A Case Study in Brokenness
- Josh Klein
- Dec 12, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Nov 11
In June of 2020 the ACLU published an article entitled Sex Work is Real Work and It’s Time to Treat it That Way. In it, the author makes this statement:
“Sex workers deserve the same legal protections as any other people. They should be able to maintain their livelihood without fear of violence or arrest, and with access to health care to protect themselves. We can bring sex workers out of the dangerous margins and into the light where people are protected — not targeted — by the law.”
This is a common framing of the “sex work is real work” movement. It claims to empower women, protect women, and give them autonomy over their bodies and their livelihoods. Pornography is a legalized form of sex work in our nation. The “professional” version of porn seemed to many to be a humane way of offering sexually explicit entertainment to the masses but it is anything but humane. The advent of platforms like Only Fans, Fansly and other sites has moved pornography into the realm of social media. Instagram and TikTok are rife with advertisements for young women selling themselves on Only Fans. The ACLU must be proud. I’ve often quipped that the greatest victory of the Patriarchy was to convince women that feminism is when women take off their clothes for protest and produce sexually explicit material for consumption. With this sort of female empowerment who needs slavery? Well, sex work still does. According to the Human Trafficking Institute there were nearly 4 million human sex trafficking victims around the world in 2016 and that number has risen since. Some might quip that there would be less of a market for sex slavery if all sex work was legal. In fact, this seems to be one of the ACLU’s main contentions in the aforementioned article. But the sickness of our culture is not in whether or not sex work should be considered “real work." We're already there. In December of 2024 an Only Fans “model” wanted to do something shocking for her subscribers. She wanted to sleep with over 100 men in 24 hours. Men that would apply online to part of the experiment (how is this different than prostitution, well, there's a camera). She also recorded a documentary of the experience. In a world where sex work is real work and sexual activity can be compartmentalized to the vocational this could seem like a good idea. But what this young woman found was that her body, mind, heart and soul were damaged. Something she seemingly didn’t expect. I have argued for years that if we cannot make pornography illegal we should at least make the consumption of it and production of it illegal for anyone under the age of 25. Which is about when an adult’s brain is fully developed and Lily Phillips who is 23 (said Only Fans “model”) provides a case study in this. My anger is not with Lily Phillips in this but in a society and system that props up sexuality as a commodity and body parts as sellable novelty items. Lily though, is not without blame either, she has chosen to platform herself in this way and as such she ought to be called out for it and called to repentance. Lily Phillips provides a case study in the damage pornography does, not only to the men who consume it, but to the women who perform in it and why the ubiquity of crowd funded pornography not only does not solve the problem but creates more problems. People that still want to look at porn and feel ethically clean often look for “ethically funded” porn and Only Fans is often one of the areas that they will cite. Women on these sites do so primarily of their own volition. Choosing to sell their bodies and sexuality to make a quick million dollars or so they think, they do have agency, they could say no, often they are not being coerced. After all, if sexuality is simply a commodity not bound by moral expectations or spiritual consequences then why not? But sex contains
both
of those things which is why the suicide rate among the porn industry is so great.
The Porn industry is rife with drug use, depression, abuse, and suicide. (Check out this podcast on it .)
Lily Phillips' publicity stunt of sleeping with 100 men in one day accidently capture a microcosm of the whole issue. Without watching the entire documentary one can follow some of the more pertinent points of the “documentary” from X poster Mary Morgan: HERE.
For our purposes here I want to highlight just a few moments caught by Mary Morgan, including quotations from Lily. These moments show what our culture’s attitude towards sex has done to young women (and men) like Lily:
“before I had sex I was never much of a slut. I actually wanted to wait until marriage at one point. I just used to think
was a real special thing. As soon as I actually did it, I kind of realized that it wasn’t special.”
But did she
realize
that sex wasn’t special, or did she realize that if she could offer sex she could make herself feel special? What happened to Lily is that she didn’t recognize the deep connection the act of sex is meant to convey. She found men who wanted her for her body, she participated and found that her value was tied to her ability to perform
for
them. Sex became, not about connection, but about performance, pleasure, and money. It became a tool to become “special”. She lied to herself and reaped the consequences.
One might ask why Lily wanted to wait for marriage initially? Perhaps because deep down she knew that this part of her life did matter. Sure, the act itself is simple and, when explained, can seem mechanical. But sex is not just physical, it is emotional and spiritual. But, when she saw the way culture and people, particularly the men in her life, treated sex she “discovered” that it was not sex that was special but how she could use sex that could be special.
Hear this, I am not denigrating Lily. I believe she was failed by many people in her life, including the men that signed up to be part of her experiment, herself, and her parents, however, it was this lie that sex was in no way special and that she was in control of it that led her to doing Only Fans.
On the topic of marriage, consider this interaction:
Interviewer: And do you think your partner one day will be from the
industry or? Lily: Yeah, I talk about this a lot with my parents because that’s the one thing I guess they worry about is, like, will
ever find a boyfriend…. Ummmm… Well, there’s so many guys out in the world that I think well, you know, one poor bastard’s got to marry me. I rather think it’s gonna be someone from the industry or someone who is into, ummmm, lending me out.
Ironically, it is the same sort of rhetoric that the purity culture of the 90s used around sexual purity. If you “messed” up you were like a chocolate bar that had been licked all over. Who would want you? You’re basically worthless. Notice how Lily talks about herself here. The only way she sees herself is as a piece of property that can be "lent" out like a used car. There's no focus on her own dignity and worth, in her eyes those things are long gone, the only worth she has now is in how she can bring pleasure to others, and perhaps, the money that will come along the way. I also noticed that Lily indicates that the
one thing
her parents worry about his her finding a boyfriend one day and how he will feel. What about her heart? Her soul? What about the fact that she sees herself as merely a piece of property, even in marriage, that can be lent out? Beyond the sexual degeneracy, there is a deep dehumanization of Lily by and to herself. And again, I do not blame Lily entirely, our culture’s (
by "our culture" I mean the West... Lily lives in London so she is not American BUT we can see this same influence in America
) view of sex, “sex work” and self-actualization is also to blame. In many ways Lily is a victim, yes of her own choices, but also of the social mores of a sick society. Multiple times, soon after her exploit, Lily comes close to and at one point does, breaking down in tears. She’s rocked to her core and doesn’t know how to process what just happened, why it felt so mechanical. At one point she indicates that she still hasn’t even processed what happened and that she only remembers maybe ten or so of the guys and everything else just seems blank. Like she blocked it out. And why wouldn't she? She was experiencing sexual trauma. At one point, after the event, she states that it was "a little like being a prostitute." But it wasn't a little
like
being a prostitute it WAS being a prostitute. She doesn't even know
what
she is. And the men renting her for five minutes at a time do not know what they are, one man is visibly shaking after the event. Because his soul is being destroyed as well. Though she consented he recognized how morally abhorrent his participation was.
What this “documentary” shows is that sex work is not real work. It is degrading work, dehumanizing work, and abusive work. Lily doesn’t feel this way merely because of 100 men in one day, that just expedited the abusive process. Whether it was one day or one hundred days this was bound to happen, she was bound to feel less than human.
The more we separate sex from morality, the more we obfuscate the telos of sexual activity and convince young people that promiscuity is not only fine behavior but morally neutral and natural behavior, the more we damage people in our society.
Let me be clear, the reason Lily feels this way is not because this sexual promiscuity for money and fame has devalued her or made her less desirable, like purity culture would often say, but precisely the opposite. Lily possesses infinite value. Enough value that Jesus Christ himself went to the cross for HER. The reason she feels this way is not because she is undesirable or worthless but because she has participated in an activity that destroys her soul and her perception of the good, fulfillment, and self.
But there is hope.
Lily, if you ever read this I want you to know that you can be redeemed, that you are desirable. That you still ARE "marriage material". You are made in the image of almighty God and he alone can restore that brokenness to wholeness if you would repent and turn towards Christ. Whatever fulfillment you are looking for in fame is offered you one hundred fold by the power and work of Jesus Christ himself. He calls you daughter and longs to adopt you into his own family and make you new. To renew your spirit and bring you unto himself. I pray that you find this hope some day and leave this world of emptiness, pain, abuse, and utter degradation behind.
This is why I do what I do. The world cannot continue to be allowed to redefine love, sex, truth and everything else that is good according to its own purposes. We, as believers, are called to be salt and light and that requires exposing this darkness and seeking to eradicate it from the earth. For the future of Lily and for so many girls like her that will be sold a lie that fame and riches at the expense of self is the highest value and for the men that believe pleasure is more valuable than meaningful and virtuous relationships.
Note: If you, or someone you know has struggles with consuming pornography you are not alone. One of the fears I have about publishing blogs such as this is to be a stumbling block to those that are seeking freedom. Please consider the following tools to help you escape the bondage of addiction:
https://www.strive21.com/ - is an online curriculum that is built to help men escape habitual porn use.
https://www.covenanteyes.com/ - a filtering and accountability software to help maintain freedom
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