In the months leading up to Like A Virgin’s release, music critics had already written Madonna off as a one-hit wonder. Then the album sold twelve million copies worldwide on its release, and almost instantly there were courses offered at your campus Women’s Studies Department on how Madonna changed the game for women in pop music. The phenomenon of her fandom was being compared to Beatlemania, as fleets of teenage girls began to dress like the street-smart pop diva and embrace the image of a woman who was sexually confident and unashamed.  

This growing fascination with Madonna was further encouraged by the public outrage amongst conservatives, a trend that would start in 1984 and seldom subside. It wasn’t just the subtle promotion of promiscuity that ruffled feathers; Madonna leveraged her Catholic upbringing to include religious references in her music videos that would juxtapose crosses and weddings dresses with candid sexual openness, challenging the virgin/whore complex.  

After hearing the album, Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center placed Like A Virgin on their list of the “Filthy Fifteen,” urging Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to add a warning label to the record, as song such as “Dress You Up” were deemed unsuitable to minors. Although the moral moms of the country condemned her lyrics and imagery, the album was becoming a focal point for discussions of sex, gender, and religion. Madonna’s only defense was that she had nothing out of the ordinary for male musicians, and the criticism was based in engendered “virginal” expectations she shunned. She was a woman in control of her sex life and her career, and it is that enduring image that has made her so influential.