'Bonnie Blue's scheme to sleep with hundreds of freshers is far from empowering'

Adult star Bonnie Blue has gone viral after boasting about sleeping with 18 and 19-year-old students to make a huge profit. Mirror writer Niamh Kirk argues that we can't defend everything under the guise of feminism, especially when it comes to issues of consent

While you can't knock the devotion to her hustle, Bonnie Blue's business model beg the question - is this really female empowerment?

The 24-year-old adult star has found herself at the centre of a huge internet storm after bragging about sleeping with 'hundreds' of 18 and 19-year-old students for profit.

She stresses that it's all completely consensual and argues it's a great way for young men to find their confidence in the bedroom, but critics have accused Bonnie of preying on freshers who aren't considering the long-term implications of having their endeavours posted online.

But is that really Bonnie's problem if they know what they've signed up for? Or should we be asking questions about the ethics of using students in this way for monetary gain?

Don't get me wrong, I am all for female empowerment, regardless of what industry a woman works in. The last thing we need is to put another woman down for making a living. But we can't defend everything under the guise of feminism - we simply have to have space to talk about issues of consent. And ultimately, the tone of Bonnie's boasting leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

The adult star says her 'niche' is sleeping with eighteen and nineteen-year-old men for content on OnlyFans. She recently went on a UK university tour to set herself up with freshers, and claims there were "eight-hour queues" of men wanting to be with her. She goes as far to say that she deliberately targets universities as she believes sleeping with younger men 'sets her apart' from the crowded adult content market.

Taking her business model global in the likes of Australia and Cancun, Bonnie Blue has travelled all over promoting her sex work. I have nothing against women who are so open about sex or who work in the sex industry. I think it's great that women have agency to celebrate their financial wins in the adult star space - we've come a long way since the days when sex was a completely taboo subject. But Bonnie's strategy makes me nervous - there's a power dynamic here that's hard to ignore. Especially when she describes these freshers as 'nervous'.

Bonnie says she "loves taking virginities", and it's these remarks that have raised concerns over whether she could be taking advantage of naive young men.

She claims to earn a whopping £540,000 a month through her adult content work, which she started last year after the end of a nine-year relationship. And according to the adult star, sleeping with younger men makes sense 'from a business point of view'.

She told Mail Online: "There's two reasons. One: the teen category has been the most searched category online for a very long time, people have always done schoolgirls. And I was like, there's a gap in the market for someone being with a schoolboy. If that's how we want to word it.

"From a business point of view, I knew there was a massive, massive gap that I could [exploit]. And sleeping with 18-year-olds makes the content a lot more relatable to the subscribers, who are younger."

Bonnie also spoke on GK Barry's Saving Grace podcast about her work and claimed in a now-deleted clip that the freshers "made me rich". She said: "They're holding their IDs up, they're shaking [...] I can understand why they'd be nervous, they don't know me, they've just queued up for eight hours on end."

This is where my issue lies: if this was a man openly bragging about young women holding up their IDs and 'shaking' before they slept together, there would be absolute uproar. Equally, if a man was given a platform like the Saving Grace podcast to flaunt their 'business' and brag about how much money he was making from taking women's virginities, he'd automatically be cancelled on the spot.

It's clear that people can't get past their concerns, as a Change.org petition has clocked up nearly 20,000 signatures from concerned Australians calling for her to be cancelled. The petition asks: "How is she contributing to our society.. by preying on just legal boys and publicly boasting about it with no intention of stopping anytime soon."

Bonnie does make clear that all of these teenagers have to sign a contract, making the transactional nature of her endeavours very clear. But it is interesting to note that these teenagers are not profiting from the content that the star posts online.

It is a positive thing that women are finding more flexible ways to make money. And no-one should shame Bonnie for working on OnlyFans itself. But I don't think we should be giving her a huge platform to brag about cashing in on potentially vulnerable teens. The language she uses - openly using phrases like exploit, for example - should raise an alarm. We can still empower women while calling out troubling behaviour.

Do you have a story to share? Email niamh.kirk@reachplc.com