COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. — Conservative activists in Indiana started a campaign to remove an elected official after a Midwestern right-wing news blog outed her as an OnlyFans model and published several screen captures from her members-only premium content account.
The campaign to destroy Etna Troy Township Trustee Elaine Western’s political career originated with the reporting of local news site Real News Michiana, which first outed her as a sex worker in April and is now amplifying the attempts to remove her from her elected position.
The moralistic witch-hunt, seeking to taint Western’s professional activities by stigmatizing her sex work, has resulted in “a petition to have her censured, investigated and removed from her post,” Real News Michiana informed this week.
“Earlier this month, the petition received enough signatures to be sent along to the Whitley County GOP for consideration,” the right-wing blog added, noting that “it’s unclear if there are truly any legal remedies to have her removed short of a resignation.”
In April, Western told the site, ““I haven’t tried to keep it a secret. I’m not doing anything illegal. I have not comment.”
Western’s attorney wrote to the activists stating, “Your letter intends to intimidate Mrs. Western into resigning from office to avoid a public media circus. Therefore, I believe your letter and any continuing effort along this line could constitute a criminal offense of intimidation.”
Nationwide Right-Wing Campaigns to ‘Scarlet-Letter’ Sex Workers Out of Non-SW Jobs
Republican and conservative activists and operators, helped by right-leaning news outlets and journalists have targeted the livelihoods of a diverse number of individuals in several walks of life over their unrelated sex work. The smear campaigns have sometimes included the non-consensual dissemination of material that was only otherwise available on paywalled, members-only sites.
As XBIZ reported, during the 2023 election cycle, the Virginia Republican Party sent a mass mailing to voters containing explicit screen captures from a Chaturbate cam show featuring Democratic candidate Susanna Gibson two weeks before a highly contested election for the 57th District House seat.
The GOP-mailed envelopes salaciously warned, “Do not open if you are under the age of 18,” and “Warning: Explicit material enclosed.” Gibson was originally outed as a Chaturbate cam performer by a Washington Post reporter who wrote fawningly about Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in a salacious exposé that political observers believed to be a smear operation set up by Gibson’s Republican opponents.
More recently, a campaign by conservative academic authorities egged on by Rupert Murdoch-owned publications resulted in disciplinary actions and a process of tenure removal against veteran University of Wisconsin-La Crosse professor of communications Joe Gow, who created erotic content for OnlyFans with his wife and occasionally also with adult performers.