When American Eagle released its “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign last year, I found the outrage ridiculous.
asserted
outrage → release → campaign
I like seeing a beautiful woman unapologetically presented as beautiful.
asserted
woman → like → ?
I like even more that Sweeney refused to participate in the familiar ritual in which somebody commits an imaginary cultural offense and is then expected to crawl through a series of humiliating apologies to prove she has been redeemed.
asserted
she → like → apologies
The American Eagle campaign demonstrated a beautiful, successful young woman who carried herself with due self-confidence.
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who → demonstrate → confidence
Novig is a prediction market that, unlike the diversified Kalshi and Polymarket, allows its mostly male user base to bet on sports, and sports alone.
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base → allow → sports
Its new “Just Sports” campaign places Sweeney nearly or entirely nude alongside footballs, basketballs, hockey gear, tennis rackets, and other sporting equipment.
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campaign → place → footballs
The joke is that even clothing apparently distracts from Novig’s “just sports” mission.
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clothing → distract → mission
Except that the advertisement is very obviously not asking us to look at the sports.
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advertisement → ask → sports
Beauty exists, and aesthetics matter.
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aesthetics → exist → ?
We dress nicely because we enjoy looking good and being seen as looking good.
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we → dress → ?
The popular feminist claim that women dress for themselves, not for men, has always struck me as unserious.
uncertain
women → dress → me
We cannot pretend that clothing, beauty, and sexual presentation have no social meaning whatsoever.
asserted
clothing → pretend → meaning
They signal to others how we wish to be perceived, and what we value in ourselves.
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we → signal → ourselves
However, female athletes have spent decades fighting to have people evaluate their achievements, not their attractiveness.
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people → spend → achievements
Sports are a rare instance where beauty and aesthetics have no instrumental value.
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beauty → have → value
Growing up, my own athletic endeavors helped me understand this.
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me → grow → this
The human body can build endurance, learn coordination, become stronger than it was six months ago, and master skills once felt impossible.
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it → build → skills
Still, as a young woman, it is remarkably difficult to experience your body only that way.
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it → experience → body
Another little competition always happens in the background: What do my legs look like?
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legs → happen → What
Aesthetics becomes a distraction from achievement.
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Aesthetics → become → achievement
Sweeney appeared to respond to the criticism by posting old photographs from ESPN’s Body Issue, including nude portraits of Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe, and other athletes.
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Sweeney → appear → Williams
Sweeney’s Novig campaign asks us to look at her breasts, stomach, and legs as such — there’s no emphasis on instrumentality.
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campaign → ask → instrumentality
This may be fine, even beautiful, in some instances, but using sports as the backdrop feels especially regressive in context.
uncertain
using → use → context
Beauty and sexuality are cheapened and commodified to no end other than grabbing attention, in a realm where they aren’t supposed to carry any weight in the first place.
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they → cheapen → place
This is so overt that the nude form, somewhat counterintuitively, loses its sexual appeal entirely.
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form → lose → appeal
A woman on a nude beach in France can seem less sexual than a fully clothed woman in some advertisements.
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woman → seem → advertisements
Similarly, criticism of sexualized female imagery is not inherently puritanical.
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criticism → sexualize → imagery
There is a world of difference between seeing female sexuality as shameful and believing it is precious enough not to be sold as the easiest marketing trick.
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it → be → trick
The false dichotomy of sexual culture tells women to either hide in shame or flaunt themselves shamelessly as proof of liberation.
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dichotomy → tell → liberation
I refuse both.
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I → refuse → both
Sexuality is powerful, beautiful, and so valuable that a cheap and careless display can diminish it.
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display → diminish → it
That is not repression simply because faux-empowerment culture has forgotten how to value restraint.
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culture → forget → restraint
Women’s liberation required the recognition that women are autonomous beings capable of making their own decisions.
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women → require → decisions
This has mutated into the strange idea that any decision a woman makes must be empowering simply because she made it.
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she → mutate → it
We make intelligent, dignified, and brave choices — and
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We → make → choices
For two decades, we have pretended that pornography is liberation, hookup culture is empowerment, sexual commodification is feminism, and selling access to increasingly intimate parts of yourself is savvy, as long as a woman technically chose it.
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woman → pretend → it
But I want feminism to finally say it: Not every act a woman takes with her sexuality is empowering.
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woman → want → sexuality
There is something desperate about a culture that must relabel gratuitous sexual display as self-confidence because admitting it is attention-seeking would puncture the entire mythology it depends on.
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it → be → mythology
Yet, in maintaining this fantasy, our culture undermines the value of inherent beauty and sexuality as they exist on their own, nuanced terms.
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they → maintain → terms
I understand why Sweeney became popular with conservatives after the American Eagle episode.
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Sweeney → understand → episode
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
