Description
Book SynopsisEveryone wanted Madonna's 1992 album
Erotica to be a scandal. In the midst of a culture war, conservatives wanted it to be proof of the decline of family values. The target of conservative loathing, gay men reeling from the AIDS epidemic wanted it to be a celebration of a sexual culture that had rapidly slipped away. And Madonna herself wanted to sell scandal, which is why she released
Erotica in the same season as her erotic thriller
Body of Evidence and her pornographic coffee-table book simply titled
Sex. But
Erotica is more sentimental than pornographic. This ambivalence over sex is what makes the album crucial both for understanding its time and for navigating culture a generation later. As queer politics were transitioning from sexual liberation to civil rights like same-sex marriage, Madonna tried to do both. Her songs proved formative for works of queer theory, which emerged in the academy at the same time as the album. And
Erotica wasa
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Sex/Erotica 2. Subculture/Pop Culture 3. Madonna/Whore
