CNN Exposé: 20,000+ 'Sleep' Videos, Millions of Views — Online Networks Profiting from Abuse of Women?

In a CNN investigation, one pornographic website, Motherless.com, was found to host over 20,000 user-uploaded videos categorised as so-called "sleep" content, many drawing hundreds of thousands of views.

The platform, which saw around 62 million visits within the month of February and largely caters to a US-based audience, describes itself as a "moral free file host where anything legal is hosted forever."

Regularly, a new exposé pulls back the curtain on yet another disturbing instance of abuse against women. Alongside individuals committing these crimes, men are now organising and networking, creating an atmosphere akin to ‘safe spaces’ where they can exchange advice to get away with it. Users on the Motherless website claimed to be running a business selling and dispatching “sleeping liquids” to any address globally, exchanging tips on how to drug their partners.  

The content on the website are categorised, with tags such as #passedout and #eyecheck. Men are seen lifting the eyelids of women to demonstrate that they are asleep or unconscious, with some of these so-called "eyecheck" clips drawing over 50,000 views. 

As the world continues to grapple with persistent patterns of abuse, cases like Gisèle Pelicot’s put the scale of the problem into perspective. The trial of her case made international headlines, OTT shows and books, with many hailing her courage after she chose to waive her right to anonymity and confront her attackers in open court. When asked why she chose to testify publicly, she told the court: "So that if other women wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of Ms. Pelicot. No woman should have to suffer being drugged and victimised. We must confront this scourge."

In 2020, Gisèle uncovered that her then husband of 50 years, Dominique Pelicot, had been secretly drugging and raping her for nearly a decade, even inviting strangers to assault and rape her. In total, 51 men were later convicted of rape and assault. He used a chat room titled "Without Her Knowledge" on a messaging platform called Coco to solicit other perpetrators.  

Police also showed the couple’s middle child, Caroline, images of herself asleep in lingerie she did not recognise. Investigators further discovered photos of the couple’s daughter-in-law and former daughter-in-law taken without their knowledge. Dominique was subsequently arrested.

While Gisèle’s case sparked widespread protests and renewed calls for accountability, it—alongside the CNN investigation—has also brought attention to the manosphere: a network of online forums, blogs and social media platforms that promote often misogynistic and anti-feminist ideas. This interconnected ecosystem, fuelled by influencers and social media algorithms, is expanding rapidly and shaping the beliefs of young men and boys across the world.

The CNN investigation, its final part of ‘As Equals’ series on gender inequality, reveals a similar pattern. Men supporting men, in crimes. One of the users offered a bottle of the liquid for 150 euros, claiming it was tasteless and odourless. "Your wife won’t feel anything and won’t remember anything," he said, as reported by CNN. Others advertised the abuse of drugged women in real time, charging $20 per viewer.

Women are left to fend for themselves, even within their own homes. Zoe Watts discovered that her husband of 16 years had been crushing her son’s sleeping medication into her tea and raping her while she was unconscious  "At the end of a very busy day… I was just grateful I had a cup of tea before I went to bed, because I was so tired and didn't have to make it,” she said, adding: “You don't expect anything other than innocence to come from your partner."

From a psychological point of view, for users within the online "sleep porn" community, the appeal lies not just in the act itself but also in the shared, collective environment around it, Annabelle Montagne, a psychologist who evaluated half of the men convicted in the Pelicot trial, told CNN.

"Within these sites, there is also this notion of, almost, brotherhood," she said, adding that participants end up "creating bonds" that both satisfy and reinforce their "narcissistic" needs.

The manosphere has far-reaching consequences, complete with its own vocabulary, terms like incel, Red Pill, Black Pill and Trad Wife, each carrying distinct meanings. With the release of the widely celebrated series Adolescence last year, the issue briefly came into sharper focus. The show won several awards and accolades, but it has done little to address the core of the problem.

The world now exists largely online, where anonymity is almost guaranteed. How adolescent boys engage with the constant stream of misogynistic and disturbing content, available just a click away, is nearly impossible to monitor. The boys who do not fit the prescribed idea of manhood, abrasive,  and domineering, are often mocked or pressured to conform, with little room to be different. For many adolescents, this can lead to deep frustration, sometimes turning inward as self-harm or outward in the form of verbal or physical aggression. In the April 21, 2025 issue, Adolescence, Outlook had a conversation that needed to be had.

While national governments have begun taking steps to restrict social media use among younger users, whether these measures will make a meaningful difference remains to be seen.

Online forums have become spaces where men gather, sometimes to plan, to enable harmful behaviour to the point of execution. Even in the wake of revelations from the Epstein files, evidence of the sexual abuse of underage girls by powerful men, much of the online reaction was not outrage. Instead, some glorified Jeffrey Epstein for “living the life”, while others shared AI-generated images placing themselves alongside him. It builds on Epstein’s "aura", making his crimes something distant rather than urgent.  

In the March 1, 2026, issue titled ‘The Horror Island’, Outlook looked at how the rich and powerful are a law unto themselves. Since December 2025, the US Department of Justice has released batches of what are widely referred to as the Epstein Files, millions of documents, emails, photographs and videos linked to the convicted paedophile and his network. Reports suggest there are around six million files in total, with more than half now in the public domain. Names mentioned include US President Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky, Woody Allen, Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, among others.

In India, The News Minute exposed an underground network where stolen hospital CCTV footage from labour rooms, breast exams, X-rays, injections, were being traded across Instagram, YouTube and Telegram channels;  leaked and sold online. .

Online culture and manosphere often strips serious issues of their weight, turning them into irony-laced content. When figures like Epstein are reduced to jokes and punchlines, the gravity of what their crimes,  rape, trafficking, gets dulled and pushed into the background. 

That same normalisation seeps into everyday life, where abuse within households is minimised or simply not taken seriously. The CNN investigation once again exposes a continuum of abuse, where men appear as spectators, participants and perpetrators, leaving women uncertain of their safety even within their own homes.