BRYONY GORDON: Wahey, welcome to ‘Hot Boy Summer’! So why do I feel guilty for ogling hunky Theo James?

The rain is pouring down, the wind is howling, and the thermostat dial hasn’t looked so inviting since that big freeze in February. But while July may seem to have taken a run for its money, there’s no doubt that Hot Boy Summer is here.

For those who aren’t regular social media users, let me explain: “Hot Boy Summer” is a masculine aesthetic seen on Instagram and Tik Tok that essentially involves lots of bare, oiled-up torsos. But it’s also a much broader trend, as seen in the first trailer for Gladiator 2, which dropped to much fanfare earlier this week.

I watched it, for research purposes of course, and can report that it was three minutes and ten seconds of pure testosterone: muscles covered in sweat and grime, Denzel Washington delivering angry monologues about anger, Paul Mescal fighting a giant rhinoceros, and Pedro Pascal single-handedly taking out an army of men that makes Russell Crowe look like Mr. Bean.

And as if that wasn’t enough to raise the temperature, Pascal posted a ‘behind the scenes’ photo on social media, showing his co-star Mescal in nothing more than a loincloth and a look of intense masculinity. He said: ‘I just ripped Connell off the head of Normal People and hung it on the end of a stick. I’m now going to wave that menacingly at any man who dares to express his emotions in public. Grrrr!’

Then there were the photos of British actor Theo James. The peak Hot Boy Summer photos. Do I need to describe them? OK, I will, but again, this is purely for journalistic purposes. In these photos, James, 39, is lying in a dinghy in nothing but a pair of white Speedos – as you do on a Sunday afternoon – on top of a model who is apparently dating Leonardo DiCaprio.

The photos, taken on Capri, were intended for an advertisement by Dolce & Gabbana. What exactly the fashion designers were advertising is unclear, as no one in the photos appears to be wearing clothes.

Anyway, the photos have caused quite a stir.

“His poor wife!” the internet shouted in unison, referring to Ruth Kearney, who is also the mother of James’ two children.

“Poor Leo!” I thought, for the first time in history, because it’s not Kearney I feel sorry for…

Paul Mescal wears nothing but a loincloth and a look of intense masculinity

Forget Ryan Gosling’s hilarious portrayal of Ken in last summer’s Barbie movie. In these photos, James gives GI Joe the cold shoulder. It’s the male equivalent of that 1994 Eva Herzigova Wonderbra ad — “Hello Girls!” instead of “Hello Boys!”

I looked at the photos of the actor from the Netflix hit White Lotus and Guy Ritchie’s TV series The Gentlemen, and I didn’t feel comfortable with the reaction it elicited from me, which was something like, “PHWOARRR, WHAT A MAN!” I was basically whistling like an 80s White Van Man. I had turned into every guy I had ever complained about in my teens, 20s, and 30s, every man who had reduced me to a pair of boobs and an ass.

It’s not the first time this year that an ad has made me think about our willingness to objectify men in a way that we (rightly) wouldn’t tolerate in women.

In January, The Bear star Jeremy Allen White broke the internet when he appeared topless in a Calvin Klein commercial.

At the same time, the Advertising Standards Authority banned another advert by the same designers, featuring singer FKA Twigs. The ASA said the singer’s Calvin Klein advert focused on “her body rather than the clothes being advertised” and that the imagery was “irresponsible and likely to cause serious offence”. It all felt rather odd, given that Allen White’s crotch had previously been plastered by the same designer on buses and billboards around the world without complaint.

Sure, some might argue that Hot Boy Summer is a welcome change after years and years of Hot Girl Summers (the term was coined by rapper Megan Thee Stallion in 2019, but it’s been around since the beginning of time). In truth, I’d argue that it’s just a distraction from those summers, and a sign that the ridiculous pressure to be “beach body ready” has gotten worse, not better.

The body positivity movement has shrunk dramatically in the past year, with models like Ozempic and Wegovy melting the public’s appetite for anything that even remotely resembled a plus-size model. Any hope that we might be on the cusp of a new era of celebrating different shapes and sizes in popular culture has evaporated faster than Theo James’s clothes. Now it’s not just women who have to diet and exercise to achieve a more acceptable summer body, but men too.

This is not equality in any meaningful sense. The Suffragettes did not throw themselves under horses so we could drool over pictures of Paul Mescal fighting rhinos. Our grandmothers did not burn their bras so we could stare at the guy in White Lotus in his pants.

Theo James in his tight underwear. The photos, taken in Capri, were for a Dolce & Gabbana ad, although it is unclear what the fashion designers were advertising, as no one in the photos appears to be wearing clothes

Hot Boy Summer isn’t progress—in fact, it’s downright regressive. It’s straight out of an Athena poster shop from 1988, and like that “Man and Baby” poster that was supposed to be a photo of a sensitive new father but turned out to be a male model bragging about sleeping with 3,000 women, it’s a gimmick that’s being passed off as a treat. Because here’s the thing: As long as fashion designers and Hollywood encourage people to objectify men, we women can have less to complain about when they do it to us. And they inevitably will.

So forgive me if I refuse to embrace this Hot Boy Summer and instead skip straight to Cool Girl Winter. You might want to join me, given the weather.

After all the fuss about the introduction of the sugar tax six years ago, we now learn that it has worked: sugar consumption among children has fallen by half, and among adults by a third. That’s quite something. Can we now do the same with ultra-processed foods, and use the money to make fresh food more affordable, and cooking at home with your family more attractive?

A new study published in Time Magazine has found that tampons used by millions of women contain toxic metals such as lead, cadmium and arsenic. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley found that even “organic” tampons, alarmingly, contained chemicals linked to dementia, infertility, diabetes and cancer, but said more research was needed to see if any of the metals contributed to negative health outcomes in women.

So not only are tampons bad for the environment, they’re potentially bad for us too, and yet no one’s come up with anything better because… well, we’re women, so why bother? And yet, if men got periods, you just know there’d be a show hosted by Jeremy Clarkson where he and his mates would be trying out the latest menstrual technology, the height of which definitely wouldn’t involve cotton wool on a string, doused in arsenic.

Take it home with you, just like our fantastic lionesses!

How lovely that the England men’s team have made it to the final of the European Championships. Let’s hope they ‘bring it home’… like the Lionesses did two years ago!

Trust clinic

A sequel to The Devil Wears Prada is in the works, with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt apparently signed on. I often go into awkward meetings channeling the icy self-assurance of Streep’s character Miranda Priestley. “Everyone wants to be us!” is her motto, and when I feel imposter syndrome coming on, I try to make it my own.