Make Music Horny Again
Horny is less artistic than political. From art-house threesomes to pop provocations, who decides what’s too much, too trashy, or too empowering? As Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover stirs the pot, we’re left wondering: is sexual agency still only acceptable when it’s wrapped in irony or a man’s approval?
Sabrina Carpenter depicted in her upcoming album “Man’s Best Friend” Cover. Shot by Bryce Anderson © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
“I want you to tell me which film has made you horny in the last years”... That’s the question that Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal posed to viewers while holding a DVD during his YouTube “Closet Picks” interview for Criterion in 2024. The DVD was a copy of Y Tu Mama Tambien, the coming-of-age movie that launched him to stardom in the early 2000s and that follows a couple of teen best friends discovering themselves, their sexualities and their friendships.
While talking about the movie, Bernal reflected on how fewer and fewer movies actually make you feel something and push you to reflect, sexually, in this case, and people responding in the comment section seemed to agree on different levels. A male artist owning and reflecting on his project that has to do with a threesome and a nude scene is taken for what it is: art.
Because if we go fast forward to these past weeks with the announcement of Sabrina Carpenter’s upcoming album, “Man’s Best Friend”, whose cover depicts her kneeling with a man above her holding a strand of her hair, and a title alluding to the parallelism with the dog’s role, people had a lot of things to say.
Carpenter has been accused of depicting an extremely degrading picture of women, making fun of the victims of domestic violence, and of being a fake feminist. It would seem like this isn’t the 80s anymore, when a German power-metal band like Scorpions could choose as the cover an image of a woman and a dog sitting next to each other below a man for their album Animal Magnetism, and branding the choice as “playful” and “provocative”, which was gladly dismissed despite the controversies (and the cover didn’t even end up being replaced as had happened to previous ones, you can look up to the Virging Killers’ case)
The 80s are long gone, for sure, but what is sure is that people love fussing the hell over a woman taking the smallest pride in owning and displaying her sexuality, and (let’s say it) kinks on her own terms.
In fact, the American pop star ended up announcing an “approved by God” alternative cover: a black and white photo of her among a group of tuxedo-wearing men while hugging a man in a Hollywood-diva attire. So now those who accused her of being a danger to feminism can sleep safely, while keeping the debate over sexual liberation in the hands of women in a padded box, as I’m sure all the waves of feminism would agree.
It is yet to be decided who has taken hold of the sceptre of horniness to approve when something is indecent and shameful, and when it’s to be celebrated, and the Juno poses alluding to sexual position are so last year.
So, with just a witty single in our hands that takes a jab at the ever-present manchilds in our lives, (who always seem to have the last word on what’s horny and what’s not), we will have to wait for the album release and what funnily kinky (or disturbingly kinky) surprises it has in store. Just keep your eyes peeled.
