September 2 2026 - 4:30pm
Yesterday, early access opened to Sydney Sweeney’s “birthday boobs” collection, ahead of the actress’s 29th birthday this month. It joins her lingerie brand Syrn’s previous, equally suggestively named lines, including “Do What Makes You Naked”, “My First Rodeo”, and “Small Town Girl”. And Syrn’s tagline? “From Syd’s boobs to yours”.
But “birthday boobs”, far more than any of Sweeney’s previous lines, blurs the line between her role as a Hollywood star who plays real parts in real films, and the production of titillating content with little artistic merit to justify it.
In the launch video for “birthday boobs”, released last week, Sweeney is scantily clad in the new lingerie she’s advertising. The clip then transitions between multiple scenes of the actress walking topless, her modesty preserved by two well-placed cakes as she seductively looks into the camera.
There is more. In Syrn’s subsequent Instagram posts, Sweeney can be seen licking icing off her fingers, splattered all over her hand and on her body; there’s also one of her squatting down, taking milk out of a fridge, with her fingers touching her mouth. Finally, there’s a photo of Sweeney with her mouth wide open, a bow tied above her chest, as she stares upward.
Put another way: Sweeney’s self-presentation here is crude, not tasteful. It is akin to an OnlyFans model, as opposed to the more artistically valuable nudity of a Sixties sex symbol such as the late actress Jane Birkin. It’s one thing to be dressed in seductive lingerie that leaves little to the imagination. But an established actress posing exactly as an OnlyFans model might, marketing her lingerie to appease male sexual fantasies of women in the kitchen, is something far different.
It’s no coincidence that this comes at a time when the line between OnlyFans and the rest of society is increasingly being blurred. In the days when online porn reigned — just a few years ago — porn stars weren’t exactly popping up all over social media, collaborating with influencers, and going on podcasts. Today, OnlyFans models are everywhere on Instagram or TikTok feeds, with a “link in bio” directing users to their output.
Sweeney is the natural result of this phenomenon. It is no longer just the influencer and OnlyFans archetypes merging, but that of Hollywood and OnlyFans too. Though “birthday boobs” might be the most visually obvious example, it is worth remembering that last spring Sweeney sold soap infused with her actual bathwater to the “dirty little boys” who wanted it. When she appeared as a host on Saturday Night Live in March 2024, she played a Hooters waitress who received far more tips than her colleagues, owing, as the joke went, to her large breasts.
It was only last summer that, with the actress’s viral American Eagle ad campaign, conservatives were writing op-eds with titles like “The war on hot women: Why the woke mob hates Sydney Sweeney.” Right now, with Calvin Klein’s new ad campaign featuring Sadie Sink, a similar sentiment is brewing online: unlike in 2020 with its “plus-sized” models, in 2026 attractive white women are back.
The vibe shift is real, and it seems as though society is past some of the prudish aspects of the peak woke era. But it would be a mistake to flatten, say, Sink’s photoshoot with Sweeney’s hyper-sexualized “birthday boobs” one. Only one of them is truly pornographic. If men obsess over Sink, fine — but it’s of the same variety as Birkin’s sex appeal. If Sweeney is any indication, though, men may well replace Pornhub with Instagram. The difference between the two is certainly shrinking.
