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Trump says food stamps will not return until shutdown is over
President Donald Trump said that his administration will not pay food stamp benefits until the government shutdown ends, according to Tribune News Service (TNS). The president posted on Truth Social on Nov. 4, saying that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will only be given out until the “radical left Democrats open up [the] government.” The United States Department of Agriculture announced Nov. 3, that it would deplete a contingency fund that would cover half, $4.65 billion, of the monthly benefit using a SNAP contingency fund, according to
The Ball State Daily News is committed to providing accurate news to the community. In the event we need to correct inaccurate information, you will find that printed here.
To submit a correction, email editor@bsudailynews.com.
Halle Dziekan, Weather forecaster, Benny Weather 4-DAY WEATHER
Government shutdown raises air safety risks
Nov. 3: As the government shutdown continues into its second month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that if officials determine air travel is dangerous, U.S. airspace would close, according to Tribune News Service (TNS). Air traffic controllers have continued to work without pay, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was forced to slow traffic at many airports due to staffing shortages. The FAA had to temporarily halt flights into Newark Liberty International Airport due to staffing shortages, with more than 3.2 million passengers dealing with flight cancellations and delays, according to TNS.
Ball State’s season ends in MAC semifinals
Nov. 4: Ball State soccer’s season ended on Nov. 4, when they lost 1-0 to the top-seeded Western Michigan Broncos in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) tournament semifinals. Ball State finished the year 107-3, which is their first ten-win season since 2019, according to Ball State Athletics. The Cardinals will lose a lot of star power from this year’s squad, with eight of Ball State’s players being seniors. Senior forward/midfielder Addie Chester was named the team’s forward of the year, while freshman midfielder Lexi Watkins and defender Jordyn Klaasen were both named to the All-MAC freshman teams.
EMILY CURIEL/TNS
EVAN SIMKO-BEDNARSKI/TNS
ISABELLA KEMPER/DN
‘A BIG PIECE OFOUR CITY’
The redevelopment of the Muncie Mall paves the way for a more financially and economically sound community in Delaware County.
Jayden Vaughn Opinion Editor
In the next six months, the Muncie Mall will undergo a major redevelopment, including the demolition of three major stores on its property, according to Hull Property Group.
Back in January 2024, Hull Property Group, otherwise known as “Hull Property Brothers”— a real estate company based in Augusta, Georgia, focused on improving enclosed and run-down malls — purchased the local mall.
Since the Hull Property Group is a long-term buyer and has purchased 37 other malls across 17 states for redevelopment, third parties, such as other real estate companies in Muncie, interested in demolishing and redeveloping the Muncie Mall have full faith that the real estate group understands the market and will attract national retailers to the newly remodeled space.
Hull Property Group’s main motivation is business — they know how to take a property and make it a profitable piece of real estate again, and that is their main intention with Muncie Mall, RE/MAX Real Estate Groups broker-owner Ryan Kramer said.
Kramer owns a few commercial properties in Muncie and has previously interviewed John Mulherin, the vice president of government relations at Hull Property Group.
During the interview with Kramer, Mulherin said, “We found that the best path forward and the
brightest future for the mall will be a demolition.”
By tearing down approximately 255,000 square feet of buildings — such as the JCPenney store, Sears and the old movie theater — to create frontfacing businesses, he hopes this will open up new opportunities for the Muncie Mall to attract national retailers, Mulherin said.
“The strategy behind Hull Property Group is to transform what it looks like,” Kramer said.
“They’re starting with tearing down the JCPenney building out front, and as they tear that down to the interior walls, that will open up four forwardfacing units that will face McGalliard.”
From a real estate perspective, Kramer said that if national retailers want to purchase a building for a business, they will want to be on McGalliard.
“For Muncie, you don’t have your big retailers coming into town, and they don’t want to come into a space that’s not thriving,” Kramer said.
He explained how front-facing stores aimed toward McGalliard are more ideal than the outward-facing stores currently in the mall, because you have to go inside to see which shops are available. Since people are not visiting the mall as often as they used to, the incentive to purchase space there is dwindling.
The “hope,” Kramer said, is that once retailers start taking an interest in the newly available properties, more developers will follow in their footsteps.
See COST, 14
Total Estimated Cost Property Cost $5 mil Demolition Cost $2.5 mil
mil
The former site of Carson’s Oct. 30 at Muncie Mall. The chain went bankrupt in 2018. DYLAN CHESNUT, DN
Katherine Hill, Lifestyles Editor
‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’
“I’ve been around long enough to see different incarnations of the IEP program,” she said.
Editor’s Note: The Ball State Daily News reached out to the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE).
multiple times over multiple weeks via phone and email and did not receive a comment before the deadline provided.
As a child, Clara Bingaman was surrounded by people with disabilities.
Her sister’s best friend was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and indirectly diagnosed with Tourette’s and “ADHD to the max.”
Her mother was a special education teacher in the ‘90s — a decade full of landmark moments for disabled people — like the induction of the Americans with Disabilities Act into law in 1990.
Those actualities meant Bigaman “grew up around people with disabilities and not even thinking anything about it,” she said. “[My family and I] just incorporated them into our lives.”
After graduating from college, Bingaman followed in her mother’s footsteps by working in the School City of Mishawaka (SCM), a school district in Northern Indiana, first as a program assistant and later as a special education teacher, the job title she holds today.
With nearly two decades of experience in special education, Bingaman knows all too well the ebb and flow of her career and the various technological advancements that aim to mitigate struggles within the Individualized Education Program (IEP).
“It
took less than five years for us to be dirt under their shoes again. If they came here and lived a week in our shoes, they would see how difficult it would be.
- CLARA BINGAMAN, Special Education teacher at School City of Mishawaka
Indiana’s most recent shift within the IEP program came in July 2025 — just ahead of the 2025-26 school year — when the state transitioned from using its legacy program, Indiana Individualized Education Plan (IIEP) — which had been the standard for roughly 12 years, according to information guides published as early as Aug. 2012 — to PowerSchool Special Programs (PS SP) as the primary online tracking system for all IEPs across the state.
PS SP’s swift and sudden launch has left special educators like Bingaman reminiscing about IIEP.
“What was nice about [IIEP’s] rollout was we had almost a year of transition time,” Bingaman said.
However, the transition period from IIEP to PS SP during the summer months was far less forgiving. Instead, Bingaman recalled it being “cut and dry.”
“July 2025 is too late of a rollout…when the new school year’s starting [in] Indiana. [State officials] did us dirty,” she said. “It’s still a learning process, because [PS SP] is so new, and I think they did a disservice by rolling this out without everything being ready.”
Her frustrations were echoed by Samantha “Sam” Ivy, a special education teacher at Muncie Central High School, who said her biggest qualm with the PS SP was its lack of stored information, a stark difference from IIEP.
“When you go to look up one of your students that’s on your caseload, there is nothing there. Their name is there…but their IEP did not transfer into this new system,” she said.
Ivy and Bingaman agree that the lack of transferred information has wasted hours of their time — time they could have been spending getting to know the very students whose IEPs they had to essentially rewrite at the start of the academic year.
“It’s like you’re putting in brand new IEPs into this new system. So, I mean, you can pull up [a student’s] old IEP file, but then you have to completely type in everything into this new system — which has been a hot mess,” Ivy said.
The drop-down boxes offered through the system are “helpful but confusing,” she said, as not every kid’s diagnosis or circumstance fits neatly into the provided answer choices.
According to a Jan. 27 newsletter from the
Teachers across Indiana face challenges with the state’s new IEP tracking system.
Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), “This new platform has been designed with feedback from schools to ensure its efficiency and effectiveness.”
While tests of the platform reportedly earned high marks, Ivy said she is not entirely convinced the web program was thoroughly tested, calling the faults of the online system “mindblowing” and attesting to the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Indiana teachers are not the only ones frustrated with PS SP’s rollout. Public opinion has proven dissatisfactory even among state administrators like Jenny Smithson, Muncie Community School’s director of special education.
“Any new system will take more time until you learn it, but, I do admit, PS SP was a rough start…I don’t find it as user-friendly as the old system… I’m pretty tech savvy, and it has taken me several weeks to get comfortable using it,” Smithson said via email.
As the 2025-26 school year continues, Smithson said she is working hard to ease the difficulties posed by the new online system and “ensure that teachers have all of the resources they need to meet the requirements of each student’s IEP,” but said she worries about the parents who are not as “tech savvy” as her, a concern shared by Bingaman and Ivy.
Smithson reciprocated appreciation for the teachers in her district.
“I’m so proud of my staff at MCS for working together and supporting one another in learning PS SP this fall. Teachers are so resilient and resourceful, and MCS has some of the best,” she said.
All three women only wished for a similar sense of unity, flexibility and understanding to come from city officials working in IDOE directly.
“I wish they understood the amount of work, decision-making, care and love that teachers pour into students, but yet, we are treated as if we are asking for too much,” Bingaman said.
She also noted that educators across the country are treated vastly differently by policymakers now than they were during the pandemic, a time when teachers were unanimously dubbed “the saviors of education.”
“It took less than five years for us to be dirt under their shoes again. If they came here and lived a week in our shoes, they would see how difficult it would be…We are educating your future caretakers here, but yet we are treated like garbage — and that’s sad,” Bingaman said.
Contact Katherine Hill via email at katherine. hill@bsu.edu. by
“I have to assume that a parent has an email address that’s working, and that they’re going to get this notice, and hopefully they’re going to be able to digitally sign it by the time a meeting comes up,” Ivy said. “And, some of these kids don’t even have internet…It’s just all extra stuff.”
However, as painstaking as the new online system may have been
underscored the statewide level issue, not a district-
However, as painstaking as the new online system may have been initially, both Bingaman and Ivy underscored the statewide issue as just that — a statelevel issue, not a districtlevel one.
unanimously praising the outpour of support they
continue to be uncoiled as
The teachers, each unanimously praising the outpour of support they have received from their districts and upper-level colleagues like Smithson in recent months, said they had hoped the system’s kinks would continue to be uncoiled as they moved along.
ISABELLA KEMPER, DN RAQUEL RUFFIN, DN PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
ISABELLA KEMPER, DN RAQUEL RUFFIN, DN PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
‘Light at the end of the tunnel’
Former Ball State tight end Zane Fakes spent the past 20 years in football.
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Indianapolis Colts, Zane Fakes, talks about his life in football and time at Ball State.
Kyle Stout Sports Editor
From a high school running back in Plainfield to a tight end at Ball State and now, in the Indianapolis Colts’ weight room, Zane Fakes has spent his entire life chasing his passion without ever leaving Indiana.
Fakes is the assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Indianapolis Colts, a team that stands at an overall record of 7-2 — tied for the best record in the NFL. But his journey began right here in Indiana at Ball State, where he learned over time that he was called to help train players.
Reflecting on his journey, Fakes emphasized how blessed he is to be in his current position. He has been able to stay in his home, and turned an ACL tear into an opportunity to grow and develop as a player and a person.
“[Attending Ball State] was honestly one of the best decisions I could have made,” he said.
His early days
From a very young age, Fakes has always been around sports. Both of his parents were gym teachers growing up, and he said it gave him exposure to just
about every sport you could think of.
He was involved in almost every sport that Plainfield offered, playing basketball, football, baseball, wrestling, soccer, and track in middle school, and really found his love for basketball and football in his early high school years.
Fakes said that by his junior year of high school, he realized that football was his favorite sport, and it was the one in which he was getting recruited the most.
He officially started his football career as a running back at Plainfield High School for two seasons under former head coach Brian Woodard. It was there that Woodard started giving Fakes experience catching footballs to eventually transition to tight end at Ball State.
Fakes said that under Woodard, a big lesson he learned early in his football career was the importance of hard work.
Although Fakes developed the hard work mentality that Woodard instilled into him in high school, Woodard said that it was something that he saw Fakes progressing with over time, even after graduating from Plainfield.
Woodard coached Fakes and his brother, Tyron, since middle school, and he said that it has been
Zane Fakes, the assistant strength and conditioning coach trains at the Colts practice facility April 2024 in Indianapolis. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS, PHOTO PROVIDED
Zane Fakes assists in the weight room April 2022 at the Colts practice facility. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS, PHOTO PROVIDED
cool to watch Fakes’ growth through the years.
“That’s the cool thing about Zane to me that I will always remember is how much growth he developed over the time he was a little sixth grader to the time he graduated and then went on to Ball State,” Woodard said.
He said it is very humbling to know that former players from as many as ten years ago still recognize him as an influential part of his journey.
“In the moment you don’t recognize that you’re having this impact, but guys like Zane come back and say ‘Thanks, Coach, I really appreciate everything you did for me,’” Woodard said. “It definitely makes an old coach feel good and makes it feel like a lot of those long hours and long nights were worthwhile.”
Woodard described Fakes as one of the most talented players that he has coached, but when the playing field was even more level once Fakes was at Ball State, he said that is where he really saw the growth take effect.
“Ball State gave me an opportunity to play Division I football, which was my dream since I started playing,” Fakes said. “I’ll never let that go underappreciated.”
His time in Muncie
From the time that he set foot on campus in Muncie, Fakes fit in immediately with the Cardinals’ offense. He started nine games in his freshman season and also scored his first career touchdown that year.
Fakes’ sophomore season in 2010 was a year where he was poised to break out, but a right knee injury resulting in an ACL tear just four games into the season sidelined him for the rest of the year. Fakes said that after the injury, some days during his sophomore season were hard — but the hardships taught him a lesson.
“I think the toughest part [of the injury] is just going through the process without knowing that the end is going to be okay,” Fakes said. “But just every day making those small deposits towards your goal, but you never really know that it’s going to work out. You just have to trust that it is.”
An ACL tear is one of the most complex injuries for a player to come back from in sports, and it usually takes a player six-nine months to recover from it, according to the Cleveland Clinic. There are constant examples and reminders in sports of the severity of the injury, but Fakes used his sidelined sophomore season as a building block for the next couple of seasons.
Woodard said he saw growth in Fakes when he tore his ACL. He said that he was really able to see Fakes “cash in on some of that hard work.”
“When he hurt his knee at Ball State, [it] wound up being one of the best things for him,” Woodard said. “He went to work in the weight room, and he put himself in a better position to compete.”
Two years after the injury, Fakes had a career year for the Cardinals, recording 461 receiving yards along with five touchdowns. It seemed as if Fakes used the mentally challenging year for him as a time to grow, and he has still seen that year in college affect him today.
Now as the strength and conditioning coach for Indianapolis, Fakes is constantly dealing with players who go through similar injuries, and he said his
That’s the cool thing about Zane to me that I will always remember is how much growth he developed over the time he was a little sixth grader to the time he graduated and then went on to Ball State.”
- BRIAN WOODARD, former coach
experience recovering from a torn ACL has shown him how to get through the process and help others.
“You’ll have good days, bad days, but just know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
During his tenure at Ball State, Fakes said Joey Lynch, his tight end coach, and David Feeley, Ball State’s director of football strength and conditioning from 2011-2015, were very influential in helping him get to where he is now.
Before getting into strength and conditioning on the coaching side, Fakes had an idea of what he wanted to do after college: open a private sports performance gym and train athletes outside of organized sports. But after Feeley came into the picture, he said his mindset changed entirely.
“I saw how much you can help people through the weight room,” Fakes said. “[It was] just shifting my mind to wanting to be in a team setting versus individual.”
Tight end Zane Fakes played for Ball State from 2009 to 2013. BALL STATE ATHLETICS, PHOTO PROVIDED
Tight end Zane Fakes played for Ball State from 2009 to 2013. BALL STATE ATHLETICS, PHOTO PROVIDED
Fakes returned to Ball State after graduating, where he served as a strength and conditioning graduate assistant (GA) from 2015 to 2017. Because Ball State did not have the same amount of money as bigger schools at the time, Fakes said the experience he gained as a graduate assistant prepared him well for the future.
“When I was a GA, it was just me and the then director of strength and conditioning for football. We both had to do intern responsibilit[ies], and then we both had to do the director responsibilities,” Fakes said. “I was very fortunate to get a lot of experience doing a lot of different things [to] know how to operate in that position.”
After he finished as a graduate assistant at Ball State, Fakes joined the Colts in 2018 as a strength and conditioning intern and was hired a year later as the assistant strength and conditioning coach, the same role he currently holds.
Fakes has been part of two Indianapolis Colts teams that made the postseason. However, he said that while winning is fun, he will never take the relational aspect of the job for granted.
“It’s very fun to win, but I would say, the relationships that you get to [make] and all the different people that you get to meet just by virtue of being around the NFL,” Fakes said. “You get to meet a lot of very cool people that otherwise I would have never gotten the chance to.”
Throughout his journey, Fakes has always pointed back to one thing: hard work. The concept
of hard work is something that he learned early on at Plainfield, and something that was bolstered at Ball State.
With his entire life being centered around athletics, becoming a strength and conditioning coach was a dream come true for Fakes.
“I couldn’t see myself being able to sit behind a desk and do office stuff all day,” Fakes said. “My whole life has been an active lifestyle, and so just being able to do [this work] was huge, and now that I’ve been doing it for a while, I couldn’t see myself at this point doing anything else.”
Fakes said that working in his field of passion makes it easier to come to work every day because it does not feel like work. Despite his love for his job at the NFL level and his passion for making work feel more fun sometimes, he said there are still days when it is difficult.
Even on tough days at work, when everyone may be dragging or he is a little upset about something, he often reflects on what he gets to do and asks himself, “What would you rather be doing?”
“If you could pick any job in the world, Zane, what would you do? And like, this is it,” Fakes said. “This is what [I have] always asked for, so [I] don’t take it for granted because it can be taken away from you pretty quickly.”
Contact Kyle Stout with questions via email @ kyle.stout@bsu.edu or on X @kylestoutdailyn.
Zane Fakes poses for a photo with Brian Woodard and Woodard’s son Blake Woodard wears Zane’s old youth jersey after at the north south all-star game July 2009.
BRIAN WOODARD, PHOTO PROVIDED
Zane Fakes assists Kenny Moore in the weight room September 2022 at the Colts practice facility.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS, PHOTO PROVIDED
BAYLEAF IN BLOOM
The newly-opened restaurant in The Village brings Indian cuisine to Muncie. 10
Jayden Vaughn Opinion Editor
A new restaurant has opened its doors to the Muncie community, bringing with it a new palate of Indian tastes, cuisine and culture. Walking into Bayleaf for the first time, customers are hit by a wave of new sensations: the smell of the turmeric, cumin and garam masala wafting from the dishes, the sound of the wait staff as they take orders and the soft-spoken chatter among customers enjoying their meal.
Prabhu Krishnan, owner of Bayleaf, opened the business alongside his colleague, Vijay Kumar. Krishnan’s dream of opening his own restaurant did not come overnight; it has been an aspiration of his since childhood.
During his eight to nine years of experience in the restaurant industry, Krishnan has worked his way up from service assistant to service manager and said that, during that time, not only did he improve his cooking skills, but he also learned the
inner workings of the culinary industry.
But it is not just a business — it is Krishnan’s passion.
As of Sept. 10, Bayleaf is one of the newest additions to The Village. However, Krishan said opening this business came with its fair share of challenges.
For example, the restaurant was initially scheduled to open in August 2025, but the opening was delayed due to difficulties obtaining approvals from the required departments: fire, sanitation and health.
“There is some protocol they need to maintain for any kind of food industry,” Krishnan said. “And they will not compromise for any kind of errors. Everything should be 100 percent.”
Once their approval from the fire department was finalized, the grand opening was in sight.
Krishnan took it upon himself to introduce a raffle for customers who showed up to support Bayleaf on its first official day in business. For the raffle, he collected the names, phone numbers and email addresses of over 100 customers and even asked
another customer to draw the winners.
Those winners received a personal phone call from Krishnan, along with a Walmart gift card to use wherever they wanted. As far as good impressions go, Krishnan said he wanted to make a lasting one within the Muncie community.
Despite having lived in Fishers for 10 years before Bayleaf opened, Krishnan said he had never ventured to Muncie. However, that all changed when Kumar, Krishnan’s business partner, found an open space in The Village to lease and begin their joint restaurant.
Krishnan said Muncie was already their ideal location for Bayleaf — because of Ball State.
With thousands of students in attendance, Ball State meant Muncie would be a city guaranteed to have a lot of people of all ages. Ensuring the business was near campus was the only compromise that Krishnan and Kumar had to make.
“We always like any kind of business, but the younger generation — like students are playing a
vital role in any kind of business,” Krishnan said. “Whenever the new transition is happening, they are the ones that immediately grab the attention and they will give the support.”
With over 120 dishes, ranging from Krishnan’s personal favorite — chicken curry — to famous dishes such as naan bread, butter chicken and tikki masala, hundreds of customers have left Bayleaf with full stomachs and satisfied taste buds.
However, it is not only the quality of food that is important to Krishnan, but the overall experience for his customers.
“I kept my mind very strong that any one customer should not be disappointed in my restaurant,” Krishnan said. “So I should be more welcoming, address them with respect, treat them with quality and give them good quality food. At the same time, the prices should be within their budget.”
At the end of the day, Krishnan’s basic goal for the restaurant narrows down to one thing: that his customers leave just as happily — if not happier — than they arrived.
Bayleaf cook prepares naan for takeout order Oct. 16 in The Village. KYLE INGERMANN,DN
I do not know how I will tend to the community, but I will definitely respect them, and I will give my quality service, quality food and I will treat them the same way I treated them on day one — the same way I will treat them forever.
- PRABHU KRISHNAN, owner of Bayleaf
Jennifer Christman, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Ball State, said she and her colleagues had been waiting for the restaurant to open since they first saw the storefront signage. Since its opening, Christman said, Bayleaf made a lasting impression on her coworkers, her family and herself.
“I would definitely recommend it. Even though I think sometimes it is intimidating for individuals who are not regularly on campus to come onto campus for something — especially in this area — but I think it is definitely worth venturing out to campus for,” Christman said.
Christman’s daughter, Alex Christman, heard about the restaurant from her mother and has attended several times. She said she has also told her friends about Bayleaf and has encouraged them to visit The Village to try their array of delicious food.
Even though Bayleaf is new to the Muncie culinary scene, Krishnan has big dreams for the future of this business. Aside from his hope of
Bayleaf blossoming into a successful and thriving restaurant, Krishnan hopes to one day expand and open up more restaurants, which might differ in name and cuisine.
But for now, Krishnan said he is more than happy with the attention that Bayleaf is getting — and is more than grateful for the love and appreciation that the Muncie community has given him. Whether that be customers posting about the restaurant on social media or writing articles to promote it, the love for this cuisine has not stopped.
“I do not know how I will tend to the community,” Krishnan said, “but I will definitely respect them, and I will give my quality service, quality food and I will treat them the same way I treated them on day one — the same way I will treat them forever.”
Contact Jayden Vaughn via email at jayden. vaughn@bsu.edu.
Bayleaf cook prepares a takeout order for a customer Oct. 16 in The Village.
KYLE INGERMANN, DN
JESSICA BERGFORS, DN ILLUSTRATION THIS DESIGN WAS CREATED USING ASSETS
Female artists continue to hold a discussion about female sexuality within their music.
Kyler Effner is a first-year journalism and psychological science major and writes “Just an Inkling” for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper.
It is 2014, the age of the “Frozen” soundtrack playing on repeat, ripped jeans that are three seconds from falling off a spray-tanned thigh and the arrival of everyone’s favorite dance jam, “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift. It is also the beginning of Sabrina Carpenter’s road to fame — when she played Maya Hart in Disney’s hit show “Girl Meets World.”
While Carpenter’s claim to fame was a Disney Channel series beloved by many, she has since veered from her kid-friendly persona. Now, the actress-turned-pop star makes music directed toward older audiences and has gained criticism for doing so.
Carpenter’s most recent album, “Man’s Best Friend,” garnered more than its fair share of both praise and criticism. The singer was critiqued by her fans for being too overtly sexual and even attempting to set back feminism by decades.
female sexuality in music today was at its height with Madonna in the 80s and 90s. To parallel Carpenter’s famed crawl across an album cover, Madonna was widely criticized for a Video Music Awards performance of “Like A Virgin,” in which she broke a heel and then proceeded to writhe and crawl around the stage in a wedding dress.
Madonna has long been an icon in pop music, especially for her expression of female sexuality, and has garnered just as much, if not more, criticism than presentday pop stars. A 2020 article published by Biography compiled a list of notable moments in which she has caused outrage among listeners, one of which included the release of her coffee table book, “Sex.”
The “Man’s Best Friend” debate reopened a conversation about women’s sexuality in music and has confronted many listeners with the idea that either these women are too progressive or society has decided to subscribe to a more conservative rhetoric.
One of the largest controversies Carpenter drew this year was with her initial “Man’s Best Friend” album cover, which shows her on her hands and knees, her hair being pulled by a man who cannot be seen. This particular use of imagery, while intended to poke fun at Carpenter’s self-destructive habits when in relationships, is a perfect example of society twisting a narrative against a woman who merely wishes to tell her story. The outrage that is directed towards
Not only was Britney Spears objectified while wearing a school uniform, but at the age of 17, during an interview with Dutch TV journalist Ivo Niehe, Niehe asked Spears about breast implants and began to use her breasts as a topic of conversation. Despite being fully clothed, the singer was still sexualized, leaving the assumption to be made that a woman — especially one within the public eye — will be sexualized with or without a “sexy” outfit.
These women have since embraced the ability to be sexually expressive, whether that be through their imagery or costume design. However, the main aspect of many female pop stars’ careers that has received backlash, especially this year, is their lyrics.
which was one of her first songs to have such blatant sexual connotations. Swift faced intense backlash from fans and haters over the semi-explicit lyrics.
Regardless of who the star is, the underlying message remains constant for each: women who are sexually expressive or sex positive are not easily accepted.
An article by Dazed Digital suggests that social media guidelines have led young people to create their own subcultures online, many of which benefit from a sex negativity narrative.
Madonna’s book featured her in different sexual positions, which Carpenter has mirrored with her infamous positions when she sings “Juno.” Carpenter’s perceived vulgarity in these moments has caused controversy among fans, even though Madonna had done something similar in years past.
Like Sabrina Carpenter and Madonna, Britney Spears has often become a victim of her own controversy due to the imagery she uses during her music videos and stage performances, including the schoolgirl uniform in the “Baby One More Time” music video.
What began as ruffled feathers over a schoolgirl skirt and its supposed sexual connotations has now catapulted itself into an inferno of outrage directed at women’s current concert fashion choices.
Artists such as Carpenter, Taylor Swift, and Cardi B have increasingly been wearing bodysuits to perform, sparking speculation over whether these outfits are meant to make performing more comfortable or to increase the performer’s sex appeal.
Sabrina Carpenter’s music career began to elevate when fans appreciated her dirty lyricism, which was originally featured in only one or two songs per album. The now 26-year-old has since increased her usage of puns, innuendos and double entendres, to many of her fans’ delight, but many are still in shock by the words leaving her mouth.
The latest song to be scrutinized for the young celebrity is the first track on her latest album, “Tears.” Lyrics like “I get wet at the thought of you / Being a responsible guy” have many clutching their ever-present pearls. Yet those critics miss the key part of the song in which Carpenter emphasizes that she just wants a man to be responsible and to care about her, making it a true critique of men’s behavior in modern dating situations.
While many of her lyrics poke fun at sexual situations and lean heavily on the support of a good innuendo, the intention is never as surface-level as the critics wish for it to be.
Perhaps that is the reason so many pop stars are getting heat for expressing their sexuality; however, Pew Research Center has a chart demonstrating that 46 percent of Americans lean more towards the right and support conservative values in 2025, which is up from five years ago.
This forces us to ask the question of whether or not the stars today are as absurdly sexual as we think they are, or if they are only continuing the legacy of musicians like Madonna and Britney Spears by carrying on a proverbial torch that encourages women to embrace sexual positivity.
It should be known that what the female performer is wearing should not affect whether or not she is perceived as a sexual being, as many female performers have it thrust upon them, regardless of the clothes they are wearing.
It is also important to take into consideration the age of all of the women who have been critiqued for expressing their sexuality through their music. All of them are fully grown adults with a more mature fanbase, yet their tendency to address topics relevant to them and their fans has led to pushback.
Taylor Swift was the most recent star to experience this with her song “Wood,”
In addition, if we have continued to support the stars of the past long after the height of their careers — the ones that made others uncomfortable and thought outside the traditional boxes — why now are we putting down the other women who are doing the same?
Over the years, society has frowned upon women acknowledging their sexuality in a public space, a concept that these celebrities have tried to challenge through their physicality, imagery and lyricism. Maybe it is time for us to step back and let them create a space for discussions like this.
After all, the point of music is expression, telling a story and communicating mutual struggles so that others can connect through your art. So, let’s let women express themselves, even when we might not like what they have to say — or in this case, sing.
Contact Kyler Effner via email at kyler. effner@bsu.edu.
Columnist, “Just an Inkling”
Kyler Effner
Crossword and Sudoku
57 Beers like Smooth Hoperator, briefly 61 Satirist’s gift
Close call in a race, or what the answer to each starred clue has
Unspecified degree
Jaguar competitor
Inspirational word or phrase
Reluctant to socialize
Simply be
To be, en español
*Challenge for an antsy toddler
Revise, as text
Poet’s “by way of”
Jaguar competitor
*Problematic backward pass in football
Fix, at the vet
One measurement of a rectangle
Owie
*Spotted pattern on faux fur, say
Marketing dept. employee
[facepalm]
27 Spanish painter Francisco
28 “Welcome Back, Kotter” actor Kaplan
29 Stone of “Poor Things”
30 Interesting enough for the front page, say
33 Hybrid grad program for physicianscientists
34 Loose __ goose
36 Start over
37 Dunk Club cookie
40 Subj. for Neil deGrasse Tyson
1 Off the beaten __ 2 Length x 48-Across, for a rectangle
Patio cookouts, casually
“Grub’s up!” 5 Prefix with -athlon
6 Terse turndown
7 Soccer star Lionel
8 “Oh, come on!”
9 GI show gp.
10 Give an exam again
11 Spot to order bangers and mash
12 Train that makes lots of stops
13 Spin, as a baton
18 With fewer calories, on a label
23 “Pronto!”
25 Film buff’s online resource
26 Doofus
41 Low-level worker
44 “Eek!”
47 Big name in pizza snacks
49 Make a pattern using light and shade
50 Punch, slangily
51 Mower targets
52 “The Buccaneers” writer Wharton
53 Exec. branch head
54 Hen’s perch
58 Cherry centers
59 Sparkling Italian wine
60 Croc, e.g.
63 Malicious spell
64 __Clean: stain remover
65 Texter’s “I’d say”
