On this date in 1992, Madonna released her infamous ‘Sex’ book to cacophonous commotion, bank-busting sales, and critical disdain. I loved every part of it, from the messy spiral-bound metal cover to the pop-art design. While my love for Madonna has always been about the music, I appreciated the artful envelope-pushing she was doing, even if I was personally more into dick than pussy. For that reason, I may have appreciated the book as a work of art rather than some pornographic foray into getting off. (At $50 a pop surely there were cheaper ways to blow your wad, at least in 1992, no?)
Getting the book was one of my favorite high school memories, thanks to Ann and her Mom, and it’s more fully recounted here. Better yet was the lasting effect the book had on me, inspiring my own creative endeavors and releasing any Catholic inhibitions that clung to my own sexual awakening. Madonna made it ok to explore. More thrillingly, she showed me what it was like to inhabit different characters without losing your own singular identity. It was a mechanism of coping, a stance of power, a way of escape. Trickster-like she slithered through various guises as a snake sheds skins, and Dita Parlo was one of her most entrancing alter-egos. She was also one of her most controversial ~ gold-teeth, black mask and whip included. She wielded her sexuality like a weapon, her body an armed vessel that was ready to entice and enrapture as she saw fit, and she took total command and control over whatever pose or position she assumed. It was a powerful image for a young gay guy to witness – and my affinity with strong females was cast as indelibly as the word ‘SEX’ on that metallic cover.
The accompanying ‘Erotica’ album was a treasure trove of aural delights and sonic orgasms, from the dirty grittiness of the title track to the existential wanderings of final song ‘Secret Garden’. Everything that came between was pretty hot too; see the full track-listing below:
- Erotica
- Fever
- Bye Bye Baby
- Deeper and Deeper
- Where Life Begins
- Bad Girl
- Waiting
- Thief of Hearts
- Words
- Rain
- Why’s It So Hard
- In This Life
- Did You Do It?
- Secret Garden
That time in my life was fraught with adolescent trauma, suicidal tendencies, and the general uneasiness found at the end of October. It was the time of the year when rainstorms would rip whatever leaves remained on the trees, stripping them naked in the night and leaving them bare for the brutal cold of the morning. Erotica ran hot and cold like that – an overheated orgiastic frenzy of physical connection one moment, a frigid, distant, lonely, terrifying isolation the next.
