Justice

Trump's Comments About Lindsay Lohan Expose a Sad Myth About Women with Mental Health Issues

October 14th 2016

It's been a week since the release of Donald Trump's now famous 2005 exchange with ex-"Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush, and yet another distasteful recorded conversation has come back to haunt him. On Friday, CNN's KFile unearthed a 2004 conversation Trump had with radio personality Howard Stern in which both men agreed that actress Lindsay Lohan would be a good sexual partner based on her troubled family life.

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After Trump noted that Lohan's father Michael seems to be a "wreck," Stern suggested that sex with the female celebrity would be amazing because of her father's issues. Trump agreed that Lohan, who was 18 at the time, would be good in bed as a result of having an unstable father figure in her life. Michael Lohan famously spent time behind bars in the early 1990s for contempt of court charges related to an insider trading trial and has been accused of domestic abuse by his current wife and ex-wife.

"[Lindsay Lohan is] probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed," Trump said. "How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they're always the best in bed?"

Stern said this is because "they're looking for love, they're looking for positive affirmation, they're looking for a father figure who will love them and tell them they're wonderful and they'll never be enough. No matter many times you tell them they're beautiful, no matter how many times you tell them you love them they want to suck it up more. They would drain you like a vampire until your head caved in if they could get more love."

In response to these remarks, Lohan's representative told CNN that the actress is "choosing to focus on the positive things happening in her life and has decided to disregard the comments made about her by Presidential nominee Donald Trump. She is focusing on helping children around the world in need and that's where her passion is."

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who co-starred with Lohan in the 2003 comedy "Freaky Friday," criticized Trump for saying a woman who needed help would be sexually satisfying because of her personal issues:

Trump and Stern's remarks about Lohan, who has publicly struggled with substance abuse issues and accompanying mental health issues, perpetuate an unfair stereotype about women with mental health problems.

The "crazy girls are better in bed" idea is sexist and unkind, it also highlights an exploitative tendency to seek troubled women for one's own personal gain:

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In a popular Reddit thread on this very stereotype, a self-proclaimed "crazy" woman said she doesn't believe the notion that women with mental health issues are better in bed, and that people should focus on finding someone with whom they have a strong connection rather than seek out women with mental illness issues in hopes that the sex will be good:

"[I]f you want a good sex life, don't go looking for the craziest woman you can find, look for one with whom you have a strong emotional connection and who, for whatever reason, turns you on just by being alive. The best sex I've ever had was with the two men I was most attracted to mentally and physically. The actual mechanics didn't matter quite as much, though I'm not into anything like BDSM that would make that a little more complex."

"Keep in mind too that many women diagnosed and treated with mental illness take drugs that either kill libido or dry things up in all the wrong places," she wrote. "Libido issues are one of the most hated side effects of psych meds." According to a Johns Hopkins Health Alert cited by The Huffington Post, "30 to 70 percent of people on an antidepressant will experience sexual problems as a side effect."

The reddit user continued "I kinda call bullshit on the whole idea, really. I also think the term 'crazy' is misused at best, pejorative at worst. I also think how a woman presents herself outwardly in public can many times be very different from how she is in her private life."

Read CNN's full story here.

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