Beauty Is in the Eye of the Political Beholder

In 2026, a woman’s breasts can either save the country or cause its collapse. Welcome to America’s latest identity crisis, starring Sydney Sweeney’s boobs, Shane Gillis, and a growing case of selective amnesia that deserves its own medical journal. After this week’s simultaneous celebrations of Sweeney’s latest nearly nude “sports” ad and comedian Shane Gillis calling women at the gym “whores,” I’m starting to wonder whether anyone actually knows what they stand for beyond a good Instagram grift. Because the dual contradictions playing out on our feeds are giving straitjacket. Much of the right was erecting a Christopher Columbus-adjacent statue of Sydney when Part Two of her sports-betting ad dropped on October 11, featuring the actress wearing next to nothing. The crowd roared, praising her for refusing to back down or placate the left. Yet, those usual suspects have been making rounds defending Shane Gillis’s SNL monologue from the day before, in which he joked that women dress like “whores” at the gym. The right was fired up, not just defending the joke but reinforcing it, ’cus, yeah, women do dress like whores! It’s only OK to defend or attack a woman’s body so long as it pisses off the opposing political team. It’s still a head-scratcher how another woman showing so much as a kneecap is supposedly degrading herself and society, or how OnlyFans is the undoing of Western civilization, but Sydney Sweeney’s boobs are its saving grace? Liberal social media collectively melted down over Gillis’s gym joke, with critics and celebrities like Dan Levy preaching gospels about absolute female bodily autonomy and that men have no business dictating what women wear. Yet, weeks earlier, this exact progressive circle was in a spiral, aggressively slamming Sweeney’s risqué campaign and blaming it for single-handedly setting women’s rights back a century. In the next hypocrisy du jour, they then turned around to police Nara Smith’s sexy dress . They accused the insanely successful model who’s posed nude, yet makes cakes from scratch in couture, of “cosplaying as a trad wife,” purposefully destroying her traditional image, and attempting a “girl boss” rebrand . Make it make sense. Moral of the story: It’s only OK to defend or attack a woman’s body so long as it pisses off the opposing political team. Underneath these political double standards is a much older problem. We’ve become so accustomed to treating female sexuality as something to fear or control that doing this is often second nature. On both sides. I called out this very brand of selective outrage during Sweeney’s original American Eagle jeans ad controversy. Alas, the cultural amnesia persists. A woman can be deeply intellectual and still hold complete agency over how she presents her beauty. And if you’re coming for me in defense of comedy and political incorrectness, you’ve picked the wrong girl. I’ve spent years defending comedy against cancel culture, from interviewing Josh Duhamel on his raunchy buddy comedy to the Old School director about why the movie would sadly never fly today. I know firsthand what it means to actually put your own skin in the game on this issue. I am the only woman to have ever posed for an artful pictorial while simultaneously landing on the masthead as a featured writer in that same issue of Playboy. It wasn’t a solo act of cheap provocation. I organized that feature alongside a cross-partisan coalition of female journalists from both sides. We collectively bared ourselves for the camera while each contributing essays defending the fundamental principle of free speech and intellectual expression. We did it to prove a point that both sides of the aisle constantly try to deny: a woman can be deeply intellectual and still hold complete agency over how she presents her beauty on her own terms. That is what standing up for a principle actually looks like. But instead of defending true agency, today’s cultural commentators are playing a far lazier game. Which brings us right back to the political theater surrounding Sydney Sweeney and Shane Gillis. Personally? I didn’t think Gillis’s joke was funny. But he can say whatever he wants. That’s not the point. Defending someone’s right to make a joke is one thing. Defending the sentiment behind it while simultaneously celebrating Sweeney’s right to show us herself, sans gym clothes, is another. Meanwhile, the left’s performative, free-for-all approach to “empowerment,” often thrown around without any regard for intention or consequences, is seriously dysfunctional and needs a complete overhaul. For centuries, a woman’s body has been subjected to intense and unhealthy measures of suppression, from authoritarian regimes to extreme religious interpretations, often under the rationale of protecting men from temptation. Different centuries, same assumption: A woman’s body must be controlled because men seemingly can’t be expected to control themselves. Today, people like Andrew Tate offer their own, very enlightened, spin on the concept… How much of this thinking have we internalized without ever bothering to question it? I’m interested in recognizing how its power is so strong, we’re willing to ignore our own hypocrisy to condemn it. Is Sydney Sweeney my personal idea of a modern-day messiah ? Hardly. But if you’re going to be about Sydney Sweeney, then be about it. Principles are supposed to hold up even when inconvenient. Otherwise, what’s the point of having them? Consistency isn’t just about avoiding hypocrisy. It’s about credibility, integrity, and accountability for what you say and believe. If you’re going to support a woman’s right to be sexy, defend the principle. Not just the woman whose politics, popularity, or bra size happen to suit your feed. Principles are supposed to hold up even when inconvenient. By that logic, you should’ve also defended Sabrina Carpenter’s tasteful, mostly nude Rolling Stone cover. Or pregnant mothers posting bikini photos. Or the woman at the gym wearing shorts you, or Shane Gillis, personally wouldn’t choose. I’ve written extensively about why it isn’t inherently degrading, why good men can appreciate a beautiful woman without disrespecting her , and why women don’t have to choose between being sexy and being taken seriously. And no, advocating for healthy female sexuality is not to be confused with endorsing every choice under the sun. Women have the authority to define our own standards and demand respect. We get to decide how we express ourselves and what treatment we accept. It shouldn’t take much ideological shapeshifting to support that concept. Perhaps we’ll finally start embracing healthy female sexuality without turning it into a political statement or a moral indictment. With young women already navigating a mess of mixed messages, we owe them the consistency and clarity to develop their own standards, not enable another set of confusing contradictions to live by. If Sydney Sweeney deserves the freedom to embrace her femininity without apology , so does the woman who wasn’t exactly on your vision board. At a certain point, this transcends the feed. And if you can’t stand the double standards on the other side, take a good look in the mirror. Would you believe you?