This week's poll from the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking!
If you're like millions of other Americans, you've been cursing the banks for one reason or another lately. And that puts you in the league of unlikely company: porn stars!
Yes, porn stars. It seems that greater-than-thou banks like JPMorgan Chase have decided that dealing with people in the sex industry -- just handling their bank accounts or offering them mortgages -- is a "reputational risk." So they've been firing off letters by the hundreds advising adult entertainment workers that, come Mother's Day, May 11, their bank accounts will be no more. "Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience," the letters state, and "open an account at another bank."
Well how's that for a big, fat screw you? To quote one of favorite lines from the Aunt Betty Almanac: God hasn't always been good to me, but She's been a helluva lot more patient than Bank of America.
Of course, this has us asking: Since when do banks feel they can claim the moral high ground? None of this seems fair to the (presumably) hard-working people making (perfectly legal) pornography. If banks are worried about the "reputational risk" of dealing with money that Americans might consider filthy, why not close the accounts of the Koch brothers?
The big banks are going to have to swallow more than their pride to restore their image. But how can workers in the sex industry take back their good name? Is it possible that they just need better... public relations?
Enter Pornhub, one of the Internet's most popular pornographic video-sharing websites, which this week -- just in time for Arbor Day! -- offered this promise: For every 100 users who watch a video in their "Big Dick" series, Pornhub will plant a tree! (Really!) See, pornographers love the planet as much as anyone. And why shouldn't they? As far as they know, the only sex toy that Newt Gingrich is bringing to his moon colony is Callista.
One thing makes this complicated, however. As we've told you before, citizens of Red States are the single biggest consumers of porn in America (with Utah taking the top prize). Is all this tree-hugging from the porn industry going to sit well with them?
We can happily report: Probably! See, Pornhub has pulled similar publicity stunts before. Donating a penny for breast cancer awareness for every 30 clicks on large- or small-breast videos. Entertaining users with fossil-fuel divestment ads before getting to some climate-changing action of another kind. And it hasn't seemed to hurt pornography's popularity with conservatives. Perhaps their hands are too busy to stop and write outraged letters to their Congresspeople -- or to even notice that this new campaign, called "Pornhub Gives America Wood," is part of the porn industry's longstanding liberal agenda.
And that's what makes it brilliant. Liberals have been struggling with ways to sell their platform to a FOX-News saturated American public. Why not use a little sex?
So let's help them! There must be lots of awesome ways for the sex industry to secretly promote a liberal agenda to all those fans deeply ensconced in Red States. How do YOU think they can penetrate that demographic?
"How else can the sex industry bang the drum for a liberal agenda?"
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