Louis' perspective of sex workers in season one being these downtrodden, pitiable women that he magnanimously saves by taking them under his wing because he'll at least exploit them in a way that's more benevolent than some other random schmuck on the street colliding with his willingness to use Regina's sex work in tandem with her criminal background as an excuse to exert the same paternalistic behavior onto her under the guise of trying to help, but ending up exploiting her all the same.
It's important to talking about grief, but I want to talk about Louis' painfully obvious guilt. He says he looked her up online, but why was he googling her to begin with? Why was he asking her about her financial situation and the place where she lived? Louis wants an excuse to feel the way he does towards Regina because he knows Regina's not Claudia. He knows he has no reason to be behaving the way he has been towards her, so he looks for one.
In doing so, he creates a charity case. He wants to live in a fantasy where he was able to actually save Claudia instead of damn her; he seeks to restore someone's innocence instead of being the reason it was taken away. He sees a whore and decides it's his duty to make a Madonna, and maybe then he'll right all of his wrongs just like how saving one girl from dying in a burning building will save him from numerous deaths he caused prior to meeting her. Most importantly, he wishes to exist in a world where he knows for sure that Claudia loves, forgave, and wishes to depend on him for everything.
And you know, it's not like he's really doing anything to her, right? Louis' not even attracted to women. He's gay, gay, gay and also 'spoken for' (by his not-a-companion-but-a-great-lay), so it's not weird. It's not that predatory, right? Because it's not a sex thing, and it's not romantic either even when Daniel makes a joke about their first meeting being a meet-cute and Regina even admitted she was surprised at the fact that Louis was gay probably because he keeps staring at her in a very specific, longing way. That's just a silly misunderstanding, though. He's not a weirdo like the men online paying to see her naked body (you can't see OnlyFan profiles unless you subscribe to them). He's just leaning on this lamp-post, guys. He just wants to help Regina with her money, guys. He just wants to help a sister out.
...While I understand possibly being frustrated at another black woman character being written into something that resembles a delinquent archetype, Regina having that element to her character is what makes it possible for Louis to not only exploit her, but justify it to himself as he does so, a justification that the show very clearly wants you to take with a grain of salt.
As for them making her a sex worker, I mean we can dance around the subject all we want to, but it doesn't change the fact that Louis is essentially paying half a million dollars to a young woman who is systematically disenfranchised to take her out to dinner, put on a childish vocal affectation, and call him Daddy Lou. You might as well just make the subtext explicit at that point.
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
jacobvanloon
