When a man asks a woman for a threesome and she requests for it to be with another man, he vehemently rebukes the suggestion with protestations that he is ‘not gay’. This same guy might travel to Marylebone to share one woman with 1056 other men believing it to be the most heterosexual thing anyone has ever done.
This may seem disturbing and illogical. It is, indeed, both of those things. It is also true.
This is exactly what Bonnie Blue — a British, 25 year-old Only Fans performer who has gained recent notoriety through organising events inviting large numbers of strangers to have sex with her — made happen in late January.
There is no real need to discuss Blue’s personality, morality or antics. No, she is not absolved of shame nor responsibility, but her choices are merely symptomatic of patriarchy and deformed desire adapting for survival in a neoliberal world. There exists already a wealth of feminist literature that explains her story – it’s a tale as old as time.
The men are the much grimier problem to solve. Television personality Olivia Attwood has demanded that we lambast them, noting they’re the ‘husbands, brothers, sons and colleagues’ of women who’d likely be repulsed by the whole process.
Frankly, I doubt condemnation will incite any introspection within these boulders-brained morons. I believe standing together in solidarity to point, whisper and laugh at them, surely that’d be far more effective.
Remember that rhetoric that pervaded all our screens the last four years: ‘To be a woman is to perform.’ Agreed, but being a resident of a civilised society, of whatever gender, requires a need to ‘to perform’ anyway. It’s not solely a feminine trait, that’s why the discourse’s focus must firmly shift towards scrutinising how men perform for different audiences daily.
Being a woman in a male-centred world is frustrating and demoralising, but I do welcome being, finally, in on the joke. Becoming aware of patriarchy is realising that our social structures are set as they are to facilitate the performance of manliness.
1057 men didn’t gather in Marylebone to have a chance at Bonnie Blue, they did it to be part of the brotherhood. She provides for them a platform to participate in the objectification of women and in doing so affirm their maleness. Women are so subordinate in their eyes that the only opinion of value comes from other men. What Bonnie Blue provides them is actually far more valuable – a testimony to their manhood.
Husbands, brothers, sons and colleagues gather in a ritualistic performance of masculinity. A confirmation of sorts. They leave and bump into each other on the way out and elicit a bro hug from each other. Bouncing and chattering with excitement, they broadcast with pride about being the Xth-placed person to sleep with Bonnie. It is the most homoerotic thing I have ever seen.
In the wild, male animals perform for female courtship. In civilisation, men perform for other men.
Bonnie Blue gathered these men in a ritual of public humiliation, that’s what we need to remember. Really, if we want to be effective, we should all be laughing hysterically at one group. A little over one thousand men who spent one Winter’s evening in West London telling each other just how masculine they really were.
Image Credits- Unsplash
