Last weekend, during the Short n’ Sweet tour’s stint in Paris, Sabrina Carpenter did what Sabrina Carpenter does best—surprise and delight us all with another cheeky “Juno” sex position onstage.…or surprise and delight most of us, that is. Perhaps inevitably, Sabrina’s impeccably on-brand pick for a night in Paris, the Eiffel Tower (get it?), seems to have ruffled more feathers than usual in certain corners of the internet (while garnering applause and adoration pretty much everywhere else, obvs).
Of course, you’ll always have your usual batch of critics who are determined to stay scandalized every time Sabrina Carpenter does a campy sex thing—which is, you know, all the time. Remember back in November when entire minds were lost because she mimed a blow job onstage in L.A.? Same story, different font. The twist being that this time, in addition to the standard sex-shaming that follows the star’s iconic embrace of her sexuality no matter what she does, critics seem especially perturbed by the (perceived) nature of the Eiffel Tower position in particular, with tweets slamming it as “dehumanizing,” “inherently degrading,” and/or otherwise problematically centered on cis-male pleasure supposedly at the expense of women. All of which is what I might call…wow, kind of a lot!
In my humble sex editor opinion, much of this backlash seems to be rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Eiffel Tower sex position really is, who it’s for, and the fact that the ways in which women choose to engage with their own sexuality are not beholden to dated heteropatriarchal scripts that paint sex as something that is given to men and taken from women. So let’s all take a moment to brush up on this classic threesome position and what it does (and does not!) mean for female sexuality, shall we?
What Is the Eiffel Tower Sex Position?
The Eiffel Tower is a threesome sex position in which Partner 1 performs oral sex on Partner 2, while Partner 3 penetrates Partner 1 from behind. In the most classic construction, Partner 1 is on all fours in between Partners 2 and 3, who then high-five and/or clasp their hands together above Partner 1 to create that iconic Eiffel Tower peak. For Partner 1, this experience is also colloquially known as getting “spit-roasted” because—well, you get it.
The position is infamously (and stereotypically) associated with MFM threesomes—aka threesomes in which two men have sex with one woman but do not interact sexually with each other—hence its reputation as a bro-y, male-gazey sex act centered on cis-het male pleasure. In reality, however, an Eiffel Tower situation can happen in any threesome dynamic among people of any and all genders.
While the most heteronormative version features a woman as the penetrated partner in between two men, anyone of any gender can be in any position with a little creativity. Non-penis-having penetrative partners may use toys or wear strap-ons—although, as sexologist Lilith Foxx previously told Cosmo, penetration is not actually required to pull off an Eiffel Tower: “Partners can engage in all oral or manual stimulation (or some combination of it all) and can incorporate toys, BDSM, and kink.”
So despite the position’s bad rap as a porn-brained frat bro’s wet dream, the Eiffel Tower is actually an inclusive sex position with tons of variations that make it accessible for horny group sex enthusiasts of all kinds. Downright wholesome, if you ask me!
Why Are People Mad About the Sabrina Eiffel Tower?
As I mentioned, much of the backlash against the Sabrina tower seems to stem from the misguided stereotype that the Eiffel Tower is a sex position that exclusively benefits men at the expense/degradation of the woman involved. Critics of Sabrina’s (fully clothed, completely PG, btw) nod to the act appear to see the Eiffel Tower as an embodiment of female subjugation for the sake of male pleasure.
However, as many counterpoints to the criticism have noted, this reading not only ignores the gender diversity any given Eiffel Tower can contain but also hinges on a view of female sexuality as something that lacks agency and can only be exploited by men, never actively engaged with in a consensual, enthusiastic manner on a woman’s own terms.
As sex educator Leanne Yau, creator of the Polyphilia blog, put it in a recent tweet, “A lot of the Sabrina Carpenter Eiffel Tower discourse is just the same tired sex-negative arguments based on the idea that sex can never be something women enjoy but something that happens to them which alters their worth as a person.”
While, yes, female sexuality certainly can be (and too often is) exploited, condemning a pop star’s tongue-in-cheek display of a sex position as inherently demeaning only serves to reinforce the misogynistic, patriarchal attitudes toward women and sex that enable that exploitation in the first place.
Which is a long way of saying, why don’t we all just let Sabrina Carpenter Eiffel Tower in peace?
