Actress Sydney Sweeney starred in a new ad for a sports gambling company called Novig and the ad was rather provocative. You've probably seen it. It's been going viral for days. She was nude throughout the ad, covering herself scantily with various pieces of sports equipment. In response to the campaign, which to be fair was definitely pretty tame by Cosmo Girl standards, women athletes and think-piecers spoke out against her.
If only she were an overweight transman with a beard and mastectomy scars in a pair of Calvin Kleins, then they would call it empowering. The pro-women set, who don't know what women are, know for sure they don't like pretty ones who know what they've got and flaunt it.
One female athlete said she "set every woman back who was fighting for respect in the sports industry," per a compilation of TikToks and Instragrams put together by CNN. Another said it was "disrespectful to every female athlete in the world, every woman who works in the sports industry in the world, everyone who's like an advocate of women's sports."
Other female athletes, including Sophie Capewell, Amy Hunt, and Gracie Kramer "have criticized the campaign," the BBC writes, "saying it sexualizes female athletes and views sport through the male gaze."
And that's not the only backlash. Since the ad came out and since the hubbub began, countless think pieces and op eds (pardon me for throwing another on the pyre) have been written about Sweeney, her equity stake in the company Novig, and her apparently being the mastermind behind the "exploitative" ad. These are likely the same women that support "sex work," surrogacy, and abortion, but somehow an actress deciding to pose nearly nude to drum up a business for a company in which she is an investor is a bridge too far.
The Washington Post wrote "The problem with Sydney Sweeney's ad, if you indeed think there is a problem, is not that she's posed naked..." but the "implication of what the ad expected the viewer to do. Which was not to think about sports...." but to "think about women in underwear." Suddenly, after years of Calvin Klein ads featuring body positive models in their underwear, we're not supposed to think about women in their underwear. Or perhaps we're only allowed to think about fat women in their underwear.
The quibble with Sweeney is, of course, that she's a pretty, attractive young woman who is taking charge of her career and using her assets to the best of her ability. This is what the feminists told us they wanted us to do. But they don't like when someone who is beautiful actually does it. Or when someone who doesn't shout about abortion rights does it. Or when the woman who poses nearly nude on her own terms and to the benefit of her own bottom line doesn't use her platform to exalt leftist ideas.
The people complaining about Sweeney aren't worried about how it makes women athletes look—hell, they won't even define what a woman is. They won't even say that women's sports should be for women only. They don't even care that women athletes who do speak up for actual women athletes get hounded and threatened for doing so.
They aren't worried that she's denigrating women's sports—the ad isn't even about women's sports, it's about gambling on mostly men's sports. And they certainly aren't concerned about Sweeney being viewed through "the male gaze," no matter how much they complain about it.
What makes them mad is that they, and their sports, whatever sports those may be, can never, ever, in a million years gain as much national attention as just one nude Sweeney spinning a basketball while straddling a hoop. The American public, supporters and detractors alike, are more interested in a hot naked actress with a seductive glance than any of the women athletes who are complaining about the detrimental impact she's having on their sports.
Sweeney isn't actually having a detrimental impact on women's sports because in many ways, most people don't actually care about women's sports. And we don't have to. No sport or athlete deserves our attention, they get the attention they earn, and that's it. People love to hate Sweeney, and no one has to like her, but all she did was pose nude to gain some market share.
It's not the first time a woman has done this, and I sure hope it's not the last. Women will stop posing nude when female nudity loses the public's attention and imagination. And if that were to happen, humanity is very likely doomed.
Graphic: Grok AI
This first appeared in Libby Emmons' newsletter, you can subscribe at libbysdesk.com.
