Sex. Photographed by Stephen Meisel, art directed by Fabian Baron, edited by Glenn O’Brien, and produced by Callaway.

Madonna.

Sex. Photographed by Stephen Meisel, art directed by Fabian Baron, edited by Glenn O’Brien, and produced by Callaway.

New York:

Warner Books,

1992.

Some bindings do not stand up to repeated use. RBS owns two copies of Madonna’s controversial 1992 photobook, Sex. In the first copy, the spiral binding is warped, and the leaves have fallen out and are no longer in their original order. In 2017, RBS purchased a second copy sealed in its original printed silvered Mylar package so that students could see how the book appeared when it first hit the market. The Mylar wrapper emulated condom packaging while also protecting the book from “unpaying browsers,” as one New York Times critic put it.

From the collection of Rare Book School