Madison Young & FurryGirl: Manufacturing milk, consent

You should know at the outset that, in terms of prejudices, only mine are valid.

Over the course of three days last week, a Twitter fight between two former associates—now rivals equally matched in their ability to promote their positions—raged over the issues of consent and when and when not to sexualize breasts.

Feuds on the Internet are different from fights people have in person, just as the same song sounds different when played on a trombone than on a piano. To extend that metaphor, some songs just sound better on trombone, and some people are better piano players than others.

This weekend a Seattle-based activist, writer, and pornographer who calls herself FurryGirl got into a tiff over a jpeg with San Francisco-based activist, art curator, and pornographer Madison Young. At issue was Young’s choice to be photographed breastfeeding her newborn daughter.

In a veritable Tweetkrieg of accusations and retorts that quickly grew bigger (as is the nature and intent of Twitter) than the two women, FurryGirl accused Young of being a “semi-pedophile” and of using her infant as a sex toy. FurryGirl branded San Francisco in general, and practitioners and fans of “feminist porn” in particular, as accomplices in her charges against Young.

The photo in question shows Young standing while breastfeeding her child, Emma. Both are clothed. Emma is not facing the camera. Young is heavily made up and dressed in what appears to be a cocktail frock, as is worn by some ladies. She is not looking at her child, only holding her.

If I were to tell myself a story about this photograph, which Young contributed to an art show and which was used in an advertisement for a reading series, it would be this:

Porn performer Madison Young has just had a baby and is looking forward to her first date with her partner, James, since the birth. After making herself up and squeezing into a cocktail dress, she breastfeeds one last time before leaving Emma with the babysitter.

But I “know” Madison Young (about as well as I know FurryGirl). What story would I tell if I didn’t? Well, I can’t un-know her, but I’ll give it a try.

New mom goes a little heavy on the cosmetics prior to her first night out since having the baby. The kid has been crying all day and she’s not even sure if she wants to go out or to fall asleep in her dress. She’s that tired. But the reservation has been made and the babysitter paid for. God Damn It. Might as well.

Most art (unless it is “Dogs Playing Poker”) is useless without context. What I take away from this photograph is that the mother is trying to be beautiful, trying to be desired.

It is different from a Dorothea Lange Dustbowl photo showing breastfeeding mothers. Or, staying in the Dustbowl, it is different from the final scene of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” in which Rosasharn Joad, her body still producing milk after the death of her child, breastfeeds a dying man back to health.

Instead, it is a photo that occupies the space between working motherhood and Working It motherhood.

It is sexy because Young is trying to be sexy. (It is also not sexy because Young is trying to be sexy.) But the child is not sexualized, nor is the act of breastfeeding sexualized.

But breasts are sexual objects (even if, as they are in this photo, merely implied). As a member of a group that likes breasts a lot (i.e., humans), I am often asked to turn my feelings on or off depending on how breasts are used. Rubbing against my frenulum? On. Breastfeeding a child? Off.

FurryGirl’s attack was an evolving one, but she started big. First pedophilia, then the encouragement of non-consensuality and objectification, then Deluded, Hypocritical San Francisco.

Neither FurrGirl nor Young responded when I asked for a clarification, but I assume that FurryGirl was not personally turned on by this photo, rather that she worried that Young was encouraging people who might be; people not attuned to complex thought, people we ask to make decisions.

Before being exposed to the good stuff in the woods behind my junior high school, I remember being intrigued by the breasts of a hot Bushman lady in National Geographic when I was nine. Are people who are still in touch with their inner 9-year-old the people FurryGirl is worried about? With that thinking, if the baby is the one thing obstructing the view of Young’s nipple, does the baby then function the same way as a stripper’s pastie?

Young is asking us to appeal to the better angels of our nature and to divorce the makeup and the dress from the factory they cover. Can we do it?

Word from other sites (I am thinking of a comment on a similar—and much more coherent and concise—story from “One Hot Crumpet“) suggests that FurryGirl’s attack was so much more personal because of an outstanding money issue between her and Young. FurryGirl herself warned a third party against being “ripped off” by Young.

Further, FurryGirl calls into question the “hippies” in San Francisco who would let such a thing happen because they are being “revolutionary.”

While I think FurryGirl’s charges of pedophilia are way out of line (though not libelous), Young’s protestations of non-sexuality fall short of convincing; there is an air of self-promotion and plausible denial there that concerns me as a parent. And when the canvas is at all gray, the issue of consent should be paramount. But I choose to land on the side of Art, and choose to switch Off.

Plus, I find Young’s work eminently more discussion-worthy than anything Mark Rothko did.

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Madison Young: Newly-minted MILF mixes art, breastmilkshakes
See also: Madison Y0ung, Furry Girl

About Gram the Man 4399 Articles
Gram Ponante is America's Beloved Porn Journalist

4 Comments

  1. Despite living in the Pedo-pervert Capital of America (and man, if that’s how our fellow travelers up in Seattle see us, no wonder we’re not selling in Topeka), I’m happily ignorant of what exactly turns pedos on, although I strongly suspect this photo wouldn’t do it since any sexuality exuding here is peripheral at best to the child. That said, the kid clearly is being used as a prop here, and regardless of the intent or exhibition of the photograph, that strikes me as vaguely questionable if not really damnable.

    I just hope these Porno-American artists can begin to find some commonality, perhaps on neutral ground in one of Portland’s many strip joints under the Male Gaze of both cool nerds and stupid hippies alike.

  2. As a very dear friend once said to me, while I bashfully averted my eyes while she breastfed her son, “Oh for crying out loud, this is what they’re for!” Which leaves the semi-formal dress and makeup as the only thing that could possibly lead someone to believe it was intended to be a sexualized photograph. That then leads me to wonder if the critic thinks there is a specific dress code for nursing, and anything else is a heinous transgression, of interest only to sickos and Pedobear. I’m curious now as to what she thinks proper breastfeeding attire is.

    I suppose if I’d had more wine I might start exploring whether FurryGirl has issues with women being both maternal figures and desirable ones, but I haven’t had enough to forget that I didn’t major in psych to dissect the motives of some random wanker on the interwebs.

  3. Interesting to read your take on the story too! Thanks for the link back. Have added you to my Google Reader as well, look forward to reading more of your stuff.

    –Katie

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