Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend isn’t for the faint of heart — or pearl clutchers.
It’s been less than a week since Carpenter’s eighth studio album was released. Since first announcing Man’s Best Friend and unveiling its original artwork, the 26-year-old pop star has found herself at the center of controversy. The album’s title and its accompanying imagery have even rendered Carpenter, in the eyes of some of her critics, an antifeminist catering to the male gaze. But Carpenter fans know there’s nuance to what she does and why she does it.
In the September cover story for Interview magazine, the pop star addressed the controversy.
“I do feel like submission is both dominant and submissive,” Carpenter told the magazine. “It really depends on what your intentions are and what you want, and what you crave, and what you need. The image, the way I see it, is a metaphor, but I’m sure that other people are like, ‘Dang, she’s a sub.’”
The image Carpenter refers to shows the pop star on her hands and knees, in a fitted black minidress, as an unidentified man tugs at her voluminous blonde locks. Carpenter, with her signature pout, stares doe-eyed at the camera.
The immediate backlash against the cover may have also prompted Carpenter’s release of alternate versions, including a re-creation of a 1957 paparazzi photo of Marilyn Monroe and her then husband, playwright Arthur Miller.
Carpenter told Interview that she didn’t necessarily anticipate this reaction to the initial Man’s Best Friend cover. Gauging the public’s reaction to a creative decision she’s yet to publicize, she said, does not factor into whether or not she goes through with it.
“If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t do anything anticipating what the reaction will be. I only do things that speak to me, that feel right, and make sense when you hear the music. When I came up with the imaging for it, it was so clear to me what it meant. So the reaction is fascinating to me. You just watch it unravel and go, ‘Wow,’” she said.
As for the lyrics, Man’s Best Friend is another dive into Carpenter’s deepest desires. The album is full of cheekily crafted sexual innuendos. On her new single “Tears,” for instance, Carpenter sings about tears running down her thighs at the mere thought of a man actually exhibiting good behavior. Carpenter told the magazine she was surprised by how singing about sex is still considered taboo.
“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,” she said.
Though ultimately Carpenter recognizes that her material is open to interpretation. Not everyone is going to appreciate it — and that’s OK with her.
“I’m really, really grateful that there’s enough of my audience that really knows me as a person that will be able to hear these songs how they’re intended,” Carpenter told Interview. “It’s always going to be up to interpretation and I understand that. But I’m glad you like my sexual content.”
