Entertainment journalism the UK tv

A male journalist for ‘The Spectator’ wrote a deeply weird article about lusting after a former child star of ‘Stranger Things’, and the collective “Yikes!” was heard all over the internet

Michael White. Updated September 13th, 2026

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It’s a Sunday morning. You might be relaxing over a cuppa, with some extra time to catch up on your reading.

So, here for you consideration is this piece from ‘The Spectator’ by writer Sean Thomas.

Entitled ‘Lust Can’t Be Lectured’, the subject is the actress Sadie Sink, now aged 24, who first shot to fame as one of the teenage stars of the TV hit Stranger Things.

In the piece, the 60-something Thomas writes about how he just doesn’t fancy women his own age. He then writes effusively about Sink, saying:

“She’s 24, slender, redheaded, and she’s so delicately pale she looks like a Pre-Raphaelite nymph at the end of a Narnian winter. In the ad, a kitchen tap loses control at the sight of her and a slice of toast orgasmically hurls itself into the air. I empathise with the fixtures.”

He goes on to say that men really can’t help fancying younger women due to how men “have evolved with one overwhelming purpose – to breed – and a woman’s fertility peaks between the ages of 18 and 25.” He adds that Sink’s appearance is like an “erotic ideal”, and men won’t stop fancying this ideal just because society tells them they shouldn’t.

There’s a lot to unpack as you can tell, and the internet has had fun doing just that over the last few days.

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