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 - as 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 gone too far and crossed a line - that it is 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.
