For the past decade, sexual liberation has been framed as a feminist victory: freedom from shame, freedom of expression, freedom of choice. We have been historically sexualized, objectified and victims of violence; the idea that women should start doing whatever they want, with no consequences, can feel like overdue justice. Sexual openness has become one of the most celebrated markers of modern progress, positioned as proof of women’s autonomy in this era. But beneath the language of empowerment sits a question that feminism has refused to confront: who is this liberation actually benefiting, and at what cost?
This refusal stems largely from the rise of choice feminism. Choice feminism centers individual autonomy while deliberately ignoring systems of power. I believe that real feminism is not simply about whether a choice is made willingly, but whether that choice exists without coercion, desperation or violence. Pornography and hookup culture are not neutral terrains simply because women participate in them willingly. However, this view ignores heavy societal and economic influences. “Choice” does not live in a vacuum, especially not when validation and money are involved.
Consider the current online discourse around pornography and platforms like OnlyFans. Pornhub itself has had to remove millions of videos following the discovery that child abuse content and non-consensual material had been hosted by the website for years. OnlyFans is often framed as a cleaner and more ethical alternative, a feminist “correction” to the abuse of sites like Pornhub. But while creators may have direct control over their content, the accessibility of pornography has not disappeared; it’s been repackaged. The audience is the same. The demand is the same. What’s changed is that responsibility shifts entirely onto individual women, while the industry continues to profit. This doesn’t sound as empowering now, does it?
This shift – where responsibility and risk are placed on individual women while economic pressures push them toward monetizing their bodies – matters in a generation facing stagnant wages, soaring rent, student debt and limited job security. The “choice” to monetize one’s body often is a response to necessity. OnlyFans creator and influencer Ari Kytsya has been unusually honest about this reality, openly discussing the sacrifices involved – namely that participation can bar creators from much of the traditional job market. The overwhelming majority of OnlyFans creators earn very little, while a tiny percentage profit significantly. That reality is drowned out by content houses and viral creators, such as the ‘Bop House,’ which glamorize this lifestyle to young, impressionable audiences.
The ethics become even murkier when platforms normalize sexual branding alongside child-centered fame. Piper Rockelle, for example, built her following through TikTok and YouTube content explicitly targeted at children in the late 2010s, and she now uses those same platforms to promote her OnlyFans. This is not empowerment, it’s grooming.
It only gets darker once porn culture connects to sex trafficking. Trafficking responds directly to demand. And as any introductory economics course will tell you, once something can be bought, sold and consumed on demand, the market expands. Hence, framing platforms like OnlyFans as empowerment is dangerously incomplete. Even when an individual woman consents, the system she participates in reinforces that people can become products. Saying “I know my worth” doesn’t undo the overall message that bodies are for sale. If feminism focuses only on individual hubs of harm instead of confronting the logic underneath them, exploitation will just adapt.
You might be thinking that “none of this applies to me directly.” And sure, the odds that the average reader has an OnlyFans account are low, and it’s fair to question whether OnlyFans creators and The Maroon News would share the same audience. But that misses the larger point. The flawed logic behind modern notions of sexual freedom seeps into our dating lives. When sex becomes increasingly transactional online, it’s no surprise that it’s transactional in person too. If men can pay for instant sexual gratification and move on with their day, why wouldn’t that mindset carry over into their relationships with women, especially in a campus setting? The behavior of impressionable young men reflects a culture that not only normalizes this dynamic but also celebrates it as “empowering.” The question remains: Who does this empower?
However, questioning systems is not the same as judging the people within them. Women who sell content online are responding to the conditions they’re in, the same way that women who participate in hookup culture are not doing something “wrong.”
If sexual liberation is truly about freedom, then it should be strong enough to withstand warranted critique. And if feminism is meant to imagine better futures for everyone, it must also ask why those choices feel necessary in the first place. By choosing to find partners who treat us as more than a transaction, that is the real sexual liberation. We are worth more than being pawns in a system that profits from violence and exploitation. Rather than congratulating ourselves for merely existing in a moment of “sexual liberation,” we should work to create a future where the next generation does not grow up believing humans are expendable.
