On 25 July the UK Government’s online safety legislation enforced more stringent age checks on anyone accessing porn sites. These incorporate tools like facial age estimation using live video, and credit card, bank, phone provider and passport checks. Platforms flouting checks could be fined 10% of their global turnover. Whether it’ll work or not, is yet to be seen. That it is desperately necessary, and epically overdue, is crystal clear. According to research published in June 2025 by Ofcom, over the course of a month long period, 8% of children aged between eight and 14 had watched online porn. Of boys aged 13 to 14, that figure rose to 20%.
Now, do please spare me any argument that pornography is somehow feminist; a sex-positive decrying of female shame, a fiscal opportunity for entrepreneurial young women with great tits, blah blah bleurgh. I’ve heard it before – and never bought it. The creating of porn is by definition exploitative and abusive. Industries which rely on the bodies and emotional pliability of women too young, and too socioeconomically underprivileged to object, tend to be – have you noticed?
Meanwhile the consuming of it, especially by young children – in whom neural pathways, and ideas about the world, are being laid down like infrastructure on an Olympic site – is demonstrably harmful. A 2023 report by the UK’s Children’s Commissioner found a correlation between early exposure to porn, frequent consumption of it, and the development of harmful behaviours and attitudes…
But you already knew that. I mean, come on! Choking during sex has become such standard practise among the under 35s, it’s practically vanilla! Entry level naughty. (Choking: the simulation of something designed to kill you. And by ‘you’ I mean, ‘if you’re a woman’. No one chokes the dude in heterosexual sex. That’s not hot.)
Which brings us to Bonnie Blue, the 26-year-old Lancastrian who claims to hold the world record for sex on camera with the most amount of men in 24 hours: 1057, by her count. Blue’s the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, an excellent interview in The Times – and Andrew Tate’s belief we’ve reached ‘the perfect end-result of feminism’ through her.
God, she’s confusing! So unapologetic in The Times interview, so normal. So convinced she embodies female empowerment, ambition, so proud of her work ethic, the money she makes – a million a month, at times. She’s been banned everywhere from Australia to OnlyFans via Airbnb, but she knows she’ll find a way! She’ll persevere! And maybe this really is who – what – Bonnie Blue is. The exception which proves the rule that crazily over-available, culture-saturating online porn can only ever hurt the women who make it – and absolutely everyone else who consumes it.