As BOP House alumni like Julia Filippo find viral fame through childlike aesthetics and ‘barely legal’ branding, and creators like Bonnie Blue build careers around mentoring the naïve, we’re forced to ask: when does content creation cross the line into normalising infantilisation?
Scrolling through my TikTok feed, I was shocked to be served a Bonnie Blue video. I would usually scroll past as quickly as possible to avoid giving her any engagement, but before I could, I noticed the video was a collaboration with Julia Filippo, whom I recognised from the ‘BOP House’. The OnlyFans content house that went viral late last year with the publishing of some of the girls’ earnings.
The video, which was only a few seconds long, showed Bonnie and Julia on a bed surrounded by masked men, lip-syncing to the soundbite, “I think you know where this is about to go.” At the time of writing, the clip has nearly nine million views, at least five of them mine as I scrolled through the comment section. The responses were a mix of approvals and disapprovals, mainly from religious individuals and women, many of whom pointed out Julia’s youthful appearance, particularly referencing her pigtail hairstyle.
One comment captured my attention: “You’re such a great teacher, Bonnie.” That forced me to research further into the other videos promoting the full video on Bonnie’s page. There are many where Bonnie insists she wants to be Julia’s “teacher,” reminding viewers how much she loves “barely legal virgins,” despite there being only three years between their ages. Some clips show the pigtailed Julia being carried to the bed by at least ten masked men, according to my count.
Of course, these videos are rage-bait designed to evoke the most shock value possible and reach the most people to funnel them into the links to pay-per-view content. We have to acknowledge that creators like Bonnie and Julia are operating in an industry that unfairly demands constant innovation and personal branding for one to succeed. However, they do raise important points about the role of infantilisation in adult content marketing and the push for younger and younger girls to view sex work as aspirational.
Going onto Julia’s Instagram page, amidst the suggestive modelling content, there are reels addressing her age, some jokey, some framed as interviews, condemning men who message her, encouraging her to act younger than she is.
Lip-syncing to “I don’t want to be friends,” reacting to “you look twelve,” she states that she dislikes people saying that about her. She also states in interviews on her page that she hates being called young and defends herself by saying it isn’t her fault, implying she is doing everything possible to prevent that kind of attention. Many of her videos lean headfirst into signifiers of youth that could be sarcastic, but to some, don’t read that way.
Just last month, she posted another video using “Sound of da Police” as the backing audio, with the caption “me if I was as old as I look,” implying she would be in jail if she were as underage as she appears. The post invited followers to “guess my age,” and the comments were flooded with guesses.
At Christmas last year, she posted a lot of content dressed as Cindy Lou Who, played in the film by a seven-year-old Taylor Momsen. In fact, there is not a video on her page where she doesn’t, in some way, lean into a youthful appearance, whether through an upward-looking gaze into the camera, a girly lip bite, fake nervous giggles, or clothing like baby tees and pyjamas.
There is not only an awareness of her youthful appearance despite claims that she rejects it, but an acknowledgement that leaning into the accusations, making content that tailors to fans who see her that way, expands her success. This cannot be accidental, especially given her new virality in the pornographic role of the innocent virgin who needs to be “taught,” a set-up is deeply problematic and pervasive on adult sites, perpetuating unhealthy, unequal power in sex. When publicised so openly on mainstream platforms and viewed by so many people, it goes a long way to normalising this kind of sexual dynamic.
The term “grooming” is very often brought up weaponised online in conversations surrounding sex work, however I feel with this Bonnie blue and Julia Filippo collaboration I feel there is a genuine need to examine how content like this echo the real grooming behaviours of isolating, infantilising, and normalising unequal power under the guise of protection or mentorship.
What alarmed me about seeing this video was that it was not happening in private or fringe spaces but algorithmically pushed to millions, including underage TikTok users. A 2024 study by Pew Research Centre found that out of 1500 teens surveys, 68% said they are active TikTok users. For the young girls watching, the repeated message that vulnerability, passivity, and youth are the most valuable forms of femininity undermines decades worth of feminist work that sought to redefine female sexuality into agency and consent, rather than submission and compliance. The effect of creators commodifying these dynamics, even satirically or strategically, serve to reinforce the idea that desirability depends on how childlike and controllable a woman can appear.
These women have the agency however, to create successful brands for themselves and profit off a public image, which is no mean feat. They are only afforded this choice, also thanks to a long history of women who risked a lot for bodily autonomy to be possible. I can’t help but feel Julia’s brand, centring around performing less sexual knowledge, positioning herself as not only younger but more vulnerable, is a step backwards. Imitating less agency, while only being able to do so because of generations of work by women, is slightly ironic and feels regressive.
While many would see profiting off a system that has existed for millennia and will likely continue for another as empowering, sexualised infantilisation harms the women who aren’t on top of that paedophilic system, but trapped beneath it, which, let’s face it, is the majority of us.
I can’t help but feel conflicted. As someone who supports sex workers’ rights and autonomy, I also feel fatigued watching the normalisation of childlike imagery as a marketing strategy. It also makes me sad to see them contorting themselves into the most clickable form of womanhood instead of creating content, perhaps more authentic to them. Also, the more we celebrate their success in portraying this image, the harder it is for the many OnlyFans creators who rely on a flexible second income stream, who don’t fit the “barely legal” fantasy, to survive in the same space without escalating their own content.
Pressures of extremism during sex affect everyone, shaping how women are taught to view their bodies, agency, and relationships to partners, and how men, especially when exposed from a young age, grow up believing their only sexual role is to be dominant and controlling. This idea then circularly harms the women they become involved with. This mentality, pushed through such content and amplified by the algorithm, trickles down and damages everyone.
When platforms incentivise this kind of content, and audiences reward it, how much responsibility can we fairly place on individual creators? These are not just issues within adult content and content creators themselves; they bleed out into how all young women are taught to view their bodies, their agency, and their worth. But it is also unavoidably true that the more figures like Bonnie Blue accelerate the normalisation of extremity in adult content, and the more creators like Julia Filippo play into the narrative that “barely legal” women needing to be “taught” are the most desirable, the more unsafe it becomes for women both in and out of the industry. It also reinforces the damaging idea that women have a sexual expiry date and must perform naivety in order to remain desirable.
