Make civic engagement sexy again: Tramps Against Trump will send you nudes if you vote against The Donald

Send a selfie with proof you voted via your voter receipt and Tramps Against Trump promise to send you a nude photo

Published June 26, 2016 9:59AM (EDT)

  (AP)
(AP)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet

 “I respect women, I love women, I cherish women,” Donald Trump said at a campaign stop last year, a sentiment he has repeated many times since, in many creepy ways. If polls can be considered women’s response, then according to pretty much all the polls ever, the feeling is definitely not mutual.

While lots of women have shown their opposition to the billionaire in a range of ways, one group is taking a particularly unique approach. They're called Tramps Against Trump, and if you vote for anyone but Donald Trump, they will send you a nude photo.

Inspired by Sluts Against Harper—a group that used the same tactic to garner opposition to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was unseated by Justin Trudeau—the basic idea is simple. Per the Tramps Against Trump website, to receive a nude photo, all you have to do is send a selfie that includes proof you voted in the form of a voter receipt. The group notes that “Tramps Against Trump does NOT endorse any presidential candidate, we simply are advocating for anyone BUT TRUMP.” Technically, you don’t actually have to demonstrate that you voted against Trump, since lots of states have laws or general policies prohibiting photo-taking in voting booths. This is about the bigger picture. In addition to opposing Trump, Tramps Against Trump is hoping to motivate people to get out and extra-enthusiastically do their civic duty.

“In the past we had Rock the Vote and other ways to get the vote out, but what do young people like now? They like naked people on the internet,” Tramps Against Trump’s spokesperson, who goes by the name Jessica Rabbit, told Vice's Motherboard. “So, we’re using naked people on the internet to make a change and get people excited about something.”

While the group started off solely female, it has grown into a much more representative, uh, body. People over 18 who can’t vote in the U.S. election for various reasons, but who dislike Trump, are invited to send a censored or uncensored picture. The Tramps Against Trump Tumblr says people of “all races/genders/bodies” are needed to submit their nudes.

"We plan on using this platform to discuss issues that directly relate to sex, race, gender and body politics in this election cycle,” Rabbit told Mashable. “We are trying to use some of the things Trump hates the most against him.”

Considering Trump—and the entire GOP, really—has shown consistent contempt toward women, the LGBT community, reproductive justice, feminism, sex-positivity movements and pretty much everything Tramps Against Trump stands for, it’s easy to see how the group serves as a lighthearted poke in the eye to the right’s warped moral compass. But Rabbit told Motherboard that as a sex worker, she is seriously concerned about the impact of this election.

“Whoever becomes president will have a direct effect on what we can and can’t do with our bodies, and how the law will move forward relating to us,” Rabbit said. “For sex workers, this is a really important election.”

Tramps Against Trump had its Instagram taken down (twice), but keeps things going with Twitter, snapchat (@trampsxtrump) and Tumblr. All of the photos posted, it should go without saying (but here goes), are fairly NSFW. Rabbit says overall, the response to the idea has been positive, with encouraging feedback pouring in from a global audience. Yet more proof that fear of a Trump presidency extends far and wide, beyond U.S. borders.

"Our inbox has been overflowing with love and support from people from all over the world and from all different backgrounds," she told Mashable. "It's been overwhelmingly wonderful and inspiring."

For those with negative things to say, Rabbit told Motherboard the group expects not everyone will agree with their approach. But the point is, they don’t have to.

“Of course that critique is going to come, and Hillary Clinton followers will definitely be some of the people that push that rhetoric forward,” Rabbit told the outlet. “We’re sexualized by audiences, by men, and by the media. If we engage with it and send nudes, we lose; if we don’t, then we still lose. In the end, we’re consenting adults who are choosing to participate in this campaign.”


By Kali Holloway

Kali Holloway is the senior director of Make It Right, a project of the Independent Media Institute. She co-curated the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s MetLiveArts 2017 summer performance and film series, “Theater of the Resist.” She previously worked on the HBO documentary Southern Rites, PBS documentary The New Public and Emmy-nominated film Brooklyn Castle, and Outreach Consultant on the award-winning documentary The New Black. Her writing has appeared in AlterNet, Salon, the Guardian, TIME, the Huffington Post, the National Memo, and numerous other outlets.

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