A candidate in a crucial legislative race in Virginia engaged in sex with her spouse and solicited donations from viewers in exchange for performing particular sex acts in live videos aired on a porn website.
The Associated Press was sent screenshots of Susanna Gibson’s online persona. Gibson’s campaign, a Democrat running for a Virginia House of Delegates seat in a district not far from Richmond, released a statement on Monday denouncing the dissemination of the tapes as a breach of her privacy and the law. The release of the videos, according to Gibson, was “the worst gutter politics.”
“It won’t intimidate me and it won’t silence me,” she said in the statement. “My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up.”
The information signaled a dramatic reversal in a battle that will have a big impact on how the Virginia General Assembly’s balance of power is established. For a legislative race during a non-election year, the contest has generated significant funding and interest.
Republicans hold a four-vote advantage in the House of Delegates, where four seats are empty, and Democrats hold a four-vote advantage in the Senate. As GOP rising star Gov. Glenn Youngkin seeks to advance his conservative agenda with total control of state government, the parties are engaged in fierce legislative battles.
According to Gibson, making the films public is “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me and my family.” The distribution of the movies, according to Gibson’s attorney Daniel P. Watkins, is against Virginia’s revenge porn legislation, which makes it unlawful to “maliciously” distribute or sell nude or sexual photographs of another person with the intention to “coerce, harass, or intimidate.”
Watkins highlighted a Virginia Court of Appeals decision from 2021 that stated it was illegal for a man to surreptitiously videotape his girlfriend during consensual sexual contact, even if he did not show the footage to anyone else. The judge determined that consent to be seen is different from consent to be recorded.
In one of the most competitive districts in the state, Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner and married mother of two small children, defeated Republican businessman David Owen in the Democratic primary in June.
After the Post published the recordings, a prominent Virginia Democrat promptly defended Gibson. Sen. L. Louise Lucas posted on social media, “Now we are going to make this the biggest fundraising day of her campaign.”
Todd Gilbert, the Republican House Speaker, did not immediately respond to a request for comment through Garren Shipley, his spokeswoman.
Gibson and Owen are facing off in the 57th District, which encompasses Henrico and Goochland counties as well as Richmond’s suburbs. In the 2021 congressional midterm elections, the district voted 51.2% to 48.3% for Youngkin; however, in the 2022 congressional midterm elections, the district voted 50% Democratic to 49.1% Republican.
According to Gibson, the 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade was what motivated her to run.
According to the screenshots examined by the AP, Gibson had a profile on Chaturbate, a legitimate service where viewers can see live webcam performances that feature nudity and sexual behavior.
The films depict Gibson and her husband, John David Gibson, engaging in sexual activity while occasionally gazing directly into the camera and soliciting money from viewers in the form of “tokens” or “tips” to attend a private performance.
According to the Post, chaturbate videos are broadcast live on one website and frequently preserved on other sites that are open to the public. In September 2022, the month after she declared her candidacy, more than a dozen videos posted under Gibson’s Chaturbate alias were stored on one of those websites, Recurbate. Two videos that were archived on September 30, 2022 were the most recent. When the livestream took place is unknown.
