Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ showed that sex doesn’t always sell. But it can move the needle.
Madonna made a name for herself as a carnal dance-floor diva with a penchant for bucking the status quo. But would you believe there was a time her pop provocations failed to climax?
In the early '90s, Madonna was reaching her pop-cultural zenith. Her 1990 Blond Ambition world tour drew the ire of Pope John Paul II, who protested the show’s brash melding of Catholicism and sex. The tour’s accompanying documentary, 1991’s “Madonna: Truth or Dare,” broke ground with its LGBTQ+-inclusive cast.
Madonna’s music began to reflect this rebellion in her 1990 single “Justify My Love,” whose not-safe-for-MTV music video explored themes of S&M and bisexuality.
"It's not a question of trying to outdo myself," Madonna told USA TODAY in 1992. "America has become so repressed sexually, and maybe that's why people attach that stigma to me – `How far will she go?' Nobody asks Martin Scorsese how he's going to top himself."
All this titillation culminated in Madonna’s fifth album “Erotica,” released 30 years ago on Oct. 20, 1992. The daring LP, in which Madonna adopted a dominatrix persona and sang about cunnilingus and vehicular sex, went on to sell nearly 2 million records – less than half the sales of 1989’s “Like a Prayer.”
Madonna “was rejecting the notion that in order to be successful and popular, you had to play to the lowest-common denominator,” says Aram Sinnreich, musical cultures professor at American University. “She began to see that she had this opportunity as one of the biggest pop stars in the world … to speak frankly and positively about sexuality in a way that could be liberatory for an entire generation of women.”
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“Erotica” made waves with its rejection of male fantasies of women, as well as its pairing with another risqué Madonna venture.
With the album’s imagery, Madonna took a sledgehammer to the bubblegum sexuality of her earlier personas. Gone was the midriff-baring club punk, the saucy bride of “Like a Virgin” and the platinum blonde vixen in a bustier.
The music video for lead single “Erotica” opens with Madonna wearing a kinky black eye mask with whip in hand.
“There was too much of a sense that she actually owned her body and owned what she was going to be able to do with that,” says Susan McClary, professor of music at Case Western Reserve University. “(It’s) very aggressive, and it certainly doesn’t play into the idea that she’s a sex kitten that can be played with.”
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Then there’s “Sex.” Released a day after “Erotica,” the audacious coffee-table book featured erotic photographs of the pop star. Despite selling 1.5 million copies, the book’s raunchiness became a bludgeon for critics opining on Madonna's sexual exploration.
" The queen o' kink draws on the same weary sexual fantasies you see front, back and center in the pages of Penthouse," wrote USA TODAY's Deirdre Donahue. " 'Sex' isn't shocking. It's silly. Slightly pathetic. And worst of all, inadvertently funny."
In an interview with British talk-show host Jonathan Ross, Madonna lamented that the controversy was overshadowing the artistry of her work.
“The subject matter that I deal with – because it usually is about taboo subjects – people are so frightened of my ideas that they try to undermine my actual talent or any artistic value that may be in any of my work,” Madonna said.
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In the three decades since “Erotica” sent shock waves through the pop firmament, a slew of female artists have carried the torch of Madonna’s racy gospel.
From Christina Aguilera donning butt-baring chaps in 2002’s “Dirrty” to Miley Cyrus twerking at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s 2020 female pleasure anthem “WAP,” women in pop are unabashedly exploring their sexuality.
“There’s more opportunity for all kinds of sexualities and expression of that,” says Lucy O’Brien, author of “Madonna: Like an Icon.” “It’s a lot freer in terms of the sexual or gender landscape.”
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But while the sexual landscape may be more diverse than when Madonna pushed the envelope, criticism remains. Pop singer Kim Petras, who released the lustful EP “Slut Pop” in February, recently remarked on this continued stigma.
“People don’t take people seriously – women, especially – who sing slutty songs or songs about sex and write it off as not being important,” Petras told Paper in December. “I embrace making slutty pop. I think that because you’re wearing makeup and showing your (breasts), that does not make you any less or more of an artist than someone who is completely covered up.”
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Although she wasn’t the first to exploit sexiness, Madonna “set a template for what women could get away with” in her sex-positive crusade, says Kurt Loder, a former MTV News anchor.
“You can wear underwear onstage, and the world won’t come to an end,” Loder says. “She was very important in that progression of more opportunities for women to express themselves.”
"Erotica"s raw, socially conscious tone also foreshadowed the casual intimacy of social media modeled by modern-day celebrities, Sinnreich says
“If you look at all of her output from the early 1990s, it’s confessional, it’s intimate, it’s geared toward subcultural spaces like dance clubs instead of mainstream spaces like shopping malls,” he says. “It privileges diversity: racial diversity, sexual diversity and equality.”
In a 2015 interview with Ross, Madonna reflected on how society's relationship with female sexuality has changed over time, and her influence on younger women such as Cyrus.
"Sexuality (wasn't) something that women were exploring or overtly owning up to, and I think it's part of women's evolution in the entertainment business and in the world," Madonna said. "I'm happy to have opened the gates for all those girls."
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Contributing: Edna Gundersen and Deirdre Donahue, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Madonna's ‘Erotica’ album empowered women to make music about sex
