SABRINA CARPENTER, SEX, AND POLITICS, OH MY!

by Rachel Loring

I was at dinner with two of my best friends from high school back in December. One of the things I love most about when we get together is how deeply we can analyze (one might say overanalyze) and discuss. It’s how we bonded in high school: they were the first people I really started talking to about feminism with, the first people with whom I felt comfortable saying, but maybe it is that deep. The curtains were never just blue to them, and anything could be linked back to patriarchy, exploitation, and larger themes and ideas. I’m not saying we’re some kind of holier-than-thou group of philosophers, nor were we hitting on especially revolutionary ideas, but I always felt like they understood my desire to examine, critique, and explore. Which is why on that December dinner date, I asked them their thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter.

Over the last year, Sabrina Carpenter’s rise to fame has interested me while simultaneously making me uncomfortable in a way I’ve had trouble fully articulating without worrying that I just sound like a bitter prude or even worse, your friend that’s too woke. It wasn’t just the borderline Lolita aesthetic of it all (I’m a Lana girl), it wasn’t just the sexualization and innuendos of it all (I watch Drag Race), and it wasn’t even the infantilization of it all (I too thrift lingerie to wear as dresses). It was something bigger, something that when taken all together seemed insidious and representative of larger issues for women.

Now to be clear, I in no way am saying any of this about Sabrina Carpenter the person, in fact, I like Sabrina Carpenter the person; she seems very chill and she’s extremely talented. However, when we talk about celebrities, we tend to forget that a large part of their persona is artificial and purposefully curated (Swifties who fight with me I’m looking at you). Sabrina Carpenter the person is not Sabrina Carpenter the celebrity, and the things Sabrina Carpenter the celebrity does are symptomatic of larger issues she has not created nor could she ever really change. She is just the vessel through which I want to examine and look at the regressive sexual politics I have seen leading into 2025.

Now, I know what you’re about to say: but Rachel, Sabrina Carpenter LOVES sex, isn’t that inherently progressive? And to that I say, not exactly. It’s complicated.

The way Sabrina’s branded persona talks about sex is with a coyness and flippancy that I think actually negates a lot of the good of sexual liberation. Sexual liberation is more than just…making dick jokes. Something about her brand of humor feels like when middle school boys make corny innuendos and the girls laugh along despite the jokes being at their own expense. The jokes assume that sexual power from women comes exclusively from men. How big a man’s penis is, how much you love said penis, how “good” you are at sex, how hot you are on your knees, it’s comical but somehow still feels…degrading and limiting?

And this has only continued, for as much as fans will claim Sabrina’s brand is for the female gaze, none of it really focuses on real female pleasure. It’s the glossy, flexible, hairless brand of female sexuality you’d see in a barely legal porn. It would make fun of me at a sleepover for having pubes, it would shave daily. It’s a sexuality that feels regressive because of its immaturity and inability to interact with sexuality in any real, meaningful way. But, I really can’t blame her for it, escaping the male gaze is near impossible.

There is always a man watching, even in your own head like Margaret Atwood said. And, just to be clear, not all femininity has to be feminist, nor does it really even have to be for the female gaze. Sometimes sexuality is regressive, sometimes male attention is the goal, sometimes women do things that aren’t feminist, and sometimes that is fine. We exist in patriarchy and it pollutes and bleeds. However, the way we have decided that we must moralize Sabrina Carpenter’s gimmicks as feminism is concerning. The ways we have decided that her wearing exclusively babydoll-esque lingerie, recreating scenes from Lolita in photoshoots, making a huge deal out of being small and childlike (let’s not forget the infamous nina/ casita outro), and harkening back to 1950’s trad wife aesthetic can and does exist outside the context of those acts and the implications of them is choice feminism at its finest and intellectually dishonest. Unfortunately, we don’t exist in a reality in which women are free from the confines of the male gaze, and without acknowledging that, aren’t we catering to it? Female sexuality does not exist in a vacuum, it’s tied very deeply to misogyny, violence, objectification, and fetishization.

And I hate that as much as you do.

A wise woman once said: you exist in the context. So when I look at Sabrina Carpenter’s tour, her teenage-like coyness about sex, her heteronormative, male-centered sex positions on stage, the constant sexualization of EVERYTHING she does, the cool girl monologue of it all (she’s a cool girl, she LOVES blowjobs), her song about wanting to get impregnated Juno style, it feels somehow wrong at a time where reproductive rights are getting smaller and smaller and misogyny is on the rise. You are always in conversation with all that came before you and all that is happening now. There’s something ominous to me about seeing a stadium of women singing along to Juno when sex is only getting more dangerous for women, when forced pregnancy is becoming a very real reality. It feels tone-deaf when lawmakers are actively proposing national abortion bans. Getting “Juno’d” could be a death sentence soon. And that feels weird to champion as sexy, especially without any sort of acknowledgment of that reality, especially when simultaneously referencing aesthetics from a pre-Roe time. And not that she’s necessarily obligated to, but when has Sabrina Carpenter or her brand ever mentioned reproductive health? When has she ever mentioned crucial parts of sex like consent and boundaries and safety? Isn’t that an important part of being sexually liberated? Isn’t being a sexual woman inherently not a-political? This is something her contemporaries are doing; Olivia Rodrigo gave out free contraceptives and donated tour revenue to reproductive rights organizations.

I guess it’s all to say that female sexuality has always been a touchy subject, more than that it’s complicated, interwoven, and never the fault of one woman. Being sexual and being a woman is nearly impossible, and I do think our acceptance of Sabrina Carpenter shows a level of sex positivity that is good. But, somehow, I feel like Sabrina’s brand is slipping into being regressive and counterintuitive to whatever point she is trying to make. In a time where sexuality is being weaponized against women in an insidious way, it’s strange to see this new stage of self-objectification, and I’m not entirely sure it’s progressive or empowering. I also worry about my own biases, am I libbing out too hard? Have I become a Portlandia skit in my efforts to understand my trepidation about Sabrina Carpenter? Put simply: am I the drama? Maybe, but when I think about what Sabrina Carpenter is selling in today’s sexual landscape, unlike the icons before her, it’s not revolutionary, it’s not gritty, or real, it’s not risking anything and it’s not provoking anything. It reinforces what society has always deemed of women: we are worthy as long as we are performing and we are sexy as long as we are pleasing men. But hey, that’s just that me espresso I guess.