Madonna Takes ‘Sex’ Victory Lap, Disses Cardi B in the Process

Madonna, the Renaissance woman who changed pop culture forever, took a well-deserved victory lap on her Instagram stories, celebrating the 30th anniversary of her hardcover photography book Sex this weekend.

The best-seller, which listed at $50 in 1992 dollars sold over 150,000 copies on its first day, made a total of $70 million, and, if you have an original with the accompanying CD in its original packaging, you can make a killing on eBay. The risqué volume featured musings on intimate acts and images of Madonna as well as Isabella Rossellini, Big Daddy Kane, Naomi Campbell, Udo Kier, Tatiana von Fürstenberg, and Vanilla Ice, and was called “morally intolerable” by the Vatican, while The New York Times called it “a cliched catalogue of what the middle class—her target audience, after all—is supposed to consider shocking.” It was discussed and deconstructed by everyone with a pen at the time, and parodied on late-night television and The Simpsons. This reporter clipped Michael Musto’s full page homage from the Village Voice and had it on his dorm room wall for all of Freshman year for some reason. 

So it’s no wonder the pop sensation, currently developing an autobiographical film starring Julia Garner, would want to offer a self-gratulatory public fist pump. Her Instagram stories included part of an interview from 60 Minutes Australia, in which journalist Richard Carleton clutched his pearls and said the racy images gave him “a fright.”

“You never read Playboy or Penthouse?” the performer fired back when Carleton said he had “never seen the likes of it.” 

“Yes, but it was different with you,” he said. “The picture of you astride the mirror, masturbating? I thought that was horrible. It just strikes me as horrible.” 

With poise, she responded, “I think people’s reactions to specific situations in the book is much more a reflection of that person than me.” She continued, “you were scared by that picture—what does that mean? Are you frightened of a woman who can turn herself on? Are you frightened of a woman who is not afraid to look at her genitals in the mirror?” In the interview, Madonna comes across as the far more mature and rational one. 

Oh, if only we could end the story there! But we can’t. Alas, before these old clips, Madonna’s written preamble took what some feel was an unnecessary diversion.  

After sharing that she was demonized in the press—“called a whore, a witch, a heretic, and the devil”—she positioned her trailblazing in what could be interpreted as a combative manner. 

“Now Cardi B can sing about her WAP. Kim Kardashian can grace the cover of any magazine with her naked ass and Miley Cyrus can come in like a wrecking ball,” she wrote. “You’re welcome bitches …..” she added, punctuating with a clown emoji.