Секс: Откровенная книга Мадонны 1992 года.

1992 book by Madonna

Sex is a 1992 coffee table book written by American singer Madonna, with photography by Steven Meisel Studio and Fabien Baron. It was edited by Glenn O'Brien and published by Warner Books, Maverick and Callaway. The book features adult content including softcore pornography and simulations of sexual acts including sadomasochism. Madonna developed Sex after Judith Regan of Simon & Schuster publishers suggested a book of erotic photographs. She wrote it as a character named "Mistress Dita", inspired by 1930s film actress Dita Parlo. It was influenced by punk rock and fashion figures including Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe. The photos were shot in early 1992 in New York City and Miami, in locations including hotels, burlesque theaters, and city streets. The book includes cameos by actress Isabella Rossellini, rappers Big Daddy Kane and Vanilla Ice, model Naomi Campbell, gay porn star Joey Stefano, actor Udo Kier, and socialite Princess Tatiana von Fürstenberg. The cover is made of aluminium, spiral bound and wrapped in a Mylar sheet. Madonna's publishers were apprehensive about the release and the book's commercial potential. It was released on October 21, 1992, the day after Madonna's fifth studio album Erotica. A CD single was also packaged with the book which contained the song "Erotic", a song similar in composition to her similarly named single "Erotica". It sold over 150,000 copies on its first day in the United States, and topped the New York Times Best Seller list for three weeks. In matters of days, Sex went on to sell more than 1.5 million copies worldwide and remains the best and fastest selling coffee table book. It also remains as one of the most in demand out of print publications of all time. Sex attracted extensive media attention and backlash, but Madonna remained unapologetic. Though it initially received negative reviews from fans and critics, who felt she had "gone too far", later reviews have been more positive, with academics deeming it a defining phase in Madonna's career. Sex is noted for its social and cultural impact and is considered a bold post feminist work.

According to Giselle Benatar of Entertainment Weekly, two versions explain how Madonna came up with the idea for the book. One is that she conceived the idea of an erotic photography book during the shooting of the film A League of Their Own in the summer of 1991. By the end of the meeting Madonna had agreed "in principle" to do a book titled Madonna's Book of Erotica and Sexual Fantasies. She told Regan that DeMann would call her and work out the book's details. However, Madonna never got back to Regan who assumed she did not want to go ahead with the idea. Sexs stylized, sado masochistic look had a range of influences from punk rock, to early fashion iconoclasts like Guy Bourdin and his surrealism, and Helmut Newton. Photographs from Brassaï's 1933 book Paris de nuit (Paris by Night) also inspired several of the book's series of images. but she changed her mind when promotion for Spike Lee's film Malcolm X began. (It was released three weeks after the book). She would go on to tell Vogue magazine: "We were gonna call it X [ ] but then the whole thing with the Malcolm X movie started. At first I thought, 'Fuck it, it's a really good symbol and I thought of it first'. But I realized it might be confusing or look like I was copying Spike [Lee]. Besides, Sex is almost as powerful: it's universal, it doesn't need translation – and it's only two letters more than X." Madonna hired top notch talent for the book's development, fashion photographer Steven Meisel, editor Glenn O'Brien, make up artist Francois Nars and hairstylist Paul Cavaco. One morning during the four day Florida shoot Madonna was prancing naked around her 14 bedroom house in Miami when someone jokingly suggested she go out on the street, which she did on two occasions topless with Vanilla Ice and completely nude while pretending to hitchhike. According to Baron on the street "cars screeched to a halt, motorists whistled, and one entranced cyclist fell off his bike". Sex has 128 pages and is spiral bound with an aluminium cover that has the word "Sex" stamped in the middle The front page shows Madonna against a sky blue backdrop. Three different types of paper were used for the printing. Madonna and Baron & Baron Inc. (consisting of Fabien Baron and the photographer Siung Fat Tjia), who also collaborated with her designing the cover art for her fifth studio album, Erotica, oversaw the design. As this was Maverick's first project, the packaging was crucial. Madonna had no faith in Warner Book's "mass market" publication process, however, so Baron suggested they transfer the packaging job to Nicholas Callaway's bespoke Callaway Editions. The company bought about of aluminium, roughly a pound for each book. The designers oversaw the production of the front and back covers, which were stamped and anodized while the aluminium was rolling on a press. Throughout Sex, Madonna offers poems, stories, and essays. She used the pseudonym "Mistress Dita" as an homage to German actress Dita Parlo; her friends in the stories are Bunny, Dex, Stella, Chiclet and Stranger. Like the text—which was mostly printed on the photographs—they are highly sexual and depict nudity, simulations of sexual acts, bondage, homosexuality and analingus, with accessories such as knives, whips, masks and chains; model Naomi Campbell, gay porn star Joey Stefano, actor Udo Kier, socialite Princess Tatiana von Fürstenberg, and nightclub owner Ingrid Casares and unknown models are featured in the book. Its heterosexual photos involve only Madonna and Vanilla Ice. Dita also points out "A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That's why they don't get what they want". Since they recovered stolen pictures during the making of Sex, Madonna thanked the FBI for "rescuing photographs that would have made J. Edgar Hoover roll over" in the book's credits.

The book's imminent release caused a great deal of controversy. One photo showed a nude Madonna wearing a rabbit's tail, shaving the pubic hair of a naked man, and cavorting outdoors with a dog, suggesting bestiality. Indian customs officials said the book offended the country's public morality. The Press Trust of India (PTI), India's domestic news agency, quoted a top customs official as saying the book would be seized under a section of the Customs Act prohibiting entry of indecent literature. Citizens of Alexandria, Louisiana, filed a complaint with the city's police department on behalf of the Rapides Parish Chapter of the American Family Association, claiming Sex violated Louisiana's anti obscenity laws. U. S. Southern Baptists did not want their Bibles printed on the same printing presses as Sex and threatened to stop doing business with the printer RR Donnelley. The Nashville based Baptist Sunday School Board, a division of the Southern Baptist Convention, reviewed their $2.1 million ($ in dollars) printing contract with Donnelley. Board President James Draper said he was infuriated Donnelley printed "such an obscene book". Entertainment Tonight reported Madonna had initiated the mayhem with the explicit content in the music video for "Erotica", walking bare breasted at designer Jean Paul Gaultier's fashion show and posing nude in Vanity Fair magazine. A writer for The Sacramento Bee said that since the press wanted "controversy", Madonna was willing to give them "fodder" with her "antiques". Madonna claimed she was publishing Sex "to liberate America — free us all of our hang ups". It was rumored that Time Warner was nervous about the book's release, however, in an interview with Vanity Fair, William Sarnoff, president of Warner Books, said he felt Madonna "should pursue all avenues of creativity as she defines it". The Warner company said they would make sure Sex reached its target audience. They reminded the public the book was safely wrapped in a Mylar bag to prevent in store peeping and contained a warning label. She dressed as Little Bo Peep carrying a stuffed toy lamb. One of the few promotions she did, however, was to appear on the cover of the October edition of Vogue, dressed in "Hippie trip" fashion. These photographs were taken by Meisel. On October 22, 1992, MTV aired a special called The Day in Madonna, hosted by Kurt Loder (a pun on the title of their daily show The Day in Rock). It profiled the release of Madonna's Sex and her album Erotica, even taking the book to the streets to allow people, including a sex therapist and a group of real life New York City dominatrices, to view it. MTV also interviewed people who had looked at the book on the day of its release at the HMV music store in New York City. To celebrate its release, the store held a Madonna look alike contest and set up a booth where people could view the book for one dollar a minute, with the proceeds going to Lifebeat, the music industry organization founded to help fund AIDS research.

With Sex, Madonna broke several worldwide records. The retail price of the book was $50 in the United States, or around $ in dollars. Across Europe, Sex was sold for £25 in the United Kingdom, and for pta 7500 in Spain (an equivalent of $70 at the time or $ in ). The initial print run for the first edition was one million copies in five continents and in five languages. John Robinson from Santa Cruz Sentinel informed that many booksellers agreed that "Sex sold, like nothing else before" and "they've never seen anything like it, especially for a $50 book". In Canada, H. B. Fenn and Company, distributors of Sex, reported an order for more than 45,000 copies from bookstores across the country by October 22.