She’s on her hands and knees as an unpictured man playfully tugs her blonde hair. But when pop star Sabrina Carpenter was shooting the cover of her new album, “Man’s Best Friend,” she wasn’t thinking of objectification. Carpenter said she saw the pose as powerful. 

“There was only one shot that was shot on film that had that lighting the way that I wanted it with this facial expression where I’m clearly, you know, in control, even though I’m on all fours,” Carpenter said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “And, to me, it was just perfect.”

Many viewers saw it differently. For some, the image reinforces long-standing stereotypes about the submissive female role rather than reclaiming and redefining female sexuality by being in control. 

“The joke doesn’t go across the right way,” said Lea Christensen, a senior at Carlmont High School. “It feels wrongly sexual too, because he’s pulling her hair. I feel uncomfortable looking at it.”

Carpenter’s album cover drew over 64 million views on social media within its first day. For teenagers navigating social media and peer pressure, the image blurred the line between empowerment and subjugation.

Carpenter’s decision sparked discussion on how we define healthy self-expression and reflects the double bind of female sexuality: women are judged for taking control and judged again for holding back.

A hypocritical landscape

Attempts to define and control female sexuality have persisted across centuries. A 2002 Review of General Psychology study called it “one of the most remarkable psychological interventions in Western cultural history.”

Women have long struggled to assert sexual agency without causing controversy. A 2025 study in Behavioral Sciences found that women still navigate competing expectations. The traditional sexual norm rewards modesty while scolding overt sexuality.

“Women, as rebellious and strong-willed as we all can be, wanted to sort of reclaim the negative association with sexualization and reclaim it as something powerful,” said Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, a professor of feminist studies and chair of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

From Madonna’s deliberate provocation to Beyoncé’s assertion of sexual ownership, female artists have long used sexual imagery to challenge restrictive standards, creating modern norms that reward assertiveness and confidence.

Yet the same norms that encourage women to be assertive and openly expressive also punish women who appear “sexually uninhibited,” increasing their risk of slut-shaming, according to the 2025 study.

Ambiguous social rules surrounding female sexuality often place women in a lose-lose situation. Whether a woman is sexually open or more reserved, her reputation can suffer because it’s often difficult to define what kind of sexual expression is acceptable.

Carpenter’s perspective

Critics on social media said Carpenter was “appealing to the male gaze” and promoting “insanely misogynistic imagery.” Some even framed the cover as a risk to women’s safety.

Rather than submitting herself to objectification, Carpenter says she was exploring the emotional power people hold in romantic relationships, which she symbolized through her submissive pose. 

“This is someone I love, but also someone that you know can be doing a lot with my heart and doing a lot with emotions,” Carpenter said. “I mean, there’s a lot of nuance to this, and I’m not naive to that, but I felt like, ‘Why is this taboo?’ This is something that women experience in such a real way, becoming comfortable with themselves and who they are.”

Beyond the cover, Carpenter explores this emotional power dynamic with humor and exaggeration. In the video for the album’s single “Manchild,” she hitchhikes through the desert in deliberately dysfunctional vehicles, maintaining a self-awareness as she navigates romantic frustration. Through playful visuals and eye rolls to the audience, she presents a version of submission that appears intentionally satirical.

“She’s definitely trying to reclaim an image of women that is sort of seen as submissive and turn it into something powerful,” Schaeffer said. 

The album cover and video together can be read as an ironic commentary on the traditional gender norm of submission, mocking the male fantasy even as she performs it. But the album cover alone might not convey this story, leaving the audience with just the image of her on her hands and knees.

“People don’t really think about it that hard. Like, I wouldn’t think about it that hard. So when I see it, all I see is just, ‘oh, that’s kind of weird, you know? Like, what is she trying to do?’” Christensen said. “It doesn’t really hit the way she wants it to because it’s not obvious enough.”

Carpenter is also in a distinctly unique position. While Carpenter faces criticism and unwanted commentary, her marketing and public relations teams allow her to shape her portrayal.

“She’s someone with a lot of money, a lot of prestige, a lot of power. So, sure, she can put herself out there as someone who’s empowered by that,” Schaeffer said. “But I think the question would be, what does that mean for so many other young women who aren’t in powerful positions like she is?”

For teenagers navigating self-presentation online, that distinction matters. Without the means to control their image, they’re more vulnerable to misinterpretation and harassment.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that is empowering when she’s one of a very few number of women who are going to be empowered in that kind of position,” Schaeffer said.

Through the eyes of a teenage girl

The socio-economic discrepancy between Carpenter and her teenage audience doesn’t stop them from interacting with and internalizing her content. Young women can be pulled toward Carpenter’s image, largely in response to peer and societal pressures. Curiosity can naturally fuel this pull. Some teenage girls try to imitate the images they see online, shaping themselves to meet perceived expectations rather than expressing their true selves, according to a 2022 study in BMC Women’s Health. 

“Attention for young women is a big one. What’s happening in women’s lives, their family lives, where they live, or what they’re exposed to, that makes them seek out attention or even opportunities through a sexualized market,” Schaeffer said.

Adolescence increases sensitivity to social signals, motivating behaviors that seek social acceptance. Peer opinions often take precedence over parental guidance, according to a 2013 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology. This heightens the significance of acceptance, which can be sought out through self-sexualization. 

“I think you’re trying to impress people, and it could be like other girls, too, like kind of in a toxic way. You could start talking about just like posting on Instagram in general,” Christensen said. “Obviously, you’re trying to commemorate moments, but maybe you post something like, oh, ‘I look good here.’”

According to the 2022 study, sexualized images on social media further reinforce the idea that being “sexy” is central to teenage girls’ identity.

“How does that further demonize young women who don’t want to go into or don’t want to accentuate their sexuality and want to do other kinds of roles or jobs or want to be other kinds of people in the world?” Schaeffer said.  

Social media’s reward systems amplify sexualized imagery. Algorithms reward engagement, and few things engage people faster than controversy or sexuality. For women online, visibility often depends on playing into the same dynamics they want to resist. 

“What are the roles that women are constantly playing? It’s all about male pleasure. Not all of it, but a large percentage of it is about male pleasure,” Schaeffer said. “So what are we reinforcing when we choose those kinds of sexualized roles? What are we teaching?”

Exposure to sexualized imagery at a formative age can teach girls that validation is earned through desirability.

“There is a responsibility for women to understand what it is they’re doing and the ramifications of it,” Schaeffer said.

Navigating empowerment

Self-sexualization can be wielded to both reinforce and challenge gender norms. There is no clear line between the two; the distinction is different for everyone. 

“It’s all about intent; if you’re trying to impress yourself or other people,” Christensen said.

For many teenagers, between peer pressure and self-exploration, intent is hard to pinpoint.

“It’s just about having the wisdom and the discernment as to why I’m choosing to wear what I’m wearing, right? If you’re doing it to imitate a celebrity, if you’re doing it to imitate the most popular girl in your school, then you’re not you. Then you’re trying to become another person,” said Twisha Anand, a behavior scientist and founder of Elevate.

For Anand and Christensen, empowerment lies in intentionality: to act from a place of awareness rather than expectation. 

“Empowerment means the freedom to make a choice. That’s it. The freedom to make a choice, while being you,” Anand said. “I would tell such girls to think about themselves as a sum total of their accomplishments and qualities rather than just their reflection in the mirror, and create a self-image that, ‘I’m more than what I look.’”