When I first joined a multi-level marketing company, it felt like destiny. Freedom. Empowerment. Community. So much so that I tattooed “trust the process” on my body as a daily reminder. But the deeper I got, the more I noticed the cracks: emotional manipulation, magical thinking, and an almost religious silencing of doubts.
If you missed last week’s episode here is the deep dive of my own experience.
That’s why I’m thrilled to share this week’s podcast interview with Robert L. FitzPatrick. Robert has been sounding the alarm on MLMs for decades, long before it was common to describe them as cult-like. He’s the author of Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of Multi-Level Marketing, co-author of False Profits, and a respected expert cited by the BBC, The New York Times, and courts alike. For years, he’s been giving people the tools (language, data, and perspective) to recognize MLMs for what they truly are: predatory business models, not opportunities.
Here is the image of the “Airplane Game” we reference in the interview
In this episode, we cover:
The Spark: Robert’s first encounter with a scam-like business in the 1980s, which pushed him into decades of research on MLMs and fraud—mirroring the way my own personal MLM experience prompted deep self-examination.
Why “Not All MLMs” Is a Myth: The business model itself is designed to funnel money upward, making it impossible for the vast majority to succeed, regardless of the company or product.
Puritan Theology & Prosperity: How old ideas linking wealth to virtue evolved into the prosperity gospel, and how MLMs exploit that mindset.
Cultural Hooks: From hustle culture to self-improvement mantras and spiritual undertones, MLMs borrow heavily from mainstream culture to recruit and retain followers.
Narrative Control: How pre-scripted objections, emotional manipulation, and silencing tactics maintain loyalty and block critical thinking—something I’ve noticed both in MLMs and high-control religious groups.
The Hard Numbers: Realistic odds of success are brutal—most recruits lose money, almost all quit within a year, and mandatory purchases like “Healthy Mind and Body” programs or the Isabody Challenge trap participants financially and emotionally.
Legality & Political Protection: If MLMs are fundamentally unfair, how are they still legal? And what protects them politically?
Beyond the MLM Mindset: MLMs don’t just drain your wallet—they reshape identities, fracture communities, and erode trust in yourself and others.
This conversation is essential for anyone curious about MLMs, whether you’ve been drawn into one, have friends or family involved, or are simply interested in understanding how these systems work under the surface. Robert’s insights give us not just the numbers, but the language and tools to recognize the scam and the courage to break free from it.
Tune in for an eye-opening conversation that goes beyond the hype and digs into the real human cost of MLMs.
A conversation with Karlyn Borysenko on why understanding the Left’s internal factions matters now more than ever.
Welcome back to Taste Test Thursday—my bonus series (or maybe just another excuse to drop a second episode mid-week 😉)
Prelude to Collapse: The War Within
Anti-ICE riots, open declarations of war, and the revolution you’re not supposed to notice….
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Before we dive into today’s main topic, I have to share something with yall.
Here’s the tea you might have missed: Simone Biles, once the queen of female athleticism, just decided to throw female athletes under the bus. She went scorched-earth on Riley Gaines—a woman who had the nerve to say basic biology matters in sports.
Simone’s stance? Basically, “Step aside, ladies. Men who say they’re women get to play too. Deal with it.”
Yeah, that crushed a lot of dreams. Every young girl who looked up to Simone for grit and talent got served a big, ugly dose of woke betrayal instead.
But wait, the drama didn’t stop there. The comment sections exploded with some of the wildest, most ridiculous takes you’ll ever see:
People claimed things like:
“Trans women are actually weaker than cis women,” ignoring every major study, physiology, and real-world athletic results.
“You’re just obsessed with genitals,” as if biological reality is some kind of personal fetish.
“Stop bullying! Simone Biles was just being inclusive,” even though Simone personally attacked another female athlete and told her to “pick on someone your own size”—which was clearly a jab at men, flipping the narrative.
“Only one trans woman has ever medaled in the Olympics, and it was in a team sport,” using tiny sample sizes as “proof” while ignoring decades of male athletic advantage and the ongoing displacement of female athletes.
Claims that acknowledging biology is “bigotry” or “hate,” which is a classic deflection to avoid actual debate.
What’s striking is how none of this is about facts or fairness—it’s about protecting an ideology at all costs. That’s the Bulldozer at work: steamrolling science, reason, and women’s rights in the name of feelings and group loyalty.
This isn’t just about sports. It’s a microcosm of a larger, coordinated push to erase distinctions and rewrite reality. The same movement that’s burning flags, tearing down institutions, and pushing radical social change also demands that we deny biology and silence dissent.
If you think this sounds wild, it’s because it is.
And it’s happening everywhere.
In cities like Los Angeles, Austin, and New York, something is boiling over—but you won’t see it clearly if you rely on mainstream media. Violent riots outside ICE offices. Masked agitators throwing bricks and firebombs. American flags burned in the street while chants echo: No borders, no nations, no more deportations.
It’s not just civil unrest—it’s ideological warfare.
The Revolutionary Communists of America recently made it explicit. On their official channels, they didn’t just critique policy—they declared war on the United States. Not metaphorically. Not rhetorically. Literally.
For the radical left, capitalism isn’t just an economic system; it’s the system—the root of all oppression. The force that creates every hierarchy, every disparity, every injustice.
When they say systemic racism, they don’t mean individual prejudice or even discriminatory laws-they mean the entire capitalist structure that, in their view, was built to privilege some and exploit others.
And still, mainstream outlets call it “activism.”
These aren’t fringe events. They’re pressure points in a much larger movement: one that uses radical ideology to attack the very concept of law, order, and national identity. Immigration is just the entry wound. The deeper goal is to dissolve the nation-state, abolish prisons, defund police, and destabilize every Western institution—starting with the family, borders, and biological reality itself.
They want the system to burn.
They just want you to feel guilty for noticing.
This isn’t liberalism. It’s not even progressivism. It’s an ideological virus that blends Marxist collapse fantasies with postmodern identity theory—what some have rightly begun to call Queer Marxism. And it’s spreading, not through military coups or overt revolution, but through activist groups, academic institutions, union politics, and nonprofit networks.
We call it the Bulldozer.
Because it doesn’t just push for justice.
It erases categories, flattens distinctions, and leaves nothing but rubble behind.
🧭 Where This Started For Me
How the modern Left radicalizes through language, identity, and psychological control
Once upon a time, I considered myself a proud progressive. I believed in equality, compassion, and social justice—values I still hold. But over the years, I began to notice a shift: the language of empathy was being used to silence people. The banner of inclusion began to look more like a gatekeeping badge. The people preaching tolerance were often the least tolerant of dissent.
I entered the movement through the doorway of compassion. But I didn’t understand, at the time, that it led to a staircase. A funnel. Tier by tier, the path narrowed—not toward a better world, but toward radicalism. And once inside, the pressure to conform only grew stronger.
Today, much of what passes as “progressive” isn’t about progress at all. It’s about compliance. It’s about scripts. It’s about moral absolutism enforced by social shaming. What began as genuine concern for the marginalized has metastasized into an ideological machine—one that feeds on sincerity, weaponizes pain, and punishes nuance.
That’s why I’m excited to share this conversation with
Karlyn Borysenko, a voice that’s become indispensable in making sense of what’s really happening on the modern Left.
Karlyn is a bold, unapologetic critic of collectivist ideology. An organizational psychologist turned independent journalist, she brings sharp wit and deep psychological insight to her investigations. She’s not just analyzing theory from the outside—she’s been inside the radical inner circles. Through her work on Decode the Left, Karlyn infiltrates socialist and communist meetings, documents activist materials, and translates their coded language into something the average American can understand.
Her work has helped many—including me—see what’s been hiding in plain sight.
In our 30-minute interview, we discuss:
Her recent article: Democrats Are Not the Same as Communists. Know the Difference
What May Day organizing reveals about the Left’s summer strategy
How her infamous “Spy Streams” expose internal tactics and contradictions
Her book A Brief History of Racism, and why history matters more than ever now
But before we jump into that conversation, I want to lay a foundation. This post is both a companion and a continuation—an exploration of how well-meaning people get pulled into radical ideologies, how activism gets hijacked, and why naming this process matters.
The Bait: Branding with Virtue
Progressive branding thrives on moral urgency. It co-opts legitimate concerns—racism, sexism, homophobia—and repurposes them as litmus tests. Agree with our solutions or you’re the problem.
I began to question this during the rise of Black Lives Matter. But when I asked reasonable questions about BLM’s funding, its leadership, or its goals, I was told that even asking was racist. It wasn’t enough to be “not racist.” You had to be “anti-racist” in a very specific, approved way.
This wasn’t justice—it was dogma.
The Switch: From Inclusion to Compliance
At the same time, in the wellness and spiritual communities I trusted, I saw the language of healing twist into something coercive. Phrases like “decolonize your practice” and “center marginalized voices” began as invitations—but morphed into rules.
There was no room to push back. Questioning the narrative meant you were part of the problem. Even trauma healing became politicized. The very spaces meant for introspection and healing became echo chambers.
Instead of curiosity, we got shame. Instead of conversation, we got scripts.
The Funnel: Tier by Tier Toward Radicalism
Karlyn Borysenko’s framework Mapping the Modern Left helped make sense of something I had felt but couldn’t articulate: a tiered escalation of ideology.
From empathy to entropy: How ideological movements erase meaning and dissolve reality
The modern Left doesn’t just want change—it wants a revolution.
It isn’t about lifting up the marginalized. It’s about obliterating the boundaries that hold society together—gender, family, biology, even objective truth. In this worldview, distinction itself is oppression.
Gender is violence. Borders are fascism. The family is a cage. Biology is a lie. Truth is power, and power must be redistributed.
Language becomes fluid. Categories dissolve. Womanhood becomes a costume. Masculinity becomes pathology. Childhood becomes political property. “Liberation” now means detaching people from anything stable or inherited—be it tradition, biology, or even their own identity.
And all of this is done under a banner of inclusion. This ideological bulldozer doesn’t advertise itself as destruction. It wears a rainbow sticker and smiles.
But that rainbow is no longer just a symbol of tolerance. It’s become the uniform of a new moral order—one that does not believe in reforming society, but in erasing and rebuilding it from ideological rubble.
To understand how this happens, you need to understand the spectrum of the modern Left—and how it collapses into itself under the weight of its own ideology.
❝ Not all leftists are created equal. ❞ But they’re treated that way—by media, by educators, by corporations, and even by confused voters.
From Tier 1 (corporate Democrats) to Tier 5 (open revolutionary socialists), there is a clear progression:
The slogans get more radical.
The policies become less about reform and more about control.
The language of empathy becomes the weapon of erasure.
By the time you hit Tier 5, “equity” no longer means fairness—it means forced sameness. “Liberation” no longer means freedom—it means obedience to the ideology. “Compassion” no longer means understanding—it means submission to the narrative.
This is why it matters to draw clear distinctions between liberals, progressives, socialists, and revolutionaries. Because the Bulldozer’s first move is to blur all those lines—until every rainbow flag, every DEI committee, every social justice curriculum becomes a Trojan Horse.
The Trojan Horse
Democratic Socialists and the slow march through institutions
Democratic Socialists don’t throw bricks—they shake hands, campaign politely, and quote Bernie Sanders. They reject the optics of violent revolution, but their endgame is the same: the death of capitalism, the toppling of “oppressive systems,” and the remaking of society through collective control.
Instead of storming the gates, they infiltrate. School boards, city councils, union leadership—they operate like ideological missionaries, cloaked in the language of reform. They speak of “economic justice,” “solidarity,” and “participatory democracy.” But behind the rebranded slogans is the same old Marxist blueprint: dismantle private property, weaken law enforcement, and centralize economic power under collectivist principles.
Strategy: Cultural subversion. Institutional capture. Goal: Dismantle capitalism through political power and social engineering. How They Show Up: Labor organizing, tenant unions, co-op movements, policy think tanks.
Example
A DSA-backed city council member campaigns on tenant rights and rent control. Once elected, they introduce proposals to defund the police, establish “people’s budgets,” and replace merit-based hiring with DEI quotas. All under the banner of “equity.”
Major Players
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – boasting over 90,000 members and growing influence in state legislatures.
Working Families Party – a political organization that cloaks socialism in populist rhetoric.
Jacobin Magazine – the glossy PR firm of soft socialism.
People’s Policy Project – crafting white papers that sanitize radical redistribution schemes.
These groups are the useful professionals. The respectable radicals. They are the bridge between normie liberals and revolutionary anarchists. And they often don’t even realize they’re playing that role.
The True Believers
When revolution is the only answer
Then there are the purists—the radicals who reject democratic socialism as too soft, too compromised. These are the revolutionaries who don’t want reform. They want collapse.
To them, every institution—from the police to the family to the very idea of gender—is a pillar of oppression. And those pillars must be burned to the ground.
Violence is not a last resort. It’s a moral imperative. They call it “direct action.” They organize online, use encrypted channels, and treat molotov cocktails like communion.
Strategy: Agitate. Destabilize. Destroy. Rebuild from ideological ashes. Goal: Overthrow capitalism and traditional Western structures entirely. How They Show Up: Riots, black bloc formations, propaganda zines, “mutual aid” front groups.
Example
The George Floyd riots were framed as peaceful protests, but cities burned, federal courthouses were firebombed, and police precincts were taken over.
This wasn’t protest. It was trial-run revolution.
Major Players
Revolutionary Communists of America – unflinching in their anti-Americanism and pro-collapse rhetoric.
Haymarket Books – publishing far-left literature on race, labor, and abolition.
Antifa – not a formal group, but a loosely affiliated movement of anarchists who believe violence is speech.
CrimethInc. – anarchist media collective advocating sabotage and social revolt.
It’s Going Down – a digital hub for anarchist propaganda and riot coordination.
Tempest Collective / Firebrand Collective / Pinko Magazine – pushing Marxist, intersectional, and abolitionist agendas under the radar.
These aren’t outliers. They set the moral tone for the entire activist ecosystem. Even mainstream liberals are afraid to publicly denounce them. Why? Because the language of revolution—phrases like “abolish the police” or “disrupt the nuclear family”—has already trickled downstream into the DEI statements of schools, nonprofits, and corporate HR departments.
Death by Distortion
What connects these factions—whether polite socialists or masked anarchists—is not just a hatred of capitalism, but a rejection of distinction itself.
They believe:
Truth is power
Gender is fiction
Biology is oppression
Order is violence
In their world, there is no such thing as “woman”—only a fluctuating identity to be claimed or discarded. There is no moral hierarchy—only power struggles between oppressors and the oppressed. There is no reality—only narrative.
And this matters, not just in theory, but in your everyday life:
Children are told they were “assigned” a gender.
Women’s sports and scholarships are being erased.
Therapists fear losing their licenses for affirming biology.
Teachers hide “gender transitions” from parents.
Pride parades feature kink, nudity, and communist banners.
This is what happens when Queer Theory and Marxist revolution combine: identity becomes a tool, the body becomes political, and all stable truths are dismantled in the name of liberation.
But what’s left after the bulldozer passes through?
Just rubble. Confusion.
A Chilling Parallel: Psychiatry, Eugenics, and Modern Control
We’ve been here before.
In the early 20th century, American psychiatry and genetics embraced eugenics. Under the banner of science and progress, they sterilized alcoholics, the disabled, the poor, and the “unfit.” The roots of Nazi atrocities were inspired, in part, by American policies.
What began as “science” became ideology. And then became tyranny.
Today, we see a similar pattern. Radical identity politics now overrides biological facts. Science is cherry-picked. Individual concerns are dismissed as bigotry. Dissent becomes dangerous.
A Political Religion
The modern Democratic Party doesn’t act like a political party—it functions like a religion.
Belief is required. Doubt is punished. Apostates are shunned.
Masculinity is vilified. Womanhood is politicized. Kids are taught that biology is bigotry. Therapists are scared to speak. Teachers walk on eggshells.
This isn’t about progress. It’s about power.
Real-World Consequences
Women’s sports are being erased.
Speech is being policed.
Gay conservatives are told they don’t count.
Pride Month has become a political litmus test.
Even Pride itself has been hijacked—from a movement for freedom into a vehicle for ideological conformity. As journalist Brad Polumbo put it: it’s not enough to be gay anymore—you must also be leftist.
Why I Speak Out
Some people assume I’ve “become conservative.” And maybe I have—at least compared to where I started. But to me, it’s not about labels. It’s about clarity. About being honest.
I still care about compassion, justice, and fairness. But I care about truth too. And truth doesn’t require threats.
I speak out because I’ve seen what ideological manipulation does to good people. I’ve seen friends shrink themselves, walking on eggshells, terrified to be seen as bigots.
I was there once. But I’m not anymore.
🎙️ Now, My Conversation with Karlyn Borysenko
This conversation is an eye-opener—especially if you’re just beginning to question what’s really going on behind the messaging.
Beyond the Glamour: The Dark Reality of the Sex Industry
Welcome back to Taste of Truth Tuesdays. Today’s episode is one that I’ve both been eager and hesitant to share. While I’ve spoken about my journey through faith, fitness and personal transformation that there’s one chapter I’ve largely kept private until now….
For most of my life, I was fed a specific narrative: go to college, get a degree, build a career, and don’t worry about prioritizing marriage or family. Financial independence was the ultimate goal.
After graduating college, I moved from Virginia to Portland, Oregon, to chase my career as a personal trainer, lifestyle coach, and professional circus performer. My income relied on clientele, and while I had busy seasons, nothing was ever truly stable. But with inconsistent income and the ever-present pressure to make ends meet, I found myself in a space that many glamorize but few truly understand—the world of sugar dating.
At first, it didn’t seem that different from the casual dating I was already doing—except now, dinner was covered, and there was a financial incentive. But the deeper I got, the more I realized how unstable and unsafe it was. Most of these men didn’t care about you as a person; they just wanted no-strings-attached access to your body. And when I found myself in situations where I wasn’t in control—where boundaries were ignored, protection was negotiable, and at times, I left empty-handed even after doing my part—I started to see the cracks in the ‘empowerment’ narrative. I remember one night, sitting in my car after being verbally and physically assaulted, I realized I had no one to report it to. No way to warn the next woman. That’s when the illusion fully shattered for me.
That’s why today’s conversation is so important. I’m joined by Sloane Wilson from Exodus Cry, an organization dedicated to exposing the truth about sexual exploitation and advocating for survivors. We’re unpacking the hard truths about the sex industry, the myths that keep women trapped in it, and the cultural shifts that have normalized what should never be considered “just work.”
But we’re also diving into something deeper, faith. Both Sloane and I have gone through our own journeys of deconstruction and reconstruction. She’s seen firsthand how the church can mishandle encountering survivors and how delicate and complex these situations can be.
The Reality of “Sugar Dating”
Some nights felt harmless—like having dinner with a businessman who just wanted company and conversation. But most nights? They were anything but that. The truth is, the fantasy of sugar dating—mutually beneficial, long-term arrangements with financial stability—was just that: a fantasy. Most men weren’t offering monthly allowances or ongoing support. They wanted pay-per-meet agreements—no strings attached, no safety net, just transactional sex. And when survival depended on it, I found myself scrambling to secure the next “daddy.”
I struggled to assert myself, especially in two key areas: insisting on protection and ensuring I was paid upfront. That put me at immense risk—both for my health and my safety. One night, I was forced into acts I didn’t consent to, verbally assaulted, and then left empty-handed. Sitting in my car afterward, I realized something chilling: there was no one to report it to. No way to warn the next girl. No system to hold these men accountable.
Some men had hidden home cameras, recording our time together without my consent. Others were forceful, rough, and used sex toys in ways that crossed every boundary I had. And yet, as awful as those experiences were, I knew I was lucky—because it could have been so much worse.
Most of these men pushed to move conversations off the platform as quickly as possible, demanding explicit photos before agreeing to meet. When you’re in a financial bind, it’s hard to say no. That’s how exploitation thrives—through desperation.
The Trap of a “Luxe” Illusion
Looking back, I wonder—why didn’t I just walk away? Why couldn’t I see, from the beginning, that this wasn’t sustainable? I wasn’t like most women in the industry. I was white, college-educated, and didn’t even have student debt shackling me. My financial stress came from my own reckless spending—maxed-out credit cards and the relentless costs of bodybuilding, a sport I was pouring everything into. So why, with all the options I had, did I keep chasing this?
I think part of it was desperation. The MLM-like promise of sugar dating had me convinced that if I just worked harder, played the game right, and landed the right arrangement, I could have financial security and independence. I put more energy into curating the perfect sugar persona than I ever did into building my personal training business. And maybe, just maybe, I was chasing the mirage of someone close to me—someone who had made sugar dating “work.” I saw her succeed, and I kept believing I could, too.
But there’s another layer. One I don’t love admitting (and one my mom will absolutely deny.) My mother praised me for it. She told me, “I wish I had done this when I was your age.” That kind of validation messes with your perception of right and wrong. It made it seem like I was onto something genius, like I had cracked code other women were too scared or too moralistic to try. Was I subconsciously trying to prove something? Was I filling the void left by emotional neglect?
Or was it just my own damn fault?
That’s the thing about these choices—they never come down to just one reason. It is always more complex. It wasn’t just the financial stress. It wasn’t just my upbringing. It wasn’t just the influence of someone I admired. It was all of it, tangled together, keeping me locked in place. And it took me years to realize that no amount of effort or strategy would turn sugar dating into the safety net I desperately wanted it to be.
The Lie of “Sex Work is Work”
For a long time, I believed the mantra: “sex work is work.” It’s the rallying cry of the sex-positive movement, a phrase meant to legitimize the industry. Prostitution is often called “the oldest profession,” but historically, it has always been a last resort for survival. Women don’t enter this industry because it’s empowering. They do it because they have no better options.
The real harm in prostitution isn’t just about bad working conditions or societal stigma. It’s about dehumanization. When sex is reduced to a transaction, people become commodities. And when we treat people like products to be bought and sold, we strip them of their dignity.
Louise Perry, in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, makes this point powerfully. She argues that the sex industry’s only real defense is a hollow, commodified version of “liberation”—one that insists, “Everyone consents, everyone is an adult, the women enjoy it, so who are you to judge?” But when consent is the only moral standard, we ignore the broader ethical issue: that people are being treated as means to an end. Consent alone does not erase coercion, exploitation, or harm.
In our postmodern culture, we’ve rejected objective morality and replaced it with a consumerist approach to sex. If both parties “agree,” then anything goes. But this is a dangerous slope—one that allows predatory men to exploit desperate women under the guise of empowerment.
Insights from Recent Research
New research exposes the blurred lines between sugar dating and traditional sex work. A study published in The Journal of Sex Research found that over one-third of sugar babies have engaged in other forms of transactional sex work, such as escorting or stripping. This challenges the narrative that sugar dating is different or “classier” than prostitution. The reality? It operates on the same fundamental exchange.
The study also found that sugar benefactors reported an average of over six arrangements, indicating a revolving door of sugar relationships. For these men, sugar dating is just another avenue for purchasing companionship and sex.
Beyond the emotional toll, sugar dating carries serious legal and personal risks. Legal experts warn that these arrangements can lead to blackmail, coercion, and threats—especially when expectations aren’t met. Many women find themselves in vulnerable situations with no real recourse. The illusion of control is just that—an illusion.
The Flawed Narrative Around Sex Work and Deconstructing Purity Culture
In the deconstruction space, there’s a growing trend of equating sexual liberation with empowerment while rejecting any critique of the sex industry as moral panic. A popular post circulating on International Sex Workers Day exemplifies this mindset, arguing that deconstructing purity culture requires deconstructing any negative views of sex work. The claim? Sex work and sex trafficking are entirely separate, and many big Christian anti-trafficking organizations wrongly conflate the two to push an agenda. The post insists that if a person is not forced, defrauded, or coerced, they are simply making a free choice to engage in sex work. But this argument is deeply flawed when examined through historical context, real-world data, and the experiences of women who have lived through it.
The Demand Problem: Why Legalizing Sex Work Doesn’t Protect Women
One of the most critical oversights in this argument is the failure to acknowledge that sex work is a demand-driven industry. As Louise Perry outlines in The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, countries that have legalized prostitution have seen an increase in trafficking. Why? Because legalizing the industry normalizes the demand for paid sex, and when there aren’t enough willing participants, traffickers step in to fill the gap. Studies show that in places like Germany and the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal, trafficking rates have skyrocketed because the market rewards pimps and exploiters. The idea that sex work can be fully separate from trafficking ignores the economic reality that supply follows demand.
Linda Lovelace’s experience in Deep Throat is a perfect example of this. The film was a massive success, grossing over $600 million, and was hailed as revolutionary at the time. But years later, Lovelace revealed that she had been coerced into performing in the film under violent and abusive conditions. Her book Ordeal exposed the hidden abuse within the industry—an industry that thrives precisely because there is a market for extreme, degrading content. This isn’t an isolated case; countless women have echoed similar stories after leaving the industry, only to be dismissed while they were still in it because they were expected to uphold the “liberation” narrative.
The Exploitation Behind the Industry
Another major flaw in the sex-work-as-liberation argument is the lack of accountability within the industry itself. MindGeek, the corporation behind the world’s largest pornography sites, has faced multiple civil lawsuits for monetizing non-consensual content—including child sexual abuse, rape, revenge pornography, and voyeuristic recordings of women showering. Reports from December 2020 revealed that the platform was infested with videos depicting abuse and that it profited from some of the darkest corners of human sexuality.
The industry thrives on the illusion that all participants are willing, yet it repeatedly fails to ensure consent. The reality is that the vast majority of those in sex work come from backgrounds of financial instability, trauma, or coercion—not from an empowered, freely chosen career path. The notion that sex work is “just another job” ignores how uniquely dangerous, exploitative, and often inescapable it can be.
The Broader Issue: Normalizing Harm Under the Guise of Liberation
This same pattern of dismissing harm under the banner of liberation isn’t exclusive to the sex industry. I recently came across another example in the deconstruction space where an account that advocates for women’s sexual empowerment was documenting her abortion experience on National Abortion Day. She filmed herself taking the abortion pill as if it were nothing—a casual, almost celebratory act. But this kind of messaging erases the medical realities and risks associated with the abortion pill. It ignores the fact that women absolutely should get an ultrasound before taking it to determine gestational age and rule out ectopic pregnancy, which can be fatal if left untreated. Reducing such a serious medical decision to a political performance trivializes the real consequences that many women face.
This connects back to the issue with sex work: the rush to de-stigmatize everything labeled as “empowerment” often leads to a dangerous lack of critical thought. If deconstruction is about questioning harmful narratives, then why aren’t we allowed to question the harm within the sex industry? Why does rejecting purity culture mean embracing an industry that, time and time again, has been built on coercion, abuse, and exploitation?
Deconstructing purity culture shouldn’t mean abandoning discernment. If anything, it should mean taking an even closer look at these industries and asking hard questions about who truly benefits from them. Because when we actually listen to the stories of women who have left sex work, the pattern is clear: what is sold as empowerment often turns out to be exploitation in disguise.
Healing & Advocacy
Looking back, my perspective has completely shifted. The journey out of the sex industry has been long and complicated, but I’m grateful for the clarity I have now. Organizations like Exodus Cry work to expose the realities of the commercial sex trade and fight for real change. And voices like Louise Perry’s are crucial in dismantling the harmful myths that keep this industry alive.
The sexual revolution promised liberation, but for many women, it delivered exploitation instead. The more we normalize the commodification of sex, the more we enable the very systems that harm us. It’s time to rethink everything we’ve been told about “sex work” and start asking: Who really benefits from this industry? Because it’s certainly not the women inside it.
If you’ve ever questioned the narrative around sex work, if you’ve been curious about the reality behind sugar dating, or if you want to hear from someone who’s been there—I invite you to tune in.
It’s time to move beyond the glamour and face the truth.
Taste0ftruth Tuesdays 