Final sacrilege of our lady of the conical bra

This is what happens when a fan takes Madonna too seriously, and when they assume that Madonna actually stands for something (other than making herself more wealthy and famous, that is).

Here we have an article by someone - a Ms. Fiona Leith - who claims to be a long-time Madonna fan who finds Madonna's lastest admission - of the raunchy public past having been a mistake - disheartening, a betrayal.

I'm sorry to sound like a broken record, but I keep seeing the same assumptions and points raised by Madonna fans, so I have to repeat myself from time to time.

Fans such as this Fiona Leith (who wrote this essay) equate acting like a slut with being a strong, empowered woman. Fans such as Leith bought into the postmodern feminist brayings of people such as Camille Paglia and the mainstream media that sexual hedonism is morally acceptable, or that by being a tramp, a woman is being powerful.

Leith (and those like her) also made the mistake of assuming that Madonna was using sluttiness as a feminist statement, when all it comes down to is that Madonna
1. is a common whore;
2. wanted to be the center of attention;
3. and so she realized that being a whore in public would get her more free press and hence more attention

Madonna never did give a whit about making women feel good about themselves. Madonna did not, and does not, care about women's rights.

Madonna's goal when acting like a slut writhing about on stage or in music videos was not to make a ten- or fifteen- year- old Fiona Leith feel good about herself or feel sexually liberated or emboldened. Madonna behaved and dressed like a tramp to get media attention, and there's nothing more to it than that.

I figured that out years and years ago. I don't find it surprising that Madonna would turn around in an interview and totally contradict something she's said or advocated before. Her "reinventions" are signs of someone who lacks solid morals and principles, and someone who is unwilling to stick to any principles even if she did have any.

Madonna has children's books to sell right now, so of course she's going to want to re-image herself as being a prim and proper mommy. If that means disappointing her fans, who want her to be the crotch-grabbing, cone-bra wearing slut of yesteryear (which they, for some odd reason, equate with feminism), she could care less.

Madonna is more loyal to her pocketbook than she is to any set of values or to any one set of fans(*). The Leiths of the world have not caught on to that yet.

[(*) pop rock CD buying fans verses kiddie book buying fans]

Leith should feel hopeful, though. Unless Madonna decides to stay away from vulgarity (and rely on religion or politics instead to shock), I can guarantee Leith that Madonna will do and say trashy, trampy things to promote her next record, which is coming out later this year. Also look for Madonna to say the "F" word a lot when she goes on tour next year and to do or say something obscene on her next tour.

Madonna is incrediby fake and phony. She doesn't stand for anything but putting herself first.

Madonna never cared about promoting feminism - this is why she will ditch the trashy persona in a heart-beat if she thinks doing so will sell a handful of more kiddie books to conservative mommies who would otherwise refuse to buy anything from Madonna, given Madonna's trashy past.

Once it suits her career to do so, Madonna will then dump the "chaste and pure" persona she has been putting on lately to act like a harlot again, if she thinks it will sell more pop rock CDs or concert tickets.

The final sacrilege of our lady of the conical bra

Sun 26 Jun 2005
The final sacrilege of our lady of the conical bra
FIONA LEITH

AFTER a loving relationship of 22 years with someone, it would be nigh impossible to avoid the searing sense of pain and betrayal were they to turn round and tell you that it had all been just a ruse, perpetuated solely for their benefit, and now it was over; that they had done it for all the wrong reasons and none of it actually meant anything in the end. A sham, a scam, thank you mam.

You would be entitled to feel pretty gutted. But gutted doesn't even come close to encapsulating my emotions upon hearing that Madonna has decided to renounce her 'sexy' past. One of, if not the, most important female figures in popular culture for the past three decades has decided that the game is up and she wants to wipe the slate clean.

No, there won't be an amnesty on all your old Madge memorabilia, don't worry - picture the scene as people from all walks of life trudge down to their local polis station trailing fingerless lace gloves, gold conic bras and riding whips, depending on which Madonna they fell head over heels for in the wardrobe department - but, as ever, the power of her words have a distinctly era-defining ring to them.

Yes, we have been here before in part, hanging on the singer's every word like baby birds at feeding time. Madonna is, after all, the postmodern world's mother of reinvention and we've been grateful for even just a sliver of her latest sensational declaration at every turn, whether it was the one about being virginal, or being bisexual, or who can forget the raging dominatrix one.

And for all her bluster, she has not only seen the persona through in image but in rhetoric too. The 18-year-old girl from Michigan who arrived in New York with $35 in her pocket and went on to sell more than 85 million albums worldwide hasn't embodied an age of rocketing materialism without knowing what sells and how to sell it.

There is so much more to this than the iconography, you see. Like so many women in their late twenties, I have grown up with Madonna. Not just in the sense that her songs accompanied momentous times in my life - from the first youth club disco to getting clubbed out in Ibiza a decade later - but in that what she stood for, sang about and spoke about had a massively empowering effect on my understanding of the possibilities of being a woman.

For better or worse, few of us can deny her influence in these matters. Madonna came along and asserted herself sexually from the first moment she writhed around in that wedding dress on the canals of Venice for the video of 'Like A Virgin' 20 years ago.

From then on she consistently challenged and redefined the status quo of how women presented and thought of themselves in the workplace, in relationships and in the media, whether it was through the power-dressing call to arms of songs like 'Express Yourself' or the gender-bending possibilities of 'Justify My Love'.

So to backtrack now by saying in an interview for Ladies Home Journal: "Ultimately none of us wants to be judged, or approved of, or loved because of how sexy we are," is frankly quite hard to stomach. Madonna used sex to sell herself to a generation of women, not just as a disposable product but as a cultural, in the broadest sense, state of mind.

Choosing to now dismiss all those overtly sexual performances does so much more than just conveniently wipe the slate clean for a woman now intent on redefining herself once again in order to feel accepted as an author/ mother/ wife/ fortysomething.

It forces one to question so many aspects of her achievements and just how much substance they actually have. Forget the sacrilege, it could be argued that her attempts to erase or dilute some of the pages from her career scrapbook is quite possibly one of the most genuinely harmful things Madonna has done for her career.

Backtracking is a dangerous game to play. We don't like it when politicians change their minds or try to reinterpret previous actions or statements according to what suits the current social climate.

It reeks of opportunism and a shallowness that then throws any future grandstanding under a harsher light that all too often shows up copious unseen imperfections. And it can be equally affecting when artists of such an influential nature as Madge decide to do the same thing.

I have to admit that something inside me churned in horror the day I saw eco-warrior extraordinaire Sting advertising cars on the television. His bare-footed, rainforest-saving strumming suddenly fell hollow in a puff of exhaust fumes.

Mrs Ritchie has exhibited a similarly naked ambition in her attempts to be taken seriously as she publishes her fifth children's book. Maybe it really was all just a performance, but isn't it sad that in the end what Madonna might become is a fairly immaterial woman?

Leith, if you had been reading my anti- Madonna site and this discussion board over the past 2 years, Madonna's denouncement of her slutty past would not have taken you by surprise. Madonna is an opportunist. She doesn't give a damn about you or other women, or how men treat women, or women's place in the world or how the media portrays women. You were the one assuming that Madonna grabbing her crotch equated to "Hmm, that must be a deep, meaningful pro-feminist statement on Madonna's part."

By the way, Madonna denounced her slutty antics in interviews she was giving around the time of the Ray of Light CD promotions, or a couple of years later. Then she went back to being somewhat trashy, on her "Drowned World Tour."

I can't believe so many people have been suckered by Madonna. Why don't more people see through her, and see her for what she is?

So does that mean this chick is going to start buying Monistat for herself or is she saying Mandona may be out of it but she herself will continue in her soggy footsteps?

Honest to God, I have not seen one Catholic display as much rancor over Mandona's serial desecrations as this woman has over her comments about her venereal spew. Probably the world already went to hell before Mandona had her first tactile experience.

....Yah, mandona was a real empowerer of women. That's why we have endless legions of zitty girls gone wild falling over themselves to lift their legs for the gritty lens, like rabid coyotes fighting over the only fire hydrant in town. That's why we have Paris Hilton occupying every non-commercial inch of the media. That's why these walking bacteria depositories are the force-fed role models for all young girls.

Take a bow, mandona. And make sure everyone can see your tw*t- you can't afford to let down your fans.


.....truth be known, I have no problem with mandona being a pig. Let her. I wouldn't spend five minutes saying anything about her at all- because I have nothing against whores.
But mandona continues to spew her hatred against Christianity. That's her real message, which her fans deny. What she spews out of her mouth is the offence, not what she spews out of her back end.

Wonder why she regrets that?

Oh, I forgot. She's announced she's a diety now, and needs the respect.

It is a little odd that the woman who wrote the thing feels dismayed that Madonna is now apologizing for having been a total whore - (I know you'd prefer that this author point out that Madonna still needs to apologize for her anti-Christian shtick.)

I'd think that this woman would be glad that the Venereal Girl is showing something resembling remorse for having been a slut; instead, she's broken up about it.

This is probably a result of black-is-white, white-is-black mentality, calling bad good and good bad which is epidemic in our postmodern world (it results when people reject the notion of absolute morality and replace it with moral relativity).

To her, a woman simulating oral sex on a water bottle, miming masturabtion on stage in a rock concert, and posing for X-rated photos for a sex book is "good," and it's "feminist." In the past, Madonna would've been called a slut for it, she would not have been celebrated for such behavior.

I don't think Madonna was sincere about her apology, or expression of regret, whatever you wish to call it. Because Madonna shies away from calling it "regret," it's difficult to apply a description to her commentary on her raunchy past.

Tangent: I think Madonna shies away from the term "regret," since she so famously spat out in her early 1990s pop song Human Nature, "Absolutely no regrets" when defending her slutty behavior and persona.

To use the word "regret" now would be viewed as capitulating to her critics, to admit that her prior behavior was, in fact, immoral. And she can't have that. She has to leave the die-hard fans with the impression that she's still an "in your face" rebel who doesn't cave in to what other people think, who will not apologize or back down, especially to conservative people.

I don't know if I necessaily hate slutty women in and of themselves. I think what bothers me is that in Madonna's case, she's proud to have loose morals, and she flaunts her sluttiness in public, and she (whether on purpose or not, I do not know) encourages other people to be sluts.

To add insult to injury, feminists write treatises citing Madonna and her sluttiness as an example of feminism, when she is no such thing. Also, the fans applaud her for being a slut. So do many members of the media.

I hate Madonna for a litany of reasons, though, not just the sluttiness.

I too object to her anti-Christian actions and words. She's also been disrespectful to other religions, too. I also frown upon her total lack of originality, how she never ceases to rip off other people. She's selfish, materialistic (despite her recent claims to the contrary), egotistical, and a people-user, too.

Take almost every negative quality a person could have, and she has almost all of them. Nobody is perfect, we all have a few negative qualities, but I've never seen any one person who has so many all at the same time as she does. It's astounding.

Some time ago, my sister told me, "I thought you hated Madonna only because she copied off Marilyn Monroe a lot." -- oh, no, no. I have so many reasons why I hate Man-donna. I had to correct my sister on that.

I don't know what to say about this fan's article. She acts as if her life is over because Madonna "claims" to be a New Mother. I cannot believe that the same fans who call her the Genius of Reinvention (no rip-off jokes this time) think that whenever she DOES reinvent herself, it's for real, that it is the last time.
I think some of these misguided head-up-rear feminists are actually reluctant to grow up and admit defeat. The author says in a way that when Madonna does something big, it defines or ends an era. That's rubbish, but perhaps Madonna putting out the image that she's a happily married mom and wife, and has found some spiritual contentment (phony or not) she is telling the feminists that they are wrong. That Madonna admits she needs a hubby is s slap to all her female fans who always believed that a strong woman doesn't need a man. They need to pose nude and be vile and show their crotch at every opportunity to GET rich, but they won't admit that. They think being a smart woman means sell yourself and your boobs to get power. Forget a woman's mind. That was Madonna's message. Forget my mind, look at my twat. God knows she couldn't get wealthy any other way.
Anyway, the author is afraid to admit she may have been wrong. Her icon has only found happiness in the arms of a doofus man. Her icon is raising a brood. Her icon has turned traitor.
It also sounds, via this "end of an era" silliness, that the author wants to remain in the fun loving 80s, when mall rats wore fingerless gloves, and Boy George, Flock of Seagulls, and various other new groups made fun videos on the then-fun MTV, and did fun interviews and wore fun clothes. It was a lot different, and even to me more desirable, than the depressing MTV generation of today. Gangster rap, total airheads in belly shirts (thanks Madonna), every singer has to have some deep but dull political opinion, and 12 year olds have VD. I remember when our icons weren't Britney, Snoop, Jessica, or anything remotely like Lindsey. Sure we played music and acted silly and bought into weird fads, but we had priorities in mind. College, career, family. Now the main priority for girls in school is a belly earring and tattoo. Oh, and 500 dollar shoes because S J Parker has a pair.
Anyway, the author is lamenting the passing of her youth. If Madonna is finally growing up, good, but I personally think it's another remake. I do think that sometime whe will admit to buying into garbage like Kabbalah strings and crystals, and may try to shock us again. Then the author can feel good about herself, since her happiness must depend on what Madonna looks like. "Poor is the man who's pleasures depend on the permission of another" indeed.

All good points

I have noticed that secular feminsts do get hacked off when 'one of their own' seems to turn on them - by getting married, or, by getting married and publicly stating how much they enjoy the husband/ family/ homelife thing.

This isn't even the first time Madonna has done, this, either, but the author of the piece acts like this is the first time Madonna has renounced her "shocking" past, when she did so in interviews in the late 1990s or early '00s.

Nobody but me (and I bet madonnasuxx) remembers that. After having renounced it, she turned right back around wore the "Mother F*cker" shirt in concert, kissed Britney Spears on the 2003 VMAs, and so on.

This is s.o.p. with Man-donna. When Man-donna comes out with her next record, she'll go right back to doing and saying obscene things (unless, as I said in the post above, she decides to go with politics or religion for shock rather than sex).

Off topic, not purely Madonna related, but -

I wonder if any of this has to do with the age range of the entertainers? In the past 7 years or so, record companies have been pimping female pop singers who are under age 20 up the public's wazoo.

I don't have anything against under- age- 21 performers per se, it's just that the field nowadays seems to be glutted with them.

Back in the 1980s, most of the performers were in their mid-twenties or older (and I'm sure some may have been in their early 20s). Teeny bopper acts such as Debbie Gibson and Tiffany were the exception, not the rule.

People back in the '80s thought it was kind of unique and weird to have a 16 year old girl write and sing her own songs, as Gibson did. Gibson and Tiffany each had their little niche market.

I think "Menudo" was around, and they were one other exception, but they did not get heavy air play on Top 40 radio. I think they were mostly played on Latino stations.

Weren't the guys in NKOTB(*) ("New Kids on the Block") at least 19 or 20 (or wait, were they even around in the '80s or were they around in the early 1990s)?

These days you can't turn around without a 16 or 18 year old female singer being thrust in your face.

I think Michael Jackson was in his 20s in the 1980s. The members of Duran Duran were in their 20s in the 1980s when they got all their big hits, I believe. Prince was in his 20s, maybe early 30s in the 1980s.

Madonna got started in her career in her mid or late 20s. Cyndi Lauper was in her 20s, wasn't she? Guns 'N' Roses members - twenties. Billy Idol - 20s (maybe 30s). Gloria Estefan - 20s (maybe 30s). Van Halen. The Police - members of all those bands were in their 20s, maybe 30s.

Then you had Tina Turner, who was what, in her 30s or 40s back then, but she had huge smash hits off her "Private Dancer" record. Patti LaBelle was probably in her 40s or so then. The Pointer Sisters - 30s or 40s in the 80s, I think. Older acts such as Elton John, Lionel Ritchie, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, etc. were getting air play and attention.
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(*) This is just plain mean of me, and I usually don't just rip on someone's physical appearance (other than Man-donna), but I never understood why girls thought that the guys of NKOTB were cute.

One of them looked a lot like Frankenstein's monster, as a matter of fact. He had a square- shaped head and everything, he was just missing the bolts in the neck. Very mean of me, sorry; I don't mean to be mean, that's what he honestly reminds me of. Maybe he's a real sweetheart of a guy, though. Or very intelligent. Has to have some quality that makes up for lack of attractiveness...

Excellent points, girls. Well said.

Exactly. The people who don't understand my Madonna hatred don't seem to realize what a cult following she has - consisting of real die-hard fans and other women who maybe don't love her as much but still have nevertheless absorbed her stupid hypocritical "messages" and thus can't figure out why they're so damn confused. Ever notice how the chicks on "Sex And The City" were essentially always b!tching about something?

One of them looked a lot like Frankenstein's monster, as a matter of fact. He had a square- shaped head and everything, he was just missing the bolts in the neck.

I remember him. He reminded me of Bowser from Sha Na Na!

Bearing in mind that my first post in this thread was written in 2005 and it is now 2008 - here is part of what I said in that post back in 2005:

What I said came true.

After Madonna was done promoting the kiddie books, she went on to act trashy again, by "flipping the bird" at audiences during her promotions and tours of Confessions on a Dance Floor and Hard Candy; she also kissed female singers on stage in the past 3 years; shoved microphones down her pants; licked her fingers after sticking them on her crotch on stage; simulated having an orgasm on the latest tour; placed a photo of Hitler alongside one of John McCain; screamed the "F" word on stage during a few of her 2008 "Sticky and Sweet" concerts, etc.

Well, maybe you're a very talented mind reader...



Or maybe GagDonna is not as unpredictable as the media and her rabid fans thinks she is !