Freshers’ week is known for its awkward Icebreaker conversations, blurry nights out and new introduced freedoms that freshers have to navigate, but this year, the headline of Sheffield’s Freshers Week was an adult performer and her so-called ‘bang-bus’.
Bonnie Blue, an infamous only-fans star came to Sheffield during Freshers week this year on her fresher’s week tour, where she has sexual ‘meet and greets’ with what she has coined ‘barely legal students’. Where some may say that Bonnie Blue’s Freshers tour is a harmless marketing stunt which has successfully become the centre of many conversations and news headlines, I believe that major concerns of consent, boundaries and exploitation come to the forefront when extreme sex work is being normalised in relation to vulnerable students.
Whilst most are legally adults, with the ability to make their own decisions and sexual choices, the presence of extreme sexual pressure in the form of a 26-year-old pornstar, promoting her services and her body all over social media seems seriously harmful in an environment where identities are still being curated.
I think that central to this conversation surrounding the ethicality of a parading bang bus turning up outside Sheffield’s students’ union is feminism and its modern definition and forms. Whilst I completely agree that Bonnie Blue has autonomy over her own body and therefore should be allowed to utilise it for her own benefit, making a career of it in the process, does this not further curate the assumption that women in general should be treated as sexual objects that exist entirely for the use and pleasure of men?
With over 150,000 TikTok followers, Bonnie Blue’s platform has a large outreach and real influence- and with that comes responsibility. By claiming a husband has the right to cheat if his wife doesn’t ‘please’ him, and that people can ‘do anything’ with her body, she reinforces misogynistic values rather than challenging them. While some might see her work as promoting sexual freedom and agency, it feels more like unproductive feminism that excuses the treatment of women as objects, ultimately undoing previous progress.
Where I may be tempted to praise Bonnie Blue to some extent is in her promotional and marketing strategy. Everyone IS talking about her. The publicity and online outrage of Bonnie Blue’s tour created waves throughout the student community and if all publicity is good publicity, then Bonnie Blue certainly has a lot of good publicity. However, this does create questions of whether her whole platform relies solely on her successfully rage-baiting the TikTok for-you page, or if more dangerously, beliefs of male dominance and control over women are genuinely on the rise?
The outrage at Bonnie Blue’s tours were not just expressed online but also physically, with Bonnie Blue being punched in the face at the nightclub, Onyx. You could argue that if Bonnie Blue publicly stated that people ‘can do anything with her body’ then this must include being punched? However, I believe that this altercation just emphasises the negative impact of the Bang Bus, with its presence actively creating violence and social disturbances. Freshers’ week should be about making new friends and memories in a new city and should not be tainted by the unnecessary presence of an only-fans star getting punched.
Ultimately, while Bonnie Blue may claim to be exercising sexual freedom and agency, her presence during Freshers’ week feels less like empowerment and more like exploitation. By targeting young students still finding their feet, she risks reinforcing outdated narratives that women exist for male consumption rather than dismantling them. Freshers’ week should be a time for discovery, freedom, and growth—not a place for the normalisation of harmful sexual dynamics disguised as feminism. Perhaps, however, one silver lining to Bonnie Blue’s chaotic Freshers’ tour is that, after being punched in the face in Sheffield, she might think again before bringing her Bang Bus back to campus.
