‘I interviewed Lily Phillips to see what she’s actually like – this is my ideas’

As someone who has actually interviewed Lily, and spent three years speaking with sex workers from all walks of life, I find myself pretty well-versed on the inner workings of these women.

Most are seen as the scourge of society, and wrongfully so. Over my three years as a journalist, I’ve sat down with many people – but always found sex workers to be the most honest, pleasant and open (no that’s not an innuendo).

And, quite frankly, some of the most insightful and intelligent. While Lily admitted to me that she is ‘naive’, she’s certainly not stupid nor a damsel in distress.

Lily didn’t come across as a ‘broken’ woman like many people are painting her out to be. Though watching a red-eyed Lily break down in the Josh Pieters YouTube documentary would be easy to assume that was the case.

Instead, the model was self-assured, calm, collected and not afraid to get candid.

She neither got emotional nor defensive when probed on the more sensitive subjects; like her unwillingness to make STI checks compulsory and not having considered vetting these men for past sexual offences.

At that moment, I saw the penny drop for Lily – it’s where she admitted her naivety to me.

I could see the cogs turning before she shared that she didn’t ‘think’ about who really could be lining up to have sex with her. A sentiment she found ‘worrying’, yet is not warned off by. She didn’t double down or attempt to repackage something that is quite literally a terrifying concept. At least she is honest.

And I think this is the most concerning issue when it comes to what Lily is doing, what kind of precedent is she setting for those in the industry?

Instead of keeping her work strictly digital, she’s essentially broken the fourth wall and invited these men to live out their fantasy beyond their mobile phone screens.

Platforms, like OnlyFans, entice women with the allure of potentially earning big money all while working from the comfort of their own home. These platforms have made sex work more accessible for women and, at the same time, less accessible to them for those wanting to pay for these services.

It’s as if sex workers finally have full autonomy for the first time in history. But, Lily, amongst other emerging names, has essentially ripped that safety net down.

And this is now having a knock on effect to the other women in the industry. I’m told by sex worker contacts that men are expecting other content creators to meet up and have sex.

Though, this is unfair to put the onus entirely on Lily. At the end of the day, sex work is a business and like anything else – customers needs and wants change. So what we should be asking is why are men increasingly willing to be part of something so extreme? And why aren’t they brave enough to put their face to it?

With social media platforms cracking down on the presence of sex workers on their sites and as AI algorithms get smarter in censoring these accounts, the digital sex work industry has become more competitive than ever.

Lily is winning in that race at the moment, even if it is one to the bottom. Every business chases after targets, some dabble in the world of clicks and others, like Lily, racking up subscribers.

Sex sells, it’s a tale as old as time, and so does shock – Lily knows this, she’s not stupid. She’s concocted the two together and now her name is everywhere – it’s boosted her social media, got the attention of the LA adult industry where she plans to break into and presumably bolstered her income.

At the start of the year she employed four people and now has nine all-female employees on her payroll.

Is she really going to have sex with 1000 men in a day? Highly doubt it. It’s a move that’s kept her on the minds of the public and in the headlines in the newspapers. Part of a digital sex workers job is to sell a fantasy, but Lily overstepped that when she invited men on-tap into her bed.

Give it five or 10 years and I think Lily will most probably look back and have some regrets about putting herself through bedding 101 men in one go, though she urges this is currently not the case.

It’s a terrifying thought that men, and boys, could see this as a ‘norm’. Yet, as said before, it’s unfair to put that solely on Lily, it’s a consequence of an industry being squeezed by the outside making those who work in it having to come up with more extreme ideas to get noticed.

At the end of the day, Lily is a business woman and her body just so happens to be the product – and she’s doing bloody good job at selling it, whether you like what she’s doing or not.

People still struggle to see sex work as work, despite it being around for centuries. But until we recognise that these women do have jobs and that job is selling their sexuality, then more Lily Phillips will continue to pop up and continue to push the boundaries into potentially harmful territories.

Lily is no victim, she is naive. And while I have been very defensive over sex workers in the past, Lily is not entirely indefensible – but at least she is willing to listen to the concerns people have over what she is doing.

One thing that we can probably all agree on is that it’s started wider conversations that have been so desperately needed.