Margo's Got Money Troubles

Content Warning: The source text depicts drug use and addiction. It mentions sexual assault and contains offensive and derogatory language surrounding sex work.

Margo becomes a content creator on OnlyFans because she is desperate to earn money as a single mother who is out of work, but her success on the platform causes many problems and complications in her life. Through this, the novel explores how patriarchal ideas of feminine virtue dictate women’s behavior and sexuality.

Margo’s character challenges patriarchal notions that women are either pure and good or immoral and lascivious. From the beginning, Margo is portrayed as a young woman who is unabashed about her sexuality and who has no qualms about making decisions that society might regard as being immoral: She has an affair with her married professor, she becomes a creator on OnlyFans without any hesitation about the morality of the work, and she continues with this work even after she has been doxed. Her decisions show that she is both aware of and comfortable with exploring and expressing her sexuality. As a result, many people in her life think she doesn’t deserve respect. Her school friends are appalled at her life choices, her mother disowns her, and she even faces the threat of bureaucratic systems taking Bodhi away from her because of her line of work.