Madonna and sexuality
American singer-songwriter Madonna has been considered a sexual icon and defined by an author, as the leading sex symbol of the postmodern era. Many have considered Madonna's sexuality as one of the focal points of her career. The Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) even credited her image as a sex symbol as a source of her international stardom. Her sexual displays have drawn numerous analysis by scholars, sexologists, feminists, and other authors. Due to her constant usage of explicit sexual content, Madonna faced censorship by MTV for her videos, as well as by other entities for her stage performances, and other projects in her early career.
The criticism of Madonna's overt sexuality would become a constant through her career. Madonna herself decries a double-standard in various opportunities, for which various commentators such as Lilly J. Goren, Alina Simone and David Gauntlett have supported some of her statements. As her career continued, she polarized views about overtly sexuality in an aged woman in media, with retrospective and newer immediate commentaries playing for and against her. During the AIDS crisis, Madonna had also promoted safe sex as a means of inhibiting the spread of the virus, and she has advocated for women's sexuality and individuality.
Reviews transcended Madonna's own career as various noted her impact in both popular culture and music industry. Aware of other female performers that paved the way, her path is notably recognized by a number of authors and scholars for reinforce or opened up a variety of things in mass media culture, as depends on reviewers' point of views, both positive and negative. American historian Lilly J. Goren commented that Madonna perpetuated the public perception of women performers as feminine and sexual objects, but also found that industry exploited Madonna's concepts of using sexuality to "gain power" (empowerment) and sell more records. An editor defined that "her sexuality never rested on the idea of being attractive". Her sexuality's influence on others was also quoted; earliest reviewers noted an influence on her fandom, including LGBT community and young female audiences, called Madonna wannabes. Another group explored her influence on other female artists, with feminist scholars Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender describing her dominant influence by saying "she created an illusion of sexual availability that many female pop artists felt compelled to emulate".
Due to her mainstream sexual-brand, she was called variously. Named by an author in the mid-1990s as the "most arcane and sexually perverse female of the twentieth century", commentators like Steve Allen describes it of a "professional prostitute", similar to Morrissey. In more negative connotations, she was called a Medusa, a succubus and Whore of Babylon. She was both praised and criticized by some industry fellows. Both her impact and sex appeal were recognized in listicles, topping the lists of Toronto Sun's 50 Greatest Sex Symbols in history (2006) and VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists (2002).