For a circle of people that I used to be a loose part of and who I see representative for an academic, left-leaning society of my generation (I am a kid of the late 90s), a „progressive“ mindset was non-negotiable. „Everyone can do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone with it“. Hearing this repeatedly had a liberating effect on me. It helped me to get away from outdated, certainly patriarchically influenced ideas of what is „good“ and what is „bad“, especially regarding sexuality. At my home, sexuality used to be a kind of „forbidden topic“ and my understanding about sex was not very developed for a long time. I always thought that sex by law has to happen between two people who have an intimate, exclusive and psychological love relationship. And I questioned people who believed and acted against this principle.
Over time and after a tenacious process, however, I let go of this judgemental self, my non-parental environment changed me and now I embrace a liberal attitude toward sexuality. And that is why, of course, I shut my mouth when it comes to Tia Billinger (better known as Bonnie Blue) – and I thought I could be sure that my proposedly progressive-minded peers do the same.
The first time I heard about Bonnie Blue was in January 2025 when she made headlines with a record-breaking stunt: having sex with over thousand men in a day. The news about her stunt went viral on X and much of the feedback was filled with disrespect, mockery and disgust. People were outraged. And so was I. Not by Bonnie Blue though. What unsettled me was the judgement of users. I read a lot of comments but honestly, much of the criticism seemed too uncoordinated and unsubstantial to match the shockwave that Bonnie’s tape created.
Most of the criticism could just as easily apply to pornography in general: concerns about protection against STIs, about consent, about the mental steadiness of the participants. Yet, Bonnie’s event took place under regulated conditions and appropriate supervision – a claim that countless porn videos on the internet can hardly make. In this sense, Bonnie’s event does not stand out. The fact that the event contradicts romantic notions about sex cannot explain the shockwave either. 99 % of pornography contradicts such notions. No doubt that thousand is a large number. But whether it is ten men in one hour or thousand in one day – does the number really change the principle? Where do we draw the line and why?
Regardless of that, Bonnie’s event complies with the principle: „Everyone can do whatever they want as long as they don’t harm anyone with it“. None of the men was forced to go there and the rules require the men to prove legal age before they engage. For some – perhaps virgins among those queuing – the event might have even been a dream come true. Also, Bonnie Blue shows no signs that she harmed herself: She is reporting very positively about her experience, she is satisfying her kink, she is receiving the attention she likes and she is earning a lot of money. But when she states that her work is the greatest fun for her, it seems like people don’t want to believe her for some reason.
I dare to propose that the issue of some people who express mere hate, e.g. just call Bonnie pathetic, is located within themselves.
That the conservatives in the spectrum of her haters object does not surprise. Their specific aversion may be ingrained and a new reality causes a cognitive dissonance. As mentioned earlier, I can relate to their feelings because I used to romanticise sexuality myself. I had to force myself through an exhausting process to update my views. Maybe some of the harshest critics are now being forced into the same process.
But what exactly causes the pain for the critics from the other side of the spectrum, let’s simply call them the non-conservatives? For them, the irritation might partially lie in how Bonnie unsettles established ideas about women’s possibilities of influence. Bonnie’s choices challenge cultural patterns that, for centuries, linked women’s power (not only of course) to the control of sexual access and desirability. In that sense, sex functioned as a veiled currency in a male-dominated order, providing women with pathways to comfort, attention, or care. By refusing to treat it as scarce or exclusive, Bonnie devalues that option —and in doing so, she creates a scenario that some women within the established system might subconsciously experience as unsettling or dystopian.
Besides the noise open for interpretation, we can find some more concrete criticism too. Let’s go through the concrete arguments and examine how far they can reach:
I. „Bonnie’s episodes are pure marketing.“
It can be assumed that Bonnie uses her strategic stress testing of boundaries of cultural manifestations in order to reach attention. In the „economy of attention“ on the internet, it has become difficult to set oneself apart. Her edgy experiments however are suitable to do so and they are widely discussed in social media and in the streets. As an OnlyFans model, attention means money to her. Most likely, among her audience there will be a section of infected fanboys forming a cult-like community. Bonnie can introduce Bonnie-related products that will be bought just because. Now, sure we can suggest that Bonnie is doing all that just for the money. But it will remain an accusation unless she will confirm it herself. To my mind, she does not seem like a fake person who’d sacrifice herself (to put it in words of opponents) only for money. In interviews, she speaks about her financial interests as openly as she speaks about her feeling of empowerment. More than that, she is getting to the bottom of why people have a will to take her service, concluding a win-win situation for everyone involved. This at least suggests a curiosity for the reasons behind the demand that she meets, as well as a differentiated reflection about what she is doing. I agree that there are very problematic statements of her. On the other hand she addresses societal topics like growing loneliness of young people to whom physical touch is an unavailable resource. Long story short, her open differentiated thinking and consistent communication of diverse interests pursued entail that her work may not be just about marketing.
II. „Bonnie’s work reinforces patriarchic ideas of women and sexual availability.“
While I sense where this argument is coming from, there are multiple elements of her work that suffocate the argument. First of all, in an „ideal patriarchic world“, calling off sex is especially a subject of male power, e.g. partner or husband. It is exactly not a patriarchic idea that women determine their sexual behaviour alone and set their terms independently. Bonnie Blue even frames marriage – at least in our common understanding – as a situation of confinement, In this regard she is very much in line with famous radical feminists. Secondly, Bonnie Blue goes ahead and makes slutshamers look ridiculous. According to feminists, slutshaming is especially a symptom of patriarchic systems. Sleeping with thousand men in 24 hours, showing face and promoting herself is a valid try to make at least a small-scale promiscuity more socially acceptable.
III. „Bonnie is actually harming people – by forming a misleading idol.“
This argument points in two directions. Firstly, it expresses the fear that men provide too much confirmation to Bonnie and refer to her as a wishful standard of a female being, an idol in a sense. Secondly, it expresses the fear that, because of this broadly provided confirmation, Bonnie embodies a role model for young women. As for the first concern, I have a hard time to just agree upon it. My feeling is that the concern is based on a few arbitrarily selected features of Bonnie, e.g. attractiveness, obedience and availability, that would receive wide appreciation and strengthen an old-fashioned understanding of womanhood from male perspective. This however seems simplistic for the following reasons:
- The features mentioned are subject of interpretation. Bonnie does not consider herself „passive“ or „obedient“, it is the critic themselves who attribute these features to her
- Her kind of „availability“, as in an „openness to engage“ with random strangers, is actually a big turn-off to many and especially the patriarchically influenced men. Her availability is only good for those who seek a quick adventure and who don’t mind to feel completely meaningless, who are not even remembered. Yes, you find thousand men to queue but you find ten thousand men who find it just pathetic.
- The concern expects men to be influenced very one-sidedly and reset to primal beings who want to spread their semen. The truth is that the world is complex, humans take care of their reputation and we see a lot of influential forces and idols for different things. There have been 70 years of determined feminism with great accomplishments that became part of our societal reality. And I am sure that men experience positive effects of the equality themselves.
To summarize this, the concern seems reasonable at first instance but it does not respect the full picture of Bonnie Blue and does not account for the multiplicity of influences we experience.
Now to the concern that Bonnie Blue might pose an idol to young women. Bonnie’s life concept seems dazzling: Reaching self-actualization and tremendous monetary success by using a simple recipe: being herself, shaking off the burdens of conventional expectations, having fun and at the same time even helping others. Sounds like the real deal for young women. And studying, what for actually? A tiring nine-to-five job? Bonnie Blue had tested it for them already and explains that this wasn’t the solution.
Now, as soon as one wants to orient themselves to Bonnie’s glamourous life, they get lost in self-doubt before they get even started. Because being like her means to be blessed with a great shape, an example face, to be well-spoken, quick-witted, intelligent, to exhibit a confident body language and, most importantly, to capitalize on all that. Because of the complicated skillset and genetic blessings required, Bonnie Blue appears like an unreachable, almost borderline fictional character.
My take is that young women don’t really have an access to her. They probably heard of Bonnie through a judgemental repost anyway, like I did. Instead, I assume that young women would actually get access through approachable characters in this generally booming market, and they find them.
Especially during the pandemic, long before Bonnie Blue was known, Onlyfans gained tremendous popularity and has already offered young people visible options to make money, along with a suitable narrative. I recall a famous video on hyperbole, a German channel that „produces and spreads credible video content for the generations Y and Z“ and „is hitting the nerve of a generation that consumes as critical as no generation before“, as it describes itself. In the video, filmed in 2021, an OnlyFans camgirl named „Bonny Tagesbrise“ is interviewed. According to the video description, OnlyFans helped the former cutting machine operator to love her body and get rid of self-doubt. Watching the video, we face an ordinary person, inconspicuous and someone who could be our neighbor, in short: someone we can relate with.
To demonstrate what Gen Z can learn from Bonny Tagesbrise, an extract of the interview follows:
[…] Aren’t women being turned even more into sex objects through OnlyFans?
I would say no, because every woman who is on OnlyFans decides that for herself. Of course, if you position yourself in the erotic space on this platform, you will be reduced to your body — but in every other job, you are also reduced to what you do. As a mechanic, you are reduced to your mechanical skills […] Since you really interact with your fans and build a connection, it no longer has anything to do with the idea of being a “sex object.” […]
What are the negative sides of OnlyFans?
The only negative side of OnlyFans that I know of is that, once you create an account, the money can quickly become tempting. That means you suddenly see how much potential you have on the platform and you might often push beyond your own boundaries because an unexpected offer from a subscriber comes in. […]
Have you ever regretted your account?
No, not at a single moment. I had already been selling pictures before. Only after thinking it over for a long time did I enter the erotic market, and I couldn’t have made a better decision. I am very proud that I can now stand firmly on both feet in life. […]
How much money do you make with it per month?
It depends on the time and effort you put in. Currently, I earn between 30,000 and 50,000 dollars a month. […]
The video was watched over 360,000 times. In the Covid context, with people stuck at home, it likely inspired more real consideration of OnlyFans than Bonnie Blue ever could. By comparison, Bonnie comes across like an exaggerated figure experiencing strong shitstorm and hardly like a model for career choices or woman’s role in society in general.
Lastly, even if Bonnie did work as an idol, it would be fair. Why do we get so protective here? We don’t worry as much about Red Bull adrenaline junkies who inspire young people to risk their lives in extreme sports either.
After all, what can we take home from this essay? My message is that one can always find a „progressive“ line of argument that protects Bonnie Blue to a vast extent — or at least takes significant wind out of the haters’ sails. It seems that she is often treated with double-standard, even by alleged progressive thinkers. From my point of view, Bonnie Blue is an exciting phenomenon that helps us sharpen our arguments and revalidate or challenge our moral mindset. In a society where young people can easily take a wrong turn – individually or collectively – Bonnie helps to push uncomfortable but necessary debates into the spotlight.
