Before I lend my opinion to the latest discourse that has consumed social media, I will preface it with this – it’s not an attack on Sabrina Carpenter nor how she embraces her sexuality within her music.
But, what this is, is a stern telling off and fist shake towards the parents who take their children – strong emphasis on children – to concerts that are widely-known to be inherently uber-sexual in nature.
“The amount of seven-year-olds around me singing this [Bed Chem] at the top of their lungs was truly concerning,” one woman captioned a viral TikTok clip. “There needs to be an age limit for her shows omg,” another gasped.
Someone else said: “There were so many kids and in really inappropriate outfits. I was shocked.”
If you’ve been living under a rock, perhaps the same one as the parents who decided to take their sprogs to see Sabrina reside beneath, then prepare to be wide-eyed.
The 26-year-old singer and actress performed at two sold-out nights at BST Hyde Park last weekend, reeling off her roster of last summer’s popular hits Espresso, Taste and Please Please Please.
This might mean nothing to you if you don’t tend to keep up with the popstars or the charts of today.
However, Sabrina’s whole schtick – lyrics and performance – is about embracing her sexuality, often full of tongue-in-cheek grabs and innuendos that would even lift Bonnie Blue’s eyebrow.
For a once-Disney star, you’d think that the performer with a doll-like stature had given her ‘all smiles, white picket fence’ package the push with her adult rebrand that has brought her superstardom in the last year.
Perhaps, she’d thought so too with her ‘cleverly’ spun lyrics of “come right on me, I mean cam-a-rad-erie” sung in ‘horn-filled’ hit Bed Chem – a song where, you guessed it, Sabrina discusses her sexual chemistry with a romantic partner.
On stage, she performs the song on a makeshift bed and essentially stimulates an orgy with her scantily-clad backup dancers. And if that wasn’t enough, she remixes ultimate horny hit ‘Pony’ by Ginuwine as she frolics amongst others on the heart-shaped bed.
It’s the part of the set that comes with a genuine parental advisory – despite some praising Sabrina for ‘toning it down’ and keeping it ‘PG’ for the 65,000-strong crowd, many of them children.
So why on earth did parents cheer with their clearly under the age of 10 – hysterically screeching – children at the song that requires a warning?
You may also be thinking, like me, why on earth were children at a concert where the performer and her songs are consistently explicit?
And, even more so, why were underage children walking around with Sabrina Carpenter official merchandise and song-themed outfits – including pink fluffy handcuffs and a crop top with number ’69’ on the back?
An argument online is that parents haven’t ‘properly’ listened to Sabrina so don’t know what the lyrics are.
Even if parents are worryingly not keeping tabs on what media their kids consume, surely not all parents are nuns and understand that the topsy turvy number is in relation to the sex position.
Standing at BST Hyde Park myself for Sabrina’s headline performance was not so ‘short n sweet’, but more bittersweet. The singer has managed to carve out multiple love and breakup songs, without being dubbed a romance-phobe or a s***.
Her songs are for adults, mainly young women, to sing with their mates for a bit of fun.
So it was absolutely cringeworthy to sing-a-long to lyrics referencing cunnilingus, the size of a man’s penis and recite the line ‘I’m so f***in’ horny’ in unison with literal children as their parents laughed on.
This just wasn’t one small group, the whole concert was swarmed with mums – and some dads – with their young daughters.
Ok, Sabrina might not have done her lucky dip of sex positions on stage for song ‘Juno’ or reeled off her X-rated outro for ‘Nonsense’.
However, that did not offset the rest of the X-rated set. Sabrina shouldn’t have to tone down herself nor ‘horny’ brand because parents are now incapable of saying ‘no, darling’.
If children were to go to school in the likes of ’69’ emblazoned t-shirts, pink fluffy handcuffs and scream about being horny in the assembly sing-song, Childline would be called en-masse.
So why has it become socially acceptable at a concert?
‘Children don’t understand what they’re singing about’, some might say in defence.
But, their parents and adults do.
Some of Sabrina’s horniest lyrics:
- “He pins you down on the carpet…makes paintings with his tongue”
“Come right on me, I mean camaraderie”
“Hold me and explore me…I’m so f***in’ horny”
“Wanna try out my fuzzy pink handcuffs?”
“Manifest that you’re oversized”
“You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissin’ you”
“How you pick me up, pull ’em down, turn me ’round”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
