I recently watched the YouTube documentary on Lily Phillips, titled “I Slept with 100 Men in One Day.” It explores a 23-year-old British OnlyFans sex worker who went viral after having sex with 100 men in 14 hours. She invited the men to an Airbnb in London, offering each five minutes. The aftermath brought home the reality of what had taken place as we watched the cameraman visibly retch from the smell as he entered the room.
By the time of watching, the video had already amassed over 800,000 views, with clips, articles, and commentary circulating wildly on social media. I found myself captivated by this young woman and her actions. The public discourse surrounding her ranged from portraying her as a victim—of sexual abuse, her parents, or cultural forces—to casting her as a representation of modern decadence. Some commentators framed her as emblematic of societal decline, symptomatic of platforms like OnlyFans and a broader trend of women treating sex as trivial, neither problematic nor spiritually consequential.
I couldn’t help but wonder about Lily herself. What psychology drives a young, attractive woman to pursue such an extreme act? Was there something unique about her—a personality disorder, deep-seated trauma, or some other factor? As a trauma therapist might ask, what formative experiences could have shaped this behavior? Though Lily claimed the experience was her ultimate fantasy and said she enjoyed it, she was left in tears and physical discomfort. Beyond Lily, I also found myself wondering about us, the spectators. Why had this moment captured such widespread attention? After all, Lily isn’t the first woman to engage in extreme pornographic acts for an audience. So what was it about this—the 100 men, and her stated intention to attempt 1,000 in February—that sent shockwaves across the internet?
I began to see Lily as a lightning rod for our collective fears and anxieties about modern culture, gender relations, and technology’s role in shaping intimacy. Lily Phillips represents an archetype—a manifestation of our collective shadow and projections.
As a woman, I found myself horrified by the prospect of what she did. Growing up and becoming a sexual being can be an exciting yet fraught experience. For many women, it begins with pain—both physical and emotional. Our fairy-tale ideas of romance are often replaced by the realities of navigating male sexual desire, often awkward at best and violent at worst. Sex becomes something to fear, protect against, or manage carefully, lest it result in unwanted pregnancies or ruined lives. Today, this dynamic is compounded by the fear of being exploited online or reduced to a pornographic object.
For those of us who have sought mental health counseling or worked with an English-speaking psychotherapist, these fears about female sexuality and exploitation often emerge as common themes. To cope, women can feel pressured to take one of two paths: rejecting their sexual bodies entirely or “empowering” themselves by leaning into the commodification of their sexuality. Platforms like OnlyFans provide the illusion of control and empowerment, however fleeting. Lily’s story confronts us with an unsettling possibility: she claims to enjoy this commodification, forcing us to reckon with our own discomfort.
The Cultural Lens: Egregors and the Pharmakos
The concept of an egregor, from mystical and occult traditions, sheds light on the phenomenon. An egregor is a collective thought form or group consciousness, a psychic entity created by the mental and emotional energy of a community. It represents shared beliefs and emotions, embodying the anxieties, fears, and unresolved tensions of a group.
Similarly, the ancient Greek concept of the pharmakos refers to a sacrificial scapegoat, a figure chosen to absorb and purge a community’s collective guilt or negative energy. Psychologically, the pharmakos is a symbolic vessel for communal tensions and repressed shadow elements. They become an embodiment of the group’s darker impulses, simultaneously a victim and a transformative agent.
Lily Phillips, I believe, occupies this archetypal role. She absorbs our collective shadow, embodying the darkest elements of contemporary culture: the transactional nature of relationships, the atomization of individuals, and the obsession with numerical metrics—followers, likes, income, even sexual conquests.
The Fetishization of Numbers
Lily isn’t having sex with people—she’s having sex with numbers. This is perhaps the most chilling aspect of her story. As writer Jordan Castro observed, she is “the logical conclusion of our age’s shift toward algorithmic, numbers-based value—what Kierkegaard called ‘leveling,’ a process that destroys the embodied and specific individual, replacing them with a totalizing abstraction.”
This fetishization of numbers permeates every corner of modern life, from social media metrics to online dating. Interactions are increasingly transactional and algorithmic, devoid of spiritual or intrinsic value. Even therapy is shifting toward quantifiable outcomes rather than fostering genuine human connection. Lily’s act distills this trend into its purest, most unsettling form.
For women, she represents a shadow archetype—the ruthless pursuit of men for transactional purposes. In online dating culture, she reflects the fantasy that sex can be empowering without consequence, that we can have endless partners without emotional or spiritual significance. For men, Lily represents the withdrawal from deep, meaningful relationships into the shallow world of porn and anonymous sexual encounters. The men in her documentary were visibly ashamed, hiding their faces and trembling with nerves. One man even paid €800 to participate—a stark illustration of how disconnected and dehumanized such exchanges have become.
The Shadow of Our Culture
We are horrified by Lily Phillips because she holds up a mirror to our collective pathology. She embodies the obsession with numbers, the idolization of material gains over transcendent values, and the trivialization of sex and intimacy. She exposes the devaluing of pair bonding, family structures, and the deeper meaning of relationships. Her story confronts us with the unconsciousness required to participate in a society that has reduced human connection to metrics and transactions.
In the end, our reaction to Lily Phillips reveals just as much about us as about her. We may revile her actions, but we cannot deny that we are complicit in the culture that created her.