I had some reservations about my original comment and I suppose you put your finger on them. The point about some women using sex in furtherance of Allied espionage during WWII is well taken: No, I wouldn’t call them “whores” though I think such acts are a terrible price to pay for intelligence. The question is, whether the personal sacrifice was worth it.
In Butina’s case I see a premeditated and amoral use of sex in a very bad cause: undermining our democracy to help install a charlatan and traitor as our head of state, in order to serve the interests of another, genuinely evil regime. Let’s just say that the use of sex to such ends engenders a deep sense of revulsion in me, even if the Russian “honeypot” isn’t necessarily a “whore.”.