Here are some photos of Taylor Swift out and about on Friday and Saturday. There were two notable costumes! One ensemble was “sporty” with black high-waisted booty shorts and a crop top, and the second ensemble was “flirty” for an outing with Martha Hunt and Gigi Hadid. Because Taylor Swift wants us to know that even though she has a boyfriend, she’s not going to forget about her lady friends. Which is legitimately a good example to show girls and young women, although because we’re talking about Taylor Swift, I tend to think this is all some sort of scheme.

When Tay covered Maxim’s “Hottest Women” list/cover a few weeks ago, I said that I didn’t really find Taylor sexy or “hot”. I stand by that – she’s got a nice figure, I enjoy seeing what she’s wearing and I’m interested in who she’s dating, but I’ll always have a problem thinking of her as a sexual or sexy person. As it turns out, Swifty sort of has difficulties seeing herself in that way too.

Taylor Swift is leaving the super sexy thing to other pop stars – and she’s completely cool not concerning herself with it. Access Hollywood guest correspondent Scott Evans sat down with the “Bad Blood” singer to chat about her “Welcome to New York” Champion limited edition sneaker for Keds, where he asked the singer about the public’s perception of her image, which is often described as chaste.

“No, that’s a way of people saying I’m just not generally a sexy person. That’s all that is,” Taylor said.

And the 25-year-old is content with her image.

“It’s fine. I’ve accepted it. I’m a lot of things. Overtly sexy is not one of them,” she explained. “I’m fine. I’m fine with all the other things I am.”

Taylor has also embraced being a role model for teens and young people.

“As an artist you should embrace what comes naturally to you, whatever role feels right. I would never encourage an artist to try to and fit in to a role that seemed to be created for them by a bunch of record label guys in suits in a conference room,” she told Access. “I think for me it feels very natural to talk to teenagers and people my age… about feelings and what they’re going through and their insecurities.”

[From Access Hollywood]

She’s right – on this, she’s fine. Not every pop star has to be hyper-sexual and I believe that Taylor would be profoundly uncomfortable if she had to put herself out there like that. I think we should give Taylor credit for how she transitioned into young-adulthood without making an ass out of herself in some kind of “PLEASE SEE ME AS A SEXY POP TART” moment, a la Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, etc. Taylor did court the “chaste” image when she was very young, but she transitioned into mostly age-appropriate and normal dating patterns as the years went on, and there were no big moments of “whoa, she wants to be seen as a sexual animal now.” Taylor will probably never have that kind of sexualized pop-tart drama and for that I’m grateful. No, her drama will always be about blind-item songs, publicly maligning Katy Perry, stalking her exes and that sort of thing. And I’m grateful for that too, because at heart, Tay-Tay is a middle school Mean Girl.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.