The Art of Mike Cockrill: Fine Art or (Pre) Teen Erotica? | An Introduction

Final Girl Digital posted the following Note on the Cricket Guest Substack: 

“These paintings by mike cockrill speak to me” 

The paintings that spoke to Final Girl Digital were Cockrill’s:

• “Grave Condition” (1997) 
• “Indepence Day” (1997) 
• “The Mirror Game” (1997) 
• "Clown Piñata" (2015-220) 
• “The Red Guard” (1997)
• "Interrogation"

Each painting depicts sadistic schoolgirls killing and/or torturing clowns. Of the series of paintings, Felicia Feaster, wrote in the New Art Examiner (July-August 1997) that the subjects of the paintings were circus clowns and “pre-adolescent girls in party dresses” and that the paintings were “vapid’ but that they “achieve[d] a shockingly layered profusion of meaning”. Feaster:

With their apparently vapid subject matter of circus clowns and little girls, the Baby Doll Clown Killers achieve a shockingly layered profusion of meaning. Two standards of cuteness face off as if in some apocalyptic jihad, as pre-adolescent girls in party dresses aim pistols and bayonets at the bowed heads of circus clowns who suggest an inferior race tamed by their evolutionary superiors.

"Clown Piñata"

Interestingly, "Clown Piñata" alludes to Cockrill’s other motifs slash themes, which involve sadistic and salacious schoolgirls. For example, in "Clown Piñata", the nymphet, in the already cleavage-baring yellow dress, has her white bra exposed, and the teen in the background is enjoying a smoke in her (satin) bra and panties while observing the pre-teen sadism.  

“Target”

In “Target” (2009), another painting in the Baby Doll Clown Killers series, a pre-adolescent girl has her knee in the crotch (area) of a clown, but as she paints the clown’s nose to match her crop top, another nymphet looks upon art patrons mischievously, while the strap of her tank top reveals her braless cleavage. And note that she does not have flush fountains. 

In 2006, Cockrill’s Over the Garden Wall exhibition was held at the 31 Grand in Brooklyn. Ben La Rocco posted a review of the exhibition, “100 words on Mike Cockrill”, on The Brooklyn Rail (April 2006). In the post, La Rocco wrote that Cockrill’s “garden is a place where childhood play meets adult sexuality”. Specifically, La Rocco referenced Balthus, Cockrill’s “unprepossessing” “Girl before a Mirror”, and Cockrill’s “Naughty”, which La Rocco referred to as a “tour de force”. La Rocco opined:

Mike Cockrill’s current exhibition of paintings at 31 Grand is entitled Over the Garden Wall. One part John Currin, two parts Balthus, Cockrill’s garden is a place where childhood play meets adult sexuality in an elixir equally suggestive and nostalgic. Children poised on the verge of adolescence feign poses to determine if they fit in [...] His symbolism is perhaps best when it’s subtle: his unprepossessing “Girl before a Mirror” is as effective as his art history laden tour de force, “Naughty.”

“Naughty”

In terms of Cockrill’s “Naughty” (2005), a naughty nymphet looks mischievously at gawkers while licking icing from her fingers. Cockrill drew attention to her spread legs via her brother’s hand, which barely obscures his sister’s panties. 

Figure: 1

Eagle-eyed art connoisseurs may have noticed another “Naughty” nymphet in the painting (See Figure: 1) who is walking towards the mischievous one with her white dress is inexplicably raised revealingly. 

In terms of La Rocco’s reference to Cockrill’s work being “two parts Balthus”, La Rocco was referencing the fact that Cockrill and Balthus shared the same muse, which is the suggestive nymphet. For example, if one compares Cockrill’s “Class Princess” (2003-04) and “Bunnyheart” (2003) to Balthus’ “Thérèse dreaming” (1938), La Rocco’s reference should be apparent. 

The description of “Thérèse dreaming”, which is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), that is posted on The Met’s website will suffice as a description of “Class Princess” and “Bunnyheart” as well. The Met related that Thérèse is a “lost in thought” 12 or 13-year-old unmolded raw spirit whose “adolescent sexuality” is “potent” with a “lack of inhibition”; however, The Met admitted that “Thérèse dreaming” is “unsettling”.

Balthus’s model, Thérèse Blanchard, appears—as the title of this work suggests—unaware of her surroundings and lost in thought. Blanchard was about twelve or thirteen when the artist painted this canvas. [...] Balthus, like countless modern artists, believed the subject of the child to be a source of raw spirit, not yet molded by societal expectations. Many early twentieth‑century avant‑garde artists [...] viewed adolescent sexuality as a potent site of psychological vulnerability as well as lack of inhibition [...] While it may be unsettling to our eyes today, Thérèse Dreaming draws on this history.

In addition to painting salacious schoolgirls cavorting with cowering clowns, Cockrill painted schoolgirls cavorting with schoolgirls. In “Firstlove” (2008), the pre-adolescent girls, who may not even be of school age, lips lightly touch as Cockrill lowered the blonde’s dress to reveal her budding breasts, while he raised her summer dress to expose her budding bottom-grass. In “Forbidden” (2006), the touching nymphets are bottomless while the one on the left looks cunningly at gawkers while her forbidden fruit is barely covered by the leaf. And in “Adoration”, a chorus of children sing as two midriff-bared schoolgirls embrace and prepare to kiss. 

“Teasing the Blind”

In media, sapphic diversions are often depicted with age-gap affairs (e.g., Lolita\Miller’s Girl (2024)). Thus, it shouldn’t be surprising that, in addition to painting salacious schoolgirls, Cockrill depicted them in age-gap situations as well. For example, in “Teasing the Blind” (2004), Cockrill drew two schoolgirls teasing the blind as the blonde in pink smiles shyly as the girl in yellow confidently raises her dress to tantalize the blind man with what is under her white panties. 

Per the website Mike Cockrill, Cockrill, whom was “[c]lassically trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts”, began exhibiting his works “in Brooklyn and the East Village in the early 1980s. In addition to his 2006 Over the Garden Wall exhibition at the Grand in Brooklyn, Cockrill’s work has been exhibited over 50 times. For example, in 1994, Cockrill’s paintings were co-exhibited in the Discontents and Debutantes exhibition at the University Galleries of Illinois State University. The gallery’s description of the exhibition relates that the paintings occupy a “precarious social interzone between fantasy and taboo [...] childhood and adulthood” and that Cockrill’s “paintings of girls on [the] cusp of adolescence exude an ambiguous eroticism”.

Discontents and Debutantes features paintings by two artists whose imagery occupies a precarious social interzone between fantasy and taboo, private and public, childhood and adulthood, and personal and media-induced realities. New York artist Mike Cockrill [...] has exhibited paintings dealing with sex, politics and dysfunctional family life since the early 80s. His monumental paintings of girls on [the] cusp of adolescence exude an ambiguous eroticism that leads us to rethink our views on voyeurism and decorum [...]

"Discontents and Debutantes" at the University Galleries of Illinois State University

Cockrill’s paintings exhibited in Discontents and Debutantes are mostly of lounging, perfectly nude or topless, girls on the cusp of adolescence, but Cockrill made their eroticism unambiguous as their legs are often spread suggestively. 

Of course, Cockrill and Balthus aren’t the only artists who utilized the allure of nymphets to sell art. Previously, to name a few, we wrote about the Disturbing Innocence exhibited at The FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea, Petra Collins' Discharge exhibit at the Capricious in Chinatown, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Marzella (1910).

Lastly, recall that Feaster opined in the New Art Examiner that Cockrill’s work is “vapid”, but in an interview with Poets and Artists (Aug 19 N.D.), Cockrill shared that his works have “a cheerfulness mixed with the darkness” accompanied by “sexually charge[d] undertones”. Cockrill: 

“There is a cheerfulness mixed with the darkness, so to speak. Little girls in party dresses conducting genocide against circus clowns.  Children’s book illustration style works with sexually charge[d] undertones.”

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 4): Camp Cabins

Lolita (Italian translation)

In Lolita (Vintage Books\Random House, 1991), Lolita confessed to Humbert that she had pre-teen “sapphic diversions” with Elizabeth Talbot - Lolita’s tent-mate at summer camp. Nabokov wrote:

Her astounding tale started with an introductory mention of her tent-mate of the previous summer, at another camp, a “very select” one as she put it. That tent-mate (“quite a derelict character,” “half-crazy,” but a “swell kid”) instructed her in various manipulations. At first, loyal Lo refused to tell me her name.

“Well,” she said. “[...] her name was Elizabeth Talbot, she goes now to a swanky private school, her father is an executive.”

I recalled with a funny pang the frequency with which poor Charlotte [Lolita’s mother] used to introduce into party chat such elegant tidbits as “when my daughter was out hiking last year with the Talbot girl.”

I wanted to know if either mother learned of those sapphic diversions.

“Gosh no,” exhaled limp Lo mimicking dread and relief, pressing a falsely fluttering hand to her chest.

Hence, in addition to bedrooms, hotel rooms, and prep school dorm rooms, schoolgirl sleepover sex happens in camp cabins as well. For example, on the “Postcards from Europe” episode of the Hot Girl Talks podcast (Aug 18, 22 [YouTube]), Carly Weinstein, an influencer with 175K Instagram (IG) followers, informed her co-hosts, Halley Kate (246K IG followers) and Jazmyn “Jaz” Smith (147K IG followers), that part of going to summer camp is seeing “plenty of vaginas” “inside of them” “all sides of them”. Carly,

“If you went to camp, you’d know that you saw plenty of vaginas in a lifetime and probably the inside of them. And probably all sides of them. Because at camp, you just are, like, crazy. It’s just a thing. I don’t know, like, people who went to camp know. Just camp things.”

In “Reality Check From Young Voices”, a chapter in Katie Cappiello and Meg McInerney’s Slut: A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2015), 17-year-old Danielle confessed that “lots of sexual firsts” happened at her “typical Jewish summer camp” like the filming (oral) sex tapes. Danielle shared:

“I go to this typical Jewish summer camp, where promiscuous behavior is practically encouraged and cultivated [...] with no parental supervision, there are lots of sexual firsts for everyone [...] There is one girl in particular, Georgia, who is really petite and very pretty [...] Josh and another boy coerced - basically forced - Georgia to give them blow jobs, while others filmed it on their phones.”

In Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham shared that when she was a teen camper, she could not stop staring at her summer camp counselor’s “tits”. Lena wrote:

[...] [I] couldn't stop eyeing everyone else, staring at their round asses as they dressed, the dusky hairs emerging from the bathing suits. “You are so bicurious!” Lena's camp counselor said after she caught Lena: “[...] watching her tits swing as she changed.”

The following summer, then-14-year-old Lena found her “truest love”. “[Johnny] was blond, from South Carolina, and just shy of twenty-two.” In her bunk, Lena fantasized about discarding her: “[...] clothes, approaching Johnny, and letting him put his hands all over [...]” her body.

On the “They’re Just Not That Into You...” episode of the Hot Girls Talk podcast (August 4, 22 [YouTube]), Halley shared with Carly and Jaz: “You can also pop your cherry [i.e., have an orgasm] by riding a fucking horse. One of my friends […] she literally told all of us when we were like 9-years-old, ‘Yeah, I popped my cherry by riding this horse.’”

For The Cut’s 2014 Summer Sex Week feature, Maureen O'Connor posted, in the True Stories section, “10 Awkward, Nostalgic Stories of Summer-Camp Sexual Awakenings” (July 7, 2014). The piece related: “ten people’s most vivid memories of summer-camp sex — and sex gone awry, and confused preteen discoveries, and other strangely nostalgic humiliations.”

In the first memory, “Fake Orgasms Sweep Horse Camp”, readers learned about “horsegasms”, which was when a Camp Rim Rock horseback rider had an orgasm via a horse. The quest to have horsegasms arose after Lauren Petersen, the “alpha girl” of the cabin and a New Yorker, shared with her cabin mates that she was getting: “‘tickling feelings’ while grinding on a Western saddle.” Consequently, Lauren’s cabin mates, including the then-11-year-old storyteller, went on a “craze[d]” quest to have a horsegasm.

When I was 11, there was a fake-orgasm craze at Camp Rim Rock’s horseback riding camp for girls. It started when Lauren Petersen asked if anyone else had “tickling feelings” while grinding on a Western saddle. Lauren was the alpha girl of my cabin. She was cool and tough and came from New York and had a Beastie Boys cassette [...] If Lauren Petersen felt tickles on horses, then feeling tickles on horses was cool. Soon everyone was feeling tickles, or trying to feel them, or faking them. It was like the Salem Witch Trials. I will never say whether my horsegasms were fake.

Cruel Intentions 2: Manchester Prep (2000)

On a related note: On episode 06 of Amazon Prime’s Cruel Intentions (2024), streamers learned from Cece that years before she matriculated at Manchester College, she broke her hymen on a “Gorgeous palomino named Lucky.” Cece’s confession may have been inspired by Cruel Intentions 2: Manchester Prep (2000) where Cherie Claymon, a freshman at Manchester Prep, was forced to have a horsegasm while posting in Central Park, which was all part of a plot by Kathryn, an upperclassman, to turn Cherie into the "premier slut of Manchester Prep." Kathryn commanded Cherie, “Up and down. Back and forth. Faster! Faster!” And Kathryn asked Cherie, “How does that feel?”

In “Sexual Shaving Rituals”, a submitter submitted that, as a form of seduction, she and her then-12-year-old cabin mates used to shave their legs in the open on the campgrounds. But when she was 13, as a form of seduction, a 16-year-old female camp counselor asked the 13-year-old and another camper to shave her vagina. Outside. On the porch of their cabin!

We always shaved our 12-year-old legs outside, where the boys could see, sitting on towels spread over the pavement that connected the girls’ camp to the boys’ camp. When I was 13, my counselor got me and another camper to shave her vag before she met up with her boyfriend. We did it outside on the porch, her lying down and us on either side of her, giggling.

In addition, the teen exhibitionist counselor used to tell sex stories in the cabin. In a bit of S&M, the teen sadist “dared” the girls to put Gold Bond on their vaginas. (One can safely infer that the counselor (regularly) found pleasure in putting Gold Bond on her vagina; hence, the referral.) Although she was straight, the counselor got a “perverse kick out of it”. And after the counselor discovered that the submitter’s “prepubescent tits” were being pawed behind the bunk bed, the counselor gave the camper comforting advice.

She was 16 and told us all her sex stories. She once dared several girls in my bunk to put Gold Bond on our vaginas. It was so cold that it stung, and I experienced a kind of sensitivity generally reserved for varsity S&M games. I think the counselor got a perverse kick out of it, even though she is straight. She is now a wedding planner.

Still, she gave me some good advice: When my prepubescent tits were getting squeezed like tiny stress balls during make-outs behind the bunk, my counselor said I should tell the boys, “Be gentle.”

In “The Girl Who Discovered Orgasms”, in a bit of a sleepover cabin sex plot twist, a submitter admitted that she had sex with the cabin! And, consequently, she had her first orgasm. "

I had my first orgasm at Jewish summer camp, the result of dry-humping against a cabin.

But someone must have seen her “dry-humping against a cabin”. Right? Subsequently, she lost her virginity at camp a few years later, and to commemorate the occasion, she had five orgasms that night, including one in the cabin’s shower.

A few years later, I lost my virginity at a summer camp on a kibbutz. I had sex five times that night, including in the shower, and came every time! Talk about getting off to a good (blessed?) start.

Liara Roux shared in her memoir, Whore of New York: A Confession (Repeater Books, 2021), that while 5th graders, she and the "very beautiful" Melissa had girl-on-girl sex at camp in the woods of the Catskills where they kissed, Liara put her breast in Melissa’s mouth, and Melissa put her finger into Liara. Roux wrote:

One day, when we were walking to whatever activity was next, she asked me if I wanted to skip it [...] As we got further away from the camp, she stepped off the trail. I followed her. We wandered through the trees, and I tripped over a rock hidden under the snow.

We got to a clearing and she plopped on the ground, then started making a snow angel. “What about your pants?” I asked. “Won’t they get wet?” [...] “They already are.” I blushed at the implication. Seeing my flushed face, she stood up, walked to me, and kissed me [...] I couldn’t hold myself back. I kissed her, putting my hands around her neck, pulling her in.

[...] I pressed myself against her and we fell in the snow [...] I rolled on top of her, kissed her again [...] She wiggled, unzipping her coat, unzipping mine, and our hands were on each other’s chests, grasping at softness. I kissed her neck; she moaned and put my breast in her mouth [...] After much maneuvering, she pulled off her glove and stuck her hand down my pants. The chill of her fingertips pressing into me.

We walked back to camp, our faces flushed.

And Lindsay shared with Vera Papisova in the Teen Vogue piece "23 Masturbation Stories: Girls Get Real About Self-Love" (AUGUST 4, 2020), which is a compilation of preteen and teen masturbation stories, that she had a "freaky camp friend" who indulged in self-love. Lindsey enjoyed masturbating at camp too, but she only wished that she had known that, besides her "freaky camp friend", other girls masturbated too. Lindsay shared:

"I wish I knew that other girls masturbate, too! And that no matter what way you do it, it's not weird! Most girls don't open up to their friends about that stuff until college, unless you have the occasional freaky camp friend." - Lindsay

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 1): Becca Moore, Miley Cyrus, Jessica Simpson and Julia Fox

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 2): Lola Kirke, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham

From the NY TIMES to Netflix: Schoolgirl Sleepover Sex Stories (Part 3): Restless Virgins | Zoe, Isabel, Annie, and Whitney

Sabrina Carpenter: Lolita Core for the Male Gaze?

 

The post “Who’s Afraid of Sabrina Carpenter?: The Alleged Pedophilic Fantasy & the Complexities of Feminine Performance” was posted on the Final Girl Digital Substack (Feb 04, 2025). In the post, the author wrote that after Sabrina released “Espresso”: “[...] the whole world was listening to Espresso, and all eyes were on Sabrina.

The author noted that while those eyes were on Sabrina, Sabrina typically performed in: “[...] a pastel pink mini skirt and corset featuring a heart shaped cut out at the chest, complete with her signature platform boots by Naked Wolfe.” However, the author was surprised by the number of comments posted on Sabrina’s photographs and videos that suggested that Sabrina: “[...] dressed like a little girl.”

Subsequently, the author: “[...] stumbled across a twitter thread of people discussing how Sabrina shouldn’t perform [dressed like a little girl] in such a sexual way when her audience contains children.”

The author related that the pedophilic fantasy referenced in the subtitle of the Substack “references aspects of the male gaze”, which is in reference to the lens created by men in art and media, which “[...] has inherently pedophilic qualities in nature.” And the author wrote that women have “come to internalize this representation of the female experience” and that women have been “[...] trained women on how to best present themselves within the context of being consumed.”

In addition, the author implied that Sabrina’s performances are “shaped by dominant Western colonial culture”. Consequently, Sabrina’s performances are “[...] deeply intertwined with infantilization, and the standard of the girl as the ultimate feminine representation rather than the woman.” And the author implied that Sabrina is pressured into appearing “youthful, hairless, submissive, docile, etc”

In a bit of hyperbole, the author opined that women are “trained since birth” [Emphasis added] “to perform in a way to be consumed” and that “all women” [Emphasis added] are “growing up in the context of consuming this media [and] have inevitably been influenced by this gaze.” Consequently, “by default this idea of the ‘pedophilic fantasy’” seeps into the subconscious of all women with “pedophilic fantasy” being defined as: “a fantasy that places juvenile feminine beauty on a pedestal.”

The author related that women are haunted by the “obsession with youth” and that women are conditioned to believe that their “value is intrinsically tied to youth”. Relatedly, the author referenced Susan Sontag’s The Double Standard of Ageing where Sontag wrote that the standard of beauty is “the girl”.

Sabrina Carpenter as Lolita? (Source: Jade Hurley [Substack])

In terms of Sabrina Carpenter, the author reiterated that Sabrina’s performances, in “glittery pastels, and heart motifs”, which are associated with “juvenile girlhood”, are panderings to the “pedophilic male gaze”. The author wrote that, consequently: “[...] connections [were] made between the aesthetic of Sabrina Carpenter to the aesthetic of Lolita, [and] Priscilla Presley [...]”, which proves that Sabrina has combined “the aesthetic of childishness and sexuality.”

Additionally, the author argued that the “true common denominator” is Sabrina’s reference to the vintage aesthetics of the 50’s and 60s.

Jane Birkin and Sabrina Carpenter (Source: Cricket Guest [Substack])

Subsequently, the author referenced Jane Birkin’s song “Lolita Go Home” and Marilyn Monroe’s performance in Let’s Make Love (1960) where Marilyn performed “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and introduced “[...] herself in a hushed, girlish whisper: “My name is Lolita. And I’m not supposed to… play… with boys!”

BABYDOLL (1956)

In addition, the author related that, due to the name, the babydoll dresses worn by Jane Birkin, Sabrina Carpenter, and “countless” others represent the “complex intersection of infantilization and sexualization”. Connectedly, the author referenced Babydoll (1956) where Archie Lee Meighan, a middle-aged man, married ≈17-year-old Baby Doll. In the film, the age-gap couple agreed, at Babydoll’s father’s insistence, to not consummate their marriage until Babydoll’s 20th birthday. In the meantime, Babydoll slept in a crib and seductively sucked her thumb.

However, in a seeming contradiction to her premise, the author asked and answered the (rhetorical) question: “by wearing a babydoll dress are you catering to a “pedophilic fantasy” within the zeitgeist of feminine performance? Maybe.” And the author related that women reported that by wearing baby pink babydoll dresses, ribbons, pleated mini-skirts, and Mary Janes that they were not “pandering to an alleged pedophilic gaze” but that they were “[...] merely making nostalgic nods to their girlhood—an act of reclaiming it through a more girlish, frivolous way of dressing.” In other words, women argued that they have not “come to internalize this representation of the female experience” and that they have not been trained: “[...] on how to best present themselves within the context of being consumed.”

The author noted that: “[...] when we look at children’s clothing despite the lack of sexual dimorphism in pre-pubescent children, the clothing for girls is significantly smaller, tighter, and shorter than the clothing for boys.” But this is incorrect, because clothing for women, of almost every age, is often: “[...] smaller, tighter, and shorter than the clothing for boys [and men].”

Next, the author related that Sabrina’s “glittery pink corset” brought to mind Toddlers and Tiaras where toddlers in tiaras wore “makeup, heels, and corsets” and where the lines between “girl” and “woman” were blurred, which, the author opined isn’t surprising since we live in a culture where girls and women are taught to be: “[...] virginal teenage seductress[es]. Ambiguously youthful and sexually viable.”

Via Jade Hurley’s Substack post "Your Fave Is Selling a Pedophilic Fantasy." (Sep. 13, 2024), the author noted a purported connection between Sabrina and Nabokov’s Lolita. In the aptly named W Magazine piece “Sabrina Carpenter Knows She Has You Hooked” (Sep. 5, 2024), there’s a photo of Sabrina who: “[...] is laying on her stomach in a picturesque suburban backyard. The sun shines into frame, Sabrina is wearing a lacey white mini dress, as a backyard sprinkler doses water onto her already dampened body. This photo is undeniably a reference to the 1997 film adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita.”

And a connection was made between Sabrina’s advertisement for Kim Kardashian’s Skims (2024) and the Rolling Stone piece “Britney Spears: Inside the Heart, Mind and Bedroom of a Teen Dream” (1999) where, then-16-years-old, Britney Spears was photographed standing in her childhood bedroom, surrounded by her stuffed animals and dolls, donning a pair of white short-shorts and a cardigan that barely covered her white bra. In Sabrina’s Skims campaign, she donned Skims lingerie along with lace, pink hair ribbons and white bobby socks in what appears to be a teen girl’s bedroom, which the author wrote is: “[...] subliminal[ly] signalling “teen girl” in order to sell lingerie”

16-Year-Old Britney Spears (ROLLING STONE)

I’m confused, because the target audience for Skims or Sabrina’s music is not middle-aged men, which the author confirmed by writing: “In the case of Skims, the primary demographic is women, with Kim Kardashian herself mentioning that the campaign was specifically aimed at Gen Z women and girls.” Yet, the author insisted, almost conspiratorially, that females cannot escape the influence of the male gaze, because females are “subliminally influenced” to perform for the desires of men.

Very interestingly, the author opined that Sabrina’s Short N’ Sweet tour was curated to evoke a “sleepover” energy; however, in a bit of a contradiction, the author wrote that Sabrina’s tour was “[...] deliberately built for her female audience [...] rather than being curated for the male gaze [...]” But then the author wrote that Sabrina’s tour was inevitably subconsciously influenced by men.

In the end, the author appears to have made a complete 180 from her premise and opined, possibly naively, that she doesn’t “think” Sabrina used the allure of nymphets to sell music, concert tickets, advertising for (online) “magazines”, and lingerie.

I don’t think Sabrina is trying to position herself as the “sexy baby” people are making her out to be. I don’t think she is pandering to a pedophilic fantasy. I think the examples such as the Skims Campaign and the W Magazine photo are symptoms of subconscious problems with the expression of femininity [...] I don't think Sabrina is actively or intentionally infantilizing herself nor do I think Sabrina is attempting to shield herself under the guise of girlhood [...]

On the contrary, I would opine that Sabrina has (repeatedly) used the allure of nymphets to sell music, concert tickets, advertising for (online) “magazines”, and lingerie. However, it appears that Sabrina has recently taken a bit of a break from using the allure of teen sex to sell. Currently, Sabrina is simply using sex to sell, which is exemplified by the content related to her newest release.

Poppie Platt posted on The Telegraph “Sabrina Carpenter’s over-sexed, degrading new album cover has gone too far: From Lolita marketing to on-stage sex acts and now a controversial cover for new album Man’s Best Friend, is Carpenter regressive for women? (12 June 2025) Of the album cover, Platt wrote:

Carpenter is pictured kneeling on the ground with her flowing blonde curls in the tight grip of a man’s fist, her hand teasingly placed on his upper thigh, eyes wide and mouth agape [...]

Sabrina in Daisy Dukes for "Manchild" Video

And Kristin Myers posted on Yahoo “Sabrina Carpenter Sizzles In Daisy Dukes For 'Manchild' Music Video” (June 7, 2025) Myers wrote:

Pop star Sabrina Carpenter is turning up the heat in her "Manchild" music video. The "Espresso" singer was oozing sex appeal as she showed off her lean legs in daisy dukes [...]