The new pornography taskforce will propose legislation this autumn aimed at banning a type of “barely legal” content produced by porn star Bonnie Blue, the Guardian has learned.
The proposed action by the independent pornography taskforce, launched last month by Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin, comes in response to the broadcast of the Channel 4 documentary 1000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story. The programme followed the performer as she filmed herself having sex with 1,057 clients over the course of 12 hours.
Visa and Smirnoff are among a number of businesses that have pulled online advertisements from streaming of the documentary, after reviewing the content. The film was condemned by the children’s commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, for “glamorising and normalising” extreme pornography.
The documentary also includes footage of Tia Billinger, whose stage name is Bonnie Blue, in a classroom preparing to film an orgy with a group of models dressed in school uniform; the performers acknowledge that they have been selected because they look very young.
Baroness Bertin said she planned to lodge amendments to the crime and policing bill in the autumn to make it illegal for online platforms to host any content that could encourage child sexual abuse, including pornography filmed by adults dressed as children.
“This content is pushing at the boundaries. We will be trying to address the ‘barely legal’ aspect legislatively,” she said.
The Online Safety Act charged the regulator Ofcom with monitoring whether pornography sites are protecting UK viewers from encountering illegal material involving child sexual abuse and extreme content, such as portrayals of rape, bestiality and necrophilia. However, other forms of harmful pornography that are regulated offline (in cinemas, for example) are not subject to similar restrictions online. This regulatory anomaly means adults role-playing as children to create pornography that appears close to child sexual abuse imagery is not prohibited online.
The Channel 4 documentary only showed preparations for the classroom scene rather than the footage itself. Clips showing Bonnie Blue having sex with over 1,000 men were pixellated, but the programme has still been widely criticised for promoting her brand and for failing to challenge adequately her assertion that her activity is harmless.
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Bertin said the documentary would be on the agenda at the taskforce’s next meeting. “She has become extremely successful; she is an adult and it is consensual, so it may not be harming her, but it has potentially harmful effects on people who think that this is a normal way to behave,” she said. “We should be asking more about the men who arrive with balaclavas on their head to have sex with her.”
De Souza said: “For years we have been fighting to protect our children from the kind of degrading, violent sex that exists freely on their social media feeds. Now this documentary risks taking us a step back by glamorising, even normalising the things young people tell me are frightening. Bonnie Blue’s content showcases violence against women as entertainment and allows sexist ideas that women are ‘lesser’ than men to go unchecked.”
Visa’s advertisements were placed by a third-party agency, but the company requested that they be removed from online streaming of the Channel 4 documentary after staff viewed it and judged that the content did not align with its internal guidelines. Staff at the drinks company Diageo are assessing how a Smirnoff advertisement was cleared to appear during online transmission of the show, and have also subsequently pulled their advertising from streaming of the programme.
An Ofcom spokesperson said the regulator was assessing the documentary and would decide whether to launch a formal investigation.
The policing minister, Diana Johnson, said last week that she would discuss the ease with which children could access the documentary on Channel 4’s website with ministerial colleagues. Channel 4 requires users to be 16 to register an account, but there is no age-verification process, so children could theoretically lie about their age.
A Channel 4 spokesperson said the observational film was designed to provoke debate. “The film looks at how Bonnie Blue has gained worldwide attention and earned millions of pounds in the last year, exploring changing attitudes to sex, success, porn and feminism in an ever-evolving online world. Director Victoria Silver puts a number of challenges to Bonnie throughout the documentary on the example she sets and how she is perceived, and the film clearly lays bare the tactics and strategies she uses, with the audience purposefully left to form their own opinions.”
