Is Anthony Weiner a Porn Addict? Shmuley Boteach and Pamela Anderson Weigh In.

Pamela Anderson Image by Getty Images

By Josh Nathan-Kazis September 1, 2016

Pamela Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach accused Anthony Weiner of being addicted to pornography in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published this morning.

The celebrity rabbi and the 90s-era “Baywatch” pin-up used Weiner’s separation from wife Huma Abedin as a hook for a jeremiad against pornography, describing the spread of Internet porn as an “experiment in mass debasement.”

“If anyone still had doubts about the addictive dangers of pornography, Anthony Weiner should have put paid to them with his repeated, self-sabotaging sexting,” Anderson and Boteach write.

They go on to assert that “porn is for losers,” and call children raised in the internet age “the crack babies of porn.”

Yet as several commentators quickly noted, the piece fails to substantiate its basic premise: That Weiner suffers from an addiction to pornography.

In fact, pornography has not played a public role in any of Weiner’s many, many humiliating tabloid scandals.

“Sexting and looking at porn are different activities,” New York Magazine blogger Jesse Singal wrote in his lengthy rebuttal to the Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Logically, you can’t just say ‘Weiner sexted ‘cuz porn’ and assume it’s true.”

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or follow him on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

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