Not every woman has the safety to get on their knees and be pulled across the floor with tears streaking down their face and post it to the world.

Except… that’s not what Sabrina Carpenter did.

When I was preparing my notes for this piece yesterday, I had an entire journey I wanted to take you on drawing the parallels between women crying and the pleasure that comes with pain, and even trauma, and how we rectify that as a society. I’m still going to take you on that journey. The only hiccup is, I opened my laptop today, pulled up Carpenter’s new album artwork and realized… she isn’t crying. The grainy texture of the photo and having only seen it scaled down on my phone… my brain had conjured up an image to match the scene: tears streaking down her face, her cat-eye drooping, and hair pulled askew. Imagine my surprise, when I realized… she isn’t crying.

In fact, her makeup is similar to how it always is. Doll-face perfect with a shimmer on the cheeks.

Her facial expression is even one we’ve seen from her before: vacantly alluring eyes and lips slightly parted.

This Y2K Marilyn Monroe makeup aesthetic and fill-me-up facial expression that she dons time and time again all serve the same purpose that you don’t really need much of an imagination to parse out for yourself. She is a man’s dream. Doey eyes conveying little thought, not posing a threat to any man’s intelligence and also feeling compliant and receptive to their suggestion and will. Lips slightly parted, relaxed, ready, and tempting. And her makeup, while picture-perfect, is richly saturated and just dolled up enough that you can’t wait to see it smeared.

Even before this album cover, she’s always been depicting “man’s best friend.” A fuckable female dog… or doll, however you want her.

So… why no tears?

Now, as I gaze upon this photo I can’t help but wonder… why no tears? And why such a deep smokey eye on the bottom lid to insinuate tears? Why omit the one thing that makes the scene complete? Is this a stroke of genius, a vanity-choice, a means for plausible deniability against the expected claims that she is normalizing domestic violence, or a missing finishing touch?

I never thought I would be saying this, but, in my opinion, this picture is missing some White woman tears. Bear with me…

As it stands, this album cover is skirting the line of digestibility. The absence of tears keeps the audience just comfortable enough that they’ll eventually let it slide and offers the male gaze the comfort to consume without complexity or uneasiness.

Meanwhile, in my opinion, the presence of tears would’ve introduced a plot twist in her carefully crafted narrative that may have elevated this album cover to high, subversive art. Tears pierce the male fantasy and disintegrates the grainy fuckable image into a complex stew of human emotions that require intentional digestion. You’re no longer easily convinced “she wants it” or “she likes it.” The viewer must then wrestle with their own humanity, empathy, shame, desire, lust, and the complexity of emotions that sex, raunchy or not, provokes.

I’m not saying, she should cry, but if you’re going to intentionally trigger American women in a time where domestic abuse is on the rise due to the lack of access and criminalization of abortions… say it with your full chest. It feels off-putting to suggest tears through intentional makeup choices and photo quality, only to leave them out. As it stands, the need for this album artwork is lost upon me. It feels like a knife into the collective wound women are facing as we navigate a male population that doesn’t just like to role-play power play, but truly believes it. Walking the line of tears allows Carpenter to stealthily pierce the wound, but then pull away and say “but I didn’t do anything 🥺”. 

In my opinion, tears streaming down her face would’ve pierced, instead, the male fantasy Carpenter likes to play in. While I know not everyone is ready to have this conversation despite the kind of porn or smut they consume, I believe tears would’ve also provoked a deeper conversation here on the pleasure that can accompany pain and the struggle traumatized women face to separate out abuse and sexual pleasure, dancing with both bodily shutdown and a deep longing to be viscerally, all-consumingly wanted… and loved.

The tears would’ve invoked an emotionality of sorrow and pleasure, fear and desire. We could’ve had a nuanced conversation about what it means for many women to navigate a sexually and emotionally traumatizing relational landscape, while simultaneously wanting to express the full expanse of their humanity through the re-possession of their own body and sexuality.

We need to talk…

These days it feels we aren’t ready to have these conversations with each other. They’re messy. There are no hardcore right or wrongs. Everything is a question and context-dependent.

In these conversations, sex becomes an inquiry, a mode for self-discovery, not a utility function in our human programming.

This is the kind of sexual exploration I invite women into. It’s tender. It’s bold. It’s filled with compassion for all aspects of the self and other. But it requires safety. It requires knowing you won’t be defined by an impulse or question. You won’t be judged by a deep longing to be fucked, choked, or gagged. You won’t be permanently shunned for the silly little thoughts that run through your sexual brain like hmmm… I wonder what it would feel like to try that there...

In this space, we know we are exploring the amalgam of created and uncreated selves, dancing through contexts both socially-deduced and contrived by our brain’s own imagination. We are also exploring the full extent of our longing, the depth of our pain, and re-negotiating our relationship with power. This is a sacred space.

Instead, in the absence of tears, in the absence of emotion and presence of vacant stares, we are trolled into the extremes of sexual performance or disdainful abstinence.

When (White) Women Don’t Cry…

Carpenter is a performer. This is a performance. As I review her words in the interviews I’ve seen and read, I see a pattern repeating again and again. Carpenter neither welcomes or shuns us from her personal sexual exploration. She is not creating the kind of art that holds a piece of your soul within it, the kind of art that you hold preciously up to the light and wonder how other’s will see it when the sun is streaming in or when the room is backlit. 

Rather, she’s offering a manufactured American quarter-pounder burger on the brightly-lit medical-grade steel surface of a fast-food chain near you. This is for mass consumption, catered and quartered to the mass appetite. Pulled from the trending themes of a popular porn site and ready for you to implant your sexual imagination (or lack thereof).

Her art doesn’t feel like vulnerability to me. It feels like a shield. I don’t know the person underneath, only the meaty product she’s made ready for our consumption. That’ll be $13.78 with tax. You can pay at the next window.

Crying & Pleasure – The Deep Release

Scientists have identified that there are three kinds of tears: basal (aka continuous tears – keep the eyes lubricated and healthy), reflex (flush out irritants from the eyes), and emotional.

The tears that may come about from deepthroating or rough sex are likely to be reflexive, but there is a phenomenon within the body where the mind is deeply connected to what the body is doing and will respond in kind. We commonly identify this to be the “mind-body connection.” For example, you’re more likely to feelconfident if you correct your posture and stand tall. Meanwhile, slumping and caving the shoulders inward can produce or amplify feelings of smallness, unworthiness, and fear.

Similarly, reflexive tears may trigger underlying repressed emotions, causing these reflexive tears to become emotional tears, especially if the sex is being had with a safe partner who isn’t actually triggering an adaptive, real-time fear response.

However, basal and reflex tears are 98% water. It’s actually within emotional tears that we see something extraordinary.

Along with water, emotional tears contain stress hormones and other toxins that get flushed out of the body as we cry. Researchers have found that they also lead to the release of oxytocin and endogenous opioids, aka endorphins. Oxytocin is our “cuddle hormone,” it promotes strong social bonding. And endorphins are our bodies natural pain relievers. They reduce pain, improve your mood, reduce stress, and enhance pleasure.

So, you can kinda tell why this powerful cocktail feels extra yummy during emotionally-safe sex.

And also how a really good cry not only feels good, but is healing and restorative.

When Women Cry…

When women cry, we bond. We facilitate a deep release and hold each other through the pain, knowing that there is relief on the other side. Many of us, have come to trust our body’s impulse to cry. Though trauma and emotional pain may sometimes lead us to repress it, we know instinctively that our bodies are begging us to feel something deeply and release it. Though we may be afraid of the build up, we are comforted by the relief on the other side.

Where It Gets Tricky

While crying may stir sympathy and empathy when among generally safe and compassionate people, it alternatively may trigger anger, shame, satisfaction, and further maltreatment from abusers who feel “attacked” or “threatened” by your pain. To an abuser, tears can be seen as an inconvenience and nuisance because of the emotions they trigger within said abuser, such as guilt and shame (which they will not sit with, but instead will quickly project onto you). In some cases, the tears of victims are even relished.

By insinuating tears but leaving them out, I believe this album cover makes this image more easily digested by abusers, which subsequently makes the greater sexual landscape less safe for women. While the fully depicted tears, of course, would feed the imagination of sadists, I do think this image is already doing that on its own. 

The full presence of tears, and not merely the suggestion, could, however, bring the private into the public, as I believe Carpenter is trying to do with this album cover. In this small way, I do resonate with Carpenter. The censoring of thoughtful and intentional discourse around sexual kinks and how to safely engage with power play or BDSM creates a confusing and dangerous environment, where the lines between performance and reality remain blurred. My issue is, however, that Carpenter isn’t having any such thoughtful or intentional discourse. 

Politically and socially, women feel under attack. Just a few months ago, a violent rape-simulator video game, “No Mercy,” made headlines. Here is what developer Zerat Games wrote in defense to the backlash: 

“We would like you to be a bit more open to human fetishes that don’t harm anyone, even though they may seem disgusting to you. This is still just a game, and although many people are trying to make it into something more, it remains and will continue to be a game.” (Source)

The issue is… it isn’t just a game. Our kinks and sexual desires don’t exist within a vacuum. There are certain social undercurrents that make rape fantasies common, among all genders. When done consciously, power play can indeed invite a deep release and emotional transformation. However, when sold unconsciously… it feeds a very real dynamic and belief system that is not just a kink or simulation, but a damaging worldview held by many with very real consequences. 

And so, I say, if you’re really going to “go there” and bring the private into the public, do it all the way and actually talk about it, Sabrina. Don’t just hint at it and then back out of it. We deserve better than that. 

In my opinion, the presence of tears would also ask us all to reckon with the “defiling”of the most protected class of women — petite, blonde White women.

When White Women Cry

Carpenter’s Whiteness can’t be ignored. In a racist society, not all tears are created equal. When some people cry, their tears become a weapon — the emotional justification for the dehumanizing and killing of the “lesser colors,” because no trial is needed. A White woman’s tears are evidence enough.

In this way, a White woman’s tears wash away judgment and cleanse the society with her innocence. Like the amrita of the goddesses, her tears anoint her supplicants and restore their faith in their cause. It is a wicked kind of power.

And so, one does wonder… how might we have all reacted in the presence of actual tears? Would there be more outrage and a need to “protect” her, rather than simply seeing it as a part of the fantasy and role-play? Would it have subconsciously shifted the power those tears have on society and return them to a more mundane function that is up for interpretation and context-dependent?

My guess is, yes. It would’ve muddied things. The presence of actual tears in that album cover art may have shifted how we collectively emotionally respond to the notorious “White woman tears.” I’m not even certain it would be something we necessarily could put words to in the moment. It would be more of a tectonic shift, almost imperceptible, but mounting to something bigger over time…

When Women of Color Cry

Could a woman of color pull off this album cover? 

As it stands, it’s still common for BIPOC women to be more selective with their tears. In order to fully cry in the truly vulnerable and transformative way that heals the body, safety is required.

Black women, especially, learn it’s safest to hold their tears in. Our bodies keep the valve closed until we’re alone and able to “fall apart”… or we simply never let ourselves go there, our life circumstances feeling like they require iron-strength, not softness.

And besides… who will hold us as we journey through the darkness in hope of finding relief on the other side. When you’re all alone and the pain feels endless, it’s dangerous to become completely unmarred from the shoreline… so you may let a few waves crash over you before gathering your skirts and sifting back through the sand.

For this reason, the racial comparisons to Sabrina Carpenter make no sense to me.

I’ve seen a number of people referencing racial gender inequalities, in an attempt to process the emotions kicked up by Sabrina Carpenter’s new album artwork. One such take is that this wouldn’t be “allowed” if it was done by a Black woman like Megan Thee Stallion.

And immediately I thought… you haven’t earned Megan Thee Stallion’s sex tears. By and large, as a society, we haven’t demonstrated the level of safety to even warrant the staging of such a privileged scene.

Celebrating raunchy sex isn’t new for Black female rappers who have inherited an artistic stage that frequently addresses sexuality and other complex facets of personal identity head-on. Black female rappers aren’t afraid to say they like it rough and expect it big, but you, the consumer, certainly haven’t earned a pic. Keep dreaming. You’re gonna have to pay more than $13.78 for that.

In a way, the conversation Sabrina Carpenter is having with the world, isn’t really about women of color, in my opinion, because White women have always had an approach to feminism that is separate and apart.

Theirs is a feminism that often still wants to play within the rules of acceptability, performance, and subjugation. I believe that’s why many can look upon Sabrina and say “wow, so empowering!” and totally miss all the ways she distances herself from the actual meat of the work.

Carpenter doesn’t share what these sexual images and lyrics mean to her personally. I have yet to see her have a conscious conversation about these kinks. Instead, again and again, she flips the camera around and defensively projects, “Well, why do you like it so much? Why do you focus on the sexual elements of my work and not the rest?” As though we’re making her create this brand of music… 

She isn’t sitting in the work.

She’s got one ass cheek in and the other one out. And it’s causing confusion and split personalities.

I can relate because I’ve been there at times myself as “the Pussy Queen,” not wanting people to minimize me to my work in empowering women around their sexuality, while still wanting to elevate the importance of this work. Except, it doesn’t feel like Carpenter is “doing the work.” It feels like she’s simply playing with our reactions and erections. There are no emotions in the tears and, in fact, no tears at all.

The Sexual Root Work of Black Women Artists

I don’t think you’ll find many Black women musicians at Carpenter’s caliber of fame who would do a cover art like this. Simply because, due to the nature of what it means to be Black and woman in America, we’re always sitting firmly in the work of reclaiming self, pussy, creative womb, and the art of being seen.

When Black artists like Megan Thee Stallion say they want it rough, we don’t bat an eye. I suspect this has to do with the position of power Black female lyricists get to assume, as a direct result of the Black artists who came before her and carved out a space for her curves to not only nestle into but swirl around and dance in. They make it clear — they’re commanding the sexual experience and granting and denying access for any number of reasons from a crooked dick to a limp bank account.

For artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Doechii, Doja Cat, Janelle Monae, or Beyoncé, Pussy feels powerful, imbued with the gifts of Oshun herself. When I tune into these women, Pussy feels alive, sacred, potent… and expensive. You’re gazing upon a goddess, so you better have more to offer.

Black women at the level of success Carpenter has can’t afford to offer what she does.

Collectively, White women are still finding their anchor.

True feminism requires the dismantling of internalized racist hierarchies and systems of being. When all you are is reduced to “Whiteness,” you’re drawing power from false hierarchies that are as empty and vacant as those eyes

Common pushback I see in defense of Carpenter are along the lines of “she doesn’t owe us prudish decency.”

And I agree. She can, as all of us can, do whatever she wants. She doesn’t owe me or you a “good girl” aesthetic (nor do we want that from her). However, I do think this speaks to the wobbly foundation of unacknowledged racism and internalized misogyny that some White women are building their feminism upon. This leads some White women to feel Carpenter does owe young girls and women “a good example,” because their movement is still rooted in a kind of subservience and performance that weaponizes what should be an authentic, bodily release.

I don’t think Carpenter owes us anything… but I do think she had a unique opportunity to lead and bring the private into the public in a profound way, that is maybe momentarily lost to the disorienting journey of being commodified and sexualized as a child actor. Her art stems from this history and she is working something out that likely she herself won’t be fully conscious of until years later. She’s on her own journey and we don’t know where it’ll lead. (And of course, the full album is yet to come.) 

My hope isn’t that she becomes “a good example,” but that like Miley Cyrus has managed to do, she puts her whole fucking heart and soul into it.

Fuck us like you really mean it, Sabrina. We’re ready for it. 💋

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What are your thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend album cover? I’d love to hear from you! Comment and let’s keep the discussion going below.