Pop queen, Sabrina Carpenter, is sparking debate with her playful but polarizing album cover for her latest album, A Man’s Best Friend. The cover depicts Sabrina submissively kneeling beside a man, with the motif of a dog, but her intent may have been missed, as demonstrated by the widespread discourse over the true meaning of this art (Muller-Townsend, 2025). Some of Sabrina’s audience are celebrating the cover’s bold metaphorical statement, while other fans, media, and critics have voiced their interpretation of the cover as regressive, hyper-sexualised, and for the male gaze (Murray, 2025). This article will delve into the tension between audience perception and Carpenter’s true creative intent, and explore how digital audiences react to provocative imagery, often without understanding the associated contextual and artistic factors.
The 2025 album cover features Sabrina Carpenter in a black mini dress, kneeling next to a suited man who is grabbing her hair, with thematic features that reference submission and devoted loyalty (D’Souza, 2025). Carpenter and her team have clarified in multiple interviews that their intent for this cover was not to minimise the female experience as being inferior or unwillingly submissive, but rather to metaphorically explore consensual, intimate power-dynamics and vulnerability in romantic relationship (Carpenter, 2025a).
This shouldn’t come as a surprise for those who know Sabrina’s personal brand, as she intentionally uses sexual innuendos, cheeky lyrics, provocative costumes, and strategic word play to comedically normalise taboo topics and encourage power in sexuality (Carpenter, 2025b). Regardless of her historically playful and intentionally sexualised brand, many fans and critics still missed the memo.
A thread of social media commentary emerged with many fans passionately expressing frustration with Sabrina’s creative choices, for many reasons relating to the regression of female power and insult to feminism. One fan wrote on X, claiming that “Intentionally reproducing a misogynistic aesthetic, even under the guise of satire, doesn’t subvert it; it reinforces it. It aestheticizes the very tropes it claims to critique” (Delgado, 2025). This user has a point, but it is unfair to assume and decide that Sabrina is aestheticizing a trope, when the X user may just not fully understand Sabrina’s complex, satirical humour. Another X user wrote “Does she have a personality outside of sex?”, to which Sabrina herself responded “Girl yes and it is gooooooood” (Delgado, 2025). Sabrina’s response indicates that she is sure of herself and comnfident in her intent and message that she communicates to her audience.
It isn’t just the fan’s jumping on this bandwagon, as many media outlets and critics have also shared their polarizing views. One said “Unfortunately, nothing here justifies that cover image” with another claiming that Sabrina “knows sex sells. That doesn’t make her a feminist – or make her music any more interesting” (Glynn, 2025).
This angle of concern is valid, and it is not surprising that most people jumped to conclusions, due to the social context that we are all living in. In a study conducted by a United States Domestic Violence organisation named Break The Cycle, they found that “Over 47% of women have encountered contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime” (Wisniewska, 2025). This statistic alone explains why Sabrinas mostly-female audience would be quick to expect the worse, and openly express their concerns for the effects of Sabrina’s artistic choices on her impressionable audience. Violent fetishes and kinks can also be negatively viewed due to the blurred line of consent and the mystery behind the underlying reasons that people are turned on by such violence e.g. hair pulling, as displayed in the album cover art (Wisniewska, 2025).
As expected, the successful pop star and her PR team shut down these wrongful assumptions and clarified the true message that she intended for this album cover, in a recent interview with CBS Mornings (Carpenter, 2025a). Carpenter explained that the cover was not to contribute to the narrative of sexualised inferiority in women but was intended to highlight the importance of personal agency and the fun of different power dynamics in sexual experiences (Carpenter, 2025a).
Throughout pop history, many female artists have strategically created provocative or sexualised imagery, not to reinforce typical gender stereotypes, but rather to encourage important conversation or highlight feminisms evolving role in music (Grimes, 2022). Madonna attempted to achieve this same thing with her cover for her album ‘Sex’ which features her strained face as if she was sexually moaning (Madonna & Meisel, 1992). Similarly, Christina Aguilera’s cover for her album ‘Stripped’ utilised her revelaing outfit and provocative pose for empowerment and to accompnay the album title (Grimes, 2022).
The mixed reception of Carpenters album cover suggests that society still has a long way to go to eradicate anxieties surrounding the power of sexuality and autonomy (Delgado, 2025). It was a daring way to push boundaries in society and the music industry, but it will definitely be remembered for its controversy in pop culture history.
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References:
Carpenter, S. (2025a). Extended interview: Sabrina Carpenter [Interview]. CBS Mornings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF5n0tJasXI
Carpenter, S. (2025b, September 2 2025). Sabrina Carpenter Is Glad You Like Her Sexual Content [Interview]. Interview Magazine Website; Interview Magazine. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/sabrina-carpenter-is-glad-you-like-her-sexual-content
D’Souza, S. (2025). Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend review – smut and stunning craft from pop’s best in show. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/aug/29/sabrina-carpenter-mans-best-friend-review
Delgado, S. (2025). The Sabrina Carpenter Man’s Best Friend Discourse, Explained. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/sabrina-carpenter-mans-best-friend-cover-discourse-drama-explained
Glynn, P. (2025). Sabrina Carpenter album ‘not for pearl clutchers’. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqxgnr12er1o
Grimes, G. (2022). Christina Aguilera’s Stripped: An Oral History. https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/christina-aguilera-stripped-album-oral-history
Madonna, & Meisel, S. (1992). SEX [Book]. Madonna. https://doi.org/https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Madonna/dp/8440631170
Muller-Townsend, K. (2025). Is Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover satire or self-degradation? A psychology expert explores our reactions [Journalism Article]. https://theconversation.com/is-sabrina-carpenters-mans-best-friend-album-cover-satire-or-self-degradation-a-psychology-expert-explores-our-reactions-259043
Murray, C. (2025). Sabrina Carpenter Album Controversy: Women’s Organization Slams ‘Regressive’ Cover As Fans Defend It As Satire [Journal article]. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/06/12/sabrina-carpenter-album-controversy-womens-organization-slams-regressive-cover-as-fans-defend-it-as-satire/
Wisniewska, M. (2025). Domestic Violence Statistics 2024. https://www.breakthecycle.org/domestic-violence-statistics/
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