The Bonnie Blue Story takes shock content to a depressing new level, writes CLAUDIA CONNELL. Even more worryingly, this documentary just doesn't ring true…
More recently came Virgin Island, where a group of shy virgins were deflowered by sex surrogates. Naturally, both were dressed up as important social experiments.
But the documentary 1000 Men and Me takes the broadcaster's shock content to a depressing new level.
So disturbing is it to witness the behind-the-scenes story of porn star Bonnie Blue - and her desire to become rich and famous by being violated in the most humiliating way imaginable - that as the viewer you come away feeling tainted and grubby.
Filmed over six months the documentary follows Blue, 26, real name Tia Billinger, in the build-up to her sickening 1000 man sex stunt, and the fallout that follows.
From the opening scenes to the very end, Blue is adamant that she enjoys what she does and that her work is 'empowering'.
Most viewers, like me, will find the first claim unconvincing and the second laughably ridiculous.
She tells the documentary director Victoria Silver that her sexual antics make her no different to an endurance athlete – she is merely pushing her body to extremes.
But rather that train for years to run a marathon, win a medal and be the source of national pride, her endurance involves sleeping with strangers.
Her niche as a porn star is having sex with ordinary Joes – 'relatable' guys with beer guts and performance issues.
These 'dads, husbands, students and barely legal teens' are invited to avail themselves of her body free of charge as long as they consent to her monetising the content via the video sharing platform OnlyFans.
Viewers get to see some of these 1000 men in bleak footage where, dressed in just their socks, they're shown queuing on the stairs for the chance to have 40 seconds of sex with Blue.
But things went wrong earlier this year when OnlyFans refused to host Blue's 1000 men stunt, then booted her off the site altogether.
Director Silver narrates the programme and her reasons for making it are perfectly valid. She was concerned that her 15 year old daughter knew who Bonnie Blue was having watched some of the 200-a-day (non-porn) videos she releases across social media.
Blue has been accused of preying on young people, but she is never properly tackled on the issue in the film. Instead, she's simply allowed to wriggle off the hook by claiming that what kids watch online is down to the parents, not her.
The documentary makes a lame attempt at injecting morality, courtesy of a series of pop ups showing various social media pundits expressing their outrage.
But it's hollow and meaningless when so much of the film is dedicated to showing unnecessarily explicit footage of Blue's work.
Throughout, her message to appalled feminists is 'you fought for women's rights, for us to have control our body and be empowered by that and I'm living by that'.
Possibly one of the most upsetting scenes comes after she completes a 100-man orgy with male porn performers, where we see her being treated roughly and slapped. Her videographer Josh says, 'she basically got beat up for a few hours'.
I wanted to hear how Blue could explain that away as being 'empowering', but the documentary didn't go there.
Blue is clearly intelligent and since she says she earned £2million a month from her content, you can't deny her business acumen either. Yet she is also curiously vacant and detached when talking about her work.
There's nothing behind her eyes as she speaks in a monotone about how she loves to 'rage bait' women by suggesting their husband would rather have sex with her.
Viewers get to see some of these 1000 men in bleak footage where, dressed in just their socks, they're shown queuing on the stairs for the chance to have 40 seconds of sex with Blue
Everyone featured (including her mother who, astonishingly, is on her daughter's payroll) is at pains to point out that Blue is in control, she's not abused, not traumatised and not in need of therapy. It doesn't ring true.
Blue reveals she was sexually active at 13 and 'probably looking at porn' prior to that. We learn that her now ex-husband Ollie – who was in no way her pimp, she says – first encouraged her into the adult entertainment world. None of this is normal but it's brushed over.
Instead, the footage of Blue being slapped and used by dozens of men is interspersed with shots of her doing jigsaws and making mosaics, all clumsily contrived to show her 'wholesome' side.
Not only did I come away feeling grubby, I got the distinct feeling there's another Bonnie Blue documentary to be made – a far more truthful one that we'll probably only see in five years' time when the appetite for her content has ceased - and true toll of her 'work' is finally revealed.
1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue story is available on Channel 4.
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