By now, you’re probably all too aware of OnlyFans performers Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips and their viral stunts to sleep with thousands of men. Perhaps you’ve noticed people labelling them “skanks” or “slags” online, joking about how their families feel about their content, or the tabloids crowing about the dangers of them. But where is the focus on the anonymous male participants, who are engaging in this spectacle while dodging accountability?
Blue and Phillips, it seems, have no issues recruiting literally hundreds and thousands of willing men to have sex with them – horrifyingly, even fathers and their sons. Those queueing up are often in ski masks and balaclavas, clearly recognising the potential consequences of being outed. Some of these men are as young as 18. One 19-year-old man’s mother was filmed attempting to drag him from the queue. “Put your clothes on; otherwise, I’ll get the police to come for you. This is unacceptable to me,” she shouts (a spokesperson from Blue’s team told Metro that she was unable to stop him, and he ended up participating.)
On an episode of her podcast, comedian Katherine Ryan blasted the “loser” men in the queue. “These men aren’t even embarrassed … you’re standing in a corridor to have 45 seconds of sex with a stranger and, what, you feel good about yourself?” “We need any man who has ever attended a Bonnie Blue or Lily Philips ‘motive’ to be on a list in the way other sex offenders are,” remarked one male commenter amid the hordes of men – and women – who proudly slut-shame Blue and Phillips.
Instagram content
Instagram content
A widely-watched documentary by filmmaker Josh Pieters gave an alarmingly candid insight into one of these stunts. It shows Phillips, after sleeping with 100 men, tearful and talking about dissociating from her body. While Pieters appears concerned for Phillips’ wellbeing, at no point does he interrogate the complicity of the identity-protected men. Instead, Pieters interviews them about which sexual acts they’d done, and whether it was “worth it.” One man says: “it’s not normally something I’d do but I saw it and I just thought… might as well, you know?” “Yeah,” Pieters replies, with zero pushback.
“Too sexually active, not sexually active enough; prudish or gold-digging; virgin or whore…”
What Blue and Phillips are profiting off is a product of our misogynistic and patriarchal society. None of this would be happening without the objectification and appetite for the degradation of women.
These queuing men give a troubling echo of the Gisèle Pelicot trial. Although vastly different in terms of consent, the common thread is our culture that “normalises the objectification of women while shielding the men who exploit it,” writes domestic abuse campaigner David Challen. “These aren’t nameless, faceless monsters; they are ‘ordinary’ men from all walks of life who justify their actions, deflect accountability, and rely on societal narratives that too often shift the focus onto the women involved. What drives so many to step forward, unhesitating, to participate in harm?”
While OnlyFans is often touted as an empowering platform for women to earn huge amounts of money, contrary to historic power dynamics in porn, there’s a flipside to this kind of digital sex work. Increasingly, young women are reporting degrading requests, abusive and predatory treatment, along with doxxing, so-called ‘revenge porn’ and stalking. One video sees Blue and Phillips welcoming in a horde of hooded men at their front door. By fetishing a situation that would seem terrifying to most women, it’s telling that this is the type of scenario they’re sexualising for their viewers.
It’s worth noting that some of the queueing men are very young, potentially indoctrinated by manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate – but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable.
While Blue and Phillips are being shamed across the internet, pop culture continues to praise men for high body counts. On TikTok viral track ‘Lady Killers II’, G-Eazy raps about wanting to top NBA star Wilt Chamberlain’s claims he slept with 20,000 women. The Sun published a ‘lover’s list’ ranking the vast quantities of women that male celebrities have slept with. These, like Phillips and Blue’s gatherings, teach young men to feel entitled to women’s bodies.
This also comes at a time when, post #MeToo, we’re witnessing a shift to the right, and feminism and women's safety is being weaponised for political gain. We can see it in the trans bathroom panic (ask any cis woman and they’ll tell you it’s men we’re frightened of, not trans people) and Elon Musk and Nigel Farage bringing up grooming gangs – the latter of which took a photo with Conor McGregor, who recently lost a civil rape case, at Trump’s inauguration. The Spectator even attempted to draw a parallel between Blue and accused rapist Tate, inexplicably saying both encourage “bad male behaviours.” This all works to minimise the very real and serious abuse of women.
You can disagree with what Blue and Phillips are doing, protest the clickbait-ification of sex work, and feel concerned about the safety of these women. But it should ring alarm bells that so many men are willing to chase gratification at the expense of empathy, and of treating a woman like a human being.
As Blake Lively sues Justin Baldoni for alleged sexual harassment, many other famous women are speaking up.
