Sabrina Carpenter - too sexy?

[pinotgrigeeeeo]

I'm late 30s, not really target audience for Sabrina Carpenter and was unaware of her existence until a few weeks ago, however for some reason my social media algorithm is bombarding me with her.

Anyway, I now know two of her songs and they are VERY catchy. Great pop songs.

She is undeniably beautiful.

However. Does anybody else feel a bit uncomfortable / surprised with the overt sexuality that she exudes?

And I don't know how else to put it without sounding like a prude. Because I'm really not a prude.

She dresses in lingerie a lot of the time. And at the end of one song I believe she says "do you know this position?" and each time she performs it she then enacts a different sexual position on stage.

The lyrics to some of her songs are very dirty. (Just heard one that's about a partner getting back with his ex and she sings that "now you'll have to taste me when he's kissing you").

This is nothing new to me. Genuinely not a prude.

So I'm not sure why I feel uncomfortable with her. It's possibly because she looks very young and I got them impression her music was targeted at young girls, similar to Taylor Swift.

She's not really doing anything that Madonna didn't....yet it just feels different.

I also feel Madonna was pushing boundaries. Those boundaries have no been pushed, and what SC is doing isn't new. So why do I find it noteworthy? I don't really know.

I can't put my finger on it.

Something about it seems quite dated to me. Females like Debbie Harry, Shirley Manson etc just seem a lot more fresh to me. They were sexy, but there was more to them. More to the music. Their sexuality wasn't so "in your face".

I don't have a problem with SC just doing pop music, as I've said, I actually like two of the songs.

I just can't put my finger on why the overt sexuality is bothering me. I think it must be because of who I perceive the target audience to be.

I've seen people comparing her to Dolly Parton, and whilst nobody has elaborated, I guess I can see the similarities in curvy, blonde, petite, confident. But there is something....dare I say it.....seedy about SC that Dolly just doesn't have.

Anyway, just musing. Wondering if anybody else feels similar or if I am just a miserable old bag these days.

I got them impression her music was targeted at young girls, similar to Taylor Swift.

Have you actually ever listened to Swift's music? Why do you think it's targeted to young girls?

Swift is in her midthirties and her music reflects it. She swears. She sings about dysfunctional relationships and being with drug users and a complex relationship with her own self-image. Her music hasn't been "targeted at young girls" for at least fifteen years. Carpenter's music is also for an adult audience.

Sabrina Carpenter is a performer. She wears costumes.

Also, I’m not sure you’re remembering Madonna correctly

I'm late 30s too and don't really see anything wrong with her. My teenagers love her to pieces and I don't personally think her music isn't necessarily for young people specifically.

She's got quite a bubbly persona going on I think and that's just what works for her. Her costumes are just that. Not her shoving her sexuality in your face. Never really thought about it much. And she's 25 so not young.

I think for alot of artists, sex sells. But for those that go down this road, it's a short 15 minutes of fame and you've got to be selling something even edgier than the last pop sensation. Whether you're Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus, you've got to come up with something new and shocking to sell records. The trouble is someone new and younger and more shocking comes along all too soon. If you have real talent you don't needs to go down this road, think of Adele - she will stay relevant for years to come.

I’m in my 50’s just remembering my mother seeing Madonna’s Like A Virgin for the first time. She was livid. I loved it!
I agree that someone like Debbie Harry had something unique as well.
I find this newer kind of sexuality boring and repetitive. I can remember Christina’s song ‘Dirty’ coming out, it paved the way for this stuff. To be fair, it was very catchy. And nothing attracted the perverts more than Britney.
I think Sabrina is very pretty but that sort of doll-like presentation is just bland to me.
Give me the revolutionary Neneh Cherry turning up pregnant on Top of the Pops in a Lycra mini skirt any day of the week. That really changed how pregnant young women presented themselves - the dungarees and smocks got well and truly ditched!

I think she seems quite dated because presenting yourself very much in line with the traditional male gaze is becoming mercifully less common in young pop stars. And because her lingerie is mid-century inspired.

I find some of her songs catchy but I found myself leaping across the room to turn off Bed Chem when the Spotify algorithm decided to play it when my one year old was in the room a few weeks ago 😂 I know she's too young to understand but that song is just too much for me and my Catholic upbringing.

Yes, I remember Christina's "Dirty" phase. Also I remember when Miley Cyrus was getting a lot of flack for being too "wild" and simulating sex on stage....I was a bit nonplussed by all that, didn't find it shocking or anything.

I'm still not sure why I feel a bit uncomfortable with Sabrina Carpenter but wasn't at all fazed by Miley Cyrus etc.

Maybe it is the kind of doll-like look that she has. It just all seems to sex-focused; the different sexual positions on stage, and the way she kneels down submissively in front of backing dancers (I think the one in particular I'm thinking of the dancer was dressed as an alien).

Thats possibly it. The lingerie and doll-like make-up and kneeling down....all a bit too submissive for me maybe.

I think it's fine that it's not for you - so in that sense, yes it's 'too sexy': for you. I think she's great and I like that she's made her brand 'horny pop' haha, it feels like a good balance to some of the Gen Z puritanism.

Yes, that's it. It does all seem very much for the male gaze....and I did think that was (mercifully) dying out, and it's very much not what I thought Taylor Swift was about. So I was just surprised to see an artist gaining so much traction with what does seem to be a very outdated vibe.

Yes, bad chem, this song is new to me, I've only heard it a couple of times, but "come on me" etc, again, just a bit submissive.

I also saw her changing a bit of a song as she was performing at Wembley. Something along the lines of "Boy that things so big I call it Wembley" another line I couldn't catch and then "you've bloody wrecked me!" making out she's been injured from such a large appendage. Which is just seedy to me and is why I can't quite place what she is trying to do or who she is trying to appeal to.

(And by the by, I'm aware she is an absolute sensation at the moment so she is certainly appealing to a huge amount of people. Not denying that).

Yeah, horny pop is possibly a good name for it. And it's not something I have a problem with.

Maybe the issue is me getting the wrong end of the stick about her target market then. I thought she was aiming at kiddies and tweens or whatever. And teamed with her kind of doll like appearance I found the really overt sexuality really jarring.

But having now heard a couple of her songs now, they are definitely not appropriate for younger ears, so maybe I've just got that wrong.

I do feel still find her quite dated though and very much focused on the male gaze. But I think that's part of the reason I find her intriguing.

I'll get jumped on. I've never heard of her but I looked her up, she seems to pose like a sex doll. I'm absolutely sick to death of young women being exploited and spat out by the music industry.

I'm tired of barely dressed women twerking, gyrating and wearing next to nothing in order to sell their music. They're not empowered, acting out soft porn in videos, is not empowerment.

It's done to garner attention because no matter how talented they are, sex sells and gets them attention. Strange how men aren't twerking half dressed, pumping the stage in order to sell their records. For some reason, they don't need to.

she reminds me of a porcelain doll with a large head but wearing skimpy clothes

She does pose like a sex doll.

This is what I'm struggling with. She is HUGELY popular. People seem to act like this over sexuality is empowering.

I just don't see it.

She has an "outro" to one of her songs, she changes it each performance, usually to relate to the venue (see the Wembley one above).

But they are just not striking the note with me that they seem to with other people.

One of them is "he's so big I felt it in my kidney / screamed so loud they heard it in Sydney"

I just feel it's not really saying anything new. It just feels very men-centric to me, all focused on how big their dicks are. Doesn't feel progressive to me.

She is very doll-like. She is very petite, only 5 feet.

Aware I'm going to sound like even more of a
miserable old hag, but she wears too much make-up. Shes very beautiful and would look great with a much more natural look. But she seems to intentionally go for the porcelain doll look.

Fair enough, she does look good, and it's obviously her style, and it's working.

But I think it's the doll like appearance and posing like a sex doll and constantly going on about the size of men dicks that I just find so regressive and outdated.

Yeah I agree. People who think TS is being marketed at young girls still aren't listening to her music.

I do think Sabrina is pitched at a younger crowd because it's more poppy.

I agree OP, the overt sexuality is too much and it’s sad that she feels it is necessary.

I find her creepy and uncomfortable too. Not really given her enough time or thought to articulate why, but I always scroll past quickly when she pops up on my phone. She gives me the ick. I'm also no prude.

I'm so pleased I grew up in the 80s - Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Debbie Harry, Siouxsie, Pauline Black, Bananarama ... Can't remember any of them singing lyrics like SC does or having to twerk on stage!

but why does it have to be progressive?

she's a pop artist, singing pop songs. I would say they are aimed at the older teen/twenties age group. Yeah younger girls might like and sing them, but without understanding the lyrics. I remember that horrendous Robin Thicke song a few years ago, kids loved that because the tune was so catchy and it was played on the main radio stations (and school discos!) without any blanking out of the lyrics, despite such charmers as "I'm gonna give you something that'll break your ass in two."

I suppose if there is any progression in SC work is that it's a woman singing something similarly filthy, in a skimpy costume she chose to wear rather than a fully dressed man surrounded by backing singers/eye candy in outfits chosen for them.

She has child-actor energy. V similar to Ariana. That sort of 'I grew up in the industry, I've seen and done everything by the time I was 16' vibe. Which then gets contrasted with the big doll eyes and petite stature - alluring for certain men (a lot of men).
Same as Ari - not a girls girl.
Miley escaped it by cutting her hair, getting very cut/defined, making herself slightly scary and edgy.

Your Madonna comment is a little rose tinted. She didn't just break barriers she nearly started riots!

I of course adored her and still do but my goodness she was seen as the absolute anti Christ by a lot of adults around me.

Thankfully my mother had the sense to know she was overall a better influence than not .

I’ve just watched Madonna’s VMA performance from 1984. Wow. It was a shocker at the time.
Lots of boys I knew fancied her but it was us girls who really admired her.
I don’t think she was much about the male gaze even though she was very provocative. There was always an intelligence to her approach.
She got told after that performance it would end her career. How wrong they were.
If you look at Debbie Harry even though she was from a punk era, she was actually covered up a lot of the time.
A flick of her hair was more sensual than sticking your bum into a camera.
Maybe I’m just old?!!!!

That's what I mean.

Madonna was shocking and provocative, but it wasn't for the male gaze.

I feel SC is very different, she seems very focused on the male gaze.

And it just seems so dated to me.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick about Sabrina. All the analysis I've seen about her popularity talks about how she caters to the female gaze, not the male gaze. I think largely because there's a huge amount of humour to her shows and her lyrics. She's very funny, and the overall effect is more like a bawdy variety show than a porn show. She's also an excellent singer with a Broadway background. I don't see any similarities between her and Christina Aguilera's Dirrty era - where was the humour in that?