101 Lamentations

What a sex documentary reveals about who we’ve become

On December 9th, YouTuber Josh Pieters released a video titled I Slept With 100 Men In One Day. The documentary follows Lily Phillips before and after her stunt (or whatever you want to call it) where she slept with 101 men in a space of approximately 14 hours. Phillips is a British model with a large following on the popular societal blight known as OnlyFans.

The documentary, filmed in October, is revealing for reasons you may not expect. Thankfully, it covers nothing of the sordid encounters. Instead, it shows Phillips' emotions. She is excited and nervous before it all begins. Afterwards, she is clearly traumatized and seemingly deeply regretful. She should be. So should the men who volunteered for such an experiment. Additionally, anyone who is involved in planning, promoting, or profiting from it should also be ashamed. I've seen some people say discussing the entire thing is unnecessary. On the contrary, it should be roundly condemned as it is a reflection of cultural mores.

It's an uncomfortable truth that freedom is not the greatest and highest good. This is anathema to those who value liberty over morals. But freedom with boundaries is a must. It is necessary in both the personal and professional spheres as well as the larger community sense. On the other hand, libertinism is not. Unfortunately, we live in an era when the latter reigns supreme. One example of that is OnlyFans. The company is based in London and offers a subscription-based service for content creators. Most of these "creators" produce sexually-explicit material. OnlyFans is wildly successful. And some of its creators are, too. One 20-year-old American named Sophie Rain has reportedly made $43 million over the course of one year. Forty-three million. This comes from NSFW videos and images, and correspondence. According to PEOPLE, "Her highest-paying benefactor is a man named Charles. Between November 2023 and November 2024, Charles sent Rain nearly $5 million." If the success of OnlyFans isn't proof of deep cultural rot, I'm not sure what is.

Lily Phillips is further proof of that decay. Philips' reactions to her own choices points to what we already know: physical intimacy isn't just bodies involved in base instincts. There is so much more to it than that. And when the foundational elements aren't there to begin with, and you view sex like a conveyor belt, real, lasting harm is done. Moral degeneracy has repercussions. There is no such thing as consequence-free sex. And rationalizing that as either a participant or observer is broadly destructive.

When Pieters interviews Phillips at the end of it all, she says "I don't know that I'd recommend it" and likens the entire experience to feeling like a prostitute. (You think?) She goes on to say it's a completely different feeling than having one person. Eventually, she chokes up and says "definitely" when Pieters asks if the whole thing was more intense than she expected. The full video shows Phillips quite literally crying as she sits down with Pieters. Among other things, Lily said it felt "robotic" and "sometimes you'd disassociate and be like...it's not like normal sex at all." This is what happens when you choose to view your body as just a tool that doesn't house a soul. This is what occurs when you lower yourself to nothing. This is the ugly, soul-scaring truth of intimacy without a shred of commitment.

As someone who considers myself to be "very online", I've been pleased to see little to no praise of Lily Phillips and her behavior. The response, from my perspective, has been refreshing. After all, it takes a barely functioning moral compass to react with disgust at the act of sleeping with 101 men in 14 hours all for the sake of what? Online attention? Money? Social media account growth? It is deeply repulsive physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. There is nothing good that will come from it. Porn-addled brains will sink further into addiction and a woman who believes sex is her only worth will grow further convinced of that. Impressionable girls will take note and sell themselves to the highest bidders.

None of these conclusions require a deep religious or puritan worldview. The default reaction to a woman sleeping with 101 men should be abhorrence. Lily Phillips is a human being who can offer so much more than what she has clearly been taught either by people in her life, society, or, more likely, a nauseating combination of both. While she bears the blame (along with the men who signed up for it), I also view her with pity. She is a wounded soul. And she continues in self-destruction. Phillips has announced she wants to break a world record by having sex with 1,000 men in one day.

The lure of fame, money, and attention is overwhelming, especially in our internet-saturated environment. Needless to say, those temporary things are not worth the ruination that will surely result from Lily Phillips' behavior and the men who find pleasure in it, whether in-person or on the screen.

Miraculously, we still live in a society where, it would seem, most everyone is horrified by it. As of right now, the cultural thermometer shows a healthy aversion to what is morally wrong. But maintaining that? It's a whole different story.