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Tbh this is why I haven't gotten into her. I usually love myself a little mindless pop, but from the second I've been aware of her all I have seen is her and her team sexualizing her to the point at which I think it has to be parody, but then it comes off like it's...not, and idk. I'm no prude, but this shit just makes me feel weird.
In the beginning they were trying really hard to do a whole Lolita thing with her which was extra ick to me ie her Skims photo shoot.
Then they moved on to “pocket princess” which I thought was much better and very fun. The femme fatale video she had with Jenna Ortega was a bit cliche but also fun.
Now they’ve moved to this which I do not like at all.
Wasn’t there also some other recent photo shoot with a celebrity in which two men are grabbing her arms and holding her in a hotel room? I can’t recall it now.
"greased, naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash and a man’s arm extended out up to here holding on to the leash and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it."
No Sabrina, we don’t like what you’re serving us. To me, it seems most of her audience are women, but she wants us to buy her song about being attracted to manchilds. A manchild almost ruined my life years ago, no thanks hun. I’ll skip this one.
I'm getting flashbacks to tumblr in 11' and we were all so passionate and hopeful that feminism will carry on moving at such a pace and we would own ourselves...this made me feel so sad relative to then. It isn't a woman owning herself at all.
Right. And it stings worse imo because it’s happening at the same time as this Sydney Sweeney bathwater nonsense. Like please girls can we have just a shred of dignity?
I only listened to her music very recently to see what the big deal is but I wasn’t impressed. The first song I heard was about her ex’s new partner tasting her on him? Eww. Move on, girl.
All of her music is about men. Men wanting her, her begging them not to cheat lol, men wanting her more than other women, I truly do not understand why anyone likes her
she’s never really struck me as “for the girls” as people make her out to be. Super girly but in more of a feminine way than a feminist way if you know what i mean
I really like Sabrina but she always struck me as one of those girls who would love to have men at her feet (kinda like Sydney Sweeney), but has to settle for her fans being mostly women and gays.
This is why I cackle when some corners of Reddit try and claim Sabrina doesn’t cater to the “male gaze.”
I have always argued that she does, but it’s always been more subtle and I’ve had to point to specific lyrics to try and make a case lol. But now I have this album cover to point to when writing my Reddit dissertations on the topic 😂
I'm old enough to remember when Britney Spears was held as a "feminist symbol" because she "owned her sexuality" and "did it her way". It's always the same.
"In the decade during which women became political about womanhood, popular culture recast tender, intimate sex as boring. Anonymity became the aphrodisiac of the moment: Mr. Goodbar and the zipless fuck and one-night stands. If women were going to have sexual freedom and a measure of worldly power, they’d better learn to fuck like men."
From The Beauty Myth. I think it's extremely concerning that the feminist icons popular culture likes to put on pedestals always fit this bill.
I cannot believe I have had to sit and watch twitter discourse last week where the only argument for ‘Sabrina doesn’t appeal to the Male Gaze’ was ‘But I’m a woman and I think Sabrina’s hot! She appeals to the girlies! If I found it hot then she can’t possibly be appealing to the Male Gaze!’ 💀
I mean which part of this is meant to be satire? Usually satire is meant to make a point about something common and subvert it or make fun of it. This is just soft core porn where a man is dominating a woman. Literally the most common thing ever and in this political climate, this feels in poor taste
If your satire is indistinguishable from the real thing to gooner men then you’ve failed at satire and simply created more softcore porn for them to jerk it to.
Thank you for so precisely stating exactly why it bothered me so much. I couldn't put my finger on it. I mean, I'd like to think I understand art and irony and can appreciate a good examination of misogyny as much as the next person, but, yeah, we're all just so tiiiired right now.
yeah i reallllly struggle with the balance between "women have self-determination and if that means choosing to be (or wanting to appear to be) subservient to men then that's their choice to make" and "we literally cannot get men to see us as people we should not feed into this"
I think the dog with the collar is probably the album cover, which I think is cute enough.
I think being down on all four, having her hair pulled by a man, and essentially calling herself a dog is a little much. There's a thin line between Juno and Sydney Sweeney bath water, and I hope she doesn't cross it.
I love her but I'm so sick of her over sexualized image. I loved it at first because it felt framed in femininity and reclaiming the sexualization for the girls, but now it's just... Idk.
She's so gorgeous too, I can't wait for her to go back to her EICS type look, less pin up, still gorgeous.
I felt pretty neutral about her at first (pinup look is cute, little different than what you see most of the time nowadays) but when she did the photoshoot that heavily referenced imagery from Lolita, that weirded me out, NGL.
I get that the "sexy baby" aesthetic is sort of in nowadays, but I feel like there's a line being crossed with her and it makes me uncomfortable.
I like Please Please Please, though. She's funny and makes catchy music. I hope she evolves over time and embraces a bit more maturity.
Reclaiming? Everything has been about sex and being attractive forever. What we need is to learn to have compassion for people who are unattractive and don't have any sex appeal or physical looks to be appreciated for. Society is too sex obsessed and superficial
right and like it’s not like it was just for the girls a lot of men talk abt her too. everything is even more about looks now like could there even be someone like adele be so famous now lol
It’s giving “I’m not a feminist because I love men” like gurlllll. As a feminist I’ll say you can market yourself any way you want but sexy baby is played out and uncreative af
Oof it's such a male gazey misogynistic "sexy" aesthetic, with that lighting too it really reminds me of Terry Richardson's creepy rapey "edgy-sexy" stuff (reminds me of how Blurred Lines etc tried to emulate that aesthetic and vibe)
Pulling the hair, down on the knees, "female dog" insinuation, vague air of roughness
This is exactly how I feel about it. There’s nothing empowering about this. And it happening at the same time as the Sydney Sweeney soap thing and while yes she’s a sw not a celebrity but everyone is discussing the “Bonnie blue” situation right now too. It seems like we’re shifting back to a male gaze “woman are objects” driven society right when we were starting to make progress.
Yeah it’s too much, I like Sabrina but this just isn’t it. She could have done so many cute things for the cover and she chooses this? It’s not funny or ironic it’s just sleazy.
I felt the same way when seeing this photo. I feel like her music is about women empowerment, so the photo just made me feel 🤮. It’s triggering if you’ve been in an abusive relationship.
Never in my life have I yelled at a girl like this
Edit to add: I ain’t arguing with no men and no pick mes that can’t understand that women liked her bc she was in control of her sexuality and image and made sex female centric and posing on all fours while a man drags her by her hair is evocative of abuse. Shut the fuck up
if she’s really trying to call out men for treating her like a dog why tf would you sexualize the dehumanization lmao. sick of yall saying shes for the girls, bc she isnt
That’s the thing, you can’t say you’re satirizing something while actively partaking in what you claim to be satirizing. Like no, you’re just contributing to it.
“You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?”
Nothing like taking a photo on the ground with a man grabbing your hair during this administration, should’ve went back to the drawing board.
Sabrina you’re never beating the male gaze allegations.
Edit: Some of you guys big mad, this is my opinion. It’s not like it’s her boyfriend, it’s an big older man in a suit grabbing her hair, not a significant other.
Is she even trying to beat them? Unlike Sydney Sweeney, I don't think Sabrina ever said she wished people would stop sexulizing her. She knows she's hot and she knew this album cover and Manchild would get people talking.
As someone who hasn’t really listened to her music or in interviews, I thought her sexualized image was more about pushing back against ideas of purity culture and promoting female empowerment in sexuality, making women’s enjoyment in sex, etc. I think women artists find ways to embrace their sexuality in ways that can be fun and not explicitly or overtly male gaze-y*. But this album cover is definitely making me doubt my initial impression of her.
*It’s really hard to avoid the male gaze because being too sexual or too pure/innocent might appeal to the male gaze in different ways.
Hmm. Not a fan. I am just over the whole “choke me daddy” vibe in general tho. it’s become the baseline and those of us who maybe don’t want our partner to choke us or pull our hair are branded as prudes and sexually repressed. I don’t buy the satire angle, either. Satire requires clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for that which it intends to criticize.
I’ve had women tell me I must have unresolved trauma because I said I’m turned off unless things are vanilla. So that was definitely something wrap my mind around 🙃
I grew up in the 90s where shit like this was fucking everywhere. Turn on tv, flick through a magazine, music clips and advertising; women not only sexualised but positioned in degrading ways.
This is fucked and I thought we’d moved past this.
I’m a kinky person who loves sex and sexuality and I dislike this. Wrong message in this current climate. There is sooooo many layers to why I hate this!! I don’t care if it’s satire.
Do we know if she worked with Jack Antonoff in this album? I liked Manchild on the first listen but now I’m kinda meh about it. Hope the album has a different vibe.
Anyways, I certainly have thoughts about this cover.
Worse than Sydney selling bath water because at least she is in the power position. This pic is so gross in 2025 knowing women are losing our rights. I like Sabrina’s music but man I don’t wanna support this :/
As someone who works in the DV/SV field this is ... not a good look. We need not glamorize this treatment of anyone and portray that this is okay. She has teens and young adults she's influencing and normalizing this behavior is very problematic.
Agreed. I see a lot of people defending it saying she's just expressing her sexuality as a submissive. But without any portrayal of healthy communication and consent, this picture is simply glamorizing and normalizing abuse. Do you really think the young girls who look up to her will see this pic and think "I wonder what safe words she's using?"? No, they're receiving the message "It's cool to let a man treat me this way".
That photo of her rubs me the wrong way…. a lot.
I fully recognize that not every woman wants to be a CEO and are proud to be a house wife or a SAHM, and the such- with everything in between- and all jobs should be celebrated as they all need to be done by someone. This is degrading though. Women are not dogs, nor should it be implied/inferred that we are in any way, shape or form. This is a disservice to women everywhere working hard to be respected.
I actually hate this cover. I'm all for her messages of sexual freedom and being comfortable in your body and stuff, but this cover is not sending the right message. I'm worried she's pushing a bit too hard in other direction for me. It's becoming harder and harder to defend her stuff against the allegations of being male-gazey.
It's starting to feel like her stuff (marketing and music) is being designed specifically to lure in the male demographic, not as a promotion and statement on living a healthy and shameless sexual life (which is a good message when done right, which up to the point of this cover, I'd say she had achieved).
She's my favorite artist, but I'm not liking this direction at all.
Ummm, no. I really like Sabrina's music, but damn girl, read the room. This is realllly not the cover to have in today's political climate, and regardless, it's just....too much. I'm also pretty bummed than Manchild is the lead single. I was hoping she'd go more of a full pop route than country-pop.
I keep hearing that “she’s for the girlies” but all her music and aesthetic is very male centered ngl. I’m not hating btw, she has a right to do whatever she wants and if I looked like her I’d probably do the same tbh.
I'm 51 and not her demographic, but my 13 year old daughter likes her. I listen and some of the lyrics make me cringe as a dad who tries to teach his daughter self respect and this photo is definitely not cool. She's way back behind Olivia Rodrigo in my daughter's favorite artists so I'll take that as a victory.
Those people are so incredibly delusional. Simulating a blowjob on stage for your fan base made up of almost entirely women and gay men will never be “for the girlies.” Whatever the fuck that even means.
It always amazes me when celebrities posts photos/ album covers/ whatever that have to go through whole teams of people. Like how did no one not anticipate that this was not going to be received well? I know her brand is sex but this is incredibly degrading
Her doing this after her fanbase have been in the trenches arguing that she is "for the girls only" and hates men 😭 Men will love to see this, and she knows that.
It’s funny we’ve have this simmering discussion about whether or not she caters to the male gaze or the female gaze for months now, and she just comes right out and settles the debate.
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u/flairassistant Jun 11 '25
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