Bernie Sanders’ Old Salacious Newspaper Editorials Come Back To Haunt Him As Rivals Pick Through Them

Tim O’Brien, former New York City mayor and Democratic hopeful Mike Bloomberg‘s senior adviser, attacked Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for an array of previously published newspaper articles in an effort to slow down the Democratic frontrunner. 

“Bernie has all of this loopy stuff in his background, saying things like women get cancer from having too many orgasms or toddlers should run around naked and touch each other’s genitals to insulate themselves from porn,” O’Brien said on CNN’s New Day. 

Anchor Alisyn Camerota said, “Sorry, what? What?”

O’Brien continued, “He’s written about women’s rape fantasies, that hasn’t been surfaced. That’s the loony side of Bernie.”

O’Brien was referencing, sometimes incorrectly, articles Sanders wrote for the alternative newspaper The Vermont Freeman in the 1960s and ’70s in which the senator referenced studies linking cervical cancer with sexual activity. The concern, however, was actually women having too few orgasms, not too many as O’Brien has said.

Another article written in 1969, which was critical of restrictions on children being naked at the beach, said, “Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business.”

A third article, written in 1972, included rape fantasies. In 2015, Sanders dismissed the articles as “poorly written” fiction comparable to Fifty Shades of Grey.

Sanders’ campaign has yet to comment on these latest attacks.