It pains me to say this because I liked Adam Dread and happily voted for him many times, but Nashville, it’s time to dump Dread. This weekend the former at-large Metro Council member got upset at WSMV reporter Nancy Amons because she said he had baggage. So he apparently set out to prove her right by posting pictures of Amons from her appearance in Playboy decades ago, letting his buddies mock her over it.
He wrote on Facebook:
Last night Channel 4’s long in the tooth yellow journalist Nancy Amons took another shot at some private citizens, including me. Just a few weeks ago Ms. Amons stated on air that I “have too much baggage…”. All of you all know, my life is an open book...Speaking of baggage and open books, here’s some published baggage of Ms. Amons. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones Nancy…
Amons’ pictures are very cute. She is adorable, and she’s posed about as innocently as you can pose in Playboy and still be naked. I mean, this should go without saying, but Playboy has made a lot of money showing their readers naked women whom those readers are happy to see naked. So, if there’s any objective standard — which I, as a feminist, may or may not agree with — for what makes a chick hot, Amons passed it with flying colors.
If you’ve ever wondered what male privilege is, it’s these bland schmoes unselfconsciously passing judgment on any woman, let alone a woman hot enough to be in Playboy.
Then there are the women who chimed in. Ladies, when you see a dude pull some bullshit like this, the correct response is, “What the hell?” Not to join in. I mean, sure, it didn’t happen to you. Yet. Dread has just shown you that, when he’s mad at you, there’s no line he won’t cross to try to hurt you. You don’t sit around and act like he’ll never do that to you. You believe him now when he shows you who he is, and you disentangle yourself from him before he has a reason to turn on you.
I genuinely can’t decide if it’s more disappointing to know that Dread is the kind of person who would do this or that he has so many friends and acquaintances who support him in it.
This might as well be revenge porn. Like most cases of revenge porn, a woman takes photos under happy circumstances and shares them with people she trusts, and then some evil douchebag shares those photos without permission to “get even” with her. The scale is different, since she was trusting Playboy and its audience (decades ago, before she could have dreamed that you could send those pictures to someone's phone instantly), but otherwise, isn’t this just like a girl taking pictures for her boyfriend and then some asshole texting them to all his buddies?
And Dread wants to be a judge? My God. If he were elected, what lawyer would bring a case involving a woman in front of him? If it’s OK to post nude pictures of a woman for your friends to mock when she’s pissed you off, is it OK to hit her if she gets lippy? Is it OK to rape her if you’re getting even for something? Can you steal from her if you can prove to hypothetical Judge Dread that she’s a bitch? Once you’ve accepted the standard that people can do vile things to women in order to make women sorry they ever crossed you, what vile thing is too much?
Everything about this makes me sad and disappointed — that a man I liked would do this and that so many people would cheer him on.
Dread set out to embarrass Amons. It’s a shame he doesn’t see how embarrassing this is to himself.
