Russell Brand has interviewed OnlyFans creator, Lily Phillips, about her sexploitations. There are serious allegations against him, but their conversation was full of Christian truth, says Eliza Bailey
Growing up in the 2000s, the received wisdom around sexuality was clear: If it feels good, do it. The kids of the noughties were the disciples of FHM and Sex and the City, where men and women were free to enjoy sex on equal terms, fully liberated from constraint.
Fast-forward 25 years, and the sexual landscape has undergone a serious reality check. Following #MeToo, the news cycle is replete with stories about powerful men abusing their position for sex. Most recently, rockstar Marilyn Manson and writer Neil Gaiman have been accused of engaging in exploitative sexual behaviour with much younger female fans. They both deny wrongdoing.
The world once told us that consent is all that matters. But nowdays this seems woefully inadequate.
When Lily met Russell
A figure who encapsulates the cultural shift that’s taking place is womaniser-turned-confessing Christian, Russell Brand. Earlier this week, Brand invited OnlyFans model Lily Phillips onto his podcast. Phillips was the recent subject of a documentary following her self-imposed challenge of sleeping with 100 men over 24 hours. Serious allegations have been made against Brand (which he denies). Some even question the veracity of his Christian faith, but this conversation was possibly one that Brand was uniquely qualified to have.
Brand spoke for much of the runtime, imploring Phillips to view herself as a “child of God” deserving of being “cherished”. Lingering over the idea of sex’s potential for destructiveness, Brand cautioned Phillips that, had he encountered her as a younger man struggling with sexual addiction, he would have been “happy to treat her as an object”, implying that a similar attitude may be percolating among her male audience.
While Phillips appeared unmoved, Brand’s comments implying Phillips’ vulnerability chimed with some of her own. Following her ‘100-man-challenge’, Phillips finally broke her composure during a debrief with the documentary crew, appearing upset and saying of the sex-worker lifestyle: “It’s not for the weak girls.”
Unequal risk
Perhaps unwittingly, Phillips hit upon a profound truth: that full ‘sexual liberation’ is the preserve of the strong – but maybe not as she understands it. In any sexual situation with a man, she - like the vast majority of women - will always be the physically weaker party. Regardless of what a culture that prizes sexual liberation for all would like to believe, women are only as sexually ‘free’ as their male partners are restrained.
As Louise Perry argues in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: “The sexual playing field is not even, but it suits the interests of the powerful to pretend that it is.”
Whatever one might think of Brand himself, his warnings about the destructive potential of sex, particularly for women, fits with the biblical view. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus deliberately aims his words at male listeners, saying that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). He then tells them it is better to gouge out an eye or remove a hand before allowing their own body parts to cause them to be unfaithful (v29).
In 1 Peter 3:7, the apostle gives a strongly worded exhortation to husbands to acknowledge the disparity in physical strength between the sexes by affording their wives honour as “coheirs together”, sharing equal status before God despite their bodily differences.
Sexual liberation is the preserve of the strong – but maybe not as Philips understands it
And in 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, Paul lays out expectations for sexual equality within marriage, pushing back against a culture that only acknowledged male desire.
While modern culture may deny the mismatch of power between the sexes, the Christian view of sex tackles this issue head on, prioritising the protection of women from exploitation by demanding extremely high levels of fidelity and care from husbands towards their wives, even down to their private thoughts.
Reframing desire
Media reactions to Brand’s exchange with Phillips have not been wholly positive, described variously as ‘bizarre’, ‘creepy’ and, memorably, ‘baloney’. While this could be due to a hesitancy surrounding Brand himself, it is notable that no mainstream media outlets appeared to acknowledge the veracity of Brand’s concern for Phillips’s vulnerability in the face of her extreme objectification, or his shift in attitude towards sex, framing it as “sacred” and “special”.
Perhaps #MeToo has woken many people up from the naivete of noughties era attitudes to sex, but the broader culture seems to be stuck in a sexual no-man’s-land, happy to condemn acts of sexual exploitation, but unwilling to rethink ideas of sexual liberation that created the conditions for it.
Christians, then, have a wonderful opportunity to step into the gap and proclaim the biblical vision for sex – a vision which, through the restrictions and expectations for honour and fidelity it places on us, creates the conditions for men and women to enjoy sex on truly, meaningfully equal terms.
