I don't hate a lot of Sabrina Carpenter's music, which is something I can't say about other pop-starlets' offerings. On several occasions, I found myself genuinely enjoying her song Espresso, which felt oddly cozy. I later found out it was rumored she modeled the song after The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's song Zelda's Lullaby, which explained why it scratched a nostalgic musical itch I didn't know I had.
Little things like that are what make art so fun. It can be a powerful tool that alters your perceptions and evokes emotion.
Carpenter is clearly a talented musician and performer, and I'm convinced she could lead the entire genre into a new era of creativity if she wanted to. Sadly, she isn't. She, like many pop-starlets before her, is reaching for the lowest hanging fruit and embracing the hyper-sexualization that seems to come stock with pop music today. Whatever art she's creating is being overshadowed by her overtly sexual displays and themes.
You can see it throughout her show, and during one moment of the performance after the song Bad Chem, she simulates the beginning of a threesome with two other men.
A clip from Sabrina Carpenter’s "Bed Chem" performance where some parents walked out, so she turned up the energy at the endpic.twitter.com/2pvTKOOvxD
— Community Notes & Violations (@CNviolations) November 24, 2025
To be clear, I'm no prude. I've defended sexuality in art, and even in ad campaigns. I think the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad was a stroke of genius, and it was refreshing to see traditional beauty be celebrated in a clothing commercial for a change. I think the ads that suggested an element of sexual attraction back in the '80s and '90s were great, and actually made ads more dynamic and fun.
Read: Don't Let Them Convince You Women Being Sexy to Appeal to Men Is Bad
But I think the mentality of "If a little is good, then a lot must be better" is a real issue in today's artistic community. If sex sells, then surely hyper-sexualized displays will sell a lot.
They're right. It does sell a lot. Carpenter's tour just wrapped up and grossed $55.5 million. Her songs get billions of hits on Spotify and YouTube. She's solidified herself as pop-starlet royalty, coming second to Taylor Swift. Her act is engineered for internet virality, which is a fancy way of saying she knows how to get you tapping on the screen when she pops up and keep the webzines talking about her.
But despite the window dressing that Carpetner is putting on this iteration of the "sexualized young starlet," it's still just a "sexualized young starlet." It's different packaging, but inside is the same thing Madonna was serving up decades ago. Yeah, there's a market for it, but it was kind of wearing thin when Britney Spears had taken up the act. It was beyond tired when Cardi B performed "WAP" at the Grammys to groans and eyerolls. Now it's mundane as Carpenter does her bad girl routine in sparkly, sexually suggestive outfits.
And I think it's killing the magic of sex. It's made the female form so common that, though our natures keep making us look, a sort of veil of mundanity has been cast over it.
I can remember this poor guy on TikTok who I think put it very well. He's seen so much "ass" thanks to women on Instagram and entertainment that he's burnt out on it.
"Y'all have shown me so much ass, I'm numb to it."
You can hear the pain in homie voice. pic.twitter.com/V34vWjhBQN
— BANGBRO (@WAPLIQUOR) April 14, 2021
I feel you, brother.
As I've said before, society was better off when boobs were harder to see. Like the T. rex in Jurassic Park, we don't want to be fed; we want to hunt, even if it's on a subconscious level. Serving it to us is good for the clicks, which is good for the pocketbook, but it's clear that it's becoming old hat. Moreover, I'm not sure how much longer it's going to serve women. AI is becoming so advanced at this point that even AI porn sites are adopting live interactivity, which is something I predicted would happen sooner rather than later (but that's another article).
But I think what's saddest about all of this is that hyper-sexualization isn't just the path of least resistance to a fat check; it puts limitations on otherwise good artists. In the improv world, once you go blue (leaning into crude or taboo humor) and get those shock humor laughs, there's nowhere else to go. You burned up the room, and other jokes just feel tame, and you've killed your slow burn and call-back potential. You've comedically backed yourself into a corner.
Carpenter has done the same. Madonna can't get away from her shock value now, and Spears keeps crazily trying to relive her glory days of hyper-sexualization on Instagram. Miley Cyrus had a long career as Hannah Montana, but hardly anyone talks about that because she swung around naked on a wrecking ball before baring it all in pictures on the internet. Katy Perry is in a similar boat, constantly trying to keep up her bad girl persona to her own cringey detriment.
And that's really sad, because one has to wonder what kind of creativity we would've gotten out of these artists if they didn't reach for the "good girl gone bad" trope and burned everyone out on sex.
I don't think sex will ever stop selling. It's ingrained too deeply into us, but I do think society buys it with a sort of banal attitude. Tired of it while still being attracted to it like addicts. However, if my perpetual optimism is to be believed, this could lead to something of a cultural revolution where the market shifts into something more substantial. It's not like it's not already out there, but mainstream culture is going to have to catch up.
