High-Tech Heathen

The "we shouldn't be doing this" as we're uncontrollably heavy breathing into each others mouths

"then tell me to stop" as our hands explore further than we want them to

I think the only true conclusion one could ever draw about Sabrina carpenter from her music is that she has a kinda weird relationship with gender, where she can never truly decide if being a woman is a good & powerful thing or a bad & weakening thing, and she can never decide if that’s her own fault or the fault of the male society in which she lives. this is not a criticism to be clear: that seems like a very normal way to engage with the world to me. it’s just funny to me that the seemingly most personally revealing aspect of her music is the way she seems to have no idea how to live as a straight woman. I can’t relate to this at all because I am not a straight woman, but man does it seem accurate to the experiences of straight women that I know. Straight women sound off. If you’re out there. Straight women can you hear me? Is it that me espresso?

yeah i mean i've been saying this for months (sorry OP to jump on your post, it just aligns with something i've been trying to get across for a while now) but the overt, on-purpose heteropessimism of her music in combination with her vintage drag queen aesthetic and mid-century movie inspired concert visuals are all actually working together to create really interesting commentary on the current state of heterosexual womanhood. she's a lot smarter than most people give her credit for and this is all on purpose. i think a lot of people tend to assume that female artists arrive at a place of satirical or otherwise layered social commentary by accident and it's just something they're reading into it because they're smarter than the actual artist, not that it's ever something they put into the art while they were making it... but like, if you pay attention to everything she's doing and the way she presents herself when she's off-duty as opposed to in performance mode, she isn't Doing Hyperfemininity 24/7. her stage presentation is one of exaggerated hyperfeminine aesthetic performance because it's part of her commentary on how the experience of straight womanhood is basically doing 200% for men who give maybe 15% at best. she's got a whole song basically lamenting the fact that she is unfortunately a straight woman who craves dick in a world where men are fucking terrible with no real motivation to change!