Opinion: The sexualization of professional athletes

You open TikTok for a quick scroll or a laugh, and almost immediately, you’re met with slow-motion clips of athletes overlaid with suggestive captions and heart-eyed comments. But the focus isn’t on their record-breaking speed, their unmatched technique, or the years of training behind every move. Instead, it’s on their looks. Their bodies. Their desirability.

It’s easy to brush off as harmless: just another TikTok trend, another fancam, another thirst comment. But this kind of content is more than casual admiration. It’s part of a growing culture that blurs the line between appreciation and objectification, turning athletes from competitors into influencers, sex symbols, and sometimes, unwilling internet fantasies. While increased media coverage and popularity can showcase their talent, it also contributes to a problematic culture of hyper-sexualization. And while the sexualization of athletes has always been a concern, social media platforms have drastically expanded the issue. 

A notable example of this issue is former Seattle Kraken hockey player Alex Wennberg, who became the subject of widespread online objectification, particularly within TikTok’s BookTok community. Fans began casting him as the lead in a fictional romance series and flooding comment sections with graphic fantasies.

Famous BookTok influencer Kierra Lewis made particularly inappropriate comments about Wennberg, some of which include her praying to be turned into ice so he could “glide” on her and urging him to “krack [her] back,” on a platform with over a million followers. The latter phrase immediately took off within the TikTok community, turning into a viral joke — one that even the Seattle Kraken’s social media account joined in on.

But it wasn’t amusing to Wennberg or his wife. Felicia Wennberg took to Instagram to condemn the explicit behavior, calling out the community’s exhibition of predatory behavior and complete disregard for boundaries. Wennberg himself spoke up, sharing the emotional toll it had taken on his family.

“The aggressive language about real-life players is too much,” he posted on his Instagram story. “It has turned into daily and weekly comments on our personal social media. This is not something we support or want our child to grow up with. All we ask for is a little respect and common sense moving forward. We can all take a joke and funny comments, but when it turns personal and into something bigger that affects our family, we need to tell you that we’ve had enough.”

Even author Emily Rath, whose books inspired the fancasts, admitted things had gone too far. 

“They weren’t treating him like a hockey player or even like a fictional boyfriend,” Rath said. “You just saw them sexually fantasizing about him in crass and inappropriate ways in a public forum.”

The Kraken’s initial participation in the trend also raised concerns about the role of organizations in enabling objectification. By engaging with this content and providing a platform for it, the team inadvertently contributed to the normalization of this behavior. This controversy also raised a larger concern about online communities treating athletes as untouchable figures rather than individuals with personal lives and boundaries.

This problem is prevalent in more than just social media platforms. Another example of athlete objectification is seen with former professional tennis player Anna Kournikova. Despite Kournikova’s successful doubles career, where she reached No. 1 in the world and won Grand Slam titles, her legacy is often reduced to magazine covers and search engine results that labeled her as a model before an athlete. Her looks became the headline, her talent the footnote. Kournikova eventually became one of the most recognized names in tennis during the late 1990s and early 2000s, but for degrading reasons.

“Sometimes, when I do great, it’s, ‘Oh, after all she can play,’ or, ‘Finally she shows more than her looks,” Kournikova said. “I mean, please!”

Despite her long-standing career decorated with achievements, her case is a prime example of how hypersexualization can influence public opinion and how female athletes are marketed and remembered. The conversation around them isn’t about their skill or perseverance — it’s about how they look in a uniform or how their photos perform online. 

Some may argue that any attention, even if driven by sexualization, benefits athletes by increasing their popularity, securing brand deals, and boosting their marketability. Additionally, some athletes may not mind or may even embrace this aspect of fame.

But what’s the cost of being noticed only when you’re “hot enough”? What about the athletes who are more talented but less conventionally attractive? Additionally, this perspective overlooks the emotional toll and discomfort that hyper-sexualization brings to athletes who are publicly disturbed by it. These various benefits do not justify reducing athletes to objects of desire.

As high schoolers, we’re not immune. Whether it’s through “harmless” jokes, fan edits, or flirty comments, we can end up reinforcing the same objectifying culture. Admiring athletes is natural, but reducing them to their looks isn’t.

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