As one of our Blade Angels finished her redebut onto the Olympic stage, the internet surged with comments talking about how proud they were about her performance. Alysa Liu has taken back her sport from the clutches of diet culture and the control of her father, and in the process being the World Champion figure skater for both the singles event and for the team event with Team U.S.
While Alysa received her beautiful and very well deserved flowers, some individuals online took the time to objectify Alysa and attempt to turn her into a sex symbol. One social media user who was very passionate in their objectification is called News Barron. Through tweets that viewed Alysa only as a piece of “goonbait,” Alysa’s victory was turned into another point of sexualization.
In society, the concept of being sexualized is nothing new to anyone — children and adults alike face the wrath of beauty standards and sex standards daily, being expected to conform to specific standards in order to be seen as good enough. If they do not fit into some of those standards, they are either seen as unattractive to society or as the pinnacle of someone’s fetish.
In Alysa’s case, her social identity of being into more alternative fashion unfortunately became the object of many men’s perverse desires. Even though she has stated that she is uninterested in pursuing a romantic relationship with anyone, people have still gone around the internet calling her their wife or begging to date her.
One of the worst consequences of this objectification is the way that she was objectified to the point of experiencing a new phenomenon known as digital sexual assault. This new form of sexual assault takes the form of AI generated images, unsolicited dick pics, sexually charged DMs without one’s consent, and other horrid forms of violence.
According to UN Women, 38% of women have experienced violence online, and 85% of women have witnessed violence online — and this situation is no different.
On February 19th, 2026, X (formerly known as Twitter) user News Barron posted a picture of Alysa with the caption “So we’re not supposed to call this goonbait??” Through posting this photo, Barron started a flurry of conversations about how men on the internet perceive who they consider to be both attractive and straying from traditional ideals for women.
As someone who has recently joined social media on a larger scale past following friends from school, this reaction to Alysa was both disappointing and surprising.
Of course I knew that people were constantly sexualizing each other online, but to see it live in action threw me completely off. The idea that you could look at a girl who has just reengaged with a sport that she is in love with and reduce it down to being “goonbait” is something that is so troubling to me.
To many, the easiest solution would be to just let them continue to call Alysa and other non-white and/or alt girls material to “goon” to. But in reality, all that does is demoralize women and make them be seen as lesser than. By allowing people to degrade women without consequence, they will only become more and more sexist.
Instead, I propose that we make sure we protect girls who deviate from the “basic white girl” archetype. Instead of leaving them to the wolves, we should rally behind them and defend them whenever they need it. As a collective, we need to ensure that these girls can remain as safe as possible, even when they cannot defend themselves.
And if we want to take it a step further, we also need to make sure that we teach the next generation of young men to respect women and their bodies, rather than treating them as though they are a prize to be won. At the moment, our focus is always on how we can make women shrink down and desexualize themselves — however, what if a woman could dress however she wanted to and still be seen as a nonsexual being?
If we want to keep our girls safe, we cannot just allow them to be some sacrificial lambs that are used to keep the men away from us. Instead, we must fight alongside them in order to protect all of us, and in the process prevent the next generation from hurting each other.