OnlyFans models sex-marathon stunt reveals the desperate loneliness of men

“I’m Lily Phillips and today I’m getting ran through by 100 guys.”So begins the YouTube documentary about OnlyFans star Phillips, 23, and her bid to have sex with 101 men in a single day.Yes, eww.She did it for the money and the weird glory — but what about the other part of the equation: the men?While other porn performers have completed similar stunts, the Phillips story went viral because the film she made about the experience put its tearful aftermath on public display, inspiring near-universal disgust.But setting aside the revulsion, this is a story about broken people.Phillips, certainly, most observers realize — but far fewer care to extend the same compassion toward the men.Phillips calls herself a “porn star, escort, OnlyFans girl, I don’t really care.”The lure of OnlyFans is its offer of a false sense of intimacy.

Instead of scrolling through porn as a means to an, ahem, end, a man who pays an OnlyFans model gets to feel like he knows the object of his desire.The women can paywall some of their content to make it exclusive for certain subscribers — and those private interactions are the draw.They establish a feeling of connection, of intimacy, even where none exists.Fans can pay to text-message with the models or even to talk to them.

A phone call with Phillips costs 100 British pounds a minute.Pay even more, and she’ll make customized content using her benefactor’s name.Why would any man pay so much for a few minutes of conversation with a pretty girl?The answer: Because many men are overwhelmingly, unbearably alone.A Pew study from 2023 found that 63% of men under age 30 say they are single, compared to just 34% of women of the same age.

Thus the widely used term “incel” — a word derived from the reality that so many men are “involuntarily celibate.”There are enough of them to require a new word to describe them.And their pain is acute.A research group at Swansea University found that 20% of incels “contemplated su...