Most Treasured Pop Culture Possession

Enough of my blogger block (that's writer's block for you writers)! Finally I thought of something, after visiting Monkey Muck. I came across his "Pop Culture Friday" post. Check it out!

Anyway, at the end of it, he asks "What's your most treasured pop culture possession?" Mine would have to be my Madonna "Sex" book." I got it out of it's deeply hidden secret place and began flipping through it. I had forgotten just how nasty explicit it is!

The first picture (above) shows it in it's original mylar package, made to resemble a condom packet.

The book, which was bounded in an original format involving two sheets of metal, each numbered, and sealed in a Mylar plastic sleeve is genius. Although it is a book that is highly likely to cause airport security to open your bags, Madonna must have had a reason to do something so creative, yet so risque.

Towards the back of the book is one of few full color pages, a comic book like section that is a smaller insert called "Dita in the Chelsea." Dita (Madonna) is the one in the center at the top.

This is also probably the only page I could show that doesn't contain either full nudity or sexually explicit diary entries. Madonna wrote the book as a character named Mistress Dita, inspired by the silent film actress Dita Parlo.

Now out-of-print, Madonna's "Sex," book was one of the 1990's greatest hypes due to its' graphic depiction of sex. Where else can you see Madonna strutting down Miami Beach with Vanilla Ice naked, or see her making out with such celebrities as Isabella Rossellini and Naomi Campbell?

According to Wikipedia, "Sex" is a highly designed coffee table book written by Madonna with photographs by Steven Meisel and film frames taken from film shot by Fabien Baron. No offense to Madonna, but this book was never on my coffee table!

"Sex" was released on October 21, 1992 by Warner Books. The book was released by Madonna as an accompaniment to her fifth studio album Erotica, which was released a day earlier (October 20, 1992). Only limited copies of the book were printed, so I knew it would be a collectors item.

Truly, "Sex" remains a classic due to its main goal of reopening the sexual revolution in the evangelicalism the 1990's brought. Homosexuality, lesbianism, and fetishes were all somewhat taboos to be discussed or shown in public, however nowadays attitudes have changed. In some ways, Madonna was a pioneer, and as so, she deserves credit for being the most outrageous, daring woman of the 20th century.

By the way, my daughter was nine years old, when I got this book. Although a big Madonna fan herself, she never saw the book. I kept it under lock and key. She never even knew I had the book!

Here is the back page and back cover. Notice the "X" cut out on the metal back... is that really an "x," or is it something else?! And what is your most treasured pop culture possesion?

(Some excerpts about this book were from a book review by Luis Hernandez (NYC, NY) at Amazon.com.)