Long gone are the days when prudish Brits looked across the Channel with raised eyebrows at the sexual eccentricities of continental Europe. Think back to the pre-internet era, when Eurotrash would shock viewers. How innocent it seems now. Remember that bawdy late-night series hosted by French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and Antoine de Caunes, where you might gawp at a chubby middle-aged Fräulein serving pork knuckle and litre steins in an all-nude Bavarian beer hall. A tongue-in-cheek voiceover making Carry On-style innuendos. Or we’d glance across the Atlantic, pearls clutched, at outrageous spectacles like John Bobbitt, who became a porn star after his wife infamously cut off his… you know what.
Now, it’s the rest of the world looking at Britain like a worried parent at a renegade teen. This week, I caved and watched Channel 4’s 1000 Men and Me, a voyeuristic documentary about Bonnie Blue – one of the most notorious women on the internet. Her real name is Tia Billinger, a 26-year-old from Nottinghamshire who quit a respectable job in the NHS out of boredom and reinvented herself as an OnlyFans provocateur. The doc tracks her mission to become the adult site’s biggest star and earn her target £5 million a month. She’d just hit £2 million before being banned for repeatedly testing the rules.
Bonnie proudly considers herself the female Andrew Tate, the self-anointed King of Toxic Masculinity, and jumps at the opportunity to meet him so she can promote her latest stunt.
The resemblance isn’t just rhetorical. Both have built empires out of their extremism. Both provoke revulsion and fascination. Tate, from Luton, makes millions peddling misogyny as a lifestyle brand.
Bonnie has done the same, offering a grim glimpse of toxic femininity in action. It’s hard to forget her steely stare as she brags about having sex with anyone for free, so long as they’re 18 and consent to being filmed.
Unlike Tate, who seems to be a relatively straightforward and unapologetic women-hater, Bonnie seems oblivious to the paradox at the heart of her message.
She claims to represent female empowerment through sexual freedom and financial success, yet refuses to acknowledge her role in a cultural shift that normalises the degradation of women and girls.
Between them, Britain has spawned perhaps the most disturbing duo of the digital age. The question isn’t just how we got here, it’s what we are going to do about it.
