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Thoughts on this ONE PART of the SEX book


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5 hours ago, Ayham said:

Ok so to end this endless conversation, when I first discovered this book was I believe in 2003/2004... I was soooo young just saw her pic with Vanilla Ice (blue pic) lol I was like WOW!!! That’s Madonna??? I was shocked & in love then I saw the rest of the book from a fan site called Madonna online? It was like heaven on earth. ??? the fact I fell in love with her more lol. I red few stories like the famous Pussy story but I wasn’t into reading the book as much as enjoying the pics... ??? & finally after many years in 2011 I bought one copy from eBay from dad’s credit card lol! I cherish this book & just last year I bought another copy this time sealed one. ?

Ok so my point we Madonna fans or let’s say myself was in love with her bravery... it’s like oh look she’s completely NAKED, she got balls... ohhh she’s talking about sex & stuff!!! That’s cool, however when I grew up I realize that it’s more about the stories, the messages... & that was a complete turn off. It’s just not right in many ways... & then I understood why she got so much hate back then. I’m just imagining someone like Janet Jackson or Mariah Carey or Cher or even Lady Gaga releasing something similar... haha it will be definitely her ENDDDD. M was so lucky she got away with it. ?

I'm sorry, this is gonna sound harsh, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. 

First of all, the book isn't "more about the stories". :Madonna007:  That's like saying Secret Project Revolution was all about the music. And if you were soooo young in 2003 then I would imagine you were not even born when the SEX book was released. And it shows.

She didn't get hate for the stories. She got hate because of misogynistic views of what is expected of a woman.  

and if you think Gaga doesn't already do everything the sex book did, you are lying to yourself. She's been naked in numerous ads for albums. She's able to do this BECAUSE of Madonna. 

 

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16 minutes ago, RUADJAI said:

I'm sorry, this is gonna sound harsh, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. 

First of all, the book isn't "more about the stories". :Madonna007:  That's like saying Secret Project Revolution was all about the music. And if you were soooo young in 2003 then I would imagine you were not even born when the SEX book was released. And it shows.

She didn't get hate for the stories. She got hate because of misogynistic views of what is expected of a woman.  

and if you think Gaga doesn't already do everything the sex book did, you are lying to yourself. She's been naked in numerous ads for albums. She's able to do this BECAUSE of Madonna. 

 

Well... dear I know what I’m talking about... they hated her for releasing such a thing in general. & nope Gaga didn’t till now... ?

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On 7/13/2020 at 8:40 AM, KaitoXD said:

So, some people on Twattir were triggered by that one part of the SEX book wherein she fantasized on having sex on a teenage boy and some motherfuccers thought that she was riding on a 14 year boy because of the clues: no pubic hair and "He was just a baby." Usual Twattir style, they call her a PDF file for it.

Personal thoughts? The baby "part" refers to his dick. I am sure because of the context clue "He wasn't very big." And the no pubic hair part? Some men don't have pubic hair or perhaps he shaved his own pubic hair because let's be honest, it gets a little scratchy.

What are your thoughts on this controversial page of the SEX book?

I take it at face value.  It is in a book clearly marked for adults only, with a disclaimer saying it was all afantasy, made up and definitely not real life.  It's just one of the many erotic stories in the book.  Nothing to get excited about.  

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I mean, I appreciate that era more than you'll ever believe, but passages that start out with Sex with the young can be fun... he was just a baby... and then the story about her "gash" and masturbating for the first time at 14... it reads like pedophilia, something they would get off to. It didn't help that she did that photo shoot for Vanity Fair with the pigtails looking like a little girl either. I think this was around the same time she was defending Roman Polanski to boot. It all just wasn't a good look. The era was a hoot though. Erotica is my favorite album.

Cancel culture is ridiculous. 

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It's tricky. But, again, is a work from almost 30 years ago, she was definitely inspired by the art she discovered growing up and things have changed and evolved in society. Take "Lolita", the movie, for instance. It was controversial at the time but now the backlash in social media would be so hard that it simply wouldn't be accepted.

I doubt she'd have that kind of story now, anyway. Maybe she was just trying to shock, be funny ("ironic"), whatever. The "but he gave me crabs" ending is typical Madonna trying to be funny.

I agree about the Vanity Fair pigtails photoshoot, though, I've never been a big fan of those photos.

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Guest DeeperDeeper

No where in that story did she give the exact age of the teenager. A teenager can be between 13 to 19 years old. I strongly doubt Madonna was referring to pedophila or pederastry and to me it's clear she's talking about a late teen (given he was kicked out of home) having sex with a 30 something old women which is prevalent in cougar and cub culture. 

Also not everyone has full pubic hair, some people never grow pubic hair naturally or they shave it off for cultural reasons and back in the 90s shaving your pubic hair off was seen as kinky.  I've always believe this was what she was referring to in that story as a way to push boundaries and creating ambiguity to be controversial.

Also sex has a more European optic about sex and sexuality. It's Madonna's way of corrupting North Americans with European sensibility.

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It amazes me (and makes me sad at the same time) that we seem to have gone backwards in many respects since 1992. It was misunderstood then as it would be misunderstood today. 

It’s pure art. It’s to provoke thoughts on what’s considered right or wrong in our societies; and as art, it is not meant to only please but also shock/apall. Art plays with our concept of reality. It’s not supposed to always just rub you right way. It will rub you the wrong way too. There is the esthetic of the ugly, the unaccepted, the taboo. It makes you question things and grow.

It’s not like M herself did all of those things or really had all those fantasies herself. It’s written/photographed from the perspective of the persona Dita Parlo. 
It was a very confusing, shocking but also genius move of her in 1992. It made everyone face some truths; a look into the mirror for the media/the society at the time. 
And here we are debating what a pop artist should do or shouldn’t do. 

The discussion shows two things clearly:

1 - Nothing has changed, people are still very close-minded.

2 - No female (or male artist) since 1992 has contributed to having society face uncomfortable truths by questioning values in their art like Madonna did. In this sense, put all your wannabe brave and pseudo-liberating Britneys, Gagas, Arianas away. Nobody was this brave. On the contrary, they used M’s moves as a formula, in a totally misinterpreted and superficial way. To sell. *yawn*

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This is a cultural issue, and one that has evolved enormously since 1992. In all frankness, it wasn't as taboo then to refer to sexuality with a minor. The entire Lolita fantasy had become a part of mainstream intellectual culture via the novel (1955), and more broadly via the film (1962). Stories of Madonna cruising for teenagers in the back of a limo around Alphabet City and the Lower East Side were a part of the early Madonna myth, and nobody thought twice about it. It just fit in with the rest of the smut people associated with her. She was a very young woman, and she had a taste for latin boys...NY in the late 70s and early 80s was a place outside of the moral majority's jurisdiction. 

I don't think this makes Madonna a pedophile as pedophiles generally are only able to be stimulated sexually by the idea of sex with CHILDREN, but, if true, it was morally bankrupt behavior, and was probably neurotic in some way. Frankly the infantilization of sexuality that is inherent to American culture via our mainstream media outlets that dictate the cultural narrative has gotten so subversive in so many ways that there cannot even be a dialog about age of consent, and this doesn't reflect the reality of life. Kids have sex. It is an issue that generally gets swept under the rug because most adults are not comfortable exploring the truth of child sexuality. It is avoided entirely, and then considered some sort of awkward rite of passage that can often be traumatizing and then dealt with privately in therapy for those with the means to pay for it. Again, a bourgeois cultural perspective on sexuality is going to be very different from a working class perspective, and there is also the complication of religious bias.

The Open Your Heart video is a perfect example of this reinterpretation of morality that borders on some form of morally puritanical fanaticism. I have watched this video with people in recent years, and they all have the same reaction of being offended and discomforted by the association of a strip club with a little boy, and therefore Madonna's kiss is viewed as repulsive and predatory. What is interesting is that the concept of the video has never been overtly explained to the best of my knowledge, but there is a strong argument for the idea that Madonna is in fact the boy's mother, and he is coming to meet her at the end of her shift. It is therefore by cultural projection and conditioning that people see sexuality in her affection, and not maternal love. As quoted earlier in this thread, Madonna stated herself that people's reactions to imagery reveal more about themselves than about the art itself. 

 Personally, I would not be interested at any age in having sex with minors. However, when I was a teenager I did have sex with adults, some of whom were a good decade and a half older than me. I regret this entirely, and I have questioned the matter of accountability in these physical transactions many times throughout my adult life. I have often wondered what type of people these men were as they were clearly attracted to my youth, and that youth was undoubtedly boyish in many ways. I was also relentlessly seductive, and so I take responsibility for my overt invitations, but I will never be able to understand the sort of emotional impotence that I believe stunted these predators into feeling incapable of relating to their peers, and therefore feeling empowered by their ability to take control of their sexual identity with the young and inexperienced. I also think the predatory nature of male sexuality in general has meant that there was a tacit acceptance of heterosexual men preying on girls, and in recent times I have realized that this applied to boys too in certain circles. This continues to be a major part of the sexual culture that both men and women participate in. It is why the lack of female pubic hair is considered so much more appealing, and nearly every woman I've known since the late 90's has maintained a hairless vagina. However, as with so many other behavioral "perversions", the standards do not equally apply to women. In a patriarchal culture, the woman is meant to mature into maternalism, thus rendering the idea of the female sex drive repellent past a certain age. As ludicrous as this seems, it is still very much the cultural adherence of the vast majority of people on our planet. 

It is both deeply ironic and quite fascinating that there are many themes in the SEX book that simply wouldn't be allowed to be published today. We live under the illusion that we are more free and tolerant as a society, but in so many ways we are just trapped in the transient convergence of moral standards that are being constantly shaped and reshaped by an ebb and flow of ideas, politics, art, tragedy, and philosophy. Psychology is a field that we consider to be an exact science, when it is in fact completely volatile. If there is anything to learn from all that we are enduring and overcoming this year, it is that nothing is fixed in time and space. Attitudes change. Empires have existed and fallen, and there are many theories about moral turpitude and degeneration in association with their decline. We are certainly not going to be the exception to this rule. How long it takes for things to fall apart will depend greatly upon the way attitudes are nurtured or purged. The more open a society is, the more likely it is to have the legs to survive. 

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On 7/13/2020 at 12:02 PM, Roy said:

Read a lot about those original versions of those fairytales and yes, it is indeed fucked up.

Oh, society. They give a pass on a man but NEVER a woman. 

You're joking right?

 

Women who molest or sleep with underage boys ALWAYS get light, lenient sentences compared to men who do the same to underage girls, hell many teenage boys would tell you it's a fantasy of theirs

 

And women get a free pass for lesbian acts because it's considered "hot" by straight people but gay/bi men don't have that freedom

 

In short it's OK fora woman to be be bisexual or gaybut not OK for a man

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On 7/14/2020 at 1:32 AM, lucasciccone said:

Cancel culture is becoming more and more stupid. People would go crazy about this particular pages but don't even mind to watch and read the whole book to understand it. It's just stories about sex, all made up of course, and sex is a whole world. This is such a transgressor book. :fingerclick:

This is viral story in my country few days ago. Feminist group did start boycott to a online comic book and male writer because that comic book include monster villain character which abuse woman. They said that the writer has no gender sensitivity.  So other writers and many readers stood by him. They said that their demands are ridiculous because that character is sociopath monster villain. And it's just fiction comic book. And if make a sociopath as a gentleman then how thriller novel, comic book and movies gonna work? But feminist group insist that whole character should respect woman. well, that poor writer eventually had to issue an official apology. And that scene was deleted. stupid people have a loud voice. And these stupid morons are rule the world right now.

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14 hours ago, Alibaba said:

This is a cultural issue, and one that has evolved enormously since 1992. In all frankness, it wasn't as taboo then to refer to sexuality with a minor. The entire Lolita fantasy had become a part of mainstream intellectual culture via the novel (1955), and more broadly via the film (1962). Stories of Madonna cruising for teenagers in the back of a limo around Alphabet City and the Lower East Side were a part of the early Madonna myth, and nobody thought twice about it. It just fit in with the rest of the smut people associated with her. She was a very young woman, and she had a taste for latin boys...NY in the late 70s and early 80s was a place outside of the moral majority's jurisdiction. 

I don't think this makes Madonna a pedophile as pedophiles generally are only able to be stimulated sexually by the idea of sex with CHILDREN, but, if true, it was morally bankrupt behavior, and was probably neurotic in some way. Frankly the infantilization of sexuality that is inherent to American culture via our mainstream media outlets that dictate the cultural narrative has gotten so subversive in so many ways that there cannot even be a dialog about age of consent, and this doesn't reflect the reality of life. Kids have sex. It is an issue that generally gets swept under the rug because most adults are not comfortable exploring the truth of child sexuality. It is avoided entirely, and then considered some sort of awkward rite of passage that can often be traumatizing and then dealt with privately in therapy for those with the means to pay for it. Again, a bourgeois cultural perspective on sexuality is going to be very different from a working class perspective, and there is also the complication of religious bias.

The Open Your Heart video is a perfect example of this reinterpretation of morality that borders on some form of morally puritanical fanaticism. I have watched this video with people in recent years, and they all have the same reaction of being offended and discomforted by the association of a strip club with a little boy, and therefore Madonna's kiss is viewed as repulsive and predatory. What is interesting is that the concept of the video has never been overtly explained to the best of my knowledge, but there is a strong argument for the idea that Madonna is in fact the boy's mother, and he is coming to meet her at the end of her shift. It is therefore by cultural projection and conditioning that people see sexuality in her affection, and not maternal love. As quoted earlier in this thread, Madonna stated herself that people's reactions to imagery reveal more about themselves than about the art itself. 

 Personally, I would not be interested at any age in having sex with minors. However, when I was a teenager I did have sex with adults, some of whom were a good decade and a half older than me. I regret this entirely, and I have questioned the matter of accountability in these physical transactions many times throughout my adult life. I have often wondered what type of people these men were as they were clearly attracted to my youth, and that youth was undoubtedly boyish in many ways. I was also relentlessly seductive, and so I take responsibility for my overt invitations, but I will never be able to understand the sort of emotional impotence that I believe stunted these predators into feeling incapable of relating to their peers, and therefore feeling empowered by their ability to take control of their sexual identity with the young and inexperienced. I also think the predatory nature of male sexuality in general has meant that there was a tacit acceptance of heterosexual men preying on girls, and in recent times I have realized that this applied to boys too in certain circles. This continues to be a major part of the sexual culture that both men and women participate in. It is why the lack of female pubic hair is considered so much more appealing, and nearly every woman I've known since the late 90's has maintained a hairless vagina. However, as with so many other behavioral "perversions", the standards do not equally apply to women. In a patriarchal culture, the woman is meant to mature into maternalism, thus rendering the idea of the female sex drive repellent past a certain age. As ludicrous as this seems, it is still very much the cultural adherence of the vast majority of people on our planet. 

It is both deeply ironic and quite fascinating that there are many themes in the SEX book that simply wouldn't be allowed to be published today. We live under the illusion that we are more free and tolerant as a society, but in so many ways we are just trapped in the transient convergence of moral standards that are being constantly shaped and reshaped by an ebb and flow of ideas, politics, art, tragedy, and philosophy. Psychology is a field that we consider to be an exact science, when it is in fact completely volatile. If there is anything to learn from all that we are enduring and overcoming this year, it is that nothing is fixed in time and space. Attitudes change. Empires have existed and fallen, and there are many theories about moral turpitude and degeneration in association with their decline. We are certainly not going to be the exception to this rule. How long it takes for things to fall apart will depend greatly upon the way attitudes are nurtured or purged. The more open a society is, the more likely it is to have the legs to survive. 

I always saw the kiss in the OYH video as maternal, but it never occurred to me that she could actually be playing the boy's mother, that is so interesting. Her 80s videos are truly genius. So much meaning to interpret from them. 

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About her Vanity Fair shoot with Meisel.

It's a clear hommage to the Baby girl look from the 50s. Brigitte Bardot with " And God created Women" was the first symbol of what Simone de Beauvoir called the Lolita Syndrome. The idea of adult women that are obedient and sweet but have all of the attributes of a grown up. Still they are agressibly sexual and defiant. Has more to do with patriarchal dominance than pedophilia.

Baby voice, big tits, big lips and sucking thumbs. You saw that in so many of the so called sex symbols: Marilyn, Jane Mansfield, Diana Dors..

In fact you can still seeing that trend in artist like Lana Del rey. Who sings about Daddy and being punished.

I think is important to diferenciate and artistic representation of a socio cultural construction from promotion of an illegal act with minors.

 

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19 hours ago, Alibaba said:

but I will never be able to understand the sort of emotional impotence that I believe stunted these predators into feeling incapable of relating to their peers, and therefore feeling empowered by their ability to take control of their sexual identity with the young and inexperienced

So now looking back, you feel all your encounters with older men were this? They were ALL predators? 
 

It seems like a big assumption of who they are/were based on one thing. 
 

i agree with almost everything else you wrote, but this seems off. 
 

and since when does your sexual partners age determine if you are capable of relating to your peers?

 No offense if this is your personal experience. But I had many a sex with older men when I was young and I don’t see it like this. (Except for one guy)

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5 hours ago, RUADJAI said:

So now looking back, you feel all your encounters with older men were this? They were ALL predators? 
 

It seems like a big assumption of who they are/were based on one thing. 
 

i agree with almost everything else you wrote, but this seems off. 
 

and since when does your sexual partners age determine if you are capable of relating to your peers?

 No offense if this is your personal experience. But I had many a sex with older men when I was young and I don’t see it like this. (Except for one guy)

I think I expressed more nuance than that, but I see where you are coming from! :lol: I am not a moralist on any level. However, I do think that from a psychological perspective, it is predatory for a 30 year-old to pursue sex with a 16 year-old (or anyone who feels fully adult). It isn't that I can't understand a potential for attraction. I just know from my own mature perspective that I cannot relate to the idea of seducing or being seduced by a minor. Pedophilia is about sex with children, and so the entire premise of me sharing my own experience was to distinguish the illegality of sex with minors from the moral turpitude of sexualizing children. I was sexually assaulted on the metro in Paris when I was 13, and I was stalked by a predator male adult for a year when I was 15. Because of my sexuality and the era (1989 and 1990 respectively),  it simply wasn't an option for me to tell my parents that I had been assaulted or was being stalked because I had so much societal toxic shame that I couldn't verbalize it for fear of it corroborating my own homosexuality. I wouldn't have been coddled or protected. I would have been further ostracized. Like many gay men, I raised myself in terms of my sexual identity, and so I was highly impressionable. Madonna played an enormous role in this, for better or worse. I approached sexuality as role-playing. It was confusing, and I don't think that when I eventually had consensual sex with a man for the first time that I was psychologically prepared for it. I am sure there are wonderful gay men who are capable of being nurturing and loving, but I met extreme narcissists whose approach to sex was purely selfish. Therefore, I feel justified in my observation. 

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