lily phillips

By TSR

The video of the feet of the 100 men who came to have sex with Lily Phillips was not only cringe but remarkably shocking. Her then, peering open her eye post "gang-bang", exclaiming that she had let a countless amount of men ejaculate in her face was also met with horror from many individuals on social media. A society that screams "sex sells" to women being shocked that poor women, well sell sex, is ironically laughable. Phillips' behavior is at first met with pity, but then admiration considering that, during difficult times for many, she, not yet even 30 years old,  was able to turn herself into a millionaire overnight. Young women responding to Lily's success on TikTok, uploaded videos wondering why they were still enrolled in college.                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Under patriarchy, the message is still clear for many young women. You can make more money selling sex than getting an education and then gaining honest employment in your field of choice. The emergence and proliferation of platforms like OnlyFans signify a critical juncture in the cultural and economic commodification of human intimacy, presenting itself as both an opportunity for individual agency and a profound entrenchment of patriarchal exploitation. Phillips has garnered significant attention and financial success through her engagement on OnlyFans. Her actions, and the broader platform, reflect and perpetuate structural dynamics that exploit women’s bodies, normalize their objectification, and reinforce systemic oppression under the veneer of empowerment.

Lily Phillips’ success exemplifies the ways in which patriarchal structures frame women’s sexual labor as a pathway to empowerment while reinforcing and sustaining harmful hierarchies of power and exploitation. Her ascendance is not an anomaly but a symptom of a broader cultural normalization of reducing women’s value to their ability to conform to and monetize sexual desirability.

From this perspective, Phillips’ curated persona on OnlyFans is emblematic of the broader tendency within such platforms to co-opt the language of choice and agency to obscure underlying coercive pressures. A behavioral analysis would suggest that by drawing attention to the deeply entrenched socio-economic inequalities that drive women into such systems, Phillips is praised while at the same time pitied, scrutinized and more importantly exploited. The performative narrative of empowerment, underscored by Phillips’ actions, is often constrained by structural disenfranchisement and the normalization of the pervasive male gaze that is ever so preoccupied on the consumption of sex deviancy while shaming those they exalt for that performance. They want the "whore", but hate the "whore" for making herself available to his private shame and her public demonization.  Ultimately, platforms like OnlyFans operate within a capitalist paradigm that commodifies women’s bodies as consumable products, perpetuating an exploitative cycle thinly veiled as liberation.

Proponents of OnlyFans often frame it as a democratized platform that empowers women to control their bodies and finances. Radical feminist critique, however, dismantles this narrative, situating it within a neoliberal framework that commodifies empowerment itself. Lily Phillips’ story, heralded as a testament to entrepreneurial success, is instead a stark illustration of the ways in which patriarchal capitalism profits from the exploitation and objectification of women while presenting these dynamics as opportunities for autonomy.
Radical feminism underscores that genuine empowerment cannot be achieved within exploitative systems designed to profit from inequality. Phillips’ financial success, while individually significant, is contingent upon her participation in a system that perpetuates harmful patriarchal norms. The branding of platforms like OnlyFans as “safe” and “liberating” is a strategic obfuscation of the inherent risks and harms they pose, including harassment, privacy violations, and the psychological toll of commodifying one’s body and sexuality.
For young women, the normalization of figures like Phillips on such platforms reinforces participation in exploitative systems as aspirational, embedding the monetization of sexuality into their understanding of autonomy. This dynamic not only perpetuates harmful power imbalances but also shifts the onus of empowerment onto individuals, ignoring the systemic barriers that shape their choices.

Phillips’ success reinforces the cultural narrative that women’s primary value lies in their ability to conform to and profit from societal standards of beauty and desirability. This perpetuates the broader culture of objectification that feminism seeks to dismantle. The rise of platforms like OnlyFans creates economic pressures that compel women to commodify their bodies and sexualities, reflecting systemic coercion rather than genuine autonomy. Radical feminists argue that this dynamic underscores the limitations of neoliberal interpretations of empowerment.

From a radical feminist perspective, the rise of OnlyFans is emblematic of a society that commodifies and monetizes women’s oppression under the guise of capitalist opportunity. Platforms like OnlyFans thrive on the systemic disenfranchisement of women, offering an illusion of agency while perpetuating deep-rooted exploitation. Figures like Lily Phillips are celebrated as symbols of individual empowerment, yet their success obscures the systemic inequalities that underpin their opportunities.

Moreover, the neoliberal framing of empowerment as individual success within exploitative systems distracts from the broader goal of collective liberation. Radical feminism asserts that true empowerment requires dismantling the structures that necessitate platforms like OnlyFans rather than celebrating those who succeed within them. This critique highlights the need to interrogate the systemic conditions that frame such platforms as viable avenues for economic and personal agency. As society grapples with the implications of platforms like OnlyFans, a critical interrogation of their impact and a commitment to dismantling the structures that enable such exploitation, will help pave the way for genuine liberation for women.