Bonnie Blue, OnlyFans, and the Impact on Expectations within Relationships.

Written by Emily Jones & Sophie Lennox

Research shows that one in four 18 to 24-year-olds listed pornography as the most helpful source to learn how to have sex (Taylor and Shrive, 2021).

But what does this mean in the context of modern sex work and with the rise of OnlyFans and social media? 

Bonnie Blue, a British adult content creator and OnlyFans model, recently made headlines due to her provocative content and controversial public opinions. There are two main reasons behind this. Firstly, Blue’s content often features encounters with young men, coined by Blue as ‘barely legal’. She also uses her social media to promote highly misogynistic rhetoric which positions sex as a duty which women must provide to their male partners. Blue is quickly becoming a well-known name and currently earns around £600,000 plus per month from her OnlyFans subscriptions.

As figures like Bonnie Blue shape the landscape of adult entertainment, questions arise about the impact her rhetoric will have on relationship expectations and how young people perceive intimacy.

Education

Bonnie Blue frames her content as educational for young people. However, her recent endeavour of ‘1057 men in twelve hours’, raises significant questions about the validity of these justifications. Participants reported that they stood in a ‘rotating circle’ with 10+ other men, waiting for their chance to interact with Blue. Due to the time constraints, many participants reportedly had no more than a 40-second window with her. It feels hard to believe that such a brief interaction could provide participants or viewers with any form of informative or positive education.

Rather, this scenario promotes objectification - not only of the Onlyfans creator herself, but also the men involved. It reduces both parties to transactional roles within a spectacle designed to achieve a numerical target and generate monetary gain. It is important to note that it is Bonnie Blue alone who financially gains from this event. Within this challenge, Blue is the only party that is experienced in the field of sex work. The men involved are not sex workers themselves but rather participants in her challenge. The purported ‘educational’ framing of her usual content becomes questionable in light of these dynamics, raising concerns about whether the participants were fully informed about the nature and implications of their involvement. What we are hearing in classrooms across the country is that this challenge is funny, not educational. As a result, Blue’s content seems to risk desensitising sex amongst young people, rather than serving as an educational tool.

Equally, Blue’s frequent use of the term ‘barely legal’ to describe her sexual participants encourages an unequal power balance within sex. This blurs the lines of what informed consent might mean to viewers.

This issue intersects with general societal conversations about consent, exploitation, and the messaging surrounding rape culture. Enthusiastic consent must be informed, ongoing, and context-sensitive. Viral events like this example, whereby participants sign two consent forms to legitimise their agreement, risks perpetuating a harmful misconception: that consent is a static agreement that only requires an initial yes from both parties, regardless of changing circumstances or unanticipated dynamics. This misunderstanding can create ‘grey areas’ around consent. Spaces where participants may feel uncertain or unaware of what they’ve agreed to, particularly when new behaviours or boundaries are introduced without proper communication can cause difficulties. It risks distorting and creating moments of misinformed consent. 

These challenges are not limited only to the experiences of women but can affect anyone, men included, who can also face exploitation under the guise of participation or empowerment. 

Bonnie Blue’s ‘1057 men in 12 hours’ event underscores the need for a critical examination of how such spectacles shape perceptions of consent, sexual agency, and exploitation in modern relationships. By failing to prioritise genuine education and ethical engagement, endeavors like this risk normalising exploitative behaviours and eroding the foundational principles of mutual respect and informed consent.

Pleasure

Alongside this, Bonnie's negligent approach to sexual education extends to a negligence around female pleasure. 

Pornography, and other subsections of content like Onlyfans, is too often written by men or, at the very least, for men. Many porn scenes are based on the subordination of women, with the main focus being the pleasure of the man. Pornography often centres female desire around the needs or wants of a man, which adds to existing social conditioning, which has told young women that their value comes from their sexual appeal to men. 

Bonnie promotes rhetoric that says men are entitled to sexual pleasure from women. She goes as far as to portray women as the sexual property of men. If women fail to fulfil this role, Blue suggests that they should face negative consequences; 

“I thought I'd give you some tips on how to prevent your husband from cheating. One: don't be lazy. Second of all, actually pleasure him." 

“Women are lazy. If there not going to give sex to their partners then they have a right to cheat” 

The priority of the male gaze has been long entrenched within society. The objectification of women within porn is directly linked to the patriarchy and has a huge impact on society as a whole. As seen, 9 in 10 porn films on the internet depict violence and aggression. Further, children as young as 9 are exposed to pornography. Dame Rachel De Souza reported on a 12 year old girl who was choked whilst being kissed by a boy who had seen it in porn and thought it was normal (Weale, 2023). The priority of men’s pleasure in porn and what is perceived as pleasurable is being replicated in men’s behaviours on a societal level. 

As encouraged by Bonnie, before her 1,000-men challenge, she addressed the participants, saying:

"You're welcome to spit on me, slap me, make me yours today because that's what I am." 

Hence, this encouragement of the ‘orgasm gap’, which creates the idea that cis-gendered men enjoy more orgasms than cis-gendered women. This cultural overvaluing of intercourse ensures a women’s lack of entitlement to sexual pleasure. It also creates a conflation of penetration-based orgasms which further polarises sexual education and pleasure. Therefore, educational content should focus on pushing for the necessity of mutual pleasure within relationships. 

Expectations for women 

Blue’s lack of focus on female pleasure, combined with her emphasis on the importance of pleasuring men leads us to question what impact will this have on young women?

In order to properly assess Bonnie Blue’s impact, we must ensure we use an intersectional lens. It must be noted that her ability to gain fame so quickly as a sex-worker is, in part, due to her status as a middle-class, white, traditionally ‘pretty’ British woman.

This creates a complex narrative for sex positivity, as she has simultaneously normalised sex work whilst reinforcing unattainable expectations for women, framing her techniques as essential for fulfilling male pleasure. Furthermore, it raises questions about the exploitation of participants on platforms like OnlyFans, where the illusion of empowerment and financial independence can mask the systemic inequalities that exist within the sex work arena. 

We know sex positivism to be important - as Orlowski states, “Women can use pornography to raise their sexual equality to a level equal to men by turning the tables of sexual criticism on men”. However,  for this vision to be fully realised, holistic and comprehensive sexual education which discusses everybody’s experiences is crucial.

Bonnie Blue’s content conflicts with the principles depicted by Orlowski. By centering her content around the commodification of sexuality, particularly through catering to male pleasure and reinforcing traditional beauty standards, she risks reducing sexual expression to a transaction rather than an authentic, equitable exchange. 

“Women want equal rights but then want their partners to pay the bills, clean and take care of the kids and they won't even do the minimum of going down on them.”

“[Women] can't expect bills in the house to be paid if your not being intimate with your partner” 

Ideologically, such statements reinforce the objectification of women and redirects the significance of sex toward the masculine gaze, perpetuating the idea that women are second-class citizens within the realm of sexuality. When a woman's role is reduced to the act of pleasing men, any deviation from this - whether intentional or not - risks provoking misogynistic responses. 

As a result, such concepts about a woman's purpose may become internalised and may manifest through deeply rooted patriarchal institutions at both individual and societal levels. This may have broader societal consequences, including influencing the rise of incel groups, increasing violence against women, and further normalising rape culture and victim-blaming within the legal system.

Blue’s rhetoric ignores the importance of respecting personal boundaries and the moments when someone may not want to have sex. Women, like men, may go through periods where sex does not feel appealing or right. Bonnie Blue’s message - that women should always offer sex as part of their duty to men - reinforces an unrealistic view of sex and risks normalising non-consensual relationships.

This undermines the broader goal of sex positivism, which is to foster inclusivity, agency, and mutual respect in sexual dynamics. Hence, in an already polarised world, whereby the ideology gap between young men and women is increasing yearly, it is now more important than ever that young people are given shared education and thereby developed shared understandings of sex and relationships.

In an age whereby young people are consuming more and more news via social media, it is crucial that we do not shy away from conversations about sex and relationships with them. 

We encourage adults to treat the presence of influencers like Bonnie Blue as an opportunity for learning. It feels hard to keep up with how much content is out there, much of which is harmful. That being said, that means it is important now more than ever to teach the people around us critical analysis skills. 

Ask them, where did they hear this? Is there evidence behind it or is it simply an opinion? What does it really say in its messaging? How might the person sharing their content benefit from saying it? 

Whilst we recognise and understand how difficult it can feel to tackle misinformation and complicated rhetoric online, we equally believe that it begins with a conversation and a level of openness and willingness to learn.

In doing so, we empower young people to navigate the digital world with confidence and discernment, ensuring they are informed, resilient, and capable of making safe and healthy choices.