Reposted from the blog of old, still seems like a good place as any to start:

I’ve tried to figure out where to start with this blog. I mean, sex and related topics give me so much to work with, it’s almost a little overwhelming. So I thought I might take it back to my childhood. I was an 80s child, and like many of my peers, was a huge Madonna fan..

Like a Virgin, touched for the very first time.

Goddess

When I was in the third grade, I had a massive bag of posters and cut outs, passed down to me by an older sister. I would sit in my room and carefully go through the pile of pictures, deciding which was the weekly favourite and blutacking it to my bedroom walls. The bag also contained *those* pictures from Playboy magazine. A beautiful series of photos of a naked Madonna – her beautiful, toned Italian body (with proud bush, let’s not forget). I couldn’t wait to have a body like that. I wanted to be her, and the images taught me more about the female form than any thing else at that time.

My name is Dita…

In the early 90s, Madonna released the controversial Erotica album. In fact, my third grade boyfriend gifted me with the Erotica cassingle and I played it on my little Sony portable tape deck until I damn near wore it out. Around this time, she also released the Sex book. A wonderful Warholesque scrap-book bound in a metallic cover, that featured image after image of sex, bondage, sadomasochism and, er, Vanilla Ice.

Madonna & Robert in Sex

I didn’t own the book, of course. I was barely into the double-digit age group and couldn’t buy it (or afford it, or be allowed to own it). But the older sister had a copy and when I stayed with her, I would wait until she was sleeping and then pore through the pages by soft lamplight. I still wanted to be her, and she introduced me to a world of sexual adventure and delight that I couldn’t wait to explore.

Flogging in Sex

The Girlie Show Down Under

You better believe I begged and pleaded to go to the 1993 stadium concert The Girlie Show Down Under. And you better believe that my requests got denied. Thankfully, the Sydney show was filmed for video (and shown on commercial television in Australia, which I taped with my face pressed up against the screen, dutifully pausing the VCR recording during ad breaks).

I watched that video over and over. It had everything. 70s-throwback orgies, pole dancing, the ‘Dita’ character, cross-dressing, bondage, fetish-inspired costumes. And of course, a veritable ‘best-of’ set list. I quite literally started to wear out the tape from watching this over and over again:

So what is the point to all of this? Madonna taught me that it was okay to be sexual. It was okay to be strange. It was okay to enjoy things that society has told you are bad and perverted. It was okay to be me. And I took that with me through my adolescence. I kept that in my mind during my experimental teenage years. Other people tried to put me down and make me feel bad for being a sexual being, but she remained a beacon of light. She wasn’t the most intellectual hero, but her message was relatable. If Madonna, Queen of Pop, could wear this and say that and do whomever she pleased – then so could I.

The Queen