Content warning: This article contains details of sexual violence, gender based violence and misogyny.
Izzy Jakes
Bonnie Blue, who is known for having sex with over a thousand men in one day, has announced she will be running her own “petting zoo”, where she will be in a glass box allowing men to do “whatever they want” with “no limits” whilst she is tied up.
These comments were made on a website advertising the stunt which has since been deleted. No, this isn’t the synopsis of a Black Mirror episode. It is, unfortunately, a real concept that has been dominating my social media feed.
I worry that the novelty of this will soon wear off only for the next idea to arrive. They will get progressively more outrageous and disturbing until the boundaries are removed completely, alongside the shock factor. At what point will this stop?
Is Bonnie Blue Setting Us Back?
Initially, I was saddened to see this, but I can’t say I was surprised, especially by such a divisive figure who capitalises off the problematic tagline of “barely legal” and encourages misogynistic behaviour.
In interviews online, Bonnie Blue has spoken openly about her type being “virgins” and young adults, with her being “happy” to sleep with someone on their eighteenth birthday. Despite this being legal in UK law, it sparks moral debate regarding attitudes towards what consists of healthy power dynamics in sex.
I have to question how much she genuinely presents this internalised misogyny, or is she just provoking the same narrative for attention or a reaction because it works?
“…in no way is this solely her fault, often in complex conversations like this it is easy to blame the woman and deflect from the root causes.”
Positive or negative, the internet is flooded with opinions on the “petting zoo”. However, I don’t think the reaction was as she expected, with it resulting in her OnlyFans being deactivated.
Either way, this feels like a major setback regarding the expectations of sex that people learn from social media. Just as I began to believe we had escaped a controversial figure promoting extreme ideologies as the norm, a new one has risen and women are paying for it, once again.
History Repeating Itself
After being constantly bombarded with this online, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Surely something like this had been done before, right? It has, in the famously controversial experiment conducted by Marina Abramovic in 1974 titled ‘Rhythm 0’.
This artistic display invited anybody from the audience to interact with her for over six hours with the 72 objects that she had selected, including a loaded gun. Throughout the experiment, men spat on her, cut off her clothes and attacked her, proving her hypothesis that audiences will turn violent if they are not confronted with consequences.
This feels like history repeating itself, with Bonnie Blue hoping to celebrate the abusive power dynamics that Abramovic so bravely risked her life to expose.
“We have to ask ourselves: who are the men queuing up to do this to her?”
I strongly believe that this is pushing a dangerous and harmful ideology where men can do whatever they want to women.
Abramovic’s work should be taken as a direct warning or caution as to how dangerous humans can be once boundaries are removed. When a similar concept is conducted with different intentions it feels almost trivial, glamorising violence and spectatorship of it towards women.
The Dystopian ‘Petting Zoo’ Concept
This makes me greatly worried about the “petting zoo” with influencers platforming her to gain content and joke about the severity of the situation. The normalisation of this behaviour leads audiences to become desensitised, or even potentially copy the creators.
Bonnie Blue’s stories are not normal and should not be common knowledge to young teenagers on TikTok. It is almost too easy to get caught up in such crazy concepts online and forget that this is very much real and will have a lasting aftermath.
The ‘petting zoo’ seems to be an escalation from other stunts that Bonnie Blue has done before such as sleeping with as many men as she can in one day. Not only does it directly objectify her as a person, but it also – quite literally – compares women to animals, and ultimately, as inferior beings to men.
Is this what Marina Abramovic risked her life for?
Where Does The Blame Lie?
Understandably, many people have issues with pornography. Due to the industry being structurally exploitative and having a negative impact on it’s audience, especially when underage, France has even introduced stricter laws.
Personally, what I find the most frustrating is women in positions of privilege, such as Bonnie Blue, feeding into this narrative that it is a choice or empowering, especially when victims of trafficking, revenge porn and the wider porn industry do not have that ability to choose.
Now, don’t get me wrong, in no way is this solely her fault, often in complex conversations like this it is easy to blame the woman and deflect from the root causes. We have to ask ourselves: who are the men queuing up to do this to her?
Although it is something that I will never understand, what I do know is that these men are sons, brothers, friends, husbands, fathers and colleagues who think it is normal to interact with women this way, and we can’t turn a blind eye to their participation.
How Can We Overcome This?
If you are anything like me and find news like this depressing, and yet, can’t help but doomscroll through the endless lists of misogynistic comments on these posts, remind yourself that this discomfort is valid. You are feeling it for a reason.
“It’s important to remind ourselves to use our sentiments towards such events to inspire us to find our voice, whether that is through writing, creating or speaking up.”
Try to view these emotions as positive, as they prove how awake you are to recognise problematic content. Although it is important to stay clued up about what’s going on in the world, never feel bad or guilty for clicking “not interested” or blocking this content from your feed and taking a break.
You are not isolated in your reaction. There is an endless number of people asking the same questions you are. Laura Bates is an amazing author who helps women navigate this new age of online sexism on social media and through her books. In in her latest book, ‘The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny’, she explores how technology and social media are enabling a new wave of misogyny that we must respond to in a different way. Bates writes in such a way that, despite the content of her books being intense, I feel fuelled and inspired, instead of disheartened after reading them.
It’s important to remind ourselves to use our sentiments towards such events to inspire us to find our voice, whether that is through writing, creating or speaking up. There are like-minded people out there. I promise you will find them!
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Featured image courtesy of Nicole Bomar on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image licence found here.
