Do you think it’s hypocritical for women’s pro wrestlers or female athletes in general wanting to be taken seriously as athletes yet they post sexy pics on social media?

FightMeCthullu · 2022-09-27T08:18:31+00:00

I think this issue is we automatically assume people who sexualise themselves can’t be taken seriously/don’t want to be taken seriously.

If someone loves how they look, and post sexy photos….does that make them any less skilled in their career or field?

If a gymnast wins a gold medal, but also posts bikini pics, does that make her less competitive as an opponent?

Womens sport is a professional environment and a serious commitment so it’s fine for the participants to want to opt out of sexualising their chosen career or field.

But they still also have rich private lives and if they want to post pics which might be sexualised, that doesn’t make them less good at what they do, and it shouldn’t automatically mean they get taken less seriously.

So what if they like attention on Instagram? It doesn’t mean they also don’t want to be taken seriously at their workplace.

I think we need to move away from automatically assume a woman who posts revealing pics is not serious or doesn’t take their job seriously. I’m interested as to why the two are linked.

EDIT: if the wrestlers themselves opt into wearing sexy outfits, that’s their choice, but still doesn’t mean they aren’t serious athletes.

I think it is fair for athletes to choose their image when they perform their sport, but we also need to recognise they choose how they want to be seen outside their sport, and the two might seem at odds but people are nuanced.

For example: I was thinking about working with my boyfriend recently (a job opened up, industry is what I like, etc etc etc).

If I went to work with him, I’d present in attire that was suitable for the workplace, which is fairly different from my regular style.

Does that make me a hypocrite by dressing one way at work and another way outside of it?

If I worked with my boyfriend, we’d treat each other differently at work to how we do at home. At home I love random ass grabs but I wouldn’t like it at work.

Is that hypocritical? Of me acting differently within different contexts.

Instagram is a public platform where being hot means you will automatically be more successful. So people post hot pics - more followers and engagements, more brand deals, etc.

But that doesn’t make them a hypocrite for wanting a different treatment in their career - it’s a different context so they want to be viewed accordingly.

As a kid I used to not register that my teachers had lives outside of school and thought it was scandalous when I saw a group of them going to a bar after a school event.

I’m 25 now and friends with several teachers. How they act on weekends is different to how they act at work. I’m not gonna ONLY treat my teacher friend like a teacher whenever I see them, nor would I go to their workplace and try and get them drunk.

Different contexts = different behaviours. Both are still true, just different sides of their personality

januaryphilosopher · 2022-09-27T08:24:09+00:00

Don't male wrestlers also wear skimpy outfits? That isn't the problem.

vogel777 · 2022-09-27T15:10:01+00:00

Well I think a lot of male pro-atheletes also use their sexuality these days. I'm not very familier with WWE, to be honest I thought that was more pantomime than sport.

poppy_blu · 2022-09-27T09:02:42+00:00

Don’t take David Beckham seriously. Or Christian renaldo. Or Rafael Nadal. Or Russ Westbrook. Or Tom Brady. Or a million others.

Might come as a shock to you, but no one needs your approval to dress however they want.

tinasnow-poty · 2022-09-27T10:09:34+00:00

Male athletes are well known for keeping their clothes on

TheRedPillRipper · 2022-09-27T09:15:28+00:00

I’d present in attire that was suitable

This is the pivotal factor. Warren Buffet says it best;

”It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and 5 minutes to ruin it.”

For celebrities, or athletes, it’s presumably their brand. They have to weigh if their sexy pics diminish, or enhance it.

Godspeed and good luck!

JDWhiz96 · 2022-09-27T09:55:52+00:00

I don’t take them seriously: they’re athletes.

SeveralSadEvenings · 2022-09-27T15:00:25+00:00

No. Professional wrestling is a carny business, its entire foundation is spectacle. Sex sells, and people want to see extremely attractive people (in as little clothing as possible) do feats of strength and agility. Skimpy attire and bikini pics are optional, but eyeballs equal clout, and clout gets you noticed by promoters and placed on the card.

Beyond that female wrestlers are also concerned with their brand. Its a short career, injuries and the grueling schedule generally wash people out after 10, 15 years. Most of these women want to establish a brand so they can pivot away from wrestling once their in ring career has ended.

Saraya has been wrestling since she was 13 until she had a career ending injury at 25. When she "retired" she kept her brand active and on people's radar with skimpy photos, press appearances, a movie produced by The Rock, and backstage WWE work. Now she's back on AEW's active roster and people are excited for her return. Are we supposed to take her less seriously because she posts cheesecake shots on her IG? Sexiness has been a part of her gimmick since she came of age, Why are we supposed to ignore that she's a very attractive woman just to take her seriously as in ring performer?

>Most importantly why can’t women who dress sexy admit they are doing it for the attention and to benefit their careers?

I don't understand this question, what does admitting it have to do with anything? who does it benefit? how does it it change the business? what is to be gained?

PanzerSjegget · 2022-09-27T08:33:19+00:00

Only if you are an absolute Muppet brain do you rate the seriousness of a person by level of clothing they post on their socials. Grow the fuck up.

bottleblank · 2022-09-27T11:48:27+00:00

As a sometimes-fan of professional wrestling, I think it's probably fair to say that both men and women in the industry make a lot of money out of their appearance, it's part of the territory. Most hugely successful male wrestlers in the past 30 years or so (particularly in WWE) have been chiselled out of granite with pecs like body armour and 6-packs like speed humps. Triple H, The Rock, Stone Cold, Batista, Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Roman Reigns. These guys don't look like your average dude, they look like heavily trained male fitness models. So, naturally, the women would also sell themselves partly on their assets too. They're trying to sell themselves as pinnacles of their gender, the very best, the fittest, the most appealing to what people want to see in that gender.

However, WWE in particular has been very... targeted in how they've tended to use female wrestlers, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, in that they were supermodels first, wrestlers (a distant) second, which isn't usually the case for the men. Since I don't watch wrestling to jack off to it, I want to see the women wrestling, to respect them for their immense athletic talent, the same as I do the men. It's wrestling, that's what I tune in for. If there's a dominant overweight female wrestler absolutely murdering supermodel stick insects, that seems realistic to me, that's how it should play out, like she would have the power and weight advantage.

So, in answer to your question, I think they can be taken seriously as performers and sell themselves based on their appearance, because I think the men do that too, generally speaking. I think it's part of the job to present yourself in an appealing way, to catch attention, to make people want to watch - it's not bum fights we're tuning in for, it's highly trained, exceptionally fit, athletic superheroes, and it's their job to make you want to keep your eyes fixed on the TV (which is probably going to be harder if they're all 1970s style fat guys who look like they just crawled out of a backwoods bar). WWE certainly didn't help by focussing so heavily on looks over performance for women's wrestlers, so no doubt the audience came to expect that, but I don't think there's any reason you can't be sexually appealing as well as a great actress, gymnast, acrobat, and pro-wrestler.

Censoredv2 · 2022-09-27T08:37:52+00:00

Dude im a guy and i could wear a skirt + a crop top and still probably beat you in basketball.

Valuable-Marzipan761 · 2022-09-27T08:50:40+00:00

do sexy pictures make you a less good athlete? Nice, I'm off to batter Anthony Joshua.

wtknight · 2022-09-27T12:03:11+00:00

No. Because the men are often wrestling without shirts or they are wearing tight clothes, too. Showing off one’s fit or muscular body is part of that occupation.

RealAmericanWeasel · 2022-09-27T13:25:21+00:00

I am someone who follows sports and not aware of the sexy pictures you speak of. Do you actually follow sports? I ask because you sound very out of the loop. Wrestling is not a sport, it’s fake. WNBA appears to have some kind of following but I don’t know of a single person who watches it. I guess people watch female soccer but that is another sport that I have not known a single person to watch. Very few people watch female sports in general so the athletes are going to do whatever they can to get publicity.

rsvpxo · 2022-09-27T09:11:28+00:00

I'll be honest, I have no real qualms about a chick hustling on onlyfans. The old adage, a fool and his money are soon parted, definitely feels appriate for the simps that pay for that kind of thing tho.

However, when an artist with a bit of a following, I can think of two musicians off hand, suddenly start an onlyfans even if it is just provocative and not actual nudes. I immediately and subconsciously lump them together with all onlyfans models.

I personally have no problem with it, but unintentionally my level of respect for them diminishes, especially in regard to their former artistic endeavors because more often than not, onlyfans is a slippery slope and they begin seeing a lot more money flashing a tit than they ever did playing a venue for a few hundred people.

I want to clarify I don't treat sex workers with any disdain or animosity, but it would be a lot like what I assume chicks who party a little on the weekend think when a guy says he supplements his lifestyle by selling a bit of coke or something.

As for dating, it's a lot less than ideal, but there are thresholds before it becomes a definite deal breaker.

Edit: it's late and I mixed up this post and another one. There is a serious and fundamental difference between regular social media usage and outright thirst traps on par with onlyfans. Some dudes can't differentiate the two but a normal picture on the beach or for a night out shouldnt be used to diminish the hardwork playing professional sports and what not requires. If a guy can't tell the difference between an actual thirst trap and a normal photo of an attractive woman, they should consider cutting back on the amount of adult content they watch or consider moving to a country with sharia law because they'd probably fit right in.

I'll stand by my other statement tho.

Novadina · 2022-09-27T09:56:26+00:00

Why would someone looking sexy on their social media mean they aren’t serious about their work? I don’t understand the connection…

NockerJoe · 2022-09-27T14:54:38+00:00

Most female wrestlers don't thirst trap or go for sex appeal for this reason. Bra and Panty matches were a thing Vince McMahon liked but the actual wrestlers involved hated doing and they would rather have done real serious matches. Most of the wrestlers I see doing thirst traps are the AEW women who have already established themselves in some way eith their talent or gimmick and aren't afraid they'll get pidgeonholed.

Also, wrestling is fake, dude. They aren'y trying to get taken seriously as athletes, they'te trying to get internet clout because clout trabslates to merch sales and ratings ans gets them directly paid along avenues that normal wrestlers are not. Matches have predetwrmined outcomes and your career is tied to how the crowd likes you more than any other factor.

howdoiw0rkthisthing · 2022-09-27T18:35:11+00:00

Personally I wouldn’t do it. Because imo the fastest way to lose respect from a man is to sleep with him and the second fastest way is to sexualize yourself in general. Because…

Sexually attractive women are registered as things more than people.
There’s a hunter/prey dynamic prevalent in heterosexual relationships and I think there’s this sense that the man “won” if he gets sex, that she threw in the towel and “lost.” There’s a reason they’re called sexual conquests. Or maybe I’m just sick and twisted.

So this post kind of confirms my ideas about how men treat sexualized women, but I think most would just shout sexism. I’d rather be realistic.

Choice_Ad_6230 · 2022-09-27T18:38:17+00:00

If you're skilled, your sexy online pictures are only going to cause value issues with a potential partner. If you're producing results as an athlete, that's it.

Businesses may not want to align with you, because they have an image to represent, but that's it. You make choices , just deal with what comes with it.

oneblackcoffeeplease · 2022-09-27T08:51:42+00:00

I don't think anyone who wants to be taken seriously should post sexy photos of themselves. Of course there are enough cases where people post sexy photos and STILL get taken seriously, but I wouldn't count on being that case

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daisgatz · 2022-10-05T03:45:20+00:00

Yeaaaaaah, no

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