A “liberal independent” congressional candidate in New York recently starred in a porn video to demonstrate his “commitment” to sex positivity.
Mike Itkis, who is running against Representative Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), uploaded the 13-minute video, “Bucket List Bonanza,” to Pornhub over the summer.
He told City & State he made the sex tape with porn performer Nicole Sage in 2021 as a “conversation piece.”
“If I would just talk about it, it wouldn’t demonstrate my commitment to the issue,” he told the outlet. “And the fact I actually did it was a huge learning experience, and it actually influenced items on my platform.”
He said he had never had sex on camera before making the video and described himself as an introvert.
“I’m kind of a nerd who doesn’t like to be the center of attention if I can avoid it. But I thought the issues I’m trying to address are so important . . . I wanted to have my issues talked about in some way,” said Itkis, who is running in New York’s newly redrawn 12th Congressional District.
Itkis, a registered Democrat whose bio describes him as “Not married. No kids. Not celibate. Atheist,” said in a statement that making the sex tape was “one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.”
“One of my three primary goals is to advance sex positivity, including several proposals for legislation designed to explicitly protect sexual rights by ending government involvement in marriage, the right to not become a parent in case of pregnancy, a right for women to terminate an abortion, decriminalization of sex between consenting adults, a nation-wide definition of consent, and legalization of sex work,” Itkis said.
He writes on his website that men should not be required to support biological children without prior agreement and that he plans to work to “redefine [the] abortion debate as a right to unplanned sex.”
Itkis, an Army cyber operations officer, said he decided to run for office because “our freedom of expression is under threat from all ends of the political spectrum.”
“The far right, led by the Supreme Court, has a negative view of sexual rights, pursuing the position that sex should only happen between a married man and woman, clearly leaving out multiple demographics such as single individuals, and people whom the ‘traditional’ marriage arrangement doesn’t work,” he said. “With this worldview in mind, modern conservatives are clearly opposed to sexually-explicit speech as well as research that doesn’t comply with their views.”
He added: “Unfortunately, many Democrats have also opposed freedom of speech, contributing to ‘cancel culture’ and political correctness. Being born in the Soviet Union, I’m well aware of the consequences for people who deviate from the party line, and am strongly opposed to restrictions on speech because someone may be offended.”
Mike Zumbluskas, the Republican candidate running in NY-12, said of the sex tape stunt: “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
“The media ignores everybody that’s not a Democrat in the city,” he told City & State.