The Internet's Madonna/Whore Complex (OnlyFan’s Lily Phillips and Ballerina Farm’s Hannah Neeleman Have The Same Job)
On the enduring tragedy of feminine archetype
In January I was interviewed by an Australian journalist about the history and evolution of porn platforms.
I don’t really trust journalists- even though I’ve worked as one- or maybe especially because I’ve worked as one. I know what metrics media platforms are looking for, and nuanced perspectives on pornography don’t get clicks.
True to form, the journalist gently redirected me away from what I wanted to talk about (the admittedly dry history of bulletin board systems) and into what would allow him to keep his job: controversy.
Specifically, the controversy surrounding Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue- performers who had (and still have) been getting major media traction for “eye-watering sex stunts” like fucking 100 men- then 1,000 men- in one day.
Lily Phillips had been at the same event I was in LA for, and all week I was in and out of conversations about her career strategy; debates on if she was making us all look bad, if she was playing into negative stereotypes about the adult industry, if she was betraying her community- or sometimes debates on whether we were a community at all.
I didn’t particularly want to share any of this with the Australian journalist. I found it ironic that he was pushing- from my perspective- for a moment of tension from me, hoping to get a sound byte that would rustle up the same controversy he was looking to analyze.
Lily Phillips had created a media ecosystem, with journalists feeding off the carcass of her last attention-getting meal long after she had moved on to the next.
As a media (and adult industry) worker myself, I’m not willing to criticize Lily Phillips’ strategies- at least not with people outside of the industry. I’m not going to shame the journalist too much, either. We are all trying to play hard enough into the attention economy that we’ll get something in the end.
Maybe this dart throw will mean we walk away with the big toy; we know the game is rigged, but we play anyway.
For those with a vocation in getting seen or heard, it doesn’t feel like we have much choice.
Nuance- famously, even- doesn’t really have a chance to breathe on the internet. Complexity asks something of an audience that, increasingly, the audience is not trained to give.
Convenience begets laziness, and at risk of going full It’s That Damn Phone, I do think we have become miserly with our ability to give grace online, and more broadly to make room for things- for people- to be complicated; “creators” (what a bizarre term) are encouraged to “find their niche” and to “go deep not broad” to capture the attention of whoever might be watching.
Predictably, the two dominant archetypes for women online are the Slut and the Mother (or if you’re into Freud, you pervert, the Madonna and the Whore).
E-girls and OnlyFans models, tradwives and family bloggers. Both doing the same job: the performance of desirable femininity in pursuit of financial security, respect, and/or community.
The most successful in their fields play the persona up to its extreme: both Phillips and Bonnie Blue’s publicized sex stunts hinge on them being extraordinarily “accessible” sexually- at least in the eyes of tabloid journalists. They fuck dozens if not hundreds of men, they fuck entire old-folks homes- they play directly into stereotypes of sex work. The performance is a meta-referential caricature.
Similarly, successful trad wives like Hannah Neeleman of Ballerinafarm or Nara Smith turn the Madonna dial up to a completely inaccessible eleven; they pop out baby after baby with no pain medication, they raise chickens to feed their alpha-male carnivore husbands (or in some sad cases, boyfriends), they make Coca Cola and cough drops from scratch. It is, in many cases, ridiculous- the cocktail dresses in the kitchen, the wan smiles. They, too, are playing to stereotype, especially as many have pointed out before, the irony of a “trad wife” content creator is that she is making, in some cases, a huge and very non-gender-traditional profit off this type of work.
What interests me particularly in its overlap between the two archetypes is the mass speculation of tragedy. The media circus surrounding Lily Phillips will always follow up its shock-coverage with endless “reporting” on how she “regrets” the latest stunt- or her lifestyle entirely, sourcing quotes from “concerned” people around her.
This is not surprising- sexually liberated women (“sexual liberation” being complicated here- but we’re using this term as it gets applied in media) must be publically punished or degraded for their sins to maintain the Protestant status-quo.
Less self-explanatory, though, is the same coverage happening to the trad-wife. One would think that the model of marital and motherly bliss would be upheld in media coverage- particularly on conservative-leaning tabloids, but trad-life influencers like Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith get nearly identical headlines to Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue- ones that speculate doubtfully on their happiness and even safety.
I’m not saying anything here about whether the concern is justified in either direction- in some ways I’m sure it is, in other ways I’m sure it isn’t.
I’m more interested in the fact that in both the Madonna and Whore archetype, tragedy is part of the spectacle. People want to see the highs of sexual exploration or pristine joys of childrearing sullied by regret, fear, or even physical danger. In both cases, the pinnacle of the feminine archetype is Martyrdom.
I worry about what it means to be so limited in our view of women that we’ve forced them to caricaturize- then revel in their struggle to do so.
I don’t know if Hannah Neeleman and Lily Phillips are happy; there are people more qualified than me to make that kind of analysis. I hope they are.
For myself, I’ve continued to avoid hating the player over the game, because I’m tossing rings over milk bottles a few stalls back.
Ultimately no one will click on a mid woman being normal
fantastic