5 things to know about Bernie Sanders

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Bernie Sanders speaks at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa August 15, 2015. | REUTERS/Joshua Lott

4. Past writings about women's rape fantasies, child sexuality

In 1972, Sanders penned and an essay titled "Man — and Woman" in the Vermont Freeman.

The controversial essay was a fictitious story about a woman who fantasized about being raped by three men at the same time.

When Sanders ran for president in 2015, the essay resurfaced in a profile article published by the left-leaning news outlet Mother Jones.

The essay resurfaced again last month during a CNN interview with an adviser to the Mike Bloomberg campaign.

“He's written about women's rape fantasies,” Bloomberg adviser Tim O'Brien told CNN. “That's the loony side of Bernie."

In a writing from 1969, Sanders criticized the state of Vermont for reprimanding a mother who let her child run around naked at the beach.

"Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each other’ sexual organs, and maybe even touch them," Sanders wrote at the time. "Terrible thing! If we [raise] children up like this it will probably ruin the whole pornography business, not to mention the large segment of the general economy which makes its money by playing on people’s sexual frustrations."