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‘Hot Girls Wanted Turned On’ Ends On A Live Streaming Sex Scandal That Is Its Most Disturbing Yet

Published April 28, 2017, 9:00 p.m. ET

"Don't Stop Filming," another episode that has received criticism, focuses on Marina Lonina. Photo: Netflix

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Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On

Initially it seems odd that a docu-series that has devoted so much time and energy to exploring the dark and human sides of the porn industry would end its season on a court case about a Periscope sex scandal. However, “Don’t Stop Filming” is so deeply disturbing and so intelligently questions sex’s place on the internet, it more than earns its place as Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On’s finale. At the end of the documentary, you likely won’t be certain whether or not Marina Lonina should have been placed on the sex offender registry for her crime, but you will leave the 40 minutes and the series with a deeper understanding of the complexities of sex online.

In the age of the internet, there’s no way that Lonina will ever be able to escape her crime. In April of 2016, the young woman was faced with multiple charges after she live streamed her friend getting raped. She posted the assault to the social media site Periscope. At the time of the crime, Lonina was 18, and her friend was 17. The man responsible for the rape was Raymond Gates, a 29-year-old man whom Lonina says they were partying with when the crime occurred. Sexual assault is already a terrible and life-altering thing to happen to a person without the additional horror of having the entire event broadcast to the internet. For her part in the crime, Lonina potentially faced decades of jail time as well as the possibility of having to register as a sex offender. All of this resulted from pressing a button on a social media site.

Hearing Lonina’s side of the story does not excuse her actions, nor does it make her friend’s assault any less horrifying. However, it does put a face and a name to the dark ways virtual life can spiral out of control and gravely affect people’s real lives. The episode’s exclusive focus on Lonina’s explanation for that night works to soften your perception of the young woman, at least momentarily. Turned On‘s take on the night presents Lonina as a dumb and attention-focused teenager instead of a malicious monster. However, even the most sympathetic moments of the documentary are counterbalanced by the gravity of her crime.

In February of 2017, Lonina was sentenced to nine months in prison on the condition she would not have to register as a sex offender. Whether or not this sentence was too lenient or too harsh is a separate debate. However, what I will focus on is this episode’s significance to Turned On as a whole. Throughout the franchise’s seven or so hours, Hot Girls Wanted has explored how the internet allows us to be more intimate and sexually connected than ever before, yet that intimacy comes at a cost. As connectivity only grows and new technologies emerge daily, it becomes easier and easier to drift into the moral and legal gray area when it comes to using the internet for sex.

That’s what Hot Girls Wanted demonstrates better than anything else. Technology is evolving. It’s unclear whether that evolution is bettering us or dooming us, but it’s happening. And it’s worth looking at critically.