4 days ago
The Bonnie Blue documentary on Channel 4 is compelling but dangerous
Bonnie Blue may have slept with over a thousand men in a day as a publicity stunt, but that's not the bit that most sticks with you from her new Channel 4 documentary. 'We're the two most misunderstood people out there at the moment,' she sighs of Andrew Tate, the YouTuber facing charges including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking, all of which he denies.
Tate is a self-proclaimed misogynist, having said on the platform that he's 'a realist and when you're a realist, you're sexist. There's no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist.'
Blue, 26, whose real name is Tia Billinger, admits she engages in 'rage bait'. In other words, she says willingly provocative things to drive her engagement. She says she likes having sex with 'barely legal or barely breathing' men, that she'd like to have a disabled gang bang and that 'lazy' women are the reason men seek her out for sex.
The new documentary tells the story of the Brit who became one of the most successful porn stars on OnlyFans, and features behind-the-scenes footage from the 'thousand men' stunt. It claims to examine a woman living 'at the edges of modern morality'. But fleeting shots of the hanky-panky and the 'how did she do it' narrative – that she had a doughnut halfway through bonking a small cruise ship's worth of men to keep her sugar levels up – disguise a more sinister narrative. In general the doc is too sympathetic to a dangerous character; it might have been better to have commissioned a multi-voice piece focusing on a broader picture of the sex industry today or for director Victoria SIlver to have appeared more in the piece to share her own views to provide more balance.
Bonnie Blue seems plainly out of her depth, as someone who hasn't given much thought to the radicalisation of young men
There are endless attempts at trying to justify her. During the piece her mum says 'if you earn a million pounds a month, your morals would change and you'd get your tits out.' But that's the thing: we can't. None of us are Blue. She was earning a reported $1 million a month on OnlyFans before she was banned for posting increasingly outrageous content, because she is an extraordinary character with a troubling ability to climb the porn ranks. The Channel 4 documentary is wrong: she isn't on the fringes of moral society, she's parroting highly irresponsible and dangerous narratives to vulnerable, largely young, people.
She says she doesn't agree with everything Andrew Tate says, but by giving him such an over-arching praise and aligning herself with him so directly, she has lost the possibility for any nuance. Someone with Blue's platform, which reaches tens of millions of impressionable people, needs to understand the harmful effect their words can have.
Her stunts earned her millions of followers, for obvious reasons. Her fans, many of whom are teenagers, were able to queue up and have sex with her for free. She has brought the fantasy of online porn into the real world. 'They sit at home wanking wondering what it's like to fuck me. So just come fuck me,' she says. But as the documentary also examines, she is sexist, suggesting in reductive generalised statements that it's women's fault that men aren't sexually satisfied. On stage during a press event for the documentary she spoke flippantly about 'fat' women. As she puts it: 'I'm happy to piss off the women because they're not my target audience.'
Bonnie Blue isn't likeable or unlikable – just incredibly frustrating
She worked for five years as a successful recruitment consultant, and through her porn persona you can see how she brings the bullishness of her former job into new territory.
Bonnie Blue says in the doc that 'if you don't like it, stop wanking to it' and is firm on the notion that it's up to parents to teach their children about sex, not her (she also notes that Tate is a 'marketing genius'). But Blue isn't selling jobs in the NHS anymore, she's potentially damaging the mental health and confidence of millions of young people, and teaching a whole generation of young men that women's bodies are disposable. It comes amid worrying data: more sexual crimes than ever against under-18s are being committed by other under-18s.
I'm not here to moralise about whether or not having sex with a thousand men in a day is wrong. It doesn't sound great to have under one minute with a sexual partner, and surely that's going to get in the heads of some of those men. But Blue's careless messaging and inability to take any responsibility is deeply troubling. I understand why they made it: Blue is someone we need to be having conversations about. The mainstreamisation of porn is going nowhere as the proliferation of online creators continues, but Channel 4's documentary may end up bolstering her toxic narratives. At the media Q+A, even director Victoria Silver seemed uncomfortable being asked how she felt personally about her subject.
Blue does seem to have a deep-rooted love for men
She comes across as someone plainly out of their depth, who hasn't given much thought to mental health or the radicalisation of young men. She seems content to bulldoze her way to another million, unwilling or unable to take responsibility for her actions. She isn't likeable or unlikable, more just incredibly frustrating. There are glimmers of a distinctive form of compassion: she is perhaps most believable and truly herself when she says how much she enjoys pleasuring men. Interestingly, the only man she had thrown out of the thousand men stunt was someone penis size-shaming other men. I do think she probably has a deep-rooted care for men. The documentary is also utterly compelling, you cannot take your eyes off her and the outrageous things she says. It's just a shame that her love might also be deeply damaging.
airs on Channel 4 on Tuesday 29 July at 10pm
