So what if I went to Burning Man?
What happens at Burning Man should stay at Burning Man, a Sonoma, California, councilwoman says, and definitely should not be used to try and bully her into withdrawing from her re-election campaign.
In the midst of Rachel Hundley’s re-election campaign for a spot on the Sonoma city council, she has been threatened by an anonymous website filled with photos of Hundley in full Burning Man garb accompanied by allegations of “lascivious, drunk and drug-addled behavior” at the desert festival, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Hundley, though, was not having it. Instead of quitting the race, she released a fiery video accusing the “spineless individuals” behind the website of slut-shaming.
In the video, which Hundley’s campaign posted to YouTube and sent to supporters by email, Hundley confronted her anonymous accusers head-on:
“I realized there were two paths I could take. I could continue with the campaign and ignore it all or I could acknowledge that this is something that happens to women all over the country, and is something we should talk about.”
The former Sonoma mayor then went on to admit that—like many Californians—she attended Burning Man, served her constituents’ Sonoma wines, and kicked back at a “consent-focused sex-positive theme camp” at the festival. However, she was not ashamed of any of her actions then and won’t be shamed now.
“What was especially disturbing in this era of #MeToo was the attempt to slut-shame me for celebrating my body and for my attendance at Burning Man,” she says in the video, adding that the website was released “to silence another strong female voice,” to scare her out of this election, and deny voters “the right to make a choice.” That is not happening.
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