Eroticized Rage: What the Indiana Fever Incidents Teaches Us About When Sex Intersects with Anger
The 2025 WNBA season has made lots of headlines for its AMAZING players and exciting games. It’s also made headlines for… sex toys. As I’m sure you’ve heard, sex toys have been hurled onto the court while women of the Indiana Fever played their hearts out. Much ink has been spilled about why this is happening and I think a key reason isn’t being discussed….
As a therapist who specializes in sexuality and trauma, I see this incident as a striking example of something deeper — eroticized rage.
What Exactly Is Eroticized Rage?
Eroticized rage occurs when anger, hostility, or unresolved trauma gets fused with sexual expression.
It’s not about healthy eroticism, and it’s not about authentic intimacy. Instead, it’s about using sexual imagery, language, or objects as a weapon…
a way to humiliate, control, or discharge rage in a way that masquerades as “sexual.
The result? Sex becomes not about pleasure or connection, but about domination, contempt, and aggression.
Why Throw a Sex Toy?
Throwing anything onto a sports court is an act of disrespect. But choosing a dildo — a symbol of sexuality — is deliberate. It’s not random. It sexualizes the act of disruption.
It objectifies the players, reducing women athletes to their sexual anatomy instead of their athleticism.
It’s hostile humor — an attempt to get a laugh through degradation.
It’s rage disguised as play — the anger projected onto the athletes and the sport gets wrapped in a sexual object to make it feel transgressive, funny, or “edgy.”
This is eroticized rage at work: the fusing of hostility and sexuality, usually aimed at women, minorities, or those who don’t conform to power structures.
Why This Matters in Sports (and Beyond)
Women athletes already fight for respect in a culture that undervalues female sports compared to men’s.
To then have their playing field disrupted by the symbolic assertion of sexual control is not just inappropriate — it’s retraumatizing.
Many women have experienced some version of this outside the arena:
Catcalls that are really insults disguised as sexual attention
“Jokes” that sexualize anger
Partners who use sex to punish or humiliate rather than connect
When eroticized rage goes unchecked, it normalizes the idea that sexuality and aggression belong together.
That’s dangerous not just for athletes, but for every person navigating intimacy.
What The WNBA Incidents Can Teach Us About Eroticized Rage
This isn’t just about banning disruptive fans (though safety must come first). It’s also about recognizing the cultural scripts that eroticize contempt and call it “funny” or “just a joke.”
Healthy sexuality is built on:
Consent
Mutual respect
Pleasure without harm
Boundaries that protect dignity
Eroticized rage strips those away. It reduces people to objects for the discharge of hostility, cloaked in sexual symbolism.
Notice Eroticized Rage Showing Up in Your Relationship?
If you notice hints of eroticized rage in your own relationship (or your ex’s greatest hits are still echoing in your head), don’t panic. This isn’t about demonizing desire — it’s about noticing when “sexy” has been hijacked by “spitey.”
A few starting points:
Name it out loud. When anger sneaks into the bedroom wearing lingerie, call it for what it is. Awareness is power.
Get curious, not cruel. Ask yourself: “Is this heat I’m feeling passion… or payback?”
Build new scripts. Desire can be playful, intense, even wild — without being weaponized
Finally- if all else fails, remember: sex toys belong in bedrooms (or sex toy drawers), not on basketball courts!!
Are you ready to take the next step in your counseling journey?
Free free to contact me directly if you have questions or to schedule a brief call to see if I might be able to support you and your family.
Jill