![\"Fifth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8ddc81b72dc7fd803c672dbd50d86cce7e-hilary-duff-lede-2.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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This article first ran in The Cut\u2019s Saturday newsletter, Personals, which features new sex and love stories \u2014 and date-wanted ads<\/a> from interesting single people \u2014 every week. Sign up to receive the next issue in your inbox.<\/p>\n When I was in the fifth grade, two major things happened: I had a crush on a boy, and Hilary Duff\u2019s \u201cWhy Not\u201d came out. Under this combination\u2019s powerful sway, I devised a foolproof plan: I was going to burn a CD that had only that one song on it, and I would give that CD to my crush, thus inspiring him to \u201ctake a crazy chance\u201d and confess his feelings for me. (He\u2019d never indicated any interest, but, as the first verse of \u201cWhy Not\u201d suggests, this is often the ultimate sign someone is besotted with you.) In the end, I chickened out, so we\u2019ll never know what could have been. But I\u2019ve remained a Hilary Duff stan: Though a tweenage crush can be all-consuming, I look back on this experience as one primarily about the power of music. \u201cWhy Not\u201d convinced me anything was possible, even that the boy who played football at recess might be waiting for me to put it all out there.<\/p>\n Coming from that place of appreciation, I\u2019m disappointed by Duff\u2019s latest single, \u201cRoommates.\u201d Though it\u2019s the most NSFW song of her career, it\u2019s painfully devoid of any joyful, intimate riskiness. In \u201cRoommates,\u201d Duff reflects on a once-hot romance that\u2019s stagnated with time. She hints at something very real when she sings about feeling overlooked and paranoid about \u201call the shiny cute girls\u201d her partner might prefer to her, but the rest of the track, in all its unblushing sexual bravado, just comes off like she\u2019s trying to convince me that Lizzie McGuire fucks now.<\/p>\n The sex acts Duff mentions are overblown to the point of losing credibility. When she sings, \u201cBack of the dive bar, giving you head,\u201d all I think is, Sorry, Hil, I don\u2019t believe you! Perhaps if it were a sneaky OTPHJ, or if you moved things to the bar bathroom, but not even the proudest skanks I know are risking a misdemeanor to openly suck dick in a place of business. Lyrics about \u201ctouchin\u2019 myself looking at porn\u201d feel both lewd and clinical in their nonspecificity \u2014 either give me a euphemism, or tell me what\u2019s turning you on.\u00a0(Another version of this verse is, \u201cTouchin\u2019 myself by the front door.\u201d What?)<\/p>\n It all feels performatively horny, and not in the fun way where you\u2019re knowingly hamming it up. A lot of pop girls these days want to take a lesson from Sabrina Carpenter, but they don\u2019t have the right balance of confidence, sincerity, and humor. When Carpenter does a Slutty Little Pop Anthem, she pulls it off because she knows she\u2019s being performative and\u00a0selling it with all she\u2019s got. You simply can\u2019t sing an entire song about giving a \u201chouse tour\u201d of your vagina if you\u2019re going to do it solemnly or coyly \u2014\u00a0if you\u2019re going to be ridiculous about sex, as we all must from time to time, do it with your whole chest! Carpenter\u2019s performative horniness feels earned and true to her. Many of her fellow pop girlies are trying to duplicate her approach, but the duplication is the problem.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t sound like they mean what they\u2019re singing.<\/p>\n Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cWood<\/a>\u201d is the clearest example of the recent \u201cLook, you might think I\u2019m a good girl \u2014\u00a0but I have sex!\u201d trope. When Swift sings about being \u201cah-matized,\u201d refusing to say the word \u201cdick\u201d in a song about having her thighs unlocked \u2014\u00a0ew \u2014 it comes off as both crude and uncomfortably sterile. No one is getting hot and bothered by innuendos about your fianc\u00e9\u2019s football podcast. This is especially disheartening considering Swift has shown us she can do the horny song and do it believably \u2014\u00a0when she says her bedsheets are ablaze<\/a> and the altar is her hips<\/a>, I believe her: She\u2019s writing about sex as her gauzy, confessional self, in the style she\u2019s most at home in.<\/p>\n When your job is literally performing, it makes all the more sense to commit in full to performative horniness. It\u2019s certainly a better option than allusions that manage to be gross and chaste all at once. Go ahead \u2014\u00a0wear lingerie in a music video and sing about what you like in bed. Just don\u2019t expect me to believe that you\u2019re giving open-air blowjobs, especially as a famous person.<\/p>\n Consider what I\u2019m saying the opposite of slut-shaming: I wholeheartedly support Hilary, or any other pop artist, embracing her inner freak, and I remain hopeful about the album. (\u201cMature\u201d<\/a> is a bop.) But good lyrics about sex are like sex itself: Unless you\u2019re able to bare it all, let go, and not take yourself too seriously, it\u2019s not going to be much fun. So tell me: What kind of porn was it?<\/p>\n Sign up for Personals<\/p>\n Romance: Dead? Not so fast. Every Saturday, Amy Rose Spiegel investigates sex and love\u2013based mysteries with help from the Cut\u2019s friends and readers.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n