The ascent to superstardom consists of a staircase. With each step, yet another piece of clothing diminishes. Considering consumer trends within the music industry, it seems like an artist will blow up once they devote themselves and their image to sex. Knowing it’s a safe bet for virality, female artists and their teams begin subtly revealing insinuating hints, baring flesh, allowing thirsty eyes substance.

The formula to superstardom is sex appeal, and Sabrina Carpenter has done her homework. Carpenter was once an up-and-coming artist, first releasing her music on the Disney Channel. She has been in the music industry for over a decade, with her first single released in 2014, and her first album Eyes Wide Open, released in 2015. Though, her music has only recently begun to break records; once her image was sexualized, her singles became Billboard sensations.

Notably, her sweet and filthy singles are now record-breaking Billboard hits. She has become the first artist in 71 years to have topped charts for 20 weeks at number 1 on the UK’s Official Singles Chart. Her newest album Short n’ Sweet topped the Billboard 200 Albums Chart with her single “Please Please Please” hitting number one on the Billboard Hot 100, her first number-one single on the chart. 

MacEwan professor Scott Semenyna is an evolutionary and cultural psychologist. In an email to the Griff, he explains how within the music industry, sexuality sells because it garners the attention of heterosexual men (the majority of the male population) who have automatic responses (like increased visual attention or sexual arousal) to stimuli they find appealing. When it comes to a female music artist’s relationship with their sexuality, he says, “Lots of music (among other art) is about pushing boundaries, and female pop singers have pushed these boundaries surrounding sexuality for decades…”

Carpenter sprinkles in little insinuations of sex everywhere. The seductive taste seems to drag in and quench the visceral need for sex consuming her audience. She’s made sex girly and cute. Her sexuality is charged by the female gaze, her glittering lingerie and naughty desires paint a picture of femininity. Alayna, a fan of Carpenter, says, “It makes me feel sexy and confident in myself…it’s like she gave sex back to women.” 

Her lyrics, marketing, costumes, vinyls, and detailed performances all ooze a vintage, sexy aesthetic. The artist, with the help of her promotional team, strategically presents her overall image as a teasing pin-up model, like a doll so innocently coy yet effortlessly seductive. 

Carpenter’s curated stage productions allow for the audience to feel they’re seeing something they really shouldn’t be. During her “Short N’ Sweet” tour, she begins her performances through a vintage-style film, with the star in a bubble bath. Then, she comes running down the steps to the stage with a towel around her body and whips it off to reveal a diamond-embellished body suit. Her body drags the audience’s eyes towards her scintillating silhouette embellished with custom Victoria’s Secret lingerie with a sheer fabric cover fit for a vintage-style baby-doll gown. A post on Instagram, from @victoriasecretuk of Carpenter in a pink bodysuit reveals the custom outfit includes over 150,000 hand-placed crystals. 

Sensuality charges her stage presence, walking the line between vulgarity and innocence. Her dazzling costumes are embellished with glistening red kisses. The lips travel up the length of her leg, slowly finding their way up her inner thighs and hips, insinuating the vestige of lips against flesh. These sparkling red kisses make an appearance at every show, bringing attention to different parts of her body, the placement naughtier each time. 

During her song “Bed Chem”, she writhes in a bed under tangled silk sheets. One of her dancers joins her atop the bed with a video camera in hand. The stage dims to dark as the curtains close around them, and the shadowed silhouettes pretend to film a sex tape.

While performing her single “Juno,” which charted within the top 100 singles lists across the globe, Carpenter sings “Have you ever tried this one?”. She then runs down stage to a heart-shaped platform and positions her body into a sex position. Every performance brings yet another sex position which her fans eagerly await.

Alayna says, “It makes me excited, I like guessing what it might be and the reveal is always so rewardingly shocking!” 

Her Short n’ Sweet album cover emulates the vintage essence of a pin-up model. Corset ribbons intertwine up the curve of her lower back, while the lower half of her body remains bare. Alayna says she only bought a physical record to have a poster of Sabrina’s “perfect bum”. Her face takes an innocent but alluring expression, looking at us looking at her; enjoying our gaze. The purity of the white lace embellishes the lingerie with an enticing air of chastity, coalescing purity and innocence, a sex appeal embedded within unknowing; an “accidental” seduction.

Billboards promoting her Coachella appearance display similar vintage essence and her clever love of double-meaning innuendos. The billboard reads “She’s gonna make you c*me… to her Coachella set!” 

Carpenter’s cheeky lines sung in a delicate, playful tone paint sex as appealing, fun, and pleasure that is not just for the men to enjoy. Her record-breaking single, “Bed Chem” is filled with naughty jokes, most known for her cute “mistaken” line singing: “Come right on me…I mean camaraderie!” 

Pop music fan, Elen Grigoryan, says, “…before you could say [women] were oppressed from showing the true nature of their desires. I think it encourages women to become more confident in expressing themselves in that way and speaking up for what they want in the bedroom.” 

Carpenter never shies away from the mention of freaky positions and pink fuzzy handcuffs. Her dirty-minded wit leaks from her breathless, honeyed vocals. For example, lyrics like, “…he makes paintings with his tongue” contrast with an innocent, “la-la-la-la-la…”. The lines may be easily overlooked because of the sweetness under her abrasive obscenity, but when caught on to, she makes the audience feel like they’re in on the joke, too. 

Grigoryan says, “She took sex, something that was controlled and owned by men, and made it into something for girls to get excited about, it’s no longer about control and dominance but glittery pink lingerie.”

During her summer tour, she got everyone obsessing over her improvised ‘Nonsense’ lyrics. The ending line was a subtle hint at post-hookup bliss. She was quite literally spewing nonsense, the original line being “How quickly could you take your clothes off pop quiz…I bet your house is where my other sock is…”

Carpenter reinspired the line by making it more vulgar. Her rhyming lines incorporated the name of the state she was singing in, as well as an element of the culture, personalizing the special line for her audience. 

Some were more tame: “Toronto you’re so cute it’s like a fake crowd/ Put your hands up if you’ve been to Drake’s house/ Leave your hands up if you want to make out.” Some were very inconspicuous “BBC said I should keep it PG/ BBC I wish I had it in me/ there’s a double meaning if you dig deep.” 

What started as an innocent changing of lines turned into a trend she kept going for each

performance in her 80-date tour. She continued her customized outros for the following 25 shows when opening for the Eras Tour. Eventually, the singer, as well as the audience, needed more. It was only a tease at first, but in an effort to keep her audience on their toes, the endings became increasingly sexual. After teasing the audience for long enough, she gave them what they came for; dirtier nonsense outros: “How to ride it, I can think of five ways/ my head goes so hard I’m giving migraines/ how loud do you get in Buenos Aires?”

Her ascent to superstardom was like reaching a climax, she teased and seduced with her dirty words and sweet voice until everyone obsessed over her. Her vintage take on sex serves a female gaze as her witty, filthy mouth exudes the sweet sound of pop. Under the facade of her lush face and blushed cheeks she is so incredibly dirty, and this sweet take on sex is addictive.