Controlled by the female in front (7)
I believe the answer is:
leashed
'controlled by' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with contact as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'female in front' is the wordplay.
'female' becomes 'she' ('she' refers to a woman).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'front' becomes 'lead' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'she' placed within 'lead' is 'LEASHED'.
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for leashed that I've seen is " restricted".)