Let women be horny – but Sabrina Carpenter's album cover isn't helping

The Guardian

14-06-2025

Please join me for a quick game of 'is this sex-positive feminism or just a lazy repackaging of the patriarchy'? Today's protagonist is Sabrina Carpenter, a pop star whose music videos have got a Brooklyn priest demoted and might have played a small role in getting the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, indicted.
On Wednesday, Carpenter revealed the cover art for her forthcoming album Man's Best Friend in a social media post, which featured two photos side by side. One was a closeup of what appears to be a fluffy dog with a collar bearing the words 'man's best friend'. The other is a photo of Carpenter on her hands and knees in front of a man who is pulling her by the hair.
The imagery has caused controversy and drawn mixed reactions. On the one hand, you've got people who think Carpenter is being clever. On the other hand, you've got people who think she is being crass and catering to the male gaze in a way that is extremely unhelpful to women.
In the latter camp is Glasgow Women's Aid, a Scottish group that helps victims of domestic violence. They have called the imagery 'regressive' and 'a throwback to tired tropes that reduce women to pets, props, and possessions and promote an element of violence and control'.
Some people on social media vehemently disagree. 'i am a little concerned about peoples inability to immediately clock that the cover is obviously a commentary on the way women are treated, especially with the context of manchild [the lead single from the album] and the album being called man's best friend like guys omfg think,' someone in the 'Sabrina's doing satire!' camp posted. That got over 53,000 likes. (I, myself, am a little concerned about people's inability to use apostrophes.)
Meanwhile, Diet Prada (an influential Instagram account with more than 3.4 million followers) posted a picture of the video with the line 'let women be h*rny on main' and a caption that essentially called Carpenter's critics stupid prudes.
I'm all for letting 'women be h*rny on main' but I'm having a hard time seeing Carpenter's cover art as either satire or sex-positive feminism. Sure, some of the best satire is extremely subtle. But this isn't subtle or sex-positive – it's just soft porn pandering to the male gaze.
At a different point in time I suppose you might be able to make the case that this sort of imagery was edgy and subversive. Madonna, for example, used her sexuality to challenge social norms. But at the current moment, when sexualized imagery is everywhere, women's rights are being aggressively rolled back in the US, and there is backlash to women's rights around the world, Carpenter's cover art isn't subverting anything.
The hair-grabbing visual is in particularly poor taste considering recent court testimony that Sean 'Diddy' Combs grabbed his then girlfriend Cassie Ventura by the hair and dragged her into another room where he assaulted her. There is also very disturbing video surveillance of Combs assaulting Ventura. If Carpenter's fans can't see all the problems with this imagery, then it's because internalized misogyny is everywhere – and it's a real bitch. (Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.)
None of this, to be clear, is an attack on Carpenter. In my best middle-aged woman voice I'd like to say that I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. I think Carpenter is very talented and particularly appreciate her track record on taking down awful men. Please, Sabrina, you've helped take down one mayor. Why not train your creative energy on trying to stop Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York, who has spent millions of dollars in taxpayer money on an aggressive legal battle against the women who have accused him of sexual harassment, from becoming mayor of New York? Forget man's best friend, pull that off and you'll be a lot of women's best friend.
The activist, who was recently deported from Israel after taking part in an attempt to bring a symbolic aid shipment to starving Gaza, responded by saying the world needs more angry women. It certainly does.
Olorato Mongale, 30, was allegedly murdered by a man she went on a date with – it's one of the more high-profile murders in a country with the highest rates of femicide in the world. 'Women die no matter what they do,' one activist told the Guardian. 'They've been stabbed while they sleep, shot in broad daylight and had their houses burned down by former partners.'
According to CNN Brasil, the influencer Taís Bruna de Castro, 36, was murdered in the food court of a shopping complex where she worked; the suspect is a janitor who worked in the same complex. The janitor reportedly told investigators that he killed the influencer because she didn't want to pursue a relationship with him.
Four women and three girls (two of whom were believed to be under five) recently died after a boat carrying migrants capsized just metres from a pier in the port of one of Spain's Canary Islands. An increasing number of women are now trying to migrate from west Africa. 'Women are becoming the main actors in their own migration process, whereas in the past it was usually the men who migrated first and the women joined later,' one expert told the Guardian.
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Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist