From Pup Play to Babygirl Fetish: Sydney Sweeney Outrages the Internet (Again!)

Sydney Sweeney as OnlyFans content creator Cassie Howard 

in season 3 of the HBO TV series Euphoria (2026)

Images: HBO Max

 

 

I. 

 

Other than the fact that she has great jeans [1], I really don't know much about the 28-year-old American actress Sydney Sweeney.

 

However, it's hard not to know of her when she seems to be in the news every other day, causing outrage and controversy. I don't know if she deliberately sets out to be a provocatrice, but she certainly has a talent for upsetting people and apple carts alike, which I rather admire. 

 

And, what's more, she's one of those rare individuals who really doesn't give a fuck what her critics say, refusing to apologise for her actions, opinions, or acting roles even when under huge pressure to do so.

 

So, here's a new post on the further (mis)adventures of Miss Sweeney ...     

 

 

II.

 

Euphoria is an American teen drama created and principally written by Sam Levinson for HBO, based on an Israeli miniseries of the same name created by Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin. 

 

In its first two seasons [2], Euphoria told the story of a group of Californian high school students struggling to keep their lives on track while dealing with problems related to love, loss, sex, and addiction. 

 

Both seasons received generally positive reviews, although some critics found the relentless scenes of nudity and sexual content - not to mention the substance abuse and self-harm - problematic due to the high-school setting and its teenage characters.   

 

In the third season, set five years later, the group of friends - now young adults - will be seen to grapple with more spiritual issues to do with the problem of evil and the possibility of finding redemption.

 

Whilst Sydney Sweeney is not the star of the show, she's a central cast member and the one who seems to generate most of the show's publicity. Her performance as Cassie Howard in season 2 also earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination.     

 

However, whether she'll pick up another nomination for season 3, which kicked off a few nights ago, is doubtful. Disgusted viewers say the show has gone too far by having her character dress up as a sexualised puppy and an equally eroticised baby in order to provide content on her OnlyFans channel.

 

These same viewers say the show has crossed a line by normalising extreme pornography and promoting material that is illegal as well as grossly offensive and obscene [3]. And, if what you read online is to be believed, HBO is facing a massive backlash with some calling for a total boycott of the network.    

 

 

III.

 

I might be wrong, but I'm guessing that the puppygirl scene hasn't upset as many people as the one in which Sweeney, dressed in pigtails with a dummy in her mouth and wearing a sheer top and a pair of white (nappy-like) knickers, grabs her feet and lifts her legs in the air.   

 

For whilst there will be some who will argue that canine roleplay - or pet play more generally - is the first step on the slippery slope to zoosexual activity (or what used to be termed bestiality), I think most people will concede that it's essentially a BDSM fetish and so is more about the consensual exploration of power and control rather than a genuine desire to romance animals [4]. 

 

Puppygirls may wear collars, chew on toy bones, or beg for treats, but they remain adult human females when all is said and done and whilst pup play can be sexual in nature, that isn't always the case and for some participants it's primarily a form of fantasy and emotional escapism.  

 

Besides, Sweeney looks rather fetching in her puppy dog costume; whereas, dressed as a baby, she does present an altogether more challenging image ...

 

 

IV. 

 

To be fair, the same arguments used to defend pup play can be assembled to defend daddy dom / little girl fetish (or DD/lg, as it is written by its devotees); it's all about role play, age play, and exploring power relationships and has nothing whatsoever to do with paedophilia. 

 

The babygirl enjoys receiving care and protection (and occasionally punishment) from her dominant partner. Similarly, she takes pleasure in surrendering responsibility and embracing softness, vulnerability and dependency.  

 

However, the babygirl rarely regresses to infancy; rather, she knowingly mimics childish behaviours whilst, contrary to appearances, still maintaining a degree of adult agency (as well as sexuality). Like so much else in the world of kink, it's purely performative and consensual. 

 

Having said that, the fact remains that within the popular (non-kinky) imagination babygirl fetish - unlike pup play - remains highly suspect and seems genuinely perverse. And this is why it's the second of the images above, not the first, that has attracted criticism expressed in words such as twisted, sick, and repugnant (i.e., the language of physical disgust and moral outrage).   

 

Even critics who at one time celebrated Euphoria are now clutching their pearls and insisting it feels tired and dated - whilst The Guardian's Hannah J. Davies even goes so far as to write that the HBO drama has become "a grubby, humourless work of torture porn that's obsessed with and repulsed by sex work" [5]. 

 

Meanwhile, The Telegraph's Eleanor Halls said the show was increasingly feeling "like the misogynistic fantasies of a creepy old man" and she wondered if Sam Levinson - whom she describes as a debauched pervert - isn't actually extracting some form of revenge on "America's pin-up Sweeney" by turning her character Cassie into "a caricature of an airhead sex kitten" [6]. 

 

The critical tide, then - like public opinion - seems to have turned against Euphoria and against Sweeney in particular. But, as I noted earlier, I very much doubt she cares. When she started on the show, she was earning $25,000 an episode; now, she's rumoured to be receiving just under $1million per episode.  

 

And I would rather blissfully bathe with a bar of Miss Sweeney's soap than drown in a sea of tears wept by po-faced critics and other self-appointed custodians of virtue upset by a TV show ... 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post written on Miss Sweeney and the controversy surrounding her ad for American Eagle: dated 31 July 2025: click here. And see the Nietzschean-flavoured follow up post dated 2 August 2025: click here. 

 

[2] The first season of Euphoria, consisting of eight episodes, premiered on 16 June, 2019 and concluded on 4 August. Season 2, also consisting of eight episodes, was broadcast in Jan-Feb 2022. The third season kicked off three nights ago (12 April, 2026). 

   

[3] Obviously, terms such as 'extreme pornography' and 'obscenity' are almost impossible to define. As D. H. Lawrence noted in 1929: "What they are depends [...] entirely on the individual. What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another." 

      See the essay 'Pornography and Obscenity', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 236.   

 

[4] Readers who wish to know more about pet play can click here for a blog post about such on the HUD App (a casual dating platform designed for hookup-focused connections rather than long-term relationships). 

 

[5] Hannah J. Davies, 'Euphoria season three review - grubby, desperate and absolutely not worth the wait', The Guardian (13 April 2026): click here.  

      Referring to Sweeney's character, Davis writes: "The way the show handles her cam girl ambitions, in particular, feels bafflingly dated [...] while storylines around sugar babies and kink feel simultaneously voyeuristic and judgy." 

 

[6] Eleanor Halls, 'Euphoria has descended into one man's creepy, sex-obsessed fantasy', The Telegraph (13 April, 2026): click here. 

 

 

Bonus: click here to watch an official Euphoria Season 3 trailer posted on YouTube. 

 

 

Euphoria Contra Ecstasy

Killing Joke: Euphoria (2015)  

Screenshot from the official video

And then the clouds break / A ray of sunlight, gloria!  

As if a promise / Some strange kind of euphoria [1]

 

 

I. 

 

When I was young, one of the key words in my vocabulary was the Ancient Greek term ἔκστασις (ékstasis), which refers to a psycho-spiritual sense of release; the ecstatic individual is one who has found a way to literally step outside of their own self and become part of something greater (some might characterise this as the nowness of the moment; some might speak of God).  

 

Ecstasy, therefore, is an altered - some would insist higher - state of consciousness and many who have experienced it speak of an intensely pleasurable experience, whether resulting from sexual activity, drug use, or religious devotion [2]. The desire for a temporary loss of self and loss of control is, it seems, rooted in a fundamental human instinct - one which Freud memorably termed der Todestrieb [3].     

 

And it's at this point I'd like to say something about another Ancient Greek term - εὐφορία - or, as we write it in English, euphoria  ...

 

 

II.  

  

It's because I think Freud is right to identify a death drive and because I believe the wilful desire to experience ecstasy is rooted in this drive (and is thus, from a Nietzschean perspective, décadent), that I now avoid speaking of ékstasis and favour euphoria, which, I would argue, is an expression of man's most vital self.   

 

In other words, euphoria is a sense of physical wellbeing that encourages us to stay true to the earth, whilst ecstasy, involving as it does an element of transcendence and a stepping out of reality, is a dangerous first step on the path to heaven; euphoria is tied to Dionysian joy [4], but ecstasy terminates in the kind of religious rapture [5] longed for by Christians and other afterworldsmen [6].  

 

 

III. 

By way of providing an example, let us turn to two contrasting scenes in D. H. Lawrence's novel The Rainbow (1915) ...  

 

In the first of these, we witness the heavily pregnant Anna Brangwen dancing naked in her bedroom and this, I would say, is a scene of euphoria; one that celebrates the fertile female body in all its gravid beauty:

 

"Big with child as she was, she danced there in the bedroom by herself, lifting her hands and her body to the Unseen [...]

      [...] She danced in secret, and her soul rose in bliss [7] [...] she took off her clothes and danced in the pride of her bigness [8].   

 

In the second scene, which comes in the following chapter (VII), we are told how her husband, Will, is driven to the point of ecstasy by Lincoln Cathedral:

 

"When he saw the cathedral in the distance [...] his heart leapt. It was the sign in heaven, it was the Spirit hovering like a dove [...] He turned his glowing, ecstatic face to her, his mouth opened with a strange, ecstatic grin." [9]    

 

It's not that Will is an objectophile - though he clearly has certain tendencies in that direction - his real desire is to escape mortal existence and become one with the Infinite in timeless ecstasy. No wonder Anna "resented his transports and ecstasies" [10] and longs to leave the cathedral and be back under the open sky.

 

And no wonder she turns to the gargolyes, which save her "from being swept forward headlong in the tide of passion that leaps on into the Infinite" [11] and help her to bring Will back down to earth with a bump.  

 

In brief: Anna's Dionysian euphoria triumphs over Will's Christian ecstasy ...

 

He still loves Lincoln Cathedral, but, after Anna has effectively disillusioned him by mocking his desire to consummate his love, even Will recognises there is life outside the church; that there are birds singing in the garden; flowers growing in the fields. 

 

And these things induce a sense of joy and wellbeing that was free and careless and "at once so sumptuous and so fresh, that he was glad he was away from his shadowy cathedral" [12]. 

 

 

IV. 

 

And on a cold and grey November morn, when all the autumn leaves have fallen and "I can hear the magpies laugh" [13], all it takes is a momentary break in the clouds and a ray of sunlight and I too feel strangely euphoric ...     

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from the Killing Joke single 'Euphoria', released from the album Pylon (Spinefarm Records / Universal Music Group, 2015): click here to play. The melodic character and almost choral quality of this track reminds me of the songs on Brighter Than a Thousand Suns (E.G. Records / Virgin Records, 1986), which is certainly one of my favourite Killing Joke albums.  

      

[2] I'm not suggesting these are the only ways to induce ecstasy; other methods might include physical activities such as yoga, dancing, or working out at the gym. Others find quiet meditation in which they concentrate on their breathing does the trick.

 

[3] Freud defines the death drive as the will possessed by organic life forms to return to an inanimate state. It is the opposing (although complementary) force to the life instinct, Eros, which drives self-preservation and reproduction. Both drives belong to the same libidinal economy. See his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920). 

      Here, I will argue that whilst the desire to experience ecstasy is rooted in the death drive, euphoria is an expression of man's most vital self.   

 

[4] For Nietzsche, the story of Dionysus is form of thanksgiving and an affirmation of life; the promise that it will be eternally reborn (this in stark contrast to the figure of the Crucified, who counts as an objection to life and a curse upon it). 

 

[5] Rapture is derived from the Latin term raptus, meaning to seize and carry off; one is literally swept up with ecstasy and transported to another (better and more perfect) world. This is why certain evangelical Christians in the United States use this term as their great eschatological watchword. 

      For these religious fanatics, the Rapture is an end-times event when all Christian believers (including the resurrected dead) will rise in the clouds, to meet the Lord their God. Although this is a relatively recent theological development - first arising in the 1830s - the origin of the term can be traced back to the Bible which uses the Greek word ἁρπάζω (harpazo); see 1 Thessalonians, 4:13-18, where a gathering of the elect in Heaven is described after the Second Coming of Christ.     

 

[6] This term - Hinterweltler in the original German - is a coinage of Nietzsche's and refers to those lunatics who focus their hopes and values on a transcendental realm that one enters at death, thereby devaluing earthly life. 

     For Zarathustra, it was suffering and impotence which created the idea of an afterworld and whilst it may seem attractive to many, it is, he says, a humiliation to believe in such heavenly nonsense. He teaches men to listen rather to the voice of the healthy body and stay true to the earth. 

      See the section entitled 'Of the Afterworldsmen', in Part One of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1969), pp. 58-61. 

 

[7] Although the term bliss was later appropriated by those who like to imagine the spiritual delights of heaven, it was originally an Old English word (with a Proto-Germanic root) simply meaning joy in the mundane sense. 

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 169-170. I discuss this scene - much loved by maiesiophiles everywhere - in the post 'On Dirty Dancing and the Virtue of Female Narcissism 2: The Case of Anna Brangwen' (30 July 2017) - click here - and again in a post titled 'Maiesiophilia' (8 Dec 2022): click here.   

       

[9] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow ... p. 186.  

 

[10] Ibid., p. 188. 

 

[11] Ibid., p. 189. I discuss this scene at greater length in the post titled 'Believe in the Ruins: Reflections of a Gargoyle on the Great Fire of Notre-Dame de Paris' (16 April 2019): click here.  

 

[12] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow ... p. 191.  

 

[13] Killing Joke, 'Euphoria' (2015), as cited in note 1 above.