I remember being up late one night and catching Madonna's Truth or Dare
on HBO. I was already a heavy metal fan at this point, but I decided I
had to watch this movie for two reasons. One was that it was wildly
controversial at the time, and being around 13 years old if I was told I
shouldn't see something then I did everything in my power to see it.
The other reason was that at 13 I already had a longtime fascination
with and attraction to Madonna. I was watching the movie, made up of
concert footage and backstage clips. I was enjoying it, because even
though I was a newly minted metal head I still secretly enjoyed pop
music. Then the infamous scene came on. If you don't remember what all
the fuss was about, there was a part of her show where she was lying on a
bed and simulating masturbation. As an early teenage boy I found this
very exciting, and let's just say nature took it's course. Unfortunately
I must have had the sound up too high and woke my mother. She walked
into the living room and promptly freaked out. I am not sure I ever
really did convince her that she had not seen what she had obviously
seen, but for both our piece of minds we pretended that I had. Of course
this was neither the first nor the last time that Madonna played a
prominent role in both my fantasy world and in my burgeoning sexuality.
Madonna was born in 1958 to a Catholic family. Being Catholic was a huge
part of what shaped what she became. Obviously her name comes from her
Catholic background, but I also cannot think of a religion more ready to
have it's elements fetishized. The way it pushed guilt and sexual
repression, the uniforms it forces priests and nuns to wear, and it's
tendency to corporal punishment are all begging to be subverted into the
territory of kink. She moved to New York in 1978 to become a modern
dancer. She was in two bands while she was there, first the Breakfast
Club, leaving that to form Emmy. She decided to go solo, a smart move as
she likely would not have had the same impact had she been the front
woman for a group. After two singles were released she made her first
album, which had three hit singles, Holiday, Borderline and Lucky Star.
Madonna had a style that capitalized on both facets of the images her
name evoked, being both trashy and wanton, but at the same time still
strangely innocent and cute. Known for her fashion sense early on, she
inspired girls everywhere to wear ripped lace and fishnet stockings, a
strange marriage of punk and pop styles visually. Her second album Like a
Virgin is the one that really put he over the top. And it was one
performance from this era that brought her to my attention, kick
starting puberty and my fascination with her in the process. At the 1984
MTV Video Music Awards she performed Like a Virgin dressed in a wedding
dress with white gloves. She writhed around on the stage and at that
point in my life it was the most blatantly sexual thing I had ever seen.
I remember being fascinated but not quite sure why. I began to suspect
that girls might be more fun than I had previously realized.
It was soon after this that Madonna began appearing in movies. I watched
the movies because I was fascinated with her, but I was more interested
in watching the standard fare for boys my age like Star Wars and Rambo.
Her first tour she took out the Beastie Boys, another of my childhood
favorites, though for much different reasons. In 1985 Penthouse and
Playboy published nude pictures of her that were taken back in 1978, but
these being pre-internet days boys had little to no access to adult
magazines like this and it would be several more years before my
over-excited pubescent eyes would get to behold Madonna in all her
natural glory. She made True Blue and Who's That Girl, which were both a
little tame compared to her earlier exploits. Her hold over me began to
lessen somewhat. Then she released Like a Prayer.
The first single from Like a Prayer of course was controversial for
Madonna making out with a black Jesus statue brought to life. Sadly I
think people in my neck of the woods were more upset that she was making
out with a black man than the fact that it was Jesus. However, it was
the Express Yourself video thought brought my Madonna obsession raging
back to life. This video had elements of kink all through it, with her
being dressed in various fetishy costumes and crawling across the floor
to lap milk from a dish. I had never seen images like this before, and I
couldn't stop watching it. Soon after this she released Vogue, which
hearkened back to the black and white film stars of the 40's, who I have
always felt oozed a sexuality that film stars of other eras somehow
never had. Following this were the movie Truth or Dare which I mentioned
above, and the video for Justify My Love, which I was unfortunately not
able to see until much later but of course heard all about. It fueled
my imagination when I considered what tawdry sexual acts must have been
on display to cause it to be banned. Later on she produced a book of
photography titles Sex, had album titles like Erotica, and made a video
garbed in latex fetish gear.
've never been quite sure if it just happened that Madonna evolved into
being more sexual as I grew older and had more interest in all the
different aspects of sex, or if I became more interested in sexuality
because Madonna began to preach from the bible of kink. I do know that
she and her videos awakened thoughts in me that I had never had before.
It gave me longings that I did not understand. She made the message
clear that it is okay to want sex, to be sexual, and that pleasure is a
worthy pursuit. She was obviously influential with females and with gay
men, but we shouldn't forget the impact she also had on us straight boys
who watched her writhe across our screens. Her music was simply okay,
catchy pop that wasn't earth shaking but was pretty good for what it
was. Her real impact came through her image and her message that we are
sexual creatures with appetites that were okay to indulge in a safe and
consensual manner. I don't think there has been anyone who has been as
provocative or as liberating when it comes to human sexuality before or
since. And even though she has toned it down quite a bit, she is still
out there all these many years later entertaining people and being sexy
as hell doing it. Not many artists get that opportunity once their
initial run of popularity has run its course. So I think it's only
fitting to say, Thank you Madonna. You showed me sides of the world and
myself that I didn't know existed. Oh yeah, and I thought A League of
Their Own was a pretty good movie too.
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