Sabrina Carpenter and the epidemic of prudishness

Why are you 17 years old and afraid of Sabrina Carpenter?

There’s a moment in Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour where she sings about being so deeply attracted to someone that she wishes he would get her pregnant, a la Juno (2009). She scoots her little mini-skirt and platform heels to the end of her extremely phallic stage, prepares herself, and then acts out a sex position and winks while singing “Have you ever tried this one?”

Because everything that happens on the planet becomes viral somehow, this has become one of the most shared moments of the show. When I saw her at Bridgestone Arena last month, I joined thousands in whipping out their phones to film her position that night (in true Nashville fashion, she did cowgirl, god bless her).

Sabrina Carpenter in Nashville, TN

However, this unapologetic embrace of her own sexuality has somehow sparked online debates that feel, frankly, bizarrely prudish for a generation raised on the boundary-pushing ethos of the Internet. Forgive me for thinking that people who grew up online — their childhood memories lit by the glow of a computer screen, probably encountering pictures of naked people before they even realized what it was — would be a little more open to the idea of a woman expressing her sexuality!

But this backlash isn’t a new concept, and it’s not unique to Sabrina, a former Disney star navigating the transition from sanitized teen stardom to adult artistry. The intensity of the criticism surrounding this specific moment, however, is indicative of a larger, more unsettling issue: disproportionate discomfort with women owning their sexual narratives.

She’s certainly not the first woman to ever experience sexuality or be criticized for it. Sabrina is merely the most recent inductee into a hall of fame’s worth of women who have been through it: Britney with a snake draped on her shoulders at the VMAs, Miley on the giant wrecking ball. Pop stars are frequent igniters of cultural controversy by simply refusing to flatten themselves into a nonsexual, palatable archetype of a pure, celibate woman.

Yet, unlike her predecessors, Sabrina’s approach feels less about shock value and more about subtle subversion. Her songs play with sensuality in a way that is deliberately clever and lighthearted but, yes, obviously still sexy. She gives the kind of performance that would feel benign from someone like Harry Styles or Shawn Mendes. Nobody batted an eye when Harry Styles got up in front of crowds of tens of thousands of young women and sang about oral sex, so why is it such a big deal when Sabrina does the same thing?

The answer is, frankly, because Sabrina exists within a framework that doesn’t extend that same grace to women. For women — especially the ones who came of age on the set of a Disney show — the idea of celebrity demands a carefully choreographed dance: Be desirable, but do not desire. Be wanted, but do not want. Be confident, but not arrogant. Appeal to the male gaze, but don’t let them know you want to be appealing to the male gaze. Be sexy, but not sexual. What’s a girl to do when celebrity culture expects you to be everything and nothing at the same time?

Her refusal to abide by these rules makes her a lightning rod for criticism and I’m FED UP WITH IT. Even though she has become the face of this issue, it’s not really about her. It’s representative of an epidemic of generational tension around sexual expression. Sexual ESPRESS-ion, if you will.

Okay, sorry.

I’m sure this is rage bait from some random stan account with nothing better to do, but, unfortunately, it worked on me. Female sexual autonomy, especially in public spaces, is often viewed as something dangerous or abnormal, as if a woman asserting control over her body is somehow…alarming? Or scary? She’s not a violent person, or even an aggressive one. Her album is literally called Short n’ SWEET. She’s just talking about sex, something that has existed since the beginning of time, and there is nothing wrong with that. But this tweet reflects a broader cultural unease with women owning their sexual identity, and it’s exhausting to witness Sabrina be the face of this unease.

The younger generations have become puritans. They’re making TikTok trends about modesty, they’re praising the “clean girl aeshetic.” They are having sex at shockingly lower rates than generations before them. They’re suggesting that even in an era of inclusivity, womanhood should remain sanitized. This obviously isn’t new to the younger generations, given the aforementioned outcry about the Pop Stars of Christmas Past, but this one feels a little different. It’s cloaked in this faux-progressivism about feminism. They’re saying “think of the children!” in one breath and “why is she catering to the male gaze so hard?” in the next. Why are you bringing your children to a concert for an album that is literally about sex?

Another aspect worth considering is the curse of the former child star. Becoming an adult in the public eye is tricky enough, but adding the Disney shadow onto everything she does has created this false ideal that she simply cannot be sexual. So, is she overcorrecting in hopes that Mickey Mouse falls off of her shoulder? Or is she just expressing her sexuality in a way that feels authentic to her at this moment in her life? The ever-present Disney eye on her has made her audience feel like she’s expected to evolve artistically, but every step away from her squeaky-clean beginning is met with skepticism. She can’t be a child star forever—she’s 25, for crying out loud—but when she finally steps out of the Cinderella castle, it seems like she can’t do anything right.

The echoes of historical parallels of what Sabrina is going through are loud. Female stars have long been tasked with performing sexuality on terms exclusively dictated by their (predominantly male) audiences, not their own desires. Marilyn Monroe’s sensuality was celebrated, but only because it was packaged within the confines of male fantasy. The moment she asserted herself as her own creative and professional person with agency, she became “difficult.” Madonna and Janet Jackson, decades later, reclaimed their own sexual expression in the name of empowerment, but they fought backlash too. What Sabrina is going through is not new—she’s just the latest part of the cycle that seemingly might never end.

At its heart, this outcry about something as inconsequential as a little display of sexuality on stage is really just about autonomy. It’s about women defining themselves on their own terms. Sabrina’s sexual behavior challenges us—especially younger generations—to confront the ways we project our own discomforts onto female celebrities: Why do we hold women to impossible standards of purity? Why are we grossed out by female pleasure? What does it say about us, in the year of our lord 2024, that a woman dancing to her own music feels vaguely like an act of rebellion?

Sabrina Carpenter did not set out to be a role model for your children, and you shouldn’t expect her to be. She did not write “I’m so fucking horny” into a song with her full chest with the hope that you would bring your 8-year-old to her concert. She is a grown woman experiencing sexuality, and we should not expect her to subdue that for the sake of your children, or for your prudish tendencies, or because it makes you uncomfortable or afraid.

Her refusal to hide or shrink in the face of societal pressure shows a bravery that should be celebrated, certainly not vilified. If her sexuality makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself why! What does it say about a culture that would prefer women remain silent and still rather than owning their bodies and desires? Her unapologetic embrace of her sexuality is not the problem. The real problem is the way society continues to try to control how women express themselves. Frankly, I think Sabrina should be allowed to do whatever the hell she wants, and I’ll cheer her on while she does it.