Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Democratic candidate for president Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) while admitting it was poorly written defended his recently surfaced 1972 rape fantasy essay as akin to the controversial book about female sexual submission, “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Sanders said, “Look. this is a piece of fiction I wrote in 1972, I think. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written. If you read it, what it was dealing with gender stereotypes. Why some men like to oppress women, why other women like to be submissive. Something like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ Very poorly written 40 years ago.”

One excerpt from the Sanders essay reads, “A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy. A woman on her knees, a woman tied up, a woman abused. A woman enjoys intercourse with her man — as she fantasizes being raped by 3 men simultaneously.”

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