What to Know
Over the last several weeks, it seems like everyone is talking about Heated Rivalry, the NSFW TV series based on the Rachel Reid novel, Game Changers. It follows the love story between two closeted, gay hockey players, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, and the show was so popular after its November 2025 debut that it’s already been renewed for a second season.
But some critics aren’t impressed — namely, conservative influencers who don’t love how “sexualized” the series is and aren’t afraid to speak out about it.
One YouTuber described the series as a “fetish.”
As Vanity Fair reported, YouTuber Brett Cooper recently watched the series and shared a full review in a video titled “Watching Gay P*rn Is the New SJW Fetish,” if that tells you anything about the way she felt about it when she was done watching.
According to her, the women who love the show aren’t actually champions for the relationship between the main characters — they’re just attracted to the actors and their chemistry.
“Liberal women have built their entire modern identity and their political identity around hating men,” she said. “At the end of the day, biology still wins. They are still attracted to these men.”
She called female fans out for being hypocritical if they love the show.
“Let’s be real here: The women have also lost their damn minds,” she said. “We complain all day long about men objectifying and sexualizing women thanks to ‘porn brain.’ Women are doing the same thing in their own way.”
She also took aim at fans of romance novels like the one that Heated Rivalry is based on in general, writing, “There is an entire, huge subgenre and community on TikTok solely dedicated to sexy, pornographic smut novels and the women who read them. Women kind of sit on their high horse and they’re going, ‘Oh, well, no, it’s not porn. This is literature.’ No, I’m sorry, your smut novel is not literature.”
She’s not the only one who has taken aim at Heated Rivalry.
Vanity Fair also pointed out that conservative sports writer Dan Zaksheske’s piece on the show for OutKick insinuates that the show’s popularity must be fabricated.
“There are very few gay men in professional sports, particularly in major sports in the United States,” he said. “There are some, but none has any real star power. It’s almost as if HBO and the media are trying to will this storyline into existence by pushing this show on anyone and everyone.”
Judging by how many people are loving every minute of this show, it seems like it truly might be a legit success — sorry, Dan. And with a season two on the way, it doesn’t seem like the hype is going to die down anytime soon.
