The unacknowledged exploitation of boys and men

Why is it so hard to admit that men can be victims too?

You may remember a few months ago, a woman called Lilly Phillips gained notoriety for organising an event in which she had sex with 100 men in one day — men she recruited from the internet, who had to pass only the flimsiest of screening procedures.

There was much handwringing about the tragedy of this bubbly and sweet-seeming young woman pulling such a depraved stunt. Many words were written about how dominant porn has become in youth culture, to the huge detriment of women and girls.

All of this is true, of course. But there was also a distinct overtone of hostility and blame towards men — which there always, always, is among feminists and centre-liberals. Julie Bindel encapsulated the anti-male stance with an article in the Spectator entitled “Shame on the men exploiting Lilly Phillips.”

I’m not here to make an argument defending the honour of the men who waited in a line to penetrate the body of a woman who had literally just been penetrated by dozens and dozens of other men. What a disgusting thing to do.

But it did strike me as unsatisfactory to portray Phillips as only a victim, and the men she herself had actively recruited, only as perpetrators.

Then, around the same time, I saw a comment about Phillips, in the chat of Louise Perry’s Substack, that I was very intrigued by. So I messaged the young man who wrote it and we had a short correspondence.

His comment was: “her advertising on social media is the equivalent of a prostitute nude and having sex in front of your children. Boys get interested in this stuff very early because their biology is being exploited for views. I’m from the first generation that had immediate access to this stuff, trust me. It’s the largest sexual exploitation scandal in history if anyone takes boys sexual exploitation seriously.”

In other words, in his experience porn is not just traumatising young girls. It’s traumatising young boys as well. And sex professionals like Phillips target young boys and make their content (ie porn) easily available to them, as a strategy to increase viewership and revenue.

I had never thought of this angle. Usually, porn use by boys is analysed in how it effects girls. It drives boys to auto-gynephilia and other forms of sexual deviance, which causes them to hurt and objectify girls. It renders them sexually impotent and unable to form healthy attachments, making it very hard for girls to find stable partners. And so on.

Again, all of this is true. But this young man added an important element. He said that early porn exposure is sexual exploitation of boys in and of itself.

In other words, porn is not some kind of toxic privilege given to the male half of the species; an extraction of physical pleasure by men from women, at great physical cost to the women, and all upside to the men. It is, instead, a system of exploitation and manipulation that exercises great malignant power over males and females alike.

Back in 2023, I interviewed a woman now in her thirties who had early exposure to gender-bending anime porn, and she stated that exposure was a large part of what caused her to ‘transition’ in her 20’s. She told me she came to equate a woman in a sexual act with being an animal, and wanted to rid her body of any trace of female sexuality as a result. She became trans and had a hysterectomy before reintegrating with her body, rejecting toxic woke culture and its extreme sexual proclivities.

This young man told me he came upon porn before he was 10 years old, and wrote of “an almost evolutionary shock” at the experience. Looking back on it now, he says, he feels deeply uncomfortable and angry that it was so commonplace.

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

So why is it that so little of the public dialogue acknowledges that men and boys are not always beneficiaries of this promotion of extreme promiscuity? Part of it is that at least in non-conservative circles, you see virtually zero criticism of women in general. (In my opinion, the more hard-core conservatives often get it wrong in their own way, but at least they see that highly promiscuous women have agency. Conservatives are less afraid to call out toxic female behaviour.)

The hard truth is that for many women, it is just unthinkable that a man or a boy might ever be a victim in any way, much less victimised by a woman. That blind spot has become an integral part of online conversation.

Is it impossible to believe that at least some of the men who participated in Lilly Phillips’ stunt will feel horrible, ashamed and disgusted by their behaviour — if not right away, then when they get older?

Is it beyond the power of our imagination to understand that many young men are actually grossed out by extreme female promiscuity? I have noticed that the young men who criticise it in harsh but genuinely felt terms are quickly branded misogynists or incels. But if promiscuous male behaviour can be called out, then why can’t promiscuous female behaviour? And is it really that hard to believe that the young women who are getting high off their own supply in internet whore culture, are not being exploited but are actually themselves exploiting young males for short-term validation and monetary gain?

Another thing my Substack correspondent wrote to me was this: “every 13 year old boy has the sexual visual access of Genghis Khan, who knows what that’s doing psychologically.”

This is such a profound observation. The whole point of those terribly awkward early teen years is to take baby steps towards competency. To learn, and to stumble many times along the way, how to engage with the opposite sex; to learn what to do and say that will make a girl like you — and vice versa. This time is notoriously painful and embarrassing and filled with mistakes and heartache. That is the entire point. But now, boys can simply opt out of this training ground. Boys who can barely tie their own shoes, who can’t drive, who are still of zero use to society, can nonetheless satisfy themselves in a way heretofore unimaginable to 99.9 percent of all men since the beginning of time. These boys, therefore, will never be incentivised to bear the weight of responsibility and competence that comes with being a man. This is mental and spiritual sterilisation and self-erasure. This is an evolutionary disaster.

In this battle of the sexes, everybody loses.