Why Sydney Sweeney Has Two Big Targets On Her Chest - William Costello
In a Nutshell
The backlash against Sydney Sweeney's Novig ad stems from intrasexual competition, not principled concern for women's sports, as critics apply inconsistent standards that celebrate sexualization from in-group women while condemning it from those coded right-leaning. Sydney Sweeney violates female coalitional norms by directly appealing to male attention without signaling group loyalty, triggering slut-shaming tactics that frame her natural genetic advantages as unearned and threatening to other women's mate value. The episode reveals how women's evolved preference for egalitarianism and indirect competition creates selective outrage that ignores larger issues like trans athletes in sports while policing individual women's sexual expression.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Sydney Sweeney did an ad for Novig, a sports betting and prediction market company. She has a significant stake in the company and is not merely an ambassador but an owner. The ad is geared toward young men as the target market and uses the principle that sex sells.
An Irish radio presenter claimed Sydney Sweeney set female sports back 40 years in a 40-second ad. Critics argued that this view reflects a low opinion of women's sports and their ability to withstand a single advertisement. The backlash notably ignores larger issues threatening female sports, such as trans athletes competing in women's categories.
The New York Times published a piece stating that the ad infuriated women in sports because female athletes have genuinely changed perceptions of what women are capable of since the turn of the century. Critics noted the inconsistency in these commentators who have supported prostitution as legitimate and empowering, adopted sexually graphic female rap and pop songs as anthems, yet suddenly object to a woman appearing in an advertisement.
Sydney Sweeney is a part-owner of Novig rather than simply an ambassador. This gives her legitimate financial upside and incentive for the advertisement's success. She profits directly from every bet placed through the platform.
The same act of self-sexualization can be viewed as empowering if performed by someone considered sufficiently woke or in-group, but criticized if the person is coded as right-wing or insufficiently aligned with progressive ideology. The criticism has been notably puritanical and sex-negative when targeted at Sweeney.
Many critics appeared to interpret the ad as making a statement about women's sports rather than about women in gambling contexts. The ad does not present Sydney Sweeney as a sports star; the priority is clearly the gambling product. This misinterpretation has been used to claim she is trivializing women's sports.
ESPN has published multiple nude issues featuring female athletes including Ronda Rousey, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, and Megan Rapino. A female athlete with an amputated leg and prosthetic limb was featured climbing while naked. The USA women's soccer team appeared naked back to back in one issue.
The primary consumers of female sports are men. The claim that female athletes have avoided the male gaze is contradicted by this fundamental market reality. One argument suggests it could be acceptable for female athletes to self-sexualize if it attracts viewers to the sport, but this same logic is not applied consistently to Sydney Sweeney.
LeBron James has done work with Polymarket. The criticism of Sydney Sweeney does not extend to questioning whether male athletes misrepresent the community of bettors when they promote gambling platforms.
Extraordinary claims about setting women's sports back decades lack supporting evidence. Katie Taylor, one of Ireland's greatest athletes and a top female boxer, has sold out Croke Park. Her achievements are not undermined by the advertisement.
Michael O'Leary, owner of Ryanair, faced criticism for describing other airlines' pricing as "raping the consumer." In the same week in Galway, a girl was reportedly gang-raped by two migrants with minimal media attention. This illustrates patterns of focusing on micro-issues while larger problems receive less coverage.
The backlash against Sydney Sweeney may ultimately be more damaging to women than the ad itself. Women are being portrayed as emotional and hysterical during a period that also included reactions to the Lindsay Clancy case.
Sophie Cunningham, a 6'4" basketball player who has spoken against trans athletes and presents as right-coded, would likely face different criticism if she had done the ad. The legitimacy angle would receive less attention, though sexualization concerns would remain.
Three evolutionary psychology concepts explain the reaction: intrasexual competition, sexual economics theory, and female coalitional psychology.
Intrasexual competition follows mate preferences. Men become jealous of rich, formidable, and potentially funny men. Women become jealous of younger, more beautiful women. Sydney Sweeney is young and attractive, but her specific transgression is aggressively presenting herself as appealing to the male gaze without first signaling allegiance to women as a group.
She posts content explicitly stating "this is for the boys," which signals to other women that she prioritizes male attention over group norms. Women have evolved indirect competition strategies because direct conflict was historically more costly to female fitness due to responsibility for offspring.
Women use indirect tactics including feigning concern for another woman's wellbeing to avoid appearing to attack her directly. They derogate aspects of another woman's mate value to men, specifically targeting sexual morality and physical attractiveness. Online criticism of Sydney Sweeney frequently claims she "seems like the type who would steal your boyfriend," which signals to other women that she prioritizes male attention.
This messaging simultaneously signals to men that despite her physical attractiveness, her loyalty may be questionable, diminishing her perceived long-term mate value while implying primarily short-term mate value.
Sexual economics theory views sexual access as a resource with varying costs. Marriage and commitment represent the highest cost men pay, while promiscuous short-term sex represents the lowest. Women function as a cartel maintaining the price of sex and must police members who offer it too cheaply.
If Sydney Sweeney appeals directly to men without regard for women's group preferences, other women may feel pressure to adopt similar strategies. This creates enforcement mechanisms including slut-shaming to maintain higher prices for sexual access.
The male equivalent of slut-shaming is simp-shaming. Men who give loyalty and resources without receiving sexual access lower the market price of commitment. Women who give sexual access without commitment lower the market price of sex. Both represent violations of the implicit bargaining dynamics in mating markets.
When men are scarce in a given ecology, both sexes shift toward more promiscuous short-term mating strategies. When women are scarce, they gain greater bargaining power and men become more commitment-oriented. This is a well-established finding in sex ratio research.
Women have evolved preferences for egalitarianism and leveling, preferring no contest and shared outcomes. Women are uneasy taking individual credit for victories and prefer to downplay achievements. Men, from early ages, prefer clear rules, winners, and losers, and keeping score.
Sydney Sweeney violates these norms by competing aggressively and prioritizing male preferences without first signaling "I'm one of the girls."
Sabrina Carpenter engages in self-sexualization but signals alignment with female audiences through song themes about men being "manchildren" and presenting as a "girl's girl." A tweet contrasted Sydney Sweeney lying naked with a football balanced on her boots against Sabrina Carpenter on the cover of Rolling Stone in thigh-high stockings, noting that Sabrina is perceived as doing it for herself while Sydney is perceived as doing it for male attention.
The key distinction is that Sabrina Carpenter sexualizes herself because she feels good about herself, while Sydney Sweeney is accused of encompassing gender in hypersexualization for male pleasure. One is framed as being for the girls, the other for the boys. Sabrina Carpenter caters to female gays and takes pride in her sexuality, while Sydney Sweeney caters to male gays and wants men to validate her sexuality.
Sydney Sweeney is promoting a campaign that denigrates female athletes, but this claim is disputed. Between the two art forms of gambling and art and entertainment, gambling is considered more derogatory to arts and entertainment. The argument suggests that self-sexualization is acceptable if done to fight the patriarchy, but Sydney Sweeney has never aggressively fought the patriarchy or signaled about causes women care about like Palestine.
A tweet by Stephanie describes Sydney Sweeney as the funniest stress test feminism has ever encountered. The tweet notes that Sydney is independently wealthy, produces her own projects, owns businesses, chooses to monetize her own sexuality, gains power from doing it, and appears completely uninterested in anyone's permission. The feminist response involves thousands of women explaining that her body is a collective political resource and she has a responsibility to use it in ways they approve of.
"Congratulations ladies. You defeated the patriarchy by becoming an enormous decentralized committee of women policing another woman's sexuality scolding her for appealing to men and reminding her that individual choices must remain subordinate to what is best for women as a class."
Women are celebrated when they have accomplishments but tend not to celebrate themselves. When girls get good grades or score well in school, they immediately attribute it to luck rather than their own ability. This stems from ancestral history where it was important to stay alive and not make enemies. The tall poppy syndrome of not wanting to show you're above anyone else serves as a way of ingratiating yourself to other women by saying "I'm not a threat. I'm one of you. I'll prioritize the group over myself as an individual."
When women meet each other, the first thing they do is tell each other how beautiful they look and then deny how beautiful they look. This pattern appears in Instagram posts as well. In self-disclosure, women share negative information about themselves to put other girls at ease and make them feel better about themselves. If a woman in a female group declines to share something negative about herself, she will be shunned for being too full of herself.
There's a certain class of girl boss feminism that struggles to think about female empowerment in any other way than classic high status maleness. It has lots to say about the breadwinner, the hunter, and the CEO, but surprisingly little to say about the mother, the carer, and the homemaker. Sydney Sweeney represents the canonical sexual liberation-fueled CEO type who's into sports.
Gamma bias occurs when the gendered nature of something is highlighted. Sydney Sweeney appeals to male sexual psychology, therefore it's problematic, whereas if she appealed to her own female sexuality, that's fine. Research on the mismeasurement of men examines scales that seek to pathologize men about sexual entitlement, sexism, or toxic masculinity. Items measuring these attitudes in men would be seen as fantastic and celebratory if said by women.
Benevolent sexism involves infantilizing women by liking them in such a way that makes them infantilized, such as doing everything for them so they never learn to do things themselves. However, this argument is never reversed to suggest a woman enjoying cooking every day for her husband and not letting him cook is infantilizing him. When women weaponize incompetence and are the beneficiaries of men's benevolent sexism, they're described as victims, while men are always morally typecast as the aggressor or wrongdoer.
Over the last three decades, there have been examples of male sexualization including Freddy Youngberg in a Calvin Klein ad where women ran after the bus chasing him, and David Beckham and David Gandy on the front cover of dark romance novels. The Diet Coke ad featuring male sexualization raises questions about whether anyone is asking to repeal this perspective of the male form.
Men don't mind being sexualized the way women do because it's not as scary to men. Men might get upset about Facebook groups of hot guys reading, but most men would be delighted to be featured there. Being sexualized is not as big of a problem to men as it is for women, who are much more likely to be victims of sexual violence. Men see sexualization as aspirational and motivating, while women internalize it and feel they're being put down.
Research from Sarah Hill's lab led by Hannah Bradshaw shows that when a girl is described as being a guy's gal having more male friends than female friends, women mistrust her because they doubt her reasons for doing that. From an error management perspective, a woman who hangs around mostly with guys and does things that appeal to guys may have a psychology that prioritizes their goals over women's goals.
A large percentage of close friends from opposite sexes would sleep with their friend, and some nonzero number turn into relationships. There's evidence suggesting backup mates on both sides, although more for women than men. In mate poaching, one of the top tactics mate poachers use is to infiltrate the relationship through friendship. Women who are around lots of men probably have a degree of access and may be hit on in a manner that makes them a sexual threat.
Guy's girls sometimes derogate mainstream women by saying they've never been able to have many female friends because they're too much drama. This is perceived as a covert strategy where they offer "all the advantages of being gay without having to be gay."
Sydney Sweeney's lack of portraying herself as a victim could be part of why women reject her. The self-disclosure of vulnerability and shared vulnerability signals "I'm as vulnerable as you are. I understand what it means to be vulnerable, so I'm going to lobby for things that protect our collective interests as women." Sydney Sweeney made one film about reproductive rights about a nun, which might save her reputation among women if she self-disclosed some embarrassing stories.
Sydney Sweeney has come out with media stories thanking her mom for convincing her not to get a boob reduction, sending the opposite signal to women. It's seen as being glad to have massive breasts that she can cash in on. This represents a brazen pride in something that women know appeals to men.
Research shows mixed evidence for the breast size that's deemed optimal, but what's more consistent is the shape and texture, called the tossity of the breast, which describes sagging. In all elements of mate preferences and evolutionary psychology, male preferences for beauty are about reproductive value. As women age and go through each pregnancy, their breasts change in texture and sag. It's more about firmness rather than size per se.
Short-term mating oriented men prioritize big breasts. Women derogate big-breasted women much more than small-breasted women because it's probably cueing to them that this person is themselves a short-term mater. Women perceive them that way, and even if they aren't short-term mating oriented themselves, they know that men will perceive them as short-term mating oriented.
Research with 300-400 Norwegian men found a bodily focused group that was both breasts and buttocks. There was an ass-only group but no boobs-only men. This indicates that maybe in the current cultural climate, the ass is being prioritized more.
What's interesting about the buttocks is that it's much easier to hide than breasts for women. It's also in the back, so as you walk towards somebody or talk to them, it's not front and center and not at eye level. Eye level is guy level, and it gives the impression you're emphasizing it and rubbing it in their nose a little bit more.
The response to the Lindsay Clancy case compared to Sydney Sweeney reveals that "your boos mean nothing. I've seen what makes you applaud." Many women were sympathetic or even rallied around Lindsay Clancy. If Lindsay Clancy looked like Sydney Sweeney, women might not have rallied around her the same way.
Juries are biased around their in-groups, as seen in the OJ Simpson trial where the majority black female jury couldn't get any sympathy for Nicole Simpson as a victim because she was perceived as having stolen a resource-rich successful black man. This represents a big problem in juries being tribal based on their own in-group. Lindsay Clancy may not have been threatening enough to women in terms of their mating psychology.
The unearned traits element might be part of why women resent Sydney Sweeney. If an equivalent ad were done for men, that guy would not have a body that was an unearned trait. Sydney Sweeney goes to the gym, has a trainer, follows a diet, and doesn't overeat, but she doesn't have a body that obviously is shaped by tons of work in the same way a man's body would be. A man's body would be seen as something he had to grind for.
When you see a woman who is beautiful, especially with big breasts, that's straight up natural genetic advantages that are ruthlessly reminiscent to women in a way that isn't true for men regarding male attractiveness.
Sydney Sweeney's natural genetic endowment and the effortlessness with which she presents herself rubs it in the face of women more than women who work visibly harder at their appearance. This represents a key difference between Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter, where Carpenter is designed for female and gay male audiences with her over-the-top princess aesthetic and heavy makeup.
Female chatty podcasts often feature hosts in slouchy, oversized hoodies with the "look at me, this is me at my worst" presentation. When a woman's worst presentation is Sydney Sweeney in her effortless style, it reminds women that she is more desirable without having to work for it, highlighting the unfairness of the genetic spread.
Women with big boobs specifically discuss how other women accuse them in comments sections of "showing them off" when they're simply trying to live their lives. The sex difference in attractiveness is notable: men's attractiveness on most metrics is attainable through effort, while women's beauty operates on a tighter biological timeline.
Men's physical attractiveness through formidability, muscularity, and height serves dual purposes - valuable for mating and as a coalitional ally for other men in conflict scenarios. A formidable guy could help in war, whereas a really beautiful woman is seen as competition that will take all the men.
Height isn't a sexy trait that can be cultivated, though looks maxers are pursuing surgery on that front. It is significantly easier for a man to raise his physical attractiveness value than it is for a woman. Going to the gym shows significant evidence of improving attractiveness to women on average, with basically no guy not made more attractive to most women by training.
This holds true throughout most of a man's life, spanning a longer period of reproductive value, whereas women's beauty operates on a much tighter time clock and is harder to fight against. The "wall is undefeated" as incels say, and this is true to some extent in a way it's not for men.
The extent to which women can extend their beauty is evolutionarily novel. For most of ancestral history, seeing youthful beautiful women would have triggered serious anxiety about one's own mate value running out. In contrast, a guy in his 40s who's never trained before can achieve an advert-comparable body after a couple of years of hard dieting and gym work, requiring only sufficient discipline.
This envy must feel more uncomfortable for women. The question arises whether it's more threatening to women slightly older than Sydney Sweeney or the rivalry of small differences in age, with the prediction that not so many women younger than Sweeney would have as much of a problem.
Younger women would likely derogate Sydney Sweeney's promiscuity more, while older women whose mate value has diminished would derogate her as a "bimbo" - emphasizing wisdom and grandmotherly value instead. This reflects the maiden-mother-matriarch arc, where the matriarch side emphasizes "she's an idiot, she's setting women back" rather than competing on youth and beauty.
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Unearned traits remain fascinating because men would feel differently about a guy who achieved something through effort versus natural endowment. Even if a female athlete had done the American Eagle campaign with visible abs like Megan Rapinoe, she would likely still receive significant pushback.
The American Eagle campaign was for a brand new sports betting company - a prediction market sports betting platform. The Daily Wire hosts including Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Andrew Claven are partnered with Kalshi. This raises questions about promoting gambling given conservative opposition to degenerative practices for young men like weed and porn.
The real story should be Sydney Sweeney promoting gambling successfully through sex appeal and engineered backlash attention, rather than concerns about women's sports.
The American Institute for Boys and Men has research showing that legalizing online gambling in specific areas leads to predictable effects: bankruptcy among young men goes way up, and they go into significantly more debt. Among young men with gambling problems, approximately 30% have felt suicidal and 13% have attempted suicide. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, young men's addiction to gambling makes sense as an attempt to win big resources in one fell swoop to increase mate value.
A Twitter poll among an audience including incels, misogynist men, and red pill oriented guys asked whether it was worse to kill a teenage girl or teenage boy, with unanimous response that killing the girl was worse. This demonstrates greater sensitivity to harms toward women, even among groups that mistreat women as property, where harming one of their women is seen as a greater moral injury.
Women are more sophisticated socially with a scalpel-like ability to navigate social dynamics, making intra-sexual competition complex and burdensome. However, there are limits to this sophistication. If women had wanted collective action against Sydney Sweeney, they could have used the unimpeachably perfect argument that the campaign was predatory against men - hurting young men, increasing suicidality, and reducing financial freedom.
Chris Williamson has turned down every prediction market approach despite the financial opportunity, citing personal stance against gambling.
People using online gambling skew toward lower socioeconomic classes rather than upper or middle class individuals with slow life history strategies. This represents "Robin Hood for 2026" - extracting value from the financially vulnerable. The question of whether women have harder social navigation is countered by the observation that modern corporate environments reward female styles of aggression (gossiping, false accusations) more than male styles, which are policed more heavily.
A new conspiracy theory suggests Sydney Sweeney is repeatedly used as distraction from geopolitically inconvenient news: July 2025 DOJ memo stating no significant findings in Epstein files coinciding with the One Big Beautiful Bill stripping $1 trillion in benefits while raising debt ceiling by $5 trillion; September 2026 UN concerns over US war crimes in Iran coinciding with Sydney Sweeney Novagard appearance during midterm concerns.
Highlighting hypocrisy may be useful for behavior change since it works on the speaker personally when inconsistencies are pointed out. However, it might trigger tribal psychology and signal someone as an enemy. The consistency argument suggests wanting positions to run in parallel - either accepting sexual revolution and women's body autonomy, or neither, but not selective application.
The modern culture war represents a race to the bottom with competing claims about which sex has it worse. The evolutionary psychological approach is domain-specific rather than making global statements about male or female superiority. Gamma bias holds as a pattern: men are ignored when doing positive things but highlighted when doing negative things, while women are ignored when doing negative things and highlighted when doing positive things.
The Carnegie Award statistics show 95-96% of people who risk their lives selflessly to help strangers are men, often framed as "stranger saves drowning man" without acknowledgment of the sex disparity in heroic behavior.
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