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Why Sydney Sweeney Has Two Big Targets On Her Chest - William Costello - #1152

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Why Sydney Sweeney Has Two Big Targets On Her Chest - William Costello - #1152

Sydney Sweeney’s advertising campaign for a sports betting company, featuring overtly sexual imagery, has ignited a significant backlash from women, who perceive it as a harmful reinforcement of male-centric sexual norms and a threat to women’s achievements in sports. The response is deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology, particularly the concepts of intersexual competition and female coalitional psychology—where women evolved to avoid direct conflict, maintain group harmony, and prioritize collective over individual success. Sweeney’s unapologetic self-presentation as sexually attractive to men is seen as a direct violation of these norms, triggering jealousy and accusations of undermining women’s progress in sports. In contrast, figures like Sabrina Carpenter are celebrated for self-sexualization that aligns with female empowerment and the female gaze. The criticism reveals a double standard: while women are shamed for sexualizing themselves, men’s similar displays in advertising are rarely condemned. This selective outrage highlights broader societal tribalism and gendered hypocrisy, where women’s sexuality is policed as a collective risk, while men’s physical attractiveness is celebrated. The backlash also underscores how women’s self-policing of sexual expression is framed as a protective mechanism, rooted in historical survival needs. Critics argue the reaction is exaggerated, pointing to the historical normalization of female athletes’ nudity in media and the focus on micro-level issues while ignoring larger systemic problems like trans athlete inclusion. Ultimately, the episode reveals a complex cultural landscape where personal choice in self-expression is interpreted through the lens of gendered competition and group identity.

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People of the UK and Ireland, I'm coming to you live. Imagine that, me on stage in your city. Dublin is completely sold out, but everywhere else has got limited tickets left and you can get yours now at chriswilliamson.live. This is a custom-built live show. I absolutely adore it. I've spent over a year working on it. So if you're a fan of everything modern wisdom, come and see me on stage this October around the UK and Ireland, chriswilliamson.live. I feel like I bring you in when there is a evolutionary psychology-informed furor happening and obviously our third guest today, Sydney Sweeney, has a big, natural pair of problems that she's embroiled herself in. Before we get into that, can you just make it known, what was that feminist award that your research team won a while ago? A while ago, I myself won an award, the Feminist Evolutionary Psychology Society FEPPS Award. For a poster I did at a conference a couple of years ago, but it's nice to have that in the back pocket when I'm accused of sexism or whatever. Not that that happens that often. It is me flagrantly putting your legitimate feminist bona fides out there ahead, just in case we get shouted at today. So look, for the people that didn't see it, Sydney Sweeney did an ad for a betting company called Novig Sports Betting Company, prediction market adjacent thing, but it's exclusively for sports. And she does. It's an ad, and I guess we probably should start off by watching the ad. Yeah. It's for research purposes. Yeah. Thinking of sports? Prove it. Novig is just sports. So they wanted to show just sports. You can trade this sport and this sport. How about this? This sport, too. Or this? Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. Sports. You can't trade this. I just look in here. No betting on wars or deaths. And no politics. Just you, your takes on sports. Yeah, so the internet responded in the most predictable way. I think. Anyone that's surprised, you can call out that there seems to be some double standards going on here, that it's not reflective of what was actually meant, that they're pointing their eye in the wrong direction. There is nothing surprising to me about that. Were you surprised at all? No, I mean, she has a significant stake in this company, so she wants it to be a success. It's obviously geared towards young men. They're the target market for any sports betting company. So she understands. She understands the oldest maxim in advertisement or marketing that sex sells. And she backs herself on that front to be the face or body of her own brand. Paras. You know, it makes sense. But hearing some of the backlash, I mean, I heard an Irish radio presenter, I can't think of his name, but he claimed that she, in 40 seconds, has set female sport back 40 years. And I hear that and I think, what an incredibly sexist, low kind of view of female sports. Well, they're so tenuously held in popularity that a girl with big titties is able to undo it in an ad. All undone with cleavage. Yeah, it's like, that's ridiculous. That's absurd to suggest. Especially when there's other bigger issues threatening female sports, trans athletes. It's very interesting that nobody has an issue identifying who the women in sports are during this conversation. Absolutely, yeah. And these commentators. These commentators were presumably silent about the trans women in sports issue as well. Yeah, the New York Times had this piece where one of the quotes, the reason Sydney Sweeney's advertisement has infuriated so many women in sport is that if there is a group that has managed to genuinely force change in the perception of what women are capable of since the turn of the century, of what it means to be a strong and powerful woman, to be a girl without prostrating to the male gaze, it is women in sport. Pretty good reply to that. It's pretty amazing to watch them suddenly, pretend to be offended by risque images. These people have insisted for years that the full-blown prostitution of women is legitimate and empowering. They've adopted countless graphical sexual female rap and pop songs as anthems for their movement. Now a naked woman in advertisement is setting women back, not even the slightest attempt to be consistent. And I do think that one of the first things people saw was, hang on a second, I thought it was my body, my choice. I thought empowerment and the sexual revolution was something that was giving, women freedom as opposed to taking it away. Most of these commentators will probably be pro-sex work, pro-only fans. They'll certainly be pro-female financial independence. And I didn't know this until today. Sydney Sweeney isn't an ambassador for that company. She is an owner. Yeah. She part owns that company. Yeah. So she has legitimate skin in the game and upside enticement justification for doing it. She's profiting from every single. Yeah. She's profiting from every single one of these. So yeah, it does seem like the modern conception of what a desirable woman is supposed to be is kind of coming into conflict with, yeah, but we don't want you to do it that way. Yeah. Or if you're the wrong person, the very same act of self-sexualization can be seen as empowering if it's the right person in the in-group, in your tribe. But if it's someone who's coded as in any way right-wing or even just not sufficiently woke, for want of a better word, then the same behaviors are kind of criticized, you know? And it's remarkable how puritanical and conservative some of the criticism has been, how sex negative it's been as soon as it's just targeted. Put your fucking clothes back on. Who do you think you are? Literally, yeah. Yeah, very strange. I mean, I'm trying to like steel man the case for why this is bad. It's kind of hard to do because it seemed like this weird Rorschach test that I failed, where lots of people that had a problem with it seemed to assume that Sidney Sweeney was saying, this is what women's sports is like, as opposed to this is a gambling app and you should go and use it regardless of the gender of the person that's playing the sport. Yeah. And then also the double standard of literally last week, there were viral videos going where the tennis player, the Spanish guy taken off his shirt and women, literally the camera panning it over to them, taking out their phones. Like married women, women with the wedding ring on as you do. Congratulations, by the way, Williams, Williams engaged. Everybody give him a round of applause. There we go. You fucking made it out, dude. You got escape velocity. Yeah. Out of the infill life zone in infill research is no longer me search. Well, you are not yet. Not until you've made it down the aisle, but yeah, very strange to see that. And then a lot of the pushback is trying to steal man. The reason I struggle is that a lot of the pushback was you are saying something about women's sports. As opposed to, you are saying something about women in gambling. Um, I don't quite get even the, you are setting women back in sports thing because ESPN has done a naked issue over and over. There's like countless examples. Rhonda Rousey was naked on the front cover of it. Serena Williams or Venus Williams was naked on the front cover of it. There was a chick that I saw a blonde girl with a full back piece. I look in real strong with a amputated leg and a prosthetic limb climbing naked. Like there was an entire Megan Rapinoe did it. The, the female, uh, soccer player from America. There was this entire lineup. It might've been, was it the female USA team were all naked back to back. Um, and you go, okay, so what, what is going on here? And then the thing that really struck me, basically women have done everything they can in sports to avoid the male gaze or to escape the male gaze. Like that was the one that was the most insane. The only reason anyone is watching female sports is because of the male gaze. Like who is the biggest consumer of female sports, men, men, by miles, by miles. Yeah. So to steal man, the argument, you could make the claim that it's okay for female athletes to self sexualize themselves. If a byproduct of their being in the sport is cultivating a very sexy body, they can themselves can use that to attract people to watch the sport could be argued that Sydney Sweeney is trivializing women's sports. And that grounds, or it's just plain old tribalism, but I do think there's something deeper going on. Well, she's not pretending to be a sports star and to steal money. Okay. Let's say that she's wearing the outfit, right? Like she's got the, she's got the kit on. So it's off largely, but like some of it is on, um, therefore she's the lopping as, as a sports star of some kind, let's say that that's the case. You're okay. But still the priority of the ad is not around her playing sports. It's around the gambling. So if you were a sports star, like. Like LeBron, I think, did he do Kalshi or Polymarket recent? I think he did Polymarket. And, um, if we found out that LeBron is somebody that you could bet on, wasn't betting, you go, ah, well, he's misrepresenting the illustrious community of bettors out there, the gambling people, he's not being, he's not sufficiently representative, so, okay, but like that is I'm like nitpicking because I want to like try and point out some of the hypocrisy, but is there any way really to quantify if Sydney Sweeney is damaging the perception of female athletes are setting them back 100 years like how how could that even happen yeah like extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence but they're very flippant with these massive claims and like i say it's a low opinion of women's sport and how far it's come i'm from ireland one of our greatest athletes of all time katie taylor selling out crow park uh one of the best female boxers of all time i don't think her achievements are undone now by sydney sweeney like that's just a preposterous claim and uh yeah it's just absurd and it's kind of like the fixation on these micro topics another example that's kind of somewhat related is at home in ireland michael o'leary he's gotten trouble recently for some flippant comments in the media he's the owner of ryanair and he's always very kind of outspoken in the media and he described other airlines prices as raping the consumer lately and uh you know uh you know crisis organizations are just up in arms about this and he won't apologize and they're demanding he apologize and he won't he says uh no it's it's no laughing matter it's a you know i'd use that word to describe a terrible thing what they're doing i don't demean the actual crime and just in the same week that they're fixating on that uh a girl in my hometown of galway uh there's stories about her having been ganged by two migrants and total silence uh on that front on that story and the selective outrage yeah it feels like they're focused on the wrong thing it's the same with the sport and the trans athletes like where was your outrage then yeah i do think that the counter reaction we're seeing could be more damaging to women than the ad itself women are being made to look in a month long period where they've already been kind of emotional and hysterical in some corners of the internet with lindsey clancy they're not looking that serious yeah now they're looking quite emotional and they're not looking that serious and they're not like would it have been better question would it have been better if it was a female athlete who was hot and right wing coded adjacent still like sophie cunningham you know who that is tall blonde like quite hot a girl that plays basketball it's six foot four probably like and um she did a thing i think at the ufc i think she's come out against sort of trans athletes she definitely presents as right coded she's at all of those sorts of events uh if she'd done it i don't think that the pushback would have been much less it would have been different but it would have been much less it would have been about the sexualization of sports the legitimacy angle wouldn't have been sort of laughed at but i still think that that would have been heavily pushed back against yeah i think you're right it just zeroes in on their tribal psychology that's activated it's okay when one of our group does it but not okay if someone who hasn't uh expressed their bona fides of the ideology enough then it's not okay all right i've laid out the cultural landscape as best i can i brought you in so that you can explain psychologically what's going on sort of the evolutionary underpinnings of how intersexual competition female coalitional psychology all of that stuff works in order to cause this to happen and to keep happening because it happened last time with the american eagle ad i'm sure it'll happen again in future as she just continues to like basically use other people's ire as exit liquidity yeah for her own bank account which is kind of hilarious so why do women hate sydney sweeney so there are two big reasons why women hate sydney sweeney no there are three evolutionary psychology ideas that are central to my take on why sydney sweeney specifically in in incurs so much ire from uh women in particular so the three concepts that we'll go through are intersexual competition which probably heard a lot of people talk about in this context sexual economics theory and the overlapping concept of female coalition psychology so their group psychology how they make friendships and how that's different to men's so the first one intersexual competition it's pretty straightforward once you know the mate preferences of each sex that sets the ground rules for the zones of conflict and for the kind of terms of intersexual competition so the types of things that each men and women get jealous or insecure or anxious about about rivals uh are rivals that embody the mate preferences of their preferred sex so men get jealous and insecure and anxious around rich formidable men uh who embody the preferences of women i have a hypothesis that men get jealous around funny men which i call the green-eyed giggle hypothesis but maybe we can put a pin in that and come back to it uh later uh but women are shown in the research to get jealous about younger uh younger looking and more beautiful women which are the key preferences of men uh so sydney sweeney obviously is very very attractive young woman but there are lots of attractive young women yes right so why do i sydney sweeney specifically yeah uh the reason is that she aggressively uh prostrates herself or kind of presents herself as appealing specifically to the male gaze without first coming in and kind of assuring all the other women that she's not a threat that she's not doing it for men that she she is actually specifically coming out and saying i am for the male gaze she puts instagram posts up saying this is for the boys all of this and that just cues a threat to other women if you think in in terms of our evolutionary psychology why women evolved uh an intrasexual competition style of being kind of um more quiet about it basically yeah sydney sweeney violates all those norms women are meant to compete it's very costly for women to make enemies throughout ancestral history they are responsible for the well-being of their offspring so if they die if they incur physical violence their offspring likely dies as well whereas for men they can get into physical alterations and it's not as direct of a threat to their fitness so this uh led to the selection of intra kind of um social adeptness in women who are very good at kind of indirect competition and they're very good at kind of indirect competition and they're very good at indirect competition so if you're going to compete with another woman you need to you can't be so direct about it's not overt it's much more covert it's much more subliminal yeah it's done by derogating what you actually that'd be interesting what is it that tends to be attacked uh in women against women and in men against men so women use things like feigning concern about another woman so that they're not seen as having attacked her uh it's seen out of the goodness of my heart i'm uh looking out for your well-being or something they will attack things they'll derogate uh stuff that represents their their the woman's mate value to men so specifically with sydney sweeney you see a lot of women online saying it's not intersexual competition it's not jealousy uh she just seems like the type of girl who would steal your boyfriend and that's literally signaling to all the other women this girl uh you know makes herself appealing to the male gaze so and so directly without concern for what women think she prioritizes the male priority over our group priority she has to pay a cost from the sisterhood from the group now so she will in terms of coordinated condemnation we all shun her but also you're telling other men you think that this blonde attractive girl with big boobs is your dream partner but what i'm telling you is because of the way that she's presenting her fecundity and her her level of loyalty to you isn't going to be what you dream of being the bad boy that she's just the good girl for but she's a bad girl for everybody and you don't want to be with that it's like uh implicitly uh diminishing her her long-term mate value and implying she has short-term mate value only yes which most women don't want to only appeal to men's short-term mating psychology well what's interesting is guys will say to another guy when shit talking another guy like you're a pussy they'll say something like you're a pussy and they'll say something like you're a pussy and you're about his level of formidability something about his level of sort of status he's a bum yeah how well liked he is what his prospects are like for the future whereas women if they are shit talking which will tend to be behind the scenes as opposed to uh someone's face but if they are doing that it's going to much more be about this girl's uh sort of sexual morality uh also about their looks she's getting old she can't do her hair she's a because those are two of the things that men really care about what does a girl like what does the woman look like and is she going to be loyal yeah so the key thing is that sydney sweeney has pretty aggressively and vocally signaled to other women and to men that she is prioritizing men over the group women as a group yeah so women are punishing her for that and uh they organize this coordinated condemnation that she's she's out she must pay a social cost for doing that the other key idea that's kind of relevant and kind of similar is the idea of sexual theory and the idea there is that uh if you think about sex or sexual access as a resource there's different levels of cost that men typically have to pay to get it and the highest cost is marriage and commitment or in the lowest cost is you know promiscuous short-term sex and women kind of as a group they're kind of like the cartel with the cost of sex they have to kind of police each other on who's offering it uh for what so women might really feel annoyed about what sydney sweeney is doing and think oh if she's appealing to the men so specifically and doing exactly what men want instead of what women want, then maybe I have to do that too. Because if everyone in your town or in your village starts doing that, then that will become the expectations for you. So that plays into it a little bit too. Yeah, the price enforcement mechanism of slut shaming is basically the same thing. If we're two women and I give out blowjobs on the second date, but you don't give them out until the sixth date, I have a degree of competitive advantage in the marketplace. Therefore, it's in your interests. If you want to keep the price of sex to be expensive, it's in your interests to enforce a shame mechanism on anyone that is too freely giving with their sex because that means that they need to raise the price as opposed to lowering the price. It means you don't want to be sort of beaten to the jump. I had this theory a long time ago that the price enforcement mechanism for slut shaming is the same thing. The equivalent for men is the price enforcement mechanism for simp shaming. Absolutely. Women are giving away sex without commitment and men are giving away commitment without. Sex. Yeah. And I think that this is so beautifully mirrored. It's really nice when we see this. So like guys will call another guy a simp because if you withhold loyalty and resources until a woman gives you sexual access, that means she has to give you sexual access in order for you to trade off your loyalty and resources, which means if some guy is prepared to give loyalty and resources without sex, the price of your loyalty and resources is immediately brought down. And if you don't like the example, he's talking about sex and blowjobs and stuff on a second date, sometimes rubs people up the wrong way. If you don't like that, example, just invert it, make it about loyalty and resources and you go, OK, it's the same dynamic. It's just a little bit less icky. Yeah. And we see this in sex ratio research when the scarcer sex in any sex ratio in a city or a country, they have more bargaining power to get what they want on the mating market and they have higher standards for their mate preferences. And they also shift a sexual strategy. So when men are scarce, men and women shift to a more promiscuous short term mating strategy. When women are scarce and they're the rare commodity, they have greater bargaining power in that sex ratio mating ecology. Then men become more commitment oriented. So it's a pretty well established finding. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. Most people treat recovery like it's optional, but unlike politicians, data doesn't lie. How you recover is literally going to determine how good your next day is going to be. And Whoop tracks all of it. Sleep, strain, heart rate, recovery. It's like dog the bounty hunter. But instead of criminals, it's tracking down your bad habits. 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What about, say more on the indirect competition and sort of egalitarianism side of coalitional psychology for women? So women have evolved tendencies. Tendencies were selected for like leveling, preferring that there's no contest, that we share the prize, women are uneasy about taking credit for a victory. They prefer to play down their achievements. Whereas men, they actually, they love there to be rules of the game. Even from very young ages, men and boys need there to be a winner and a loser. You need to keep score during the game or it's no good. And this has come through in the work of Joyce Benenson, Marianne Fisher, Tanya Reynolds. It's pretty well established that this is fundamental differences in how men and women compete and what they produce. So, Sydney Sweeney is kind of coming in all guns blazing saying, I'm going to compete aggressively and prioritize what men want without prostrating herself and saying, oh, I'm not a, I'm one of the girls. So take the opposite example is someone like Sabrina Carpenter who self-sexualizes a lot, but aggressively signals that she's kind of a more teen girl. She's a girl's girl and she writes songs about men being man-child. All of this stuff. She's very obviously signaling that she's doing it for girls rather than men. What was that tweet that we had that was a quote tweet of someone calling out why it is that women hate Sydney Sweeney, but love Sabrina Carpenter? There was a tweet. So this is Sydney Sweeney with the football balanced on the back of her boots, naked line on a bench and Sabrina Carpenter on the front cover of Rolling Stone in a, pair of thigh high stockings. And it says Sabrina superstar. Sydney Sweeney is a putter and Sabrina Carpenter is a diva pop. And the quote here is the difference is that Sabrina does it because she feels good about herself doing it, not encompassing our gender in hyper-sexualization for male pleasure. That is literally saying one is for the girls. The other is for the boys. Yeah. Even though boys will enjoy it just all the same, pretty much, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Click. Right. Yeah, exactly. The difference is one is clearly for male attention. The other is cunty. It's pretty obvious. Sabrina Carpenter caters to the female gaze and takes pride in her sexuality. Swastika Sweeney caters to the male gaze and wants men to validate her sexuality. I mean, it's just, it's like clearly a man's brain believes that everything is the same. Sabrina is sexualizing herself and it is in the world of art and entertainment where nudity is relatively normal. Meanwhile, Sydney is promoting a campaign that denigrates female athletes. This, no, it fucking doesn't. Of the two art forms, one being gambling and the other being art and entertainment. I certainly, if you want to say that is so derogating to arts and entertainment to say, oh yeah, you're at this, you're in the same league as gambling. Yeah. And also, so if you've self-sexualized to fight the patriarchy and that's why you say you're doing it, then that's fine. And it's believed for the girls. If you don't, if you don't signal to the female group that you're one of them and you care about their concerns. And that's another key thing is women must very vocally signal to other women that they care about the concerns they have as well and signal that they're an empathetic, caring person. So Sydney Sweeney has never come out and aggressively fought the patriarchy. She's not signaled about Palestine or whatever the, you know, causes that women are caring about a lot at the time. In fact, she's done quite the opposite and she's kind of signaled that she cares about things men care about. Yeah. And that can be seen as leaving women out of the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that can be seen as leaving women as vulnerable because the things men care about sometimes can leave women exploited. So maybe that's how they feel towards her. Yeah. There was this Stephanie girl who wrote a really interesting tweet that said Sydney Sweeney is the funniest stress test feminism has ever encountered because I thought it was the patriarchy that reduces women to their bodies, denies them individual agency and imposes rules on female sexuality based on what everyone else thinks women ought to be. Meanwhile, 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. And somehow the feminist response is thousands of women materializing to explain that her body is actually a collective political resource and she has a responsibility to use it in ways they approve of because otherwise she's setting women back 100 years. Fucking lol. So congratulations, ladies. You defeated the patriarchy by becoming an enormous decentralized committee of women, police, journalists, and social workers. And you're in 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. Perhaps the funniest part is that the men supposedly enforcing this grand patriarchal system are mostly standing off to the side like Sydney seems great, let her cook, while the feminist liberation committee is furiously drafting new regulations for what she's allowed to do with her own gigantic knockers. Incredible operation. You guys are fucking killing it. Extremely boss babe. Very liberation. No notes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's puritanical in style, policing the sexuality, exactly like I said, with sexual economics theory, it all hangs together nicely. Yeah. Why is it, I guess the shared prizes thing and the downplaying, people might not necessarily realize that like women are celebrated when they have accomplishments, but they tend to not be so celebrated by themselves. The best example that I can think of is when in school girls used to get good grades and you would receive them in a class or whatever, if they'd scored really well or they were at the top of the class immediately, "Oh, you know, I just got lucky. It wasn't me." It's very humble in a way, but what's the just, why is that the case? Why would they not want to have their accomplishments self-promoted at least? Well, given that it was so important for them to stay alive and not make enemies throughout ancestral history, the tall poppy syndrome of not wanting to show that you're above anyone else, or that you considered yourself above the other women, it's a way of kind of ingratiating yourself to the other girls by saying, "I'm not a threat. I'm one of you. I'll prioritize the group over myself as an individual." But yeah, you see it all the time. The first thing women do when they meet each other is tell each other how beautiful they look, and then deny how beautiful they look. "Oh, would you stop? No, I've gained so much weight. I don't, I look terrible." No, not like you, nothing like you. It's even in their Instagram posts, you see it back and forth. And another thing is in self-disclosure. So when women share negative information about each other, and you see this on Call Her Daddy podcast a lot, actually, where women Women are kind of encouraged to share some embarrassing story about, oh, what a whore I was in college or whatever it might be. And it's done to put the other girls at ease and make them feel better about themselves. And if you notice that in a female group, if one woman doesn't do that, declines the offer, the invitation to share something negative about herself, she will be shunned. That will be seen as, oh, she's too full of herself. She's violated the code of, oh, I've shared something negative about myself, now you do. Mutual self-castigation. Absolutely, yeah. So it's all to make sure not one person, women are actually quite groupish in that way in their coalitional psychology. They're kind of very consensus oriented. They don't like norm violators. And that's what you're seeing here. Yeah, it is really fascinating to think about how much this is women policing the sort of behavior. And body of someone that could have been sort of standing for their cause. Because when you read off the litany of things, self-powered entrepreneur, sexuality out there, like for the boys. Like, you know, this soft bigotry of male expectations idea that I've got, which is that there is a certain class of girl boss feminism that struggles to think about female empowerment in any other way than kind of classic high status maleness. That, like, it's got lots to say about the breadwinner and the hunter and the. CEO and surprisingly little to say about the mother and the carer and the homemaker. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well that, if you were to create in a lab, the canonical sexual liberation fueled CEO type that is into sports, it would be Sydney Sweeney. Yeah. And it's kind of an example of gamma bias as well. When the gendered nature of something is shone a light on, you see this with, it's kind of like a hetero pessimism. Basically Sydney Sweeney appeals to male sexual psychology. Therefore it's problematic. Whereas if she appealed for her own female sexuality, that's fine. I'm writing a paper at the moment called the mis-measurement of men. And it's all about scales that seek to kind of pathologize men about sexual entitlement, sexism, or toxic masculinity. And so many of the items that they use to measure these attitudes in men are absurd things like if that, if a woman said them, it would be seen as fantastic and celebrate celebratory. So for example, I deserve to have my sexual needs gratified by my partner. If a woman said that, she would be applauded and seen as, oh, fighting for closing the orgasm gap and yes, you get it, whatever. Whereas if men do it, it's seen as sexual entitlement. So it's another example is, we were discussing benevolent sexism the other day and I brought up the example of, well, women are benevolently, benevolent sexism is basically, kind of infantilizing women by liking them in such a way and pedestalizing them, that makes them infantilized. So for example, taking, doing everything for them, so they never learn how to do anything themselves. That's the argument. Whereas you'd never reverse that argument and say, well, a woman enjoying cooking every day for her husband and doesn't let him cook, is she infantilizing him? When he's the benefactor of her benevolent sexism, he would actually be described as weaponizing incompetence. Whereas you'd never, when women are weaponizing incompetence and the benefactors of men's benevolent sexism, they're the victim. So if men are the morally typecast, as we know from research from Tanya Reynolds, they're always morally typecast as the aggressor, the wrongdoer. And you kind of see that with hetero pessimism too. Anything that celebrates heterosexual male sexuality is morally suspect in a way that other sexuality isn't. If you're going to spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. And honestly, who wants to be in the background of a TikTokers highlight reel dressed like a chump? 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That's gym.sh/modernwisdom and modernwisdom10 at checkout. I think the interesting turn of the last sort of three decades, when you think about Freddie Youngberg, do you remember that ad that he did? Was it Calvin Klein? Yeah. I'm pretty sure there were women running after the bus for him, chasing him down, and he was worried and he needed to get security. David Beckham, David Gandy, you know, we're talking about like classic man-men, David Gandy. Chris Williamson. Chris Williamson, front cover of lots of dark romance novels. But, you know, that, the sexualization. The Diet Coke ad. Yeah. Right? Like, is anybody asking to repeal this primitive perspective of the male form? Yeah. So one interesting thing for me is why is it the case that men, if this ad had been done by a guy, or if it was an ad for something that was female coded, because obviously we're trying to get men attracted to gambling here. So a guy taking his kid off would probably not be very good for it unless it was like adjacent to Grindr. Mm-hmm. What. What would be the reaction if a man did that from men, do you think, and why is it so different for women pushing back against, like, if a guy was, you know, built and buff and being, like, the Diet Coke ad, if that rolled back again? So I think, you know, men just don't mind being sexualized in the way women do because it's not as scary to men. I know you see maybe the Tin Men sometimes gets up in arms about the. Facebook groups of hot guys, hot dudes reading. I think most men would be delighted to be featured there because. I'm desperately reading books in public all the time in an attempt to try and be. They'll get you eventually. Yeah. But, yeah, being sexualized is not as big of a problem to men as it is for women. They're much more likely to be victims of sexual violence, and you can maybe perhaps understand why. So I think that's why. If we saw someone being sexualized to sell a product, we'd see it as aspirational. We'd be like, "Oh, I've got to get my ass in the gym." And I think also envy works differently for men and women. Men see it as kind of motivating, whereas women kind of internalize it and feel that they're being put down. Yeah. Why is it, do you think, that women who are seen as guys/girls are perceived with more mistrust? Yeah. So that's a specific piece of research from Sarah Hill's lab led by Hannah Bradshaw, and specifically when you describe a girl as being a guy's gal, having more male friends than female friends, women mistrust her because they doubt the reasons for her doing that. And given all the research we know about cross-sex friendship and how often that activates mating psychology, perhaps there's good reason. And if you think from an error management perspective, your inference about someone who hangs around mostly with guys and does things that appeal to guys, she may have a psychology that's going to prioritize that. Yeah. And she's going to prioritize their goals over women's goals. I'll just break down some of the DVD extra verbiage there. So because a lot of orbiting friendships that are of different sexes, men and women, end up evolving into, some huge percentage of close friends from opposite sexes would sleep with their friend, and then some non-zero number turn into relationships. Also, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that there's backup mates on both sides, all of them awful women. And there are often men, et cetera, et cetera. And also evidence that in terms of mate poaching, one of the top tactics that mate poachers use is to infiltrate the relationship through friendship. First befriend. So everyone knows like, oh, she's just a friend or he's just a friend until he's not. Yeah. So because if you have a girl that is around a lot of friends that are guys, many of those guys, some of those guys might be in relationships, even if they're not, she has a degree of understanding about their psychology or at the very least, a degree of access, right? Just proximity. Straight up proximity is close enough to activate some of this, which again is another one of those kind of hilarious hypocrisies, which is women can work in an office and there should never be any confusion about men and women being together or whatever. But also at the same time, there is an implied understanding that a woman that's around lots of men is probably going to have a degree of access and maybe be hit on in a manner that makes her a sexual threat to you. Yes. Do you understand what I mean? Or her psychology is going to be somewhat more similar to a man's as well, which may mean that she doesn't mind short-term mating. You'll often find that these women, these guys, gals, they sometimes derogate the mainstream women as well. So they say things like, oh, I've never been able to have many female friends. They're just too much drama. Not like me. I'm not drama. I'm totally drama free here. You can play Xbox with me and then fuck me. Yeah. Which you can imagine for some men, it's all the advantages of being gay without having to be gay. It's like a covert strategy. So you do see the intersexual competition playing out on both sides. Is there anything to say about the fact that Sydney Sweeney doesn't portray herself as a victim? Yeah, that could be part of it because it's Like I say, that self-disclosure of vulnerability and shared vulnerability. 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. She doesn't do any of that, really. Although I did hear she made one film about reproductive rights, about a nun. I think I might be fuzzy on the details, but maybe that could save her reputation among women. Or if she self-disclosed some embarrassing stories. I think what would have been interesting would have been if she'd said, if there was this big narrative arc around how I was really uncomfortable about my body for a long time and it took a long time for me to get past that. And now that I have transcended what previously held me back, I am emancipated. I am emancipated. I am finally liberated and free to be able to use my sexuality in a way that I couldn't do previously. Which sort of plays to you also, small, mousy woman that wears brown and grey, that doesn't seem to be seen by the world. Like you too may flourish and blossom into this wonderful big titty lady in future that gets paid millions of dollars. Yeah, and I think she has come out with some of that stuff. Like I have seen some interviews of her saying she hates being sexualized sometimes, but that's clearly not that much. Fucking hell, Sydney. I mean, you've really become like Stockholm Syndrome for yourself if that's the case. But she's more often come out with media stories like thanking her mom for convincing her to not get a boob reduction and things like that. So that sends the opposite signal to women. It's like, oh, I'm so glad I have these massive tits that I can cash in on. Look at these scud missiles here, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, so it's like a brazen proud of something that women know appeal. And also boobs specifically. Let's talk about boobs. Tell me about boobs. Sure, we can talk about boobs. It makes a change from talking about incels. With boobs, like I always say to my wife, it's kind of like penises. It's not like the bigger is always the better. And, you know, she's come to accept that that's true. So that's good. But it really is the case with boobs research. Very mixed evidence for the size that's deemed optimal. But what's more consistent is the shape and the texture. It's called the tosity, the ptosis of the breast. So that describes basically the sagging. And like in all elements of mate preferences and evolutionary psychology, the male preferences for beauty. It's all about reproductive value. So as women age and as they go through each pregnancy, their boobs kind of change in texture. They sag, they head down south. So it's more about the firmness rather than the size per se. But we do know that short-term mating-oriented men are, and the reason why that is basically the nobility hypothesis, that basically you're looking for a high reproductive value woman who has a long reproductive career ahead of her, and hasn't had children yet already. So that's Frank Marlow that came up with that nobility hypothesis. And that seems to be the consistent finding about boobs, is that it's the texture and the ptosis rather than size per se. But short-term mating-oriented men prioritize big boobs. So that could be another part of the puzzle that's putting women off. We do know that women derogate big-boobed women as well, a lot more than small-boobed women, because it's probably. It's probably cuing to them that this person is themselves a short-term mater, even though there's no evidence that they may be themselves. 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. Induce the short-term mating strategy in the men around them. Exactly. It's kind of interesting. So I posted this research a little while ago, that basically in a study of about 300, 400 Norwegian men, there was a bodily focused group that was both boobs and ass. There was an ass only, but there was no boobs only men. There was none. It was like, you're either focused on both, just the ass or not the boobs. I don't know. Yeah, that surprised me too. Law of large numbers if you have enough men. But at the very least, it indicates that maybe in the current cultural climate, the ass is being prioritized more. Interesting about the ass. Let me tell you about the ass. What's interesting about the ass is that it is much easier to hide than boobs for women. It's also in the back. So as you walk towards somebody, as you're talking to them, it's not front and center. It's also not at eye level. And I wonder whether that is, even if guys on average, maybe this is across all of time. Let's say that that research would replicate throughout all of human history for all men, heterosexual men, that they were interested in the ass over the tits. But even if that is the case, it's so much more front and center. You're like compensating for how much you might not be as much of a fan of it by just the shelf height. You know what I mean? Like, what is it? Eye level is bi-level, as they say in CPG and retail. OK, well, eye level is guy level for this one, I suppose. Yeah, and it kind of gives the impression you're emphasizing it and rubbing it in their nose a little bit more. Right, absolutely. They should be so lucky. A quick aside, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I've started every single morning the same way for the last five years now, which is a cold glass of water with Element in it. Element is an electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. It's a science-backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium. No sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients. It reduces muscle cramps and fatigue, supports brain function and helps to regulate your appetite throughout the day. 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And that's to describe that a lot of women were sympathetic or even, you know, towards Lindsay Clancy. What do you think would have happened if it was this? If Lindsay Clancy looked like Sidney Sweeney, would women still have rallied around it? What do you reckon? Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty well-known fact that juries are pretty biased around their in-groups. And the OJ Simpson-- So you're saying if the jury was filled with, like, big-titty blondes, they would have been like, "She's free! Let her go!" Well, not so much, but it's a pretty well-known fact that in the OJ Simpson trial, that because Nicole Simpson was a white, blonde woman who was perceived as having stolen a really resource-rich, successful black man in OJ Simpson, the majority black female jury hated that. And they just could not get any sympathy for her as a victim at all. So it's actually a big problem in juries that they're so tribal based on their own kind of in-group. So Lindsay Clancy may not have been threatening enough to them in terms of their mating psychology. And, you know, supporting her and giving group sympathy towards her issue was in women's self-interest more than it is to celebrate Sidney Sweeney appealing to the male gaze. Have you seen any men pushing back against Sidney Sweeney? Yeah, Irish radio presenter, yeah. Right, okay, yeah, which is kind of naturally a bit more posturing, "Look at me, I'm for you." Uh, going back to boobs, um, I wonder whether the unearned traits element of this is part of the reason. So I'm kind of fascinated about why men don't hate desirable men in the same way. If you were to do an ad that was the equivalent for men, that guy would not have a body that was an unearned trait, right, like just an inherent advantage that he was gifted, basically. I'm sure that Sidney Sweeney goes to the gym and has a trainer and probably follows a diet and doesn't overeat and all the rest of this stuff, but she's not got a body that at least obviously is shaped by tons and tons of work. Yeah. Right, at least not in the same way that a man's body would be, whereas a man's body, you would say, "Oh, he's really had to sort of grind for that." And one of the really interesting takeaways, I think you sent me this tweet that was explaining how ruthlessly reminiscent it is, especially to women, in a way that it isn't to men. It's to the male attractiveness. That when you see a woman that is beautiful, especially with big boobs, like that's just straight up natural boobs, straight up natural genetic endowment. And the effortlessness with which Sidney Sweeney sort of presents herself, whether that's true or not, the effortlessness that she presents herself with almost sort of rubs it in the face of women more. And I think this is one of the differences between Sidney Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter is a woman designed for the female and the gay gaze. Gay men love Sabrina Carpenter. It's this over-the-top like princess, like there's lots of makeup, she's always did. I actually think that this is one of the reasons that if you watch a female Chatty Chatty podcast, a lot of the time they won't be fully done up. It'll be super slouchy, oversized hoodie, look at me, this is me at my worst. But if you at your worst is Sidney Sweeney in her effortlessness presentation of this, what you're basically reminding a shit ton of women of is I am more desirable than you. you without having to work for it yeah this is how unfair the genetic spread is yeah and women with big boobs specifically talk about this all the time they other women accuse them of big women in the comments we want to hear from you we're your team yeah of sticking them out they like accuse them of oh look why is she showing them off so much and they're just trying to live their life like you know it's like but the sex difference is interesting because men's attractiveness on most metrics is attainable like you say uh but also uh men really formidable uh high mate value physical attractiveness men and that's the physical attractiveness for men is formidability muscularity height that makes you a valuable coalitional ally to men for other reasons useful as well so what the fuck use of women got for really beautiful woman you're just gonna take all the men yeah our men are only gonna be interested in her whereas for men it's like that really formidable guy he could help me go yes so that explains some of the sex difference but unfortunately height isn't a uh a sexy trait you can cultivate well though the lux maxers are doing their best to fast track the surgery on that front that's true i i mean this is a very uh how would you say unpopular to say so i'm gonna have to put my disguise on for it i would say it is significantly easier for a woman to raise her physical attractiveness mate value than it is for sorry i would say that it is significantly easier for a man to raise his physical attractiveness mate value than it is for a woman yeah if you go to the gym what's the evidence of how much it improves your attractiveness it's like significant there's basically no guy that isn't made more attractive to women yeah on average most women by going to the gym yeah and that's true throughout most of your life as well it's a longer span of your reproductive value whereas women's beauty is on a much more tight time clock so it's harder to fight against yes so there's nothing you can do time is coming the wall is undefeated as the incels say that is true to some extent uh in a way that it's not for men so that envy must feel more uncomfortable for women who's i mean now it's pretty evolutionary novel the extent to which women can extend their beauty but for most of ancestral history it would have been seeing youthful beautiful women would have triggered serious anxiety about your own mate value running out whereas if you're a guy and is 40s who's never trained before a couple of years of hard dieting and a good trip to the gym and you've got a body that's comparable with a guy that might be in an advert you just got to be sufficiently disciplined with it uh so yeah i think that's that's tough like you know that deserves sympathy and like a degree of understanding where you're like fuck like of course you're going to be threatened yeah by women and i i would love to see the age split is it more threatening to a woman who is a little older than sydney sweeney or is it the sort of narcissism or the rivalry of small differences in terms of age i would imagine not so many women younger than sydney sweeney would have as much of a problem at the same rate as women around her age or older you reckon is that i reckon you could even predict the nature of the derogations i would predict uh that younger women would derogate things like her promiscuity a little bit more uh whereas older women when their their mate value runs out their value to a group diminishes it diminishes but it becomes the wise grandmother or the kind of the wisdom so they would start derogating her she's a bimbo what does she know about anything so it's like oh i have new type of value to the group now yeah so i have to emphasize that uh rather than i'm never going to compete with sydney sweeney on youth and beauty right that those days are gone but i might actually derogate her you know on wisdom yeah yeah this is the maiden mother arc that uh louise perry talks about yeah okay so the maiden side will look at and also the mother side as well like the middle the middle of the the chunk will be looking at okay fecundity loyalty reliability etc but yeah that's interesting the sort of matriarch side might have to use something else oh she's an idiot she's setting women back she's doing something yeah that is cool the supplement industry is full of products making claims that they can't back which is why i'm such a massive fan of momentous their co-founder jeff byers played in the nfl and saw firsthand just wildly the quality of supplements can vary so he built momentous around a higher standard every product from momentous uses evidence-backed ingredients transparent doses and independent third-party testing everything is nsf certified for sports so what's on the label is actually what's in the tub it's why momentous is trusted inside all 32 nfl locker rooms it's why i've trusted them with my own supplements for years best of all momentous offers a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can buy it and try it for 29 days if you don't love it they will give you your money back plus they ship internationally right now you get up to 35 off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to live momentous.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout that's l-i-v-e-m-o-m-e-n-t-o-u-s.com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout the uh unearned traits thing is still pretty fascinating to me and thinking about how men would feel very differently about a guy that did that and also i think women would too because look at least you've worked for it worked for it in in one form or another but i keep on coming back to like if a guy or a female athlete had done that that wasn't that was basically sydney sweeney not saying that i'm doing this for the girls don't really care about them etc etc etc i think you would get still much of the pushback even if she'd had abs right even if it had been like hot megan rapinoe or something i think she would have still got a lot of pushback and i think she would have still got a lot of pushback hmm yeah perhaps it's hard to know what is there to say about sort of the focus because for me one of the obvious misses was this is a brand new fucking sports betting company it's a prediction market sports betting i think right so it's like calci but for sports yeah by the way sorry i got to fucking pull this up i was listening to i haven't listened to the daily wire in forever and i was listening to matt walsh and and shapiro and michael knolls and andrew claven this morning they're partnered with oh never knew that sorry are we not against the degeneration of the modern youth and stuff like is this very corrosive practice for young men and society in general the only other two would have been weed and porn and you're certainly not going to promote you're going to implicitly say that both of those things are fucking destructive things are upside down chris we've got the woke progressives being puritanical and sex negative and we've got the right wing you know conservative being you know degenerate motherfucking matt walsh doing a calci ad yeah it's that that that blew my mind this morning and that's the real story or should be the real story of this sydney sweeney thing is she's promoting gambling probably very successfully given how you know sex sells and how much attention is going to be garnered on the back of this engineered backlash um but yes sports betting i mean the american institute for boys and men have reports on how corrosive this is to young men they've done some really cool research that shows uh predictable effects when you legalize uh online gambling in a specific area bankruptcy among young men goes way up and they go into way more debt which is partially attributable to the change in law like they've isolated that effect which is really cool research and my wife was telling me some really kind of sobering statistics this morning about men who have problems with gambling it's detrimental to their relationship which has downstream effects on their uh suicidality and it's detrimental to their mental health and suicidality in and of itself as well i think something like 30 percent of people who have a gambling problem of men young men who have gambling problems uh have felt suicidal and i think something like 13 have attempted suicide because of this so it's a huge and if you think about it from an evolutionary psychology point of view the addiction to young from young men towards gambling makes sense it's that try and win big in one fell swoop when i've got not much else uh to lose in an attempt to garner enough resources to up your mate value so it's like they're the exact vulnerable group and that should be the real story about this but people care more about harms to women or perceived harms to women in all sorts of domains in life and this is just another example i did a tweet one time because some people don't agree with me about this they don't agree with me on that they don't think that men and society in general are quite protective of women even though there's a preponderance of evidence for this i mean tanya wrote this article uh reviewing all the different ways in which this manifests but i just asked the question and my following on x a lot of incels a lot of misogynist men a lot of red pill kind of oriented guys and i i put up a poll all things being equal is it worse to kill a teenage girl or a teenage boy and unanimously people said it was way worse to kill the girl and you know what what can explain that unless we're actually a lot more sensitive to harms towards women i think that that's obvious it's seen even in a group who's mistreating women and treat women as property it's seen as a great moral injury to that group if you harm one of their women versus if you harm one of their men yeah and it just i think this is a clear example of it that people couldn't see oh the young men as the real victims in this scenario the the victims that are getting the limelight is oh Women's sport has been sent back 40 years. Yeah, not the men that have now got another predatory fissure trying to break into their brainstem so that they can try and extract value and cash from them. This could have been, if you wanted to push back against Sidney Sweeney, and this is why women are so much more sophisticated socially, like the fucking scalpel with which they're able to navigate. I thank the Lord every single day that I am not a woman and I don't have to deal with it. And I know that the same is true for like lots of women that are in workplace environment, navigating that teachers are surrounded by the way, oh my God, it's like so complex and burdensome for me to navigate all of the intersexual dynamics and stuff like that. That being said, there is a limit to their sophistication. The limit to their sophistication is if they'd really, really, really wanted to do collective action with this, they could have got at Sidney by going for the unimpeachably perfect argument of this is predatory against men. This is trying to take advantage of young men. It's hurting them. Gambling is fucking poison and we should not have Kalshi and Polymer. By the way, for all of the things that I get accused of on the internet, we have been approached by every fucking prediction market on the planet over and over again, and I have turned every single one of them down. Fair play. Right. Like, and that's a stance that I've taken. Even I don't have a gambling bone in my body. I suck at Vegas. I'm not that excited. I'd way rather go and see a show. I haven't got gambling in my family, but I did see what it did to people around me growing up northeast of the UK. People don't understand that. Yeah. In England, there are betting shops on every single high street in every single shithouse village, Norton, right? Which is the cricket club I played for. The guys would finish up playing the game and go and use the fruit machine in the pub afterwards. That's 25 pounds. And now it's an app in your phone as well. That's available 24 hours a day. That could have been the angle. The headline of all of this could have been Sydney Sweeney uses her body to capitalize on men. Yeah. Hurts men, increases suicidality, reduces their financial freedom. I thought that everybody was. I thought everyone was up in arms about the cost of living crisis. I thought everyone cared about financial, financially uplifting the underclass. I bet that if you look at the people that are mostly using online gambling, it's going to skew toward the lowest socioeconomic classes as well. It's not going to be the high, the upper class and the middle class. Fast life history strategy people trying to make a big win. Yeah. This is how I'm going to get Robin hood for 2026. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, I totally agree, but it just comes back to this idea that women are a more, a better victim in terms of the media. So people care more about, uh, their, uh, concerns. I would just push back on the thing you said about, oh, I'm so glad I'm not a woman because it's so hard to navigate. And it might seem like that with our male brains. Um, but if I got the, uh, socio, uh, social navigation upgrade in my brain, because I'm a woman, my arms race would have been sort of appropriately difficult to that point. But also think of the modern world and the social arenas you have to navigate it actually kind of rewards the female style of aggression, uh, way more than the male style. Like think of a corporate environment. You can't be directly aggressive and men will settle this in the car park or even just, you know, raising your voice. Men are neutered in terms of how they show aggression. And, uh, whereas there's almost no policing on women's gossiping or, you know, false accusations, things like that. So, you know, they're actually rewarded, uh, for their. So do you want to know my, my new conspiracy theory, a big new conspiracy theory, Sydney Sweeney keeps being used as a distraction from geopolitically inconvenient news drops July, 2025 DOJ released a memo stating that there were no significant findings in the Epstein files. The one big, beautiful bill is signed into law stripping over $1 trillion in benefits from us citizens while raising the debt ceiling by 5 trillion Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle Ag drops capturing national attention, right? That's June 22, July, 2025, September, 2026. The UN cites concerns over us, war crimes in Iran, AI CEOs agree to slow down development after former employees warm of a doomsday. Trump refuses to slow progress, citing competition with China. The midterms are right around the corner. Sydney Sweeney appears in a Novigrad, never waste a good crisis. Bury some other bad news and bury the headline below two bigger headlines. You can just imagine them in their crisis room. It's like things are getting, we're getting a lot of heat breakouts in Sydney. We need to hit break glass in case of geopolitical emergency. And it's just Sydney Sweeney's phone number. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I, uh, I think it's fascinating. It's, it's interesting to, to consider how many more times, like both sides of someone's mouth or groups mouths can be spoken out of, um, is in your experience is like highlighting hypocrisy, a good way to educate people. Cause I think what, again, to steal a man, the critique side or the criticizer side, it's, Hey, look, we're okay with you having a position as long as the positions seem to be sort of run in parallel and be, uh, uh, consistency. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We want you to be consistent across your views. Um, and because you're not, we just want one of these things to be stopped either sexual revolution, liberation, women can use their body thing like that. And this can't exist at the same time, right? Square the circle for me and become consistent. Like hypocrisy is catnip for the internet in your experience is hypocrisy identification, a useful. Tool of behavior change. I mean, using just my own self, it works on me. If someone points out a way in which I'm being hypocritical, I find that persuasive, um, perhaps it's not, it might trigger tribal psychology too much and just a signal that someone's the enemy. Um, yeah, so I dunno, I don't think so, but I, I think it's, it's worth highlighting anyway, because some of the examples are so fragrant and it's, you know, so worth highlighting, I think just to get back to. Back to that idea on which sex has it worse in lots of domains, it feels like the modern culture war is just a race to the bottom on people trying to fucking outdo each other on saying, oh, men have it worse in this domain and the evolutionary psychological approach is always very domain specific. So back to this paper, I was writing on mismeasurement of men. Some of the statements in there are just way too global. It's like men are superior to women or. You know, all these things that are massive global statements and the more appropriate level of analysis is find the domains or the specific context in which each sex has it bad or good. And there are different ones for men and women. And, uh, it's not just one has it worse or better than the other. Bingo. My chick says this all the time that there's times where her sex has been a massive advantage and then there's times where it's held her back. You go, okay, well, in that case, sweeping fucking statements don't really work, but there are some laws that seem to kind of. Be hold pretty true. Like gamma bias, right? Men are, uh, the sex of men is ignored when they do positive, but highlighted when they do negative. And the sex of women is ignored when they do negative and highlighted when they do positive. Like that seems to hold as a relatively broad perspective across headlines. What's the fucking Carnegie award? Like 95% of that. It's people who risk their own life selflessly to help a stranger. It's like 95, 96% of people that do that. It's like stranger saves. Drowning man. What a benevolent sexist. Yeah, I know fucking horrible dude. You're the best. I appreciate you. I'm glad for breaking this down. Why should people go check out all these X is where I'm hanging out on your recommendation. I've given up the blue sky. I don't go there anymore, but not for you. So it's not built for you. Yeah. So yeah, follow me on X and articulate myself probably a lot better than here. And, uh, yeah, check me out there. You're the best. Appreciate you, man. All right. Goodbye. My beauties do yes. Fucking money. That was good. Yeah. Tammy regularly haul stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's wholesale club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods. Even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? 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Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Sydney Sweeney’s sports betting ad, which features explicit sexual imagery, sparked widespread backlash from women, who perceive it as a threat to female sports and a reinforcement of male-centric sexual norms.
  2. The criticism is rooted in evolutionary psychology, particularly intersexual competition, where women are evolutionarily inclined to avoid direct rivalry and maintain group cohesion through indirect, covert competition.
  3. Women view Sweeney’s self-presentation as prioritizing the male gaze over female group interests, which triggers jealousy and perceived threat to women's status in both sports and social dynamics.
  4. A key distinction is made between Sweeney’s appeal to men and Sabrina Carpenter’s appeal to women—Sweeney is seen as catering to male sexual preferences, while Carpenter is celebrated as a feminist, female-empowering figure.
  5. The backlash reveals deep-seated tribalism and double standards
  6. Women’s self-policing of sexuality is framed as a form of group survival, where openness to male attention is seen as a betrayal of collective values, especially if it lacks solidarity with feminist causes.
  7. The reaction is rooted in sexual economics theory, where women enforce “price” on sexual access through shaming, and Sweeney’s actions are interpreted as undermining that system.
  8. The incident highlights how societal norms treat male and female self-expression differently—men are celebrated for physical attraction, while women face shame for similar displays, revealing systemic gendered hypocrisy.

Summary:

Sydney Sweeney’s advertising campaign for a sports betting company, featuring overtly sexual imagery, has ignited a significant backlash from women, who perceive it as a harmful reinforcement of male-centric sexual norms and a threat to women’s achievements in sports. The response is deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology, particularly the concepts of intersexual competition and female coalitional psychology—where women evolved to avoid direct conflict, maintain group harmony, and prioritize collective over individual success. Sweeney’s unapologetic self-presentation as sexually attractive to men is seen as a direct violation of these norms, triggering jealousy and accusations of undermining women’s progress in sports.

In contrast, figures like Sabrina Carpenter are celebrated for self-sexualization that aligns with female empowerment and the female gaze. The criticism reveals a double standard: while women are shamed for sexualizing themselves, men’s similar displays in advertising are rarely condemned. This selective outrage highlights broader societal tribalism and gendered hypocrisy, where women’s sexuality is policed as a collective risk, while men’s physical attractiveness is celebrated.

The backlash also underscores how women’s self-policing of sexual expression is framed as a protective mechanism, rooted in historical survival needs. Critics argue the reaction is exaggerated, pointing to the historical normalization of female athletes’ nudity in media and the focus on micro-level issues while ignoring larger systemic problems like trans athlete inclusion. Ultimately, the episode reveals a complex cultural landscape where personal choice in self-expression is interpreted through the lens of gendered competition and group identity.

FAQs

Women reacted strongly because the ad prominently featured a sexually attractive woman, which they perceived as prioritizing male attention over women's interests. This triggered concerns about the normalization of female sexualization for male pleasure, especially in the context of women's sports and empowerment.

The backlash is explained by intersexual competition, where women perceive female rivals who appeal to men as a threat. Female coalition psychology also plays a role, as women tend to police each other’s behavior to maintain group harmony and avoid conflict, especially when it involves sexuality and mate value.

No, many women see it as harmful or exploitative, particularly when it lacks alignment with feminist values or female solidarity. In contrast, figures like Sabrina Carpenter are seen as empowering because they signal self-empowerment for women and the female gaze.

Sydney Sweeney’s ad is seen as targeting the male gaze, while Sabrina Carpenter’s style is perceived as catering to the female and LGBTQ+ gaze. This distinction leads to a more positive reception for Sabrina, as it aligns with female-centric self-expression and empowerment.

Yes, critics argue that the backlash is inconsistent — when female athletes or celebrities are seen in revealing clothing, it’s often dismissed as a threat, but when men’s bodies are similarly sexualized, it’s seen as aspirational or harmless, revealing a double standard in cultural judgment.

Women’s group dynamics emphasize harmony and mutual protection, so any perceived threat to female solidarity — like self-sexualization for male attention — triggers collective condemnation and social shunning to maintain group cohesion.

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