month” – to highlight “the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society” – that headlines March 17, Stormy Daniel’s birthday, cry out – as might a street-corner hawker of steamy tabloids – about news or a more sordid kind.
“Her house is on the highway to hell,” reads an ancient proverb. But how much of it was her fault? How much the house she called home? How much the horrific, pornographic, permeation of virtually every aspect of modern human life?
With 420 million pornographic Internet pages, according to “Smart Freedom” by CareNet and evidence that porn fuels the fire of domestic minor sex trafficking; pictures of nearly naked women flashing every eight seconds on larger-than-life billboards and coffee served by the same; Victoria’s Secret marketing to an ever-younger clientele; colleges featuring Sex Week; 1.2 millionchildren trafficked every year with the average age of the victims of trafficking just 13 and our own State of Washington ranking 6th in the world, and 3rd in the nation for human trafficking, where do we start addressing the problem of undressing?
At home, says Sarah Koppelkam. “Talk to your daughter,” Koppelkam writes, “about her body,” but only “to teach her how it works,” not compliment her on how she looks.
“Remind your daughter that the best thing she can do with her body is to use it to mobilize her beautiful soul.
“Encourage your daughter to climb mountains because there is nowhere better to explore your spirituality than the peak of the universe. Encourage your daughter to surf, or rock climb, or mountain bike because it scares her and that’s a good thing sometimes.
“Help your daughter love soccer or rowing or hockey because sports make her a better leader and a more confident woman.”
Or take her fishing.
And ask for a bigger bucket because you’re optimistic about her immediate and her foreseeable future.
Nicely done—so much so that. after reading it, I checked my calendar to see whether Fathers’ Day had crept up on me, as so many important dates do these days. I was reminded of the only time my dad took me fishing, although he didn’t know a thing about fishing. I remember a hastily-crafted bamboo fishing pole. Of course, we didn’t catch a thing, but we had some quality time together on the river bank that day.