To the spirit of the age.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you are the reductio ad absurdum of the sexual revolution.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so if I had my way, um, I would It's a hobby. It's fun.
SPEAKER_00Um Bonnie Blue is an OnlyFans content creator who is famous for having sex with 1,057 men in just 12 hours. She earns millions per month as a porn star. And she went on to the Modern Wisdom Podcast, Chris Williamson's podcast to be opposite Louise Perry, friend of the show. Chris Williamson says, You are the reductio ad absurdum of the sexual revolution. You have taken the sexual revolution to its absurd conclusions. Louise Perry says, you are the spirit of the age. What do they mean by this? Let's get into it with Chris Williamson's excellent question. What is sex for?
SPEAKER_02What do you think sex is for? Do you do you think of it as something? Is it sacred, relational, recreational, nothing? Is it the same as as walking?
SPEAKER_03It's a hobby. It's fun. Um and there's not really much to it before, like, else I think about it. Before, I used to have a really low body count prior to being a sex worker. I couldn't imagine having sex with someone unless I was dating them, or unless I imagined, you know, I wasn't having sex on a first date. Now it's within seconds. But to me now sex is just a it doesn't have to mean something. I can still enjoy it. It's a it's an orgasm. And it's as simple as that.
SPEAKER_00Terrific question from Chris Williamson and uh a devastating answer from Bonnie Blue. It's an orgasm, it's nothing, it doesn't have to be meaningful. It is recreation, and I think that is why both Chris Williamson and Louise Perry are saying that she is the spirit of the age, she is the reductio ad absurdum of the sexual revolution. There has been a desacralization, a disenchantment of sex to the point where we only think of it in terms of recreation, we are we only think of it in terms of an orgasm. Now it's possible to say that with your lips, but as a culture, we're finding it impossible to live it out in practice. There is a double think that is going on in modern Western society about sex, and both Louise Perry and Chris Williamson are going to press into that double think. And I think they do a terrific job. Let's first hear Louise Perry doing it around the 26-minute mark.
SPEAKER_04I think, I think what you do, Bonnie, not just in terms of the porn, but also in your attitude towards money and towards independence and like you and actually egalitarianism. I mean, when you talk about like, I'll take any man, I don't judge, whatever, there's something very um progressive about that politically, right? Like being super, super egalitarian.
SPEAKER_00That's a great point about Bonnie Blue being this avatar of the 1960s sexual revolution. Uh, there has been an equalizing of the sexes in terms of a woman is intended to be through contraception and through the relaxation of cultural mores, she's supposed to be as liberated in her attitudes to sex as men have always been expected to be. And so the disenchantment of sex and the commercialization of sex and the equalization of sex as though women's attitudes to sex are identical to men's and that we're all on the same playing field when we're talking about sex. The sexual revolution is all about that, and Bonnie Blue is the epitome of that view, really.
SPEAKER_04What you do is you actually take a lot of these um ideas that are present in the culture to their logical conclusion. Yeah. You say, Well, okay, you tell me the culture says that it's fine to be sexually liberated and to um prioritize being an entrepreneur and to um not worry about all these traditional hangups, and you basically take that to its logical conclusion. Take it to the extreme. You do. And I think what I think what happens a lot, one of the reasons I think you sort of rile people up is a lot of people who have a vague sense that that stuff is all good and fine and like they're kind of okay with sexual freedom and they're kind of okay with capitalism and uh and egalitarianism and they see that taken to this extreme and they go, Oh, hang on, I don't like that.
SPEAKER_02So you're saying that Bonnie is like the reductio ad absurdum of the sexual revolution.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you hold up a mirror to the culture. I think it's what it is.
SPEAKER_02Is it fair to say that Bonnie is just the natural end result of modern feminism?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. As well as other things too.
SPEAKER_00It might depend on which feminism we're talking about. Mary Harrington, who gets a name check in this podcast from Chris Williamson. She's a great friend of Louise Perry. She has written in Feminism Against Progress about two kinds of feminism. There's a feminism of care and a feminism of freedom. There's a feminism that prioritizes the independence of women and their ability to be as successful as men, even on men's own terms. There is a feminism of care which prioritizes the interdependence of the sexes and presses into motherliness and presses into women's concerns. That kind of feminism of freedom tends to ignore biology and interdependence and family and motherhood and those sorts of things. And a feminism of care is the sort of feminism that Mary Harrington and I think Louise Perry as well is wanting to advocate for, which takes a lot more seriously biological differences between the sex, the interdependence of the sex, family, motherhood, those kinds of concerns as well. So is Bonnie Blue the end point of feminism? A certain kind of feminism, I think Mary Harrington would say, a certain kind of feminism, I think Louise Perr Perry would say. But it's the endpoint of a feminism of freedom, which is a feminism of independence.
SPEAKER_04But yeah, definitely. I mean, definitely the idea of prioritizing sexual liberation above all else and not seeing that I mean what you said about sex being a hobby, I think that is an important idea that comes the only reason we think that now is because we have um reliable contraception. Obviously, before that, you couldn't think of sex in that way because it Well, especially women, like they Exactly, yeah, it's it's because the risks are so high for them. Um but since the sexual revolution, we've come to think I mean, in a slightly schizophrenic way, I think that people actually often think contradictory things, but they often say, Oh yeah, whatever sex like as long as everyone's consenting, that's fine. And then they see you you doing exactly that. Everyone in the queue in your cues is consenting, you're consenting, and they don't like it. And one of the reasons I think that you're such a notorious figure is because you you actually invite people to look at those ideas and think, oh wait, maybe actually the if I don't like what Bonnie Blue is doing, do I actually support sexual freedom?
SPEAKER_00Such a key question. Do I support sexual freedom? You've got to figure out what is sex and what is freedom. What is sex? Is it just a leisure activity or is it something more significant? What is freedom? Is freedom just independence? Is it just to throw off the shackles of all restraint? Is liberty just the negative freedom from constraints? Or is there a kind of a positive freedom, a freedom for things? But then you've got to figure out what sex is for and why we have been given sexual freedom. Maybe it is for the flourishing of true sex, but what sex truly is might not be two radically independent sovereign spheres of individual who are consenting to participate in this kind of leisure activity. Maybe that's not what sex is, and therefore we've been living with the myth that we are these atomized individuals who can consent to take part in some kind of leisure activity called sex. Is that really what sex is? And Bonnie Blue is just holding up a mirror to us, saying, is this vision of sex? Is this vision of freedom? Is this vision of consent? And is this vision of equality really the healthy, flourishing vision by which we can live today? Later on in the conversation, Chris Williamson has a brilliant contribution where I think he lays bare the contradiction that is right at the heart of our modern Western view of sex and sexuality.
SPEAKER_02It is difficult if you say sex is a resource to be traded like any other, and then capitalist market dynamics get applied to that which you have stepped into. It is very difficult to say I should not be subject to the same supply-demand and competition curves that every other industry is, if you accept that going in.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell If you accept the premise that sex is like every other leisure activity and it can be commodified, therefore, and it can be monetized, therefore, then you get into the situation where Bonnie Blue does what Bonnie Blue does. The conclusion follows from the premises.
SPEAKER_02I think the problem is that people get this sort of crossover, and this is something that Mary's written about, which is the world is at a weird intersection at the moment, that sex is uh simultaneously completely meaningless and can be done casually and doesn't have anything uh uh uh beyond the physical action attached to it. You can sleep with them and not catch feels. And also, if done incorrectly, can be the single most traumatic event of your life that never changes, that you're never able to recover from. And uh squaring the circle is difficult.
SPEAKER_00Squaring the circle is incredibly difficult, and that's why we just tend to, in the modern West, live with both thoughts at once with utter cognitive dissonance. Sex is nothing at all, it's a leisure activity, and when sex goes wrong, it is the worst thing that could possibly happen. And what Chris Williamson is pointing us towards is that really, if you want to ease your cognitive dissonance, you should really choose which is it? Are our bodies like playgrounds? In which case, if it goes wrong in a playground, what happens is that you graze your knee. Or are bodies more like temples? In which case, when it goes wrong in a temple, sacred space has been violated and it's a desecration. Which is it? And we know which it is. We know that when a leisure activity goes wrong, you give it a one star review online. When sex goes wrong, you call the cops, and rightly so. We know that sex is significant, the bodies are temples. We know this, and it's no surprise to me that the journey that Louise Perry has been on, not only as regards the sexual revolution, but in terms of enchantment itself, in terms of the spiritual nature of reality itself, is that she used to work in a rape crisis center. And she has come to see that sex is an incredibly significant thing, and that we have been talking out of both sides of our mouths about sex. Sex is nothing, but when it goes wrong, it's everything. She knows that the latter is true, and therefore the first thing cannot be true. It can't be that sex is nothing. Louise wrote her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, and in this period of her life, Louise was also aware that gender ideology was coming in, such that males were demanding access to that female-only space of a rape crisis center, and she realized that could not be right. Sex is significant in terms of the act. Also, your sex is significant in terms of male-female. And she began to be a reality respecter. Okay? Sex made her a reality respecter. And when she wrote her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, the foreword was written by Kathleen Stock, a gender critical feminist, and these are the chapter headings of her book. Sex must be taken seriously. Men and women are different. Not all desires are good. Loveless sex is not empowering, consent is not enough, violence is not love, people are not products, marriage is good. And the conclusion, listen to your mother. And I put it to her when the book first came out that the mother she was referring to is obviously mother church. And then the conclusion is listen to your mother. And obviously you mean mother church at that stage.
SPEAKER_04Nice try.
SPEAKER_00Nice try. I'm always trying. I'm always trying. But I put it to her in that same interview that the difference between men and women and the equality of the sexes is a profoundly Christian idea, and that when you take the Christian idea out of the battle of the sexes, what you're left with is really something quite thin and insubstantial. Here's what she said. But if you're going to have a materialist feminism, how do you both uphold the equality of the of the sexes and the difference between them?
SPEAKER_04Well, I mean, I think you can still say, I mean, it's all derived from Christianity in the end, isn't it? I mean, this is the thing with so much um secular ethics and politics, and you know, everything, everything in the end comes um comes back to Christianity, even if it not explicitly so.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it has all come from Christianity. The idea that a greater power actually involves a greater responsibility to serve those without it. The idea that you can have an equality of being while having a difference in role. The idea that freedom is not only freedom from restraints, but is freedom for human flourishing. And the idea that marriage as one man, one woman for life is a good thing, actually. All these things are profoundly Christian. Louise has been pulling at the threads of these and starting to see that Christianity is at least sociologically true. She put it like this in the trigonometry podcast last year.
SPEAKER_01Do you believe the Jesus stuff, or is it just a more ideal way to live regarding sex and relationships?
SPEAKER_04Do I believe the Jesus stuff? You'll have to do another episode about that. I don't know. Yeah. I'm like, some days I do, some days I don't.
SPEAKER_01But I do think I'm not sure you've got it yet.
SPEAKER_04Well, no, hey, I mean, Jonathan Sachs, former chief rabbi, used to say when people asked him, um, Rabbi, do you ever have moments of doubt? He'd say, My dear, I have moments of faith. Right. It's very common for religious people to doubt. But um, I have reached the conclusion, you know, not via scripture, but via looking at um social science data and whatever, that uh Christian Christian ideas are true, like they produce better societies. I'm sorry if that's boring. But yeah, I think I think like and whether or not, you know, whether or not one can reinvent faith from that or find faith through that. Obviously, there's lots like John Peterson is an example of someone who has, I think. Um, but uh kind of re i it's not very common for people to convert as adults. It is quite hard to find faith if you've not started from from it. What I do feel confident though on is that actually Christian ideas are sociologically true, whether or not they are supernaturally true.
SPEAKER_00But now in 2025, Louise puts it like this.
SPEAKER_04And I have since writing the book um become a Christian and have become much I I I'm now much more willing to um to to make these arguments in theological terms. But at the same time, most of my readers I presume are not going to be persuaded by that. So I mean, I think the fact that you end up in that this is in fact one of the reasons that I ended up becoming Christian, because I realized that um I I was for a long time persuaded uh that Christianity is what I like to call sociologically true, in the sense that Christian societies tend to flourish and um obeying Christian um directives tends to be the right choice in terms of the you know, like the fact that marriage is monogamous marriage is uh on net really good for individuals and societies and for children is one example, right? And I have a chapter in the book called called marriage is good on this theme. Um that doesn't necessarily mean that Christianity is supernaturally true, but if it were supernaturally true, you would expect it to be sociologically true, if that makes sense. Um and observing quite how sociologically true it is was very persuasive to me.
SPEAKER_00You know, there is a pathway back from sexual disenchantment. There is a way, once you have recognized that we are hypocrites, that we are speaking out two sides of our mouths, and when you're willing to face that cognitive dissonance and to respect the realities that go far deeper than the mythology of the 1960s sexual revolution, when you're ready to do that, and when you're ready to see that underneath that 1960s sexual revolution is the Jesus sexual revolution that is full of goodness and wholesomeness and health for society, well then you're ready to conclude that perhaps Christianity is sociologically true. And if you're willing at that point to see that there is a goodness and a beauty, and perhaps even, yes, a truthfulness with a capital T to these truths, that sex must be taken seriously, that men and women are different, that not all desires are good, that loveless sex is not empowering, that consent is not enough, that violence is not love, that people are not products, that marriage is good, and listen to your mother. Maybe you're ready to say listen to your mother, church, and maybe you're ready to consider that these things are not just sociologically true, they're supernaturally true. That's the journey that she has been on. Is that a journey you'd be prepared to go on? Here's one way you can do it. You can go to 321course.com. It's actually a course that Louise endorses herself on her podcast, Maiden Mother Matriarch. You can do in eight sessions this introduction to Christianity. You can see life according to Jesus. It's totally free. There are no hidden charges, we won't spam you. We just want you to get to know Jesus because we think all things make sense in him. Well, if you got this far in the video, then I'm sure this video does deserve a like and a share around the place. And do hit subscribe because we will soon be out of this office space and back into the studio, and you're gonna want to see how brilliant the studio looks. We've been working on it for a couple of weeks now, and it is looking fantastic. So God bless you, and we'll see you on the next video.