Here's an idea: What if we didn't slut-shame women? Maybe the world — or at least Twitter — would be a slightly less vile place. Today, it seems that former Danity Kane member Aubrey O'Day is on the receiving end of Twitter's unwarranted wrath, and as with many things that are not-so-great for women, it all connects back to a Trump. This time, however, it's not the former Celebrity Apprentice host in question, but his son, Donald Trump Jr.
Earlier this week, rumors swirled that Trump Jr., who is in the midst of a divorce from his wife, Vanessa Trump, had an affair with O'Day while she was filming season 5 of The Celebrity Apprentice. O'Day just so happened to release a song titled "DJT," a track about an ex-boyfriend who chose to remain in his previous lifestyle instead of leaving it to be with her.
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Given the title and subject matter, the internet immediately thought "DJT" was about her alleged affair with the White House's first son — which, at least so far, O'Day and Trump Jr. have not confirmed.
Yet instead of, say, letting Trump Jr. and Vanessa deal with their pending divorce like the adults they are, Twitter decided that the best course of action was to slut-shame O'Day, whose only real "crime" was possibly writing a song about her alleged personal history.
I won't grace the haters by embedding their tweets here, but let's just say that it isn't particularly hard to find people trashing O'Day for these rumors.
That's not to say that Trump Jr. isn't receiving flak as well — he certainly is — but there's something particularly insidious about how people react to women in these situations. Suddenly, O'Day is labeled a "slut," a "homewrecker," or other explicit terms too gross to print here.
It's not like this is an isolated incident: People are always quick to use these labels to police a woman's sexuality — and often do so under the cloak of "morality." Just look at what happened with Blac Chyna. Or Bella Thorne. Or Cardi B. Or Corinne Olympios.
I could go on, but honestly, why bum you out?
Whatever happened, or didn't happen, between O'Day and Trump Jr., enough is enough. We're in a time when Hollywood — and the rest of the world — is finally realizing that sexual harassment and assault are bad. You know what else is harassment? Telling a woman that she should die because she may have hooked up with a married man. You don't have to agree with every woman's choice (and again, we have no idea what O'Day and Trump Jr. did or did not do), but part of being a good human being is not being a total and complete jerk to those who do things we don't agree with.
So, yeah. Let O'Day live. Heck, even let Trump Jr. live. But mostly, stop shaming women for being sexual beings with romantic history. It's not cool, and time's officially up on letting that stuff fly.