Madonna and sexuality

Madonna on stage during The Celebration Tour in 2023

American singer-songwriter Madonna has been considered a sexual icon. Many have considered Madonna's sexuality as one of the focal points of her career. The Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) even credited her image as a sex symbol as a source of her international stardom. Her sexual displays have drawn numerous analyses by scholars, sexologists, feminists, and other authors. Due to her constant usage of explicit sexual content, she faced censorship for her videos, stage performances and other projects.

The criticism of Madonna's overt sexuality would become a constant through her career. She decried a double-standard in some opportunities, for which commentators such as Lilly J. Goren, Alina Simone and David Gauntlett have supported some of her statements. She further polarized views about overtly sexuality in an aged woman in media. During the AIDS crisis, Madonna had also promoted safe sex as a means of inhibiting the spread of the virus, and she has advocated for women's sexuality.

Reviews transcended her own career, as her impact in the entertainment industry was documented by different publications and authors. Depending on the reviewer's point of view, she is credited to reinforce or open up a variety of things in mass media culture, both positive and negative. American historian Lilly J. Goren commented that Madonna perpetuated the public perception of women performers as feminine and sexual objects, but also found that industry exploited her concepts of using sexuality to "gain power" (empowerment) and sell more records. An editor defined that "her sexuality never rested on the idea of being attractive", while in 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music (2009), author pointed out that performers like Madonna used "their sexuality as a weapon to gain equal footing the male-dominated rock world". Her influence on others was also quoted; the earliest reviewers noted an influence on her fandom, including the LGBT community and young female audiences, called Madonna wannabes. Another group explored her influence on other female artists, with feminist scholars Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender describing her dominant influence by saying "she created an illusion of sexual availability that many female pop artists felt compelled to emulate".

Due to her mainstream sexual-brand, she was called variously. Named by an author in the mid-1990s as the "most arcane and sexually perverse female of the twentieth century", she was further negative called a Medusa, a succubus and a Whore of Babylon. She was both praised and criticized by some industry fellows, including Steve Allen and Morrissey, who both compared her to a prostitute. Both her impact and sex appeal were recognized in listicles, topping the lists of Toronto Sun's 50 Greatest Sex Symbols in history (2006) and VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists (2002).

Critical development

Madonna on stage in her 2012 MDNA Tour

Madonna has been referred to as a sexual icon or sex symbol; media outlets such as American Masters, suggest that the singer continued to be a sexual icon as "she's gotten older". The Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) credited her image as a sex symbol as a source of her international stardom. In 2011, author Glenn Ward said that it was "often been implied" that Madonna's status was produced in part from the way she willfully deployed images of sexuality.

Her status as a sex symbol was compared to others contemporary and earlier entertainers. Although Sara Mills cites a commentator saying in early 1990s, that "write off Madonna as 'just another sex symbol' is to fail to understand her massive appeal". In The Thirty Years' Wars (1996), Andrew Kopkind regarded Madonna as "the premier sex symbol of the decade" (1990s). Author Stuart Jeffries in Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern (2021), deemed Madonna as the leading sex symbol of the postmodern era, and a different one from Marilyn Monroe, who he defined as the leading sex symbol of the modern era. Similarly, Dylan Jones felt and referred to her as "the most famous sex symbol since Marilyn Monroe".

Press and public

In Record Collecting for Girls (2011), Courtney Smith documented that most people associate Madonna with sex. Vulture's Meaghan Garvey summarized at least in her first 20 years of career, "no one talked about Madonna without talking about sex". By the late 1980s, physicist Stephen Hawking even name-checked the singer by joking: "I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex". That perception was stronger in the 1990s; Mark Bego reflected "since her arrival on the scene ten years ago, Madonna has become so synonymous with sex (and publicity) that it may be hard to remember that she started as a musical phenomenon." The 1996 edition of the Hutchinson Encyclopedia even referred to her as a "U.S. pop singer and actress who presents herself on stage and in videos with an exaggerated sexuality". In 2000, Brian McCollum from Knight Ridder made a comparative in AlltheWeb's results using the phrases "Madonna and music" which garnered 235,000 hits and "Madonna and sex" landing more than 333,000 results.

Her sexuality also became a tabloid-fixture at some stage; in Profiles of Female Genius (1994), author Gene Landrum describes that Madonna's libidinal energy and sexuality become in her major attraction for the media and "it has become the focal point for her whole career". Madonna herself noted the "bad press" about her sexuality as early as 1985. Historian Andrea Stuart cited a tabloid headline where Madonna was called a "man-eater" and how "she used sex to climb to the top". Author Adam Sexton called some press pieces as a "creepy moralism" decrying that "reading articles about Madonna, you could get the idea that it was the habit of pop journalists to marry the first person they slept with". In the compendium The Madonna Connection (1993), scholars even wrote that "it is no surprise, then that rumors of Madonna testing HIV-positive have been incredibly persistent". They wrote that certain segments of our culture find comfort in identifying her as a carrier of the AIDS virus—a disease perceived by some as a punishment for immoral behavior— and making Madonna HIV-positive establishes her moral guilt and provides for her ultimate containment by death.

Scholarly

See also: Madonna studies and List of academic publishing works on Madonna

The Madonna studies saw a framework of its developments in theories about sexuality, although Rosemary Pringle from Griffith University, wrote in Transitions: New Australian feminisms (2020), that "there has been much controversy in the academy about the cultural and sexual politics of Madonna". Her notoriety, was commented on by Chuck Klosterman in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs (2004): "Whenever I hear intellectuals talk about sexual icons of the present day, the name mentioned most is Madonna".

Citing Steven Anderson's views on Madonna in 1989, qualifying her as "a repository of all our ideas" on topics such as sex, Deborah Jermyn in Female Celebrity and Ageing (2016) wrote Madonna still functions as a repository of all of these ideas, except now she plays with these in an aging body. In 2018, sexologist Ana Fernández Alonso from Miguel de Cervantes European University, taught in a Madonna's class in the University of Oviedo that she is an "important" icon for women and for the way of understanding human sexuality in general, and sexual relations in particular.

Madonna's sexuality advocacy

Madonna recruited people from the gay porn industry such as Joey Stefano and Chi Chi LaRue (pictured) to appear in various of her works.

Madonna had promoted safe sex awareness in the 1980s and 1990s during the AIDS crisis as a means of inhibiting the spread of the virus, and continued to do the same in the next years, as reported Jason Mattera. In Madonna as Postmodern Myth (2002), French scholar Georges-Claude Guilbert concurred saying she often reminds her public during interviews and concerts to use condoms. Frances Negrón-Muntaner, commented in Boricua Pop (2004), she used her concerts to promote safe sex as a "remember the dead, and affirm the living". Editors of History+ for Edexcel A Level (2015), summed up that "she talked a great deal about sex, promoted safe sex in her interviews, distributed condoms at her concerts and performed at AIDS benefits". Upon the publication of her first book, Sex (1992), Madonna stated that if people "could talk about [sex] freely, we would have more people practicing safe sex, we wouldn't have people sexually abusing each other".

Madonna donated a percentage of "Papa Don't Preach" (1986) profits to programs advocating sexual responsibility, although it was Planned Parenthood of New York that initially requested it. In a 1988 advertisement for schoolkids, Madonna told "avoid casual sex and you'll avoid AIDS" and "stay away from people who shoot drugs". In the early 1990s, Sire Records had a 900 hotline (900-990-SIRE) that featured a safe-sex message from Madonna. During this decade, she also mentioned about unsafe sex: "I'm not going to sit here and say that from the time I found out about AIDS, I've always had intercourse with a man with a condom on". American professor and critic, Louis Menand called her "a leading spokesperson for safe sex" in his book American Studies (2003). In 2015, sexologist Ana Fernández Alonso deemed Madonna as a "sexologist" herself due her to body of work or public statements.

Madonna's sexual identity

Madonna uses perceptions of sexual fluidity as part of her stage personas.

Scope

In 1991, New Internationalist regarded Madonna as a "hotly debated sexual icon". Deborah Bell from University of North Carolina, wrote in Masquerade (2015), that "much has been written about Madonna and sexual identity". British media sociologist, David Gauntlett asserts Madonna's image as a sexual free spirit has been "emphatically defined".

Aware of other precursors, by 2002, Australian professor Jeff Lewis commented "more than any other single female figure, [she] has self-consciously 'explored' and displayed women's sexuality". Scholar of sexuality studies John Paul De Cecco and Grant Lukenbill, considered she was "one of the first major performers to blanket America with sexual code-code used specifically to appeal to the entire panorama of sexual expression". In Madonna, Bawdy & Soul (1997), Canadian scholar Karlene Faith noted her far-reaching audience saying she "has inscribed her sexual identities on the psyches of millions of children, adolescents, and adults in dozens of nations, on half a dozen continents". Professor Santiago Fouz-Hernandez wrote in Madonna's Drowned Worlds (2004) that she symbolized "sexual liberation" for women in many cultures. On the other hand, Donald C. Miller, in Coming of Age in Popular Culture (2018), described that she consistently intertwined sexuality with religion, feeling it was something that set her apart from earlier female performers.

Madonna's usage of sexuality

In various Madonna's representations, men were the sex objects.

Shortly after her debut, Madonna's sexuality offered a challenge view to definitions of femininity and masculinity, according to author John Price. He continued saying that Madonna was a leading female figure who represented to many young women across the world, an "empowering figure" in control of her own body. American philosopher Susan Bordo, explains that the singer demonstrated her wannabes, the possibility of a female heterosexuality that was independent of patriarchal control. Meaghan Garven from Vulture magazine explained "her sexuality never rested on the idea of being attractive".

Different reviewers and academics in popular culture, further emphasized this stage of her career, with Gauntlett arguing that her sexual assertiveness "has been one of the most distinctive elements of her life and work". In Girl Heroes (2002), Susan Hopkins held she didn't only sell sexuality, but power, or rather "sexuality as power". Similarly, Camille Paglia described her "sexual persona" as "her power", while academic Marcel Danesi made also a remark on it. In 100 Entertainers Who Changed America (2013), Robert Sickels believes that in her 1980s-works, Madonna portrayed herself as the "modern woman": Comfortable in and gratified by her own sexuality, but still a powerful female. She took the idea further in her next decade, Sickels says. In Contesting Feminist Orthodoxies (1996), authors explained that the singer not only represented herself as a sexual subject/object, but expressly proposed sexuality as a praxis of and towards artistic freedom, women's liberation, and indeed, gay liberation. Psychiatrist and author Jule Eisenbud commented that she reached a level "equivalent to masculinity" and "has allowed her to maintain her status as a sex symbol". Psychologist Jonathan Young, expressed: [...] through sexually muscular scenarios of female domination, Madonna turns feminine sexuality as it is conventionally defined inside out: she reveals the hidden fantasy within women's [...]".

The way she deployed her sexuality while aging continued to draw commentaries. Hopkins commented that she was "ageing before the world [...] but she keeps presenting herself as a kind of 'sexual revolutionary'". In 2008, Blender's editor-in-chief, Joe Levy commented about her entrance into the middle age, that "she is trying to go somewhere no one has gone before" with the possible exception of Cher. In 2018, music scholar Freya Jarman at the University of Liverpool felt Madonna was "demonstrating a new kind of relevance". In 2024, Eric Cabahug from The Post, says that her sexuality deployment shifted to against of "the ageist machine".

Evaluations and criticisms

Madonna is "... ultimately the epitome of women's sexuality ... at best ambiguous in the end"

—Lisa Henderson from Pennsylvania State University (c. 1993).

Madonna has been often criticized due her deployment of sexuality, by different spheres, including academics and mainstream media. In early 1990s, Pennsylvania State University's Lisa Henderson elaborated that it became one of the reasons why some segments of society hate the singer, for challenging the sexual status quo. Media scholars Charlotte Brunsdon and Lynn Spigel, explained that she "inverted" or at least "challenged", America's notions of sex, gender and power exploring taboos. Essayist Hal Crowther described: "I think of Madonna as Roboslut, an alien programmed to conquer the earth by attacking our reproductive psychology".

She received attention of groupings like feminists. Some defined her sexuality as antifeminism, while different third-wave feminists who emerged in the 1990s, embraced Madonna as a symbol of female sexuality. Commenting about her divisive feminist reception, researcher Brian McNair held that "pro and anti-porn feminist made of her a symbol of all that was good or bad (depending on their viewpoint)". Notable supporters included Paglia, whom decried Madonna's feminist critics at some stage by saying "the simplistic feminism of those 'hangdog dowdies and parochial prudes' that critici[z]e Madonna's brash sexual image is inadequate to explain the impact of this pop icon on million of woman and girls.

Madonna in 2012 during the MDNA Tour. While she drew praise, others have criticized her exhibitionism during her entire career, intensified while aging.

During the height of her popularity, reactions and reception amid the youth culture, especially from young females were also addressed. Author Roy Shuker describes that her "transgressions of sexuality" was perhaps viewed as "extremely disturbing", but as a source of much "pleasure" for a portion of her fandom. Similarly, James Naremore reported in the 1990s, that adolescent girls construct relevance between Madonna's sexuality and their own conditions of existence. English musicologist Sheila Whiteley observed a substantial portion of positive reactions, citing that she was viewed by others as "acting responsibly" in bringing sex to the fore, so forcing the media, schools and parents alike to confront the "inconsistencies inherent" in the public attitude towards female sexuality. Providing a retrospective, Stephanie Rosenbloom from The New York Times explains: "Never had we seen someone so bold, so powerful, so sexually aggressive who was not a man". Mixing audience reaction with his owns, Daryl Deino from The New York Observer asserted retrospectively in 2017:

...Madonna has never presented herself as an object of men's sexual desires; she presents herself as the conductor of her own—something that has always bothered heterosexual men. The provocateur helped take something that males controlled for centuries and turned it on them. Because of Madonna, women are allowed to want to "get laid". This was something completely looked down upon just 25 years ago.

In the 1990s, by many her works "confirmed" and "intensified" her status as a sexually assertive and in-control woman. However, for others like biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli she sounded only like a lusty porn star no one could take seriously. Australian professor Graeme Turner said that Madonna can be seen as a figure who "exaggerates" (and therefore makes ridiculous) male expectations of female sexuality. In Grrrls (1996), Amy Raphael also criticized that "taking the concept further than any other female artist before her, Madonna sold herself almost exclusively in terms of her sexuality".

Aging

Madonna during the Celebration Tour in 2023

She further polarized views by using an open sexuality while aging, most notoriously when she entered into her 40s with a response by audience with commentaries like "desperate", "cringey" and "give it up", according to Grazia magazine. Scholar Deborah Jermyn argues that Madonna for new audiences and her experimentation with sexuality, suggests and has come to mean "nothing" if the trolling of Madonna's aging body is fundamentally misogynistic and gaining online followers by the thousands. Authors in Ageing Women in Literature and Visual Culture (2017) concludes that Madonna's refusal to retreat into silence in middle age and her repeated assertion of an overt sexuality are "demonized", especially in the context of a demonstration for women's equality. Writing for PinkNews in 2023, Marcus Wratten noted commentaries from British tabloid The Daily Mail, saying her "aggressive sexuality" is now "threatening to compromise" her "uncompromisable legacy". They called her for being "desperate".

Views on criticisms

[...] artists like Linda Ronstadt and Madonna used their sexuality as a weapon to gain equal footing in the male-dominated rock world.

—101 Albums That Changed Popular Music (Chris Smith, 2009).

The body of criticisms Madonna faced was also a subject of interpretations by others, albeit she was herself a challenge figure (deemed by some as radical). Some reviewers felt a double-standard in her industry. For instance, Gauntlett compared the sexuality deployment between male and female artists. On the point, he compared male artists such as Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger explaining they were called "sex gods" due their sexual display and appeal. But, in the context of Madonna and women, scholar further adds this role was "unexpected" and "challenging". In 1993, scholar E. Ann Kaplan compared how male pop stars from Presley to Michael Jackson and Prince "have gotten away exploring male sexuality", but a female icon like Madonna "creates disturbance". In Madonnaland (2016), Alina Simone wrote that the sexual double standard becomes clear, when compare Madonna to "famously libidinous" artists like Jim Morrison or Jagger. In 2016, Emily Ratajkowski uses Madonna and Jagger to compare sexism in the industry, because she receives commentaries such as "desperate" or "a hot mess" contrary to him. Since both are performers with similar artistic sexuality brands, she asked: "So why does Madonna get flak for it while Jagger is celebrated?". However, related to comparison of sexism, Melanie Sjoberg from Australian conservative outlet Green Left labeled an almost identical question as "the obvious feminist question".

American author Sharon Lechter described Madonna as a woman who was able to appreciate, value, and express her sexual energy. For Lechter, "sexual energy" can create "financial fuel for women as well as men". Pete Hamill commented that "she is the triumphant mistress of her medium: The sexual imagination". On the other hand, in 1990, Caryn James paid tribute to Madonna's "honesty about using sexuality to gain control and power". About an aged Madonna, at the 2021 International Conference on Human Aspects of Information, participants found as disgusting the criticism of the aging nature of sexuality. They took the Madonna's case, as the "misogynistic rhetoric" targeting her highlights it, by "ridiculizing her sexual agency and humiliating it" by using comparison with younger stars, as a way to shame Madonna.

Madonna's responses and author reviews

Constantine Chatzipapatheodoridis, a Greek adjunct lecturer at University of Patras, wrote that "Madonna responses vary when openly provokes the public with overt sexuality". Madonna addressed criticism of "setting women back 30 years" in a 1984 interview with MTV, saying "I don't think that I'm using sex to sell myself, I think that I'm a very sexual persona and that comes through in my performing, and if that's what gets people to buy my records, then that's fine. But I don't think of it consciously, 'Well, I'm going to be sexy to get people interested in me' It's the way I am, the way I've always been". Simone, said that in other words, Madonna was being nothing if not authentic when she stripped down or dance lasciviously. The singer once expressed "her desire to push the boundaries of America's puritanical sexual codes" which are grounded in patriarchy. Commenting about her industry in 2016, after receiving the Billboard Women of the Year, Madonna reflected: "I made my Erotica album and my Sex book was released. I remember being the headline of every newspaper and magazine. Everything I read about myself was damning. I was called a whore and a witch. One headline compared me to Satan. I said, 'Wait a minute, isn't Prince running around with fishnets and high heels and lipstick with his butt hanging out?' Yes, he was. But he was a man". For historian Lilly J. Goren, Madonna "correctly argued" that it is a double standard to criticize her for using sexuality to gain power but not to criticize Presley or Jagger for employing the same tactics.

Impact on popular culture

An impact (both negative and positive), was further discussed by different authors and publications. In 2006, Ottawa Citizen's Dunlevy T'cha, said that "many critics" seen her "variously", including embodying the "contradictions of a society fascinated by fame, ambivalent about sexuality, hostile toward women".

Attributed effects in media

Madonna set the trend for promoting a highly sexualized form of femininity, that was challenging, and transformed popular culture.

—Scholars Berrin Yanıkkaya and Angelique Nairn (2020).

A representation of Madonna subduing a man. It's channeling her outfit during the Confessions Tour in the equestrian segment.

In 2000, British magazine New Statesman said that Madonna "irrevocably changed the media image of female sexuality".

Some credits relies she brought to the mainstream awareness various issues, as researcher Brian Longhurst from University of Salford summed up that "it is argued that her videos and books, bring forms of sexual representation, which had been hidden, into the mainstream". To scholar Brian McNair, Madonna's figure announced the arrival of a new phase in Western sexual culture.

Other group similarly explored how she pionereed or introduced to the mainstream new connotations in sexuality and other areas. Some called her a "trailblazer". Semiotician Marcel Danesi believes Madonna introduced a new form of feminism, liberating women to express their sexuality on "their own terms". Professor Patrice Oppliger, held "Madonna pioneered a more powerful, if crass, version of women's sexuality". In Queer in the Choir Room (2014), Michelle Parke goes further saying "Madonna single-handedly accelerated the battle between opposing ideas of appropriate expression of female sexuality". British journalist Matt Cain argued Madonna brought female sexuality "front and centre". In Gauntlett's view, Madonna did not invent sexiness in pop, but she could be credited with bringing a female desiring gaze to centre stage. To Simone, "Madonna's sexiness was different, more brutal. And it would only become more so as time went on". The staff of The New Zealand Herald regards Madonna as a "pioneer" of intelligent sex appeal. Editors of Controversial Images (2012), credited that "the unprecedented visibility of sexuality" which Madonna embraced, has also contributed to the creation of the pop music diva—a powerful female music performer who explores sexuality openly and purposefully. E. San Juan Jr. commented "she is credited too with the exercise of 'gender-free sex', blurring the male/female boundaries by flirting with bisexuality, multiple partners and cross-dressing" among other things. In 2012, Sara Marcus devoted an article in Salon as "a celebration of the way she changed sexual mores". Paglia even praised her for "having changed the way millions of young women" of her generation think about sexuality.

Madonna's impact was also discussed alongside the pornographic theme, mainly in the 1990s. With her Sex book alone, McNair believes she strongly influenced the sexual culture and politics at that time, because it broke a number of taboos. Her influence was also perceived in prostitution culture; Cheryl Overs, a spokesperson of the pro-prostitution organization Network of Sex Work Projects, understands Madonna to have aided in the normalization of prostitution in malestream culture. She then credits Madonna with making their work very much easier in the 1980s.

Contradictory perspectives

Madonna promoted the costume and practices of prostitution as a model for girls and women and contributed to the cultural normalisation of prostitution.

—Professor Sheila Jeffreys.

Credits to Madonna were dismissed by others giving her a less-centered role. Others, for instance, gave her a prominent negative cultural role over others. In Sex Symbols (1999), editor explained that Madonna "has pushed the boundaries that most women do not wish to broach". In The Happy Stripper (2007), author said that some feminist critics said Madonna "degraded" womanhood, calling her "vulgar, sacrilegious, stupid, shallow [and] opportunistic".

Professor Mandy Merck from Royal Holloway in Perversions: Deviant Readings by Mandy Merck (1993), reminding said that "the story of the sex goddess can never be entirely her own", because despite Madonna may seem to be "the most self-authored sexual artifact of this (or any other) time", her career coincides with long-held positions on pornography, fashion and sexual conduct. In Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (2011), Chris Barker said that Madonna is a significant point of reference in the raunch culture. According to Hypebot, Cher and Madonna were the mothers of pop-porn chic.

Alaina Demopoulos, an editor from The Guardian reminds some criticisms from Black community after the singer gave self-credit on her role, while Demopoulos ironized Madonna "would like to remind us all that she invented sex". Tony Hicks, a music critic from Riff magazine about similar criticisms related to the African American culture, said "it's true, to a certain extent", but he argues "Madonna's barrier-smashing really was different" and also suggests despite she polarized views, "she was necessary". In the 1990s, Madonna's critic bell hooks charged the singer because she felt many black women who are disgusted by Madonna's flaunting of sexual experience are enraged due she is "able to project and affirm with material gain has been the stick the society has used to justify its continued beating and assault on the black female body".

Entertainment industry

The music industry exploited Madonna's concept of using sexuality to gain power by ensuring that other female performers were perceived as sexual objects as a means of selling albums during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s.

—Historian Lilly J. Goren (2009).

Some industry fellows blamed Madonna for the path she catalysed, and others like Tove Lo (pictured) praised her for paving the way.

In 2009, historian Lilly J. Goren commented that Madonna perpetuated the public perception of women performers as feminine and sexual objects. And this have an effect for women musicians who wanted to be taken seriously by the public, due to the "damaging" Madonna's usage of her sexuality. In 2004, Shmuley Boteach criticized her by saying that for more than two decades, she has been allowed to "destroy" the female recording industry by erasing the line that separates music from pornography. As before Madonna, it was possible for women more famous for their voices than their cleavage. Boteach further adds, that in the post-Madonna universe, artists feel the pressure to expose their bodies in order to sell albums. Feminist scholars Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender explained "Madonna may have preached control, but she created an illusion of sexual availability that many female pop artists felt compelled to emulate".

Conversely, Goren also explored how others taken benefit of Madonna's sexuality. She found that the music industry exploited Madonna's tactics "in order to increase sales". She further explains, the singer "challenged how sexuality and sex should be portrayed on MTV", later arguing: "With the popularity of Madonna and through the medium of MTV, the music industry worked to produce solo acts such as Debbie Gibson, Pebbles, and Tiffany. The use of the media to market sexuality and thereby sell records has only increased in recent decades". About the whole entertainment industry, editors of The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments (2016), considering many examples and how today celebrities are open in ways "unimaginable a hundred years ago" to latter attribute her a notable role, saying "perhaps more than anyone else, Madonna swayed American culture in that direction at the tail end of the twentieth century".

Commentaries by industry fellows

Some industry fellows like Joni Mitchell blasted Madonna, as Joe Taysom from Far Out says, before her, "it wasn't a particularly popular route of expressions for female musicians at the time". Although, she wouldn't out it "all on Madonna", American singer Sheryl Crow granted her a more serious role than others for damage the image of women using sex as a "form of power" in their "business form". Some others praised Madonna's path, such as Tove Lo, or Christina Aguilera. Lo said: "Madonna broke down barriers to allow female artists to express their sexuality. Madonna paved the way— she did all this hard work for us". In similar remarks, Louise Redknapp praised her, by saying "without Madonna so many of us wouldn't have been doing what we were doing". Madonna herself, responded to Mitchell's commentaries that "women in pop are sexually exploited", saying "we are exploring our sexuality". More negative were Steve Allen and Morrissey as both similarly described and compared the singer and her sexuality to a prostitute, with the latter expanded: "I mean the music industry is obviously prostitution anyway".

On female artists

Many young women have followed in her path, including Ms. Aguilera and Pink. And by making overt sexuality part of her act, she even paved the way for hip-hop artists like Lil' Kim, who made waves by going nearly topless to the MTV awards.

—Lynette Holloway from The New York Times (2003).

A number of academics and other commentators, discussed Madonna's influence on other performers, with professor Arthur Asa Berger recognizing her usage of sexuality has been imitated by other females.

Madonna's feminism and sexuality influenced numerous artists, including a number of female rappers such as Lil' Kim (pictured).Kyra Belan

Kyra Belán, an art historian wrote in her 2018 book The Virgin in Art that Madonna has opened the doors for other women artists as she established a "new frontier" for female sexuality through a variety of popular vehicles and technologies. Another supporter is professor Robert Sickels, who describes her sexuality have been "vastly influential in paving the way" for not only the sexual expression of future female musicians, but also the acceptance of different forms of sexuality of countless of artists. Sociologist David Gauntlett is also of the idea that future female artists from post Madonna-era, have accessibility to express their own sexuality largely thanks "after her". In 2012, The Advocate said that her career was based in pushing sexual boundaries, paving the way, and "everyone since [...] has walked that path". By 2017, Sergio del Amo, editor of Spanish newspaper El País commented that Madonna paved the way for several artists to express themselves in terms of sexuality and without receiving a piece of the criticism that Madonna faced in the past. Madonna herself, supported Miley Cyrus against criticism for her highly sexualised image in the mid-2010s.

Ambiguity and contradictory perspectives: Treva B. Lindsey, a professor of Ohio State University writing for NBC News in 2022, doesn't give "too much" credit to Madonna, but to Blues singers of the mid-20th century, whom says them influenced more in popular culture and on others while mentioning the cases of female rappers such as Lil' Kim, Mary J. Blige or Missy Elliott among many others. However, back in 2019, Australian magazine The Music commented "Madonna's corporeal feminism impacted on female rappers" such as Cardi B or Lil' Kim among many others female rappers. Some of them, publicly recognized Madonna's influence, including Lil' Kim who held she modeled her own career in that of Madonna. Others like the author of Someone like-- Adele (2012) whom describes the "trail blazed by Madonna", explained that some artists did not followed it and proposes a "turning point" in consumer music culture contextualizing the case of Adele. By this time, authors of Future Texts (2012), also explained that some millennial pop divas such as Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, used it without "any of the subversive elements that made Madonna's work the subject of feminist inquiry".

Depictions

A Mexican Madonna wax figure, depicted with a provocative style. Some considered her the "Poster Girl" for "sexy", according to Grazia.

In early 2000s, Guilbert brought the example of producers and distributors having used her image to serve their interests, mentioning the case of Columbia Pictures when they gave away with magazine Hollywood Avenue an audio cassette that helped to promote A League of Their Own, saying that the tape sold sex and exploited Madonna's sexual image as well. Regarding an aged Madonna posting provocative photos on social media, Grazia magazine discussed it in an article titled "why is it okay for the world to sexualise Madonna, but she can't sexualise herself?".

Inspired in Madonna, Netherlands-based company VDM International started to sell condoms in the late 1990s, throughout Europe and Japan, receiving a "high demand". Named the "Madonna Condoms", it featured the singer's face on the boxes and internal package, taken from her nude photos shoot by Martin Schreiber in 1979 whom sold them the license. The US rights was bought by CondoMania, a Hollywood-based company. Its president and founder Adam Glickman, stated that "he's using the 'Madonna Condom' to help educate people about safe sex". According to Los Angeles Times, CondoMania began selling the condoms on August 25 in 2001, and sold more than 1,000 boxes in its first three days. During 2004 and 2005, thousands of Madonna Condoms were donated to organizations such as The Douglas County AIDS Project, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis.

Listicles and superlatives

In her first decades, aside to being named a sexual icon or sex symbol, either press or academic publications called her variously regarding her sexuality. In Girl Heroes (2002), Susan Hopkins called her "Queen of Sexual Politics". Esquire named her the "Sex Queen of America" in 1994. Others similarly called her a "Sex Queen" and a "Porn Queen". In late 1990s, Boze Hadleigh felt and expressed she "become a sex goddess for all generations and genders". Madonna was suggested as an "icon of sex appeal" by art historian David Morgan. Madonna was long considered the "Poster Girl" for "sexy" according to Grazia magazine. In 1991, psychologist Joyce Brothers echoed: "Madonna is a sexy person for our time". Similarly, in Chris Moyles's book The Gospel According to Chris Moyles (2014), a young Madonna is cited as "one of the sexiest women on the planet". In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine crowned her as the sexiest female artist. Author Brian D'Amato called Madonna, Marilyn Monroe and the Mona Lisa, as the three sexiest women ever being with the letter "M".

Madonna was also negatively called a succubus, Medusa or Whore of Babylon. In the image, the singer depicted as Medusa

Negatively, back in the 1990s, an author described Madonna as "the most arcane and sexually perverse female of the twentieth century". Critics like Achille Bonito Oliva have cited that for some "Madonna restored the [image of] Whore of Babylon, the pagan goddess banned by the last book of the Bible". Others similarly argued that she became synonymous with the "Bimbo of Babylon". In the compendium The Madonna Connection (1993), scholars considering criticisms she has faced, it was concluded that "another mythical feminine monster summoned up to make sense of Madonna is the succubus".

Madonna has been also featured on related pop culture lists. She was voted as the World's Hottest Woman by readers of woman's magazine Cosmopolitan in 2000. Similarly, in 2002 VH1 ranked her as the Greatest Sexiest Artist. She was included once again, in their 2013 updated list, with the staff saying: "You can say many things about Madonna, but you can't ever say she's not sexy". In 2006, Madonna topped the rank of Toronto Sun's 50 Greatest Sex Symbols in history, as "acknowledgment of her extraordinary aptitude for using sex to provoke and promote". They also reported: "While others have been sexier, none has been more cunning in needling and nudging popular tastes to their own commercial again". In 2012, Madonna was placed at number 9 in Complex list of the "100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time". In 2020, Men's Health included Madonna in their "100 Hottest Sex Symbols of All Time", with staff declaring: She "has captured the world's heads, hearts, and hormones with startling consistency".

Censorship and controversies

See also: Madonna and religion

Madonna during her Rebel Heart Tour (2016), where showed pole dancing nuns and simulated sex shows. The concert was rated R18 by the Media Development Authority (MDA), which caused some songs to be removed from the set list in Singapore.

In Rethinking the Frankfurt School (2012), Madonna is described as a "highly controversial" because of her exploitation of sexuality. She generated controversies and faced censure by her sexual-oriented performances, public addresses or demonstrations in her videos. Some notable censure, include by MTV during the release of the music video for "Justify My Love" in 1990. Media outlets like BBC also banned the song. An author noted she was perhaps the "main target" of concerns about sexuality by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), citing Susan Baker, a founding member of the PMRC, complaining about Madonna "teaching" young girls "how to be porn queens in heat". In the book industry, sexologist Robert T. Francoeur noted how her first book Sex faced censorship in various locations as well. Artists like Donna Summer and Madonna were notably censured by Soviet Union's government at some point, for their sexual-oriented works. Madonna's performance at the 2006 Grammy Awards was censured in Malaysia. In May 2024, the Brazilian House Social Security and Family Committee, approved "motion of censure" for her free concert at Copacabana.

Madonna's popularity further worried others. For instance, a child pornography expert cited by UPI was concerned when magazines Playboy and Penthouse leaked nude photos of the singer in 1985. Writing for Harlan Daily Enterprise in 2003, Diana West also remarked her popularity and influence on other "pop descendants", saying the sexualization of childhood became "pretty irreversible" after Madonna, although it didn't start with her.

Within this root, authors of Popular Texts in English: New Perspectives (2001) interpreted her display of sexuality "can be understood as politically subversive". Paglia stated she has used images of pornography and prostitution to provoke "strong reactions", including sectors of political, religious conservatives and feminists. A Christian author decries "she has sold literally tens of millions of records on the theme of pornography", while another Christian author expressed: "she has helped to plunge untold millions into sexually transmitted diseases, and the destruction of hell". Speaking about her visual works, in Performance and Popular Music (2007), Ian Inglish referred that she served as a "paradigmatic case of the sluttification of women in music video, rock music and popular culture". Scholars and authors of Cool (2015), agreed that "the contested nature of female sexuality was nowhere more polarizing than in the images created by Madonna". Similarly, in Pop Cult: Religion and Popular Music (2010), author Rupert Till wrote:

Madonna is perhaps the most extreme example of how sexuality that is considered taboo or outside of what is acceptable to mainstream in public, is deeply enmeshed within the fabric of popular music culture and cults.

See also

• Sexuality in music videos
• Pornification
• Raunch culture
• Sex kitten

Book sources

See also: Bibliography of works on Madonna and List of academic publishing works on Madonna

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• Chatzipapatheodoridis, Constantine (2021). The Music Diva Spectacle. Intellect Books. ISBN 978-1789384383.
• Cross, Mary (2007). Madonna: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-33811-3.
• Crowther, Hal (1995). Unarmed But Dangerous. Longstreet Press. ISBN 1563521938.
• D'Amato, Brian (2012). Beauty. Hachette UK. ISBN 978-0316217231.
• Danesi, Marcel (2010). Geeks, Goths, and Gangstas: Youth Culture and the Evolution of Modern Society. Canadian Scholars' Press. ISBN 978-1551303727.
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• E. San Juan Jr. (2002). Racism and Cultural Studies: Critiques of Multiculturalist Ideology and the Politics of Difference. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822383705.
• Faith, Karlene; Wasserlein, Frances (1997). Madonna, Bawdy & Soul. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-802-04208-2.
• Feminist Review Collective (1996). Contesting Feminist Orthodoxies. Psychology Press. ISBN 0415145635.
• Fouz-Hernández, Santiago; Jarman-Ivens, Freya (2004). Madonna's Drowned Worlds: New Approaches to her Cultural Transformations, 1983-2003. Routledge. ISBN 1351559540.
• Negrón-Muntaner, Frances (2004). Boricua Pop. NYU Press. ISBN 0814758789.
• Francoeur, Robert T. (1996). Taking Sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in human sexuality. Brown & Benchmark. ISBN 0697312925.
• Gao, Qin; Zhou, Jia (2021). Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population. Technology Design and Acceptance. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3030781088.
• Goren, Lilly J. (2009). You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813173405.
• Govan, Chloé (2013). Christina Aguilera: Unbreakable. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857129949.
• Gross, Alan G. (2018). The Scientific Sublime. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190637774.
• Guilbert, Georges-Claude (2015). Madonna as Postmodern Myth. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-48071-5.
• Hadleigh, Boze (1997). Sing Out!: Gays and Lesbians in the Music World. Barricade Books. ISBN 1569801169.
• Hamill, Pete (2009). Piecework: Writings on Men & Women, Fools and Heroes, Lost Cities, Vanished Calamities and How the Weather Was. Hachette. ISBN 978-0316082952.
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• hooks, bell (2014). Black Looks: Race and Representation. Routledge. ISBN 978-1317588481.
• Hopkins, Dr. Susan (2002). Girl Heroes: The New Force in Popular Culture. Pluto Press. ISBN 1864031573.
• Inglis, Ian (2007). Performance and Popular Music. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0754681571.
• Jeffreys, Sheila (2015). Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful cultural practices in the West. Routledge. ISBN 9781848724471.
• Jeffries, Stuart (2021). Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1788738224.
• Jermyn, Deborah (2016). Female Celebrity and Ageing: Back in the Spotlight. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134924868.
• Jones, Derek (2001). Censorship: A World Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 1136798641.
• Jones, Dylan (2013). The Eighties: One Day, One Decade. Random House. ISBN 978-1409052258.
• Klosterman, Chuck (2004). Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-3600-9.
• Kopkind, Andrew; Wypijewski, Joann (1996). The Thirty Years' Wars: Dispatches and Diversions of a Radical Journalist, 1965-1994. Verso Books. ISBN 1859840965.
• Kramarae, Cheris; Spender, Dale (2004). Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women's Issues and Knowledge. Routledge. ISBN 1135963150.
• Landrum, Gene N. (1994). Profiles of Female Genius: Thirteen Creative Women who Changed the World. Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-892-9.
• Leigh-Kile, Donna (1999). Sex Symbols. Random House. ISBN 1-883319-51-X.
• Lechter, Sharon (2014). Think and Grow Rich for Women: Using Your Power to Create Success and Significance. Penguin. ISBN 978-0698160750.
• Lewis, Jeff (2002). Cultural Studies - The Basics. SAGE. ISBN 0761963251.
• Longhurst, Brian (2007). Popular Music and Society. Polity. ISBN 978-0745631622.
• Mansour, David (2005). From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0740751182.
• Martin, Nina (2007). Sexy Thrills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252031953.
• Mattera, Jason (2012). Hollywood Hypocrites. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1451625615.
• Menand, Louis (2003). American Studies. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374706018.
• Merck, Mandy (2018). Perversions: Deviant Readings by Mandy Merck (Used 1993 and 2018 editions). Routledge. ISBN 978-1135200282.
• McGlynn, Cathy; O'Neill, Margaret; Schrage-Früh, Michaela (2017). Ageing Women in Literature and Visual Culture: Reflections, Refractions, Reimaginings. Springer. ISBN 978-3319636092.
• McNair, Brian (2002). Striptease Culture: Sex, Media and the Democratization of Desire. Psychology Press. ISBN 0415237335.
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• Mills, Sara (1994). Gendering the Reader. Harvester Wheatsheaf. ISBN 0745011306.
• Morgan, David (2012). The Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520272224.
• Moyles, Chris (2014). The Gospel According to Chris Moyles: The Story of a Man and His Mouth. Random House. ISBN 978-1473527522.
• Naremore, James; Brantlinger, Patrick (1991). Modernity and Mass Culture. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253206278.
• Nealon, Jeffrey T.; Irr, Caren (2012). Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of Cultural Critique. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0791488010.
• Oliva, Achille Bonito (1998). Disidentico: maschile, femminile e oltre (in Italian). Panepinto arte.
• Oppliger, Patrice A. (2015). Girls Gone Skank: The Sexualization of Girls in American Culture. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786486502.
• Paglia, Camille (2011). Vamps & Tramps: New Essays. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0307765567.
• Pringle, Rosemary (2020). Transitions: New Australian feminisms. Routledge. ISBN 978-1000248241.
• Oz, Avraham (1998). Strands Afar Remote: Israeli Perspectives on Shakespeare. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 0874135974.
• Parke, Michelle (2014). Queer in the Choir Room. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1476616957.
• Price, John (2003). AS Media Studies. Nelson Thornes. ISBN 0748768408.
• Quartz, Steven; Asp, Anette (2015). Cool. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-1429944182.
• Raphael, Amy (1996). Grrrls. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-14109-7.
• Reinhardt, Akim; Rounds, Heather (2016). The Twentieth Century in 100 Moments: A Visual History. Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0760347430.
• Rolling Stone Press (1997). Madonna, the Rolling stone files. Hyperion. ISBN 0786881542.
• Santana, Richard W.; Erickson, Gregory (2016). Religion and popular culture: rescripting the sacred. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1476663319.
• Sanderson, Caroline (2012). Someone like-- Adele. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1780383088.
• Sexton, Adam (1993). Desperately Seeking Madonna: in search of the meaning of the world's most famous woman. Dell Publishing. ISBN 0385306881.
• Schwichtenberg, Cathy (1993). The Madonna Connection. Westview Press. ISBN 0813313961.
• Shepley, Nick; Sanders, Vivienne; Clements, Peter; Bunce, Robin (2015). History+ for Edexcel A Level. Hachette. ISBN 978-1471837692.
• Shuker, Roy (2013). Understanding Popular Music. Routledge. ISBN 978-1134564798.
• Sickels, Robert C. (2013). 100 Entertainers Who Changed America: An Encyclopedia of Pop Culture Luminaries. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1598848311.
• Simone, Alina (2016). Madonnaland. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-75946-6.
• Smith, Chris (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537371-4.
• Smith, Courtney E. (2011). Record Collecting for Girls: Unleashing Your Inner Music Nerd, One Album at a Time. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-50223-6.
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• Stange, Mary Zeiss; Oyster, Carol K.; Sloan, Jane E. (2011). Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World. Vol. 1. SAGE Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4129-7685-5.
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• Stuart, Andrea (1996). Showgirls. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0224036157.
• Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2002). Madonna: An Intimate Biography. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-743-22880-4.
• Till, Rupert (2010). Pop Cult: Religion and Popular Music. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0826432360.
• Turner, Graeme (2002). Film as Social Practice. Routledge. ISBN 1134607156.
• van der Plas, Els; Halasa, Malu; Willemsen, Marlous (2002). Creating Spaces of Freedom: Culture in Defiance. Saqi. ISBN 0863567363.
• Ward, Glenn (2011). Discover Postmodernism: Flash. Hachette UK. ISBN 978-1444141269.
• Willson, Jacki (2007). The Happy Stripper. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0857736420.
• Whiteley, Sheila (2013). Too Much Too Young: Popular Music Age and Gender. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136502293.
• Yanıkkaya, Berrin; Nairn, Angelique Margarita (2020). Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency. IGI Global. ISBN 978-1799848301.
• Young, Jonathan (1996). Saga: Best New Writings on Mythology. White Cloud Press. ISBN 1883991137.

Further reading

• Sex Symbols Should Teach Classes — Grand Valley State University
• Madonna's 'sexuality' should be more advanced than a 20-year-old's — By Meghan Murphy (April 15, 2015)
• “Madonna Was My Sex-Ed Teacher”: A Conversation with R/B Mertz — Los Angeles Review of Books (August 25, 2022)