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  • Why Sabrina Carpenter’s sexuality is praised and Lola You…

    Why Sabrina Carpenter’s sexuality is praised and Lola You…

    By Charlie Sawyer

    Published Jun 14, 2025 at 09:00 AM

    Reading time: 3 minutes

    While Sabrina Carpenter has definitely faced criticism, the backlash Lola Young is currently experiencing says a lot about who society decides gets a pass when it comes to expressing sexual desire.

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    No matter how far we think society has come, it often lets slip that it still has a massive problem with women being overtly sexual. Actually, scratch that. Society is perfectly fine with women expressing their sexuality, as long as they’re a size 6 and conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. But if you’re someone like Lola Young, an artist whose raunchy, bodacious persona shows as little interest in pleasing the male gaze as it does in supporting Reform UK, you’re probably going to draw a lot of criticism.

    Young has recently faced a lot of criticism for her overtly sexual and graphic lyrics. And while it’s not to say that other artists haven’t faced similar pushback (we’ll get to you soon Miss Sabrina Carpenter), it’s become evident that people still have particular hang-ups about who is allowed to be sexy, and midsize and plus size women are being kept well and truly on the outs. Let’s delve into this a bit more, shall we?

    Who is Lola Young?

    Lola Young has become one of the most exciting British music artists in recent years, creating art that resonates with an entire generation of sexy misfits. The 24-year-old’s single ‘Messy’ spent four weeks at number one in the Official Singles Charts. Safe to say, people, including influencer icon Jake Shane and bestie Sofia Richie, love this girlie.

    @octopusslover8

    happy thanksgiving @Sofia Richie Grainge

    ♬ Messy – Lola Young

    And then we were gifted the genius that is ‘One Thing’, Young’s most recent single, released in May 2025. This song was immediately gobbled up by fans, with Gen Z women especially praising the singer for creating an anthem solely geared towards celebrating the idea of intense female sexual desire.

    It’s a power move, with each line centering a strong narrative and reinforcing the very real fact that women are more than capable of being purely motivated by sex. Desire, want, and a lack of emotional attachment are not things sequestered to the male experience.

    Female artists are regularly pressured to create songs and write lyrics with a double meaning. Sure, write about sex all you like, but make sure there’s a deeper layer there. It can never be just about that one pleasure.

    And you’ve also got to think, would people have such strong opinions if Young fully conformed to society’s beauty standards?

    As someone who’s personally struggled with trying to embrace their style while still feeling sexy in a bigger body, the insignificance Young places on a traditionally feminine aesthetic is insanely refreshing.

    Sabrina Carpenter and Lola Young face criticism for their sexual lyrics

    Now, when it comes to hyper-sexual lyrics, we’ve seen the same kind of criticism lobbed towards artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Tate McRae. There have been thousands of netizens on X who, especially during the beginning of Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour, took personal umbrage with the singer’s decision to express her sexuality onstage.

    In so many of the users’ posts, it felt as though they were blaming Carpenter for being a bad role model for young girls—shaming her for the outfits she wore, dance moves she did, and lyrics she wrote.

    I could spend two minutes on X and find dozens of comments from people insinuating that it’s a female artist’s duty to present themselves in a certain way in public in order to avoid negatively influencing the younger generations. It would take me a hell of a lot longer to find the same vitriol targeted towards male singers and rappers.

    The double standards in pop music

    While Sabrina Carpenter’s experience is totally valid, it is also interesting to see the discourse surrounding Lola Young. There have already been a number of girlies on TikTok who’ve called out the hypocrisy of people accepting Carpenter’s style of sex and yet dismissing and mocking Young’s.

    @lydsjones

    eat it up😝😝😝 #lolayoung #onething #women #empowerment

    ♬ One Thing – Lola Young

    @bethanlikesvinyl

    I’m clearly not shaming Sabrina Carpenter for presenting herself that way/dressing like that so nobody can say that I’m dragging her. I love how Sabrina dresses and styles herself. I know someone is going to find some way to pick holes in my argument but the hate that Lola Young gets is definitely part of a wider issue that shouldn’t be happening. I think she’s v cool and talented

    ♬ original sound – Bethan Likes Vinyl

    @laurenjnicole ♬ One Thing – Lola Young

    @kayholttt

    i have no joke had this on repeat, i’m obsessed 😭🤍🤍 #lolayoung #newmusic #opinion #trending #fyp

    ♬ One Thing – Lola Young

    While it isn’t necessarily productive to compare these two women—they both have valid aesthetics and arguably both use their music to empower women—it is interesting to see how female sexual expression is only palatable in certain forms.

    Long story short, no-one can win. Society will always find ways to force women into different boxes, encouraging them to exist only in parameters that compliment specific feminine moulds. However, as long as artists like Young exist, we will eventually bust through those walls, brick by brick.



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  • Beyoncé made country music history. The Grammys just redefined that.

    Published

    2025-06-13 15:10

    3:10

    June 13, 2025

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    Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” marked a historic moment in country music. Following its release in March 2024, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to lead Billboard’s Top Country Album chart since it started in 1964. Her Grammy win this year for Best Country Album was another first for Black artists. “Cowboy Carter” asked mainstream listeners to consider how Black artists helped create and shape country music. It also sparked questions about its authenticity as real country. 

    Many Beyoncé and Black country music fans alike hoped the attention would open doors to more diversity in the White-dominated commercial country music industry. The reality is more complicated.

    On Thursday, Billboard reported that the 2026 Grammy Awards will include a new category: Best Traditional Country Album. Best Country Album is being renamed Best Contemporary Country Album. The Recording Academy, which presents the awards, celebrated the decision as an opportunity to create more space for different types of musical styles to be honored.

    According to the a description of the category provided to Billboard, “traditional country includes country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar and live drums.”

    The news quickly drew criticism, with some Beyoncé fans on social media accusing the academy of gatekeeping in response to her barrier-breaking achievement. In an interview with reporter Phil Lewis, author of the “What I’m Reading” newsletter, an anonymous music executive said that the Recording Academy’s decision appears to be a clear reaction to “Cowboy Carter.”

    The road to “Cowboy Carter” began with the 2016 release of her country song, “Daddy Lessons,” which despite its traditional arrangement and instrumentation, was immediately put to the “country enough” test. 

    “All of the sudden, everyone’s acting like she’s moved to Nashville and announced that she’s country now. Just because of this song ‘Daddy Lessons,’” Alison Bonaguro, a critic for Country Music Television, wrote in a 2016 column headlined “What’s so country about Beyoncé?”

    Later that year, Beyoncé’s viral performance of the song alongside The Chicks at the Country Music Awards led to more online debate unpacking what and whose music counts as “real country.” Those conversations are a throughline to “Cowboy Carter,” with some country fans disqualifying the album from their own definition of country because of its fusion with hip hop, blues and other genres. Despite the album topping country charts, the Country Music Association did not nominate the album for a single award at the 2024 Country Music Awards.  

    But the Grammy victory — which came the same year that Beyoncé won Album of the Year for the first time — cemented the legacy of “Cowboy Carter.” Some researchers and country music fans say it also points to the particular novelty of Beyoncé’s success compared to that of other Black artists pursuing a place in the country music industry, which has taken deliberate steps to shut out artists of color for more than 100 years.

    “Beyoncé is in her own category of artists. She’s such a big star, she didn’t have to show deference to the gatekeepers of Nashville, the traditional gatekeepers of commercial country music,” said Amanda Martínez, a historian and assistant professor of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is not the reality for most Black artists looking to break into country music, she added.

    “There have been a lot of conversations about creating more opportunities for Black artists, and I think that what we’re seeing is that chapter has passed. I think that we’re seeing a general moving away from pretending to be invested in creating opportunities for artists of color or addressing issues of diversity,” Martínez added.

    “Cowboy Carter” included features from newer Black country artists like Shaboozey, Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts, who have leveraged that spotlight to reach broader audiences. Shaboozey, in particular, managed to have a breakout year as an independent artist in 2024, dominating the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a record-tying 19 weeks with his single, “Bar Song.” 

    But these singers represent a small fraction of country radio airplay, which remains a powerful platform for the genre. In February, Ottawa University researcher Jada Watson posted updated data on social media finding that in 2024, women artists received 8.39 percent of country radio airplay — a decline from 11 percent in 2022 — and Black artists received 2.8 percent of airplay. White artists represented 94 percent and White men were 81 percent.

    “Despite our urging for radio to build pathways for Black female country artists alongside [Beyoncé’s] ‘Texas Hold ‘Em,’ the format failed to platform Black women. Again,” Watson wrote on Bluesky earlier this year. “Radio played ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’ just as much as they needed… until they didn’t anymore.”

    Throughout country music’s history, artists of color have been largely segregated and forced to challenge claims that their sound does not represent authentic country music. Black country artists and fans are doing what they can to create their own avenues. Record labels like Rosedale Collective and Origins Records were created to support Black country artists and other artists of color. The Black Opry is a community for Black artists and fans that produces country and Americana shows around the United States.

    It’s unclear at this point whether the new change in Grammys categories will be used as another tool to police or undermine the artistry of musicians of color. Martínez said we will have to “wait and see” which artists are celebrated moving forward. When it comes to broader systemic changes, she said: “it’s hard to be hopeful about the prospects of whatever consideration Black artists will receive from the Grammys or the CMAs.”

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  • How to Do a Brush Pass Like a Cold War Spy

    Your contact is somewhere in this sea of faces, but you can’t be seen talking to him — can’t even acknowledge his existence. One wrong move, one glance from the wrong person, and years of careful work — not to mention your life — could be over in an instant.

    This is where the brush pass comes in. A technique perfected during the Cold War, it allowed spies to exchange documents, money, or other small items without ever appearing to interact. Two operatives would simply walk past each other, and in that brief, choreographed moment, critical intelligence would change hands.

    You may not be running clandestine ops behind the Iron Curtain, but the brush pass remains one of the most elegant and discreet ways to transfer something unnoticed. Requiring subtle technique and magician-like sleight of hand, it’s a master art of secret-agent subterfuge. 

    Illustration by Ted Slampyak

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  • Should You Watch ‘Materialists’? | The Everygirl

    The formula for what makes a lovable rom-com these days isn’t what it used to be. Guy-gets-girl plots need more diversity to be interesting, characters need more depth to be reachable, and happily-ever-afters need more honest resolutions to feel satisfying. So when the trailer for Materialists arrived, I will admit I was a little nervous that its tropey Hitch-esque plot wouldn’t push the cinematic boundaries the way I knew an A24 film could.

    On the surface, Materialists doesn’t seem like a stand-out in comparison to conversation starters like director Celine Song’s feature debut and Oscar-nominated film Past Lives. It falls into many of those rom-com clichés we have seen many times before, with grand romantic gestures and basic love triangle structuring. Yet, after watching, I can’t help but remain delightfully surprised by the film’s ability to be completely self-aware of its genre tropes and somehow do them better. Materialists knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and it makes romance genre clichés feel sharper, fresher, and more clever than ever.

    We follow Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a young and highly-skilled matchmaker in New York City who is known for her ability to find partners who check all the relationship boxes for her clients’ (very materialistic) non-negotiables. The kind of asks that are utterly outrageous, like over six feet tall, doesn’t like cats, no receding hairline, nothing over 20 BMI, must be under 30. But to Lucy, love is just math. A business deal for people’s materialistic values. Busy securing perfect matches for her clients, it isn’t until two unexpected men show up in Lucy’s life (Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans) that she begins to question if love really is something that can materialize.

    My Review of Materialists

    It celebrates clichés in a refreshing way

    Heavily influenced by late ‘90s and early 2000s romances like How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days and You’ve Got Mail, my rom-com non-negotiables settle for nothing less than a big city setting, A-list pairings, fun wardrobing, and a profound confession of love in front of a brownstone stoop. Materialists checks all the cliché rom-com boxes, but where it shines is in its ability to make audiences feel like they’re falling in love with the genre for the first time.

    Materialists knows you’ve seen this film before, but it stands out because it celebrates all those feel-good elements rom-coms need rather than making them feel overdone and tired. It embraces the New York City charm, makes the happily-ever-after feel earned, and knows how to make a love story feel as simple and serendipitous as a perfectly timed beer and Coke meet-cute.

    “Materialists knows exactly what kind of movie it is, and it makes romance genre clichés feel sharper, fresher, and more clever than ever.”

    It’s full of rom-com fashion nostalgia

    Lucy’s wardrobe feels like something plucked straight out of Andie Anderson’s closet or Vivian Ward’s transformation playbook, but not without a few minor twists. Rooted in quiet luxury, Lucy’s character delivers the fashion fantasy we all crave in any New York City rom-com: tall boots, perfectly undone curls, a good blazer, and a fashionable work tote to strut across crosswalks with. But what makes Lucy’s wardrobe so much more refreshing is that it doesn’t try to trick you into believing that stylish fantasy is real. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

    Materialists leans into Lucy’s fashion choices as a parallel to her character’s illusion of what love is: materialistic, a business deal, and something valuable, in the literal sense. Then, she peels it back another layer, making her outfits feel infinitely more relatable. Suddenly, Lucy’s in a messy bun, a pair of Nikes, tall socks, and a yellow floral dress. The shifts are subtle, but I love how they lean into Lucy’s emotional unraveling and her views on love. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling—feeling familiar at first glance but layered with tons of hidden meaning that elevates the plot even more.

    It delivers a relationship reminder we all need to hear

    Materialists’ stylish and witty dissection of love, class, and relationship values is a conversation that feels familiar, but the lessons are ones we often forget. And what I love about this movie is how it illustrates them in a refreshing and tender way. You’ll exit the theater with thought-provoking questions about modern romances, wondering if natural, unfiltered love can survive in a world that often sees status as a non-negotiable and love without money as nothing but a bad business deal.

    We all know a rom-com concept is only as good as its resolution, and what makes this film so compelling isn’t some big twist or genre flip. It simply holds a mirror to the compromises we quietly make for love. Beneath the checked boxes and “perfect match” vocabulary that Lucy references like numbers on a spreadsheet is a love story that’s as much about identity as it is intimacy. It lets us indulge in the materialistic rom-com fantasy, sure—but it doesn’t let us forget the true cost of that fantasy: real love.

    So, should you watch Materialists?

    If you’re heading into Materialists this week expecting a cinematic masterpiece, don’t. But you should expect to have a great time and enjoy the movie for what it is. Materialists doesn’t aim to completely deconstruct the genre or break your heart wide open, but it doesn’t have to in order to still be a good movie. It leans into a different kind of romance, the kind that gives you all the butterflies you had while watching your favorite early 2000s rom-com. Materialists succeeds in balancing clichés with hard truths about love that are guaranteed to stick with you. It’s playful, thematic, honest, and will leave you with a new lens on what makes real love valuable. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth the trip to the theater.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Madigan Will, Assistant Editor

    As an Assistant Editor for The Everygirl, Madigan writes and edits content for every topic under the digital media sun. As the oldest of four siblings, she enjoys utilizing her big sister persona to connect and inspire readers—helping them discover new ways to maximize their everyday.

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  • The Season 4 ‘The Traitors’ Cast Promises Cool Queers and Cursed Energies Alike

    Sign up for The Agenda — Them’s news and politics newsletter, delivered to your inbox every Thursday.

    Grab your finest murder cloaks, because Peacock just revealed the all-star cast of The Traitors US season 4.

    In case you’ve been living under a rock, a quick refresher: the show brings together a group of celebrity contestants culled from the worlds of reality TV, sports, and more for a delightfully campy murder mystery game of “Faithfuls” and “Traitors.” Hosted by Scotland’s finest bisexual Alan Cumming in an assortment of impeccable little outfits, last season brought us no shortage of juicy alliances, most notably the “queer girl squad” of Selling Sunset’s Chrishell Stause, The Bachelorette’s Gabby Windey, and Survivor’s Carolyn Wiger.

    The latest season of The Traitors is shaping up to be full of queer intrigue, too. It’s also… a lot, to say the least.

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    The lineup includes former Bachelor star Colton Underwood, who came out as gay in 2021. While fellow Bachelor franchise alumni like Windey and season 2’s Peter Weber have historically fared well on The Traitors, Underwood comes with his own controversial history. Although Underwood documented his coming out journey in the Netflix series Coming Out Colton, the show sparked a petition with over 35,000 signatures urging the streamer to cancel the show given that the reality star allegedly stalked and sent anonymous threatening texts to his ex, Bachelor contestant Cassie Randolph.

    Also joining the cast of The Traitors season 4 is actor, sports commentator, and Trump enthusiast Michael Rapaport. These days, he seems to spend much of his time online, where you can find him crashing out over Greta Thunberg’s attempt to deliver aid to Gaza, calling unlawfully detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil a “scumbag,” and backing Caitlyn Jenner’s calls to force trans girls to use separate locker rooms.



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