Sabrina Carpenter's sexuality ISN'T the problem – instead it's those who vilify women

Our columnist Zara Janjua has her say on the debate around Sabrina Carpenter's new album cover
ZARA JANJUA Sabrina Carpenter's sexuality ISN'T the problem – instead it's those who vilify women
WHAT exactly is a regressive stereotype of a woman?
Because judging by the collective societal nosebleed over Sabrina Carpenter's latest album cover — where she's on all fours, hair playfully held by a man, beside the title Man's Best Friend — apparently, it's any woman who dares to be sexual on purpose.
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Zara Janjua doesn't see what all the fuss is about with Sabrina Carpenter's album cover
Credit: The Sun
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The Espresso singer sparked a backlash over her Man's Best Friend album cover
Credit: instagram
Cue the outrage. Cue the Facebook dissertations.
Cue Glasgow Women's Aid calling it 'a throwback to tired tropes' and suggesting it promotes 'violence and control'.
I mean, really? This is what sends people into moral convulsions?
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A consenting adult who's posing in a bit of cheeky sub/dom cosplay?
The trope I'm personally bored to death with is the pure, respectable, sexless woman.
You know, the one whose value peaks just before she hits puberty and plummets the minute she discovers lube.
That's the real regressive stereotype. The virgin. The saint. The woman who exists to be wanted but never wants.
We've been peddling that fantasy since Eve got blamed for a fruit salad.
Women have always been judged and persecuted for their sexuality — from witch trials to lobotomies, FGM to honour killings.
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Meanwhile, men are celebrated for doing the exact same thing.
The Weeknd released a whole concept album as a sleazy club predator and was hailed as 'visionary'.
Sabrina Carpenter fans only just realising she's a secret nepo-baby with HUGELY famous TV star family member
I'm beyond bored of the double standards. And it's everywhere.
Notably on TV — where stereotypes and tropes are rampant.
When Disney+ brought Jilly Cooper's Rivals to screen last year, they had their chance to modernise the script but they blew it.
The lead male — Rupert Campbell-Black, played by Alex Hassell — is deliciously promiscuous, arrogant, entitled, and is allowed to shag everything that moves, cheat on his partners, seduce stable girls and still ride off into the sunset with a young, virginal beauty, triumphant and completely adored.
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But Sarah Stratton, played by Emily Atack, who mirrors Rupert's behaviour? She's a side character.
At first, she's the punchline then the villain — calculating, emotionally unstable, and punished for daring to want.
Same libido, different ending. One gets the girl. The other gets the boot.
And don't even get me started on what Hollywood did to Samantha Jones — sex goddess.
Publicist. Icon. In the final season of Sex And The City while Charlotte was enjoying family life with her husband and adopted child, as Miranda found vulnerability and married Steve and Carrie finally got her happily-ever-after with Big . . . Samantha got breast cancer.
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A disease written-in to attack her womanhood and her libido.
Even Kim Cattrall said the storyline felt like punishment for her character's rampant sexual appetite and wild lifestyle.
Then came And Just Like That, where Samantha was exiled to London and reduced to a 76-second phone cameo. (Yes, I timed it.)
Kim Cattrall has confirmed she won't be returning for season three, because, honestly, who wants to be the sexy scapegoat again?
And we're supposed to believe Sabrina is the problem? The problem is that we vilify women who express their sexuality or we turn them into a joke.
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And don't come at me with 'What about the kids?'
If your teenager's understanding of sex, respect and relationships comes solely from an album cover, that's not Sabrina's fault — that's yours.
Maybe we should be teaching young people to talk about consent, fantasy and desire like actual humans, instead of pretending sex doesn't exist and then blaming women when it inevitably does.
The backlash isn't about the image. It's about control. People hate when a woman launches herself crotch-first into the world, without shame, without compromise, and without asking if it's OK first.

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