There has been a lot of crying and moaning from TikTokers about their social media app being banned in America, and that's understandable. Becoming a successful content creator has become a legitimate career for many young people. Browsing the Internet is a much more attractive prospect than dabbling in the real world, as their parents did.
If I were them, I wouldn't worry too much. Although Donald Trump was once an early proponent of the ban, he has since harnessed the power of social media for his own political campaign to attract younger voters, so he has changed his tune.
For Trump – and others like Nigel Farage – TikTok is a useful tool to popularize their message, bypass the so-called establishment media and connect intimately with the public, in much the same way as other 'influencers'.
Whether you're flogging pants or policy, the mechanism is basically the same – and it works. No smart politician will shut down such an effective method of persuasion, and Trump is nothing if not smart.
In any case, TikTok is not nearly as toxic as some platforms. If I were to ban anything on the grounds that it has a seriously harmful effect on society, it would be the disgusting OnlyFans, the site that is essentially a portal for porn stars and has given us, among other things, Bonnie Blue (real name) delivered. Tia Bilinger), who claims to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours.
To put it bluntly, OnlyFans culture is destroying women. The site's boss, mother-of-two Keily Blair, a former lawyer who studied law and politics at Oxford Brookes University, would undoubtedly disagree. She does her best to portray her pay-per-view site as an elevated feminist platform, where “empowered,” independent, sex-positive women can make a living on their own terms.
This is, of course, complete poppycock. It's another form of prostitution, and Mrs. Blair is just a wealthy pimp.
Under this guise, the site has attracted many users who might not otherwise have turned to sex work, lured by the idea that the site provides a 'safe', controlled environment in which they can operate. This has contributed to the idea, already popularized by the total absence of censorship around online porn, that working in the sex entertainment industry is a normal way to make a living.
Bonnie Blue (real name Tia Bilinger) has claimed to have had sex with 1,057 men in 12 hours
It perpetuates the false idea of the “happy whore,” the woman who sells her body not because she has to, but because she wants to, because that's the only way she can satisfy her insatiable desire to please men. OnlyFans, with its lucrative monetization model and slick PR, glosses over the grim reality of such choices, the often violent and humiliating encounters women endure, the physical risks, health consequences and long-term psychological effects . It also encourages increasingly extreme behavior in pursuing 'fans'. Suddenly it's no longer enough to do the usual things: it has to be 'extra'.
Consider Bonnie Blue's latest stunt: one body, a thousand men, for twelve hours, each competing for their ounce of flesh. Horrible.
She then posted several videos to social media, each praising the “positive effects” of multiple bodily fluids on her skin tone, and another detailing “the aftermath” (bruises on her legs, sore wrists, a bite wound on the inside of her her thigh), others show the lines of men waiting in their boxer shorts and socks.
One, an unemployed security guard named Ali Walker, described the scene. 'There were about thirty to forty men around her at any time, all taking turns working. She was surrounded by boys.” Photos show a large leather ottoman in the center of a large room, discarded condoms and used tissues strewn everywhere. Again, her story is that she is just a girl who wants to 'please' as many men as possible. After reaching her goal of 1,000, she then extended her favors to another 57 “to thank them” for waiting.
Bonnie posted several videos to social media after the “marathon,” each touting the “positive effects” of multiple body fluids on her skin tone
Meanwhile, her 'rival', Lily Phillips, who went viral last year after appearing tearful and shaky after performing a similar stunt by sleeping with 100 men in 24 hours – an experience she described as 'not for the weak girls ' – planning to go one further.
Blue has pinned her bedpost to 1,000 notches and issued her own 'backdoor challenge' in which she will attempt anal intercourse with as many partners as possible over the course of one day. Leaving aside the serious medical risks associated with attempting such a stunt, there is no universe in which such an endeavor could be described as remotely pleasurable, even for the most accomplished masochist.
And yet both women present themselves as unable to resist the urge, as if forced to act out of sexual desire. Again, this is poppycock: they are simply indulging a male (porn) fantasy that all women are secretly desperate for 'good care'.
Some people – and you can certainly imagine the men who participate in such events – consider criticism of their actions unfair. It's a free country, their body, their choice; and so forth. But their actions and the perceptions they create have undeniable real-world consequences for other women.
Women like the Beast of Avignon rape victim Gisele Pelicot, for example, but also the victims of the pedophile grooming gangs in Rotherham and Oxford.
If we really care about protecting women from toxic masculinity, writes SARAH VINE, we need to start examining aspects of our own toxic femininity.
In the latter cases, a key factor in the exploitation of young white working-class girls by men of mainly Pakistani descent was the idea that non-Muslim Anglo-Saxon women are all, not to put too much emphasis on it, 'whores'. '. This is a common misconception in certain cultures, and a common theme of Islamist propaganda.
During the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, for example, the horrific sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists against young women at the Nova music festival undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that they were told – and even believed – that violating non-Muslim women was an act of heroism that in no way diminished them in the eyes of their families or communities.
Similar twisted reasoning was used in part by 'grooming/rape' gangs to justify their actions, which, let us not forget, included torture, murder, humiliation and almost unimaginable levels of cruelty and depravity.
As Judge Gerald Clifton, who sentenced members of the Rochdale 'grooming gang', said at the time: 'You have dealt with them all [the victims] as if they were worthless and beyond all respect. I believe one of the factors that led to that was that they did not belong to your community or religion.”
Such prejudices cannot and should not be tolerated. But here's the thing. When we are dealing with cultural and religious zealots of limited intelligence and moral qualities, like the men who committed these heinous crimes, the fact that women like Blue and Phillips are pulling sick stunts doesn't exactly make it any easier to disabuse them of these ideas. get rid of.
It is an uncomfortable but undeniable truth that the existence of OnlyFans and the way its 'content creators' pander to the objectification of Western women as fundamentally immoral is deeply toxic. It endangers the safety of ordinary girls and women and gives evil men the opportunity to justify their behavior, from Gisele Pelicot's husband and his accomplices to those who branded a young girl with the letter 'M' for Mohammed. And yet society seems to treat the whole thing like a giant joke, just another freak show for the internet age.
Blue has been interviewed on numerous podcasts and in the media; she's even ended up on ITV's This Morning sofa with Cat Deeley; Phillips' documentary about sleeping with 100 men, made in collaboration with YouTuber Josh Pieters, has been viewed more than 8.5 million times. The slogan: 'I would do it for free'.
We can't have it both ways. If we really care about protecting women from toxic masculinity, we need to start examining aspects of our own toxic femininity, like Blue, Phillips, their many imitators, and of course the female boss of OnlyFans, who is in charge of the entire showing sorry are a striking example of this.
