As you’ve surely heard by now, the Republican Party platform, adopted this week in Cleveland, says that porn, “with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions.” (Nope.) The party urges states to “continue to fight this public menace.”
But Republicans are known for drifting a bit from their own moral prescriptions sometimes. “It’s well known that Republicans make it rain,” a stripper wrote on Gawker yesterday.
So, we wondered, amid a PUBLIC! HEALTH! CRISIS! of porn, how have sex shops in Cleveland been doing this week? Are delegates cheering their party by day and shopping for “MILF” mags by night? The stores didn’t want to talk about it.
Every store employee and manager I asked told me to call their corporate office. When I asked the operator at the corporate office for AdultMart, which has seven locations in Cleveland, she replied, “Oh boy, do we have a media person? Let me check” and then asked for my number. (I never heard back.)
On a break between one underwhelming protest and the next, Sydney and I stopped by the location of AdultMart closest to the convention circus. In the front window, a bad cardboard knockoff of Donald Trump stands next to a mannequin. The shop, tidy but a little dated, offers your standard variety of magazines, flesh lights, and strap ons. A DVD called “The Donald” was going for $30; one shelf held a few copies of “Who’s Nailin’ Palin?”
I tried again. “How has business been,” I asked the friendly store clerk. She smiled. “Our only platform,” she said, “is improving people’s sex lives.”
Maybe between promoting Islamophobia, screaming for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment, and stripping away women’s rights, all the Republicans in Cleveland this week haven’t had time to get out of the convention hall or hotel bar. Or, more likely, they’re just online. At least one porn site reports viewership in the city is up this week.
