Madison Young
Sunday, 24 January 2010 01:55
Madison Young Madison Young is both a feminist gallery owner as well as a well-known adult performer, often with her porn career helping fund her gallery, Femina Potens. Recently featured in HBO’s Real Sex series, Young and I spoke at the 2010 AEE adult convention about her gallery, adult career, and the symbiotic relationship between art and sexuality.
Vegas Outsider: For those who have not heard of it, could you briefly discuss your gallery Femina Potens, i.e. its purpose and how it came to be?
Madison Young: The gallery I run is Femina Potens, the end of this year will mark ten years of it being open so I’m very excited about that. Femina Potens is a non-profit arts organization that I funded almost ten years ago and it’s dedicated to promoting women and transgender artists. We also cater to the kink community, the LGBT community, and the sex-positive community as well as sex workers.
VO: You were recently featured on the popular HBO series Real Sex, how was that experience for you & have you received any immediate response from it?
MY: How I first came into contact with HBO was the sex-positive, women-owned toy store Babeland had approached HBO about doing a reality show. The show they wanted to do was an educational sex show that was essentially Babeland on the road; going across America, go into areas, talking with women ranchers about how to not only tie up steers but tie up men too. So they were interested in having me be part of that, because I do a lot of educational work as well in teaching sexuality workshops. They brought me into the project and I came up with a few proposals for them. I then met with HBO alongside Babeland and proposed something they really liked called “Punk Rock Tantra”, which is a workshop I teach. I feel there are a lot of connections between music and sex, sexual energy, and how we relate to one another sexually as well as artistically, which includes music. So I created a tantra breathing workshop that incorporates music, gets it out of the New Age thing, and relates it to the newer generation. They were really into this so I gave them my press packet and one of the quotes I use in marketing is “Changing feminism one anal scene at a time”. And posing the question “how many anal scenes does it take to build a feminist art space?” So they thought that this was lovely and were very attracted to that.
So while the Babeland show didn’t happen, they approached me several months later and said “you know, that quote really stuck with us and we kept thinking ‘how can we use this girl?’ She’s great.” And I said, “well that’s very flattering, what did you come up with?” So they decided to do a Real Sex show that specifically focused on the economy and how the economy has affected the sex industry. I thought “ok, that sounds like something that would fit in”. I worked with them then as they wanted to feature both my art gallery and the directing work I do and how that fuels the art gallery and funds it. So that’s what we did; it was a bit of a challenging experience. I think any time reality television gets involved, or even more mainstream media, that’s not extremely socially aware and very conscious of subcultures that some toes can get stepped on. It was a little challenging but, in the end, we learned how to work with them and were very pleased how the product came out and felt they created a piece that was a very honest reflection of the work I do in the sex-positive community. VO: As you've discussed in that special, you view both sexuality and art as being intertwined with one another without shame; i'm curious if you can elaborate more on their connection and how it affects your overall work?
MY: I often say that the first sexual experiences I had weren’t physically sexual experiences at all; they happened on a stage. I grew up in a performance art background, went to a performing arts high school in a Cincinnati, Ohio. The way that you make yourself completely vulnerable, allowing energy to flow through you and out of you to connect with someone in an intimate way is very sexual. And I think that through art and tapping into it, that was how I wanted to tap into my own sexuality as well. I feel like the way I approach art and sexuality is very similar in that it is really about connection, pleasure, communication, and allowing this other energy we’re cultivating to rush through us, out of us, and into someone else and back through us, which is something I talk about a lot in BDSM as well and is why breath so key in art and sex and BDSM as a form of connection.
VO: What kind of art and/or artists stimulates you?
MY: I’m really drawn into performance art, I’m a performance artist myself. I’ve always loved and admired the work of Annie Sprinkle, who’s a good friend of mine. She’s actually exhibiting at the gallery right now with her partner and especially right now she’s creating a lot of work around Love. She and her partner are doing this project called The Love Art Laboratory, which I think is really amazing. I think the world can really be changed through positive energy and putting positive energy out there rather than negative energy and critiques of everything. So the positive energy she creates through her art really is transformative. Also Yoko Ono, I love her work, Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramovic, those are all performance artists that I really love. I love when bodies are involved and when people aren’t afraid to use their own bodies as a material. I also love Richard Avedon, the vulnerability that he finds in his subjects. And I think as someone who can create really powerful portraits, his work is very moving. He shows people in a very vulnerable state which is very captivating to me. And then there’s (Jean-Michel) Basquiat, Andy Warhol, who was one of my favorites back in the day when I was around eighteen. I remember going to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and feeling like I was in a wonderland.
VO: For someone who's interested in checking out your work and is curious to know what separates you from other adult performers in a nutshell, how would you describe yourself & your approach to porn?
MY: Well for me, what I’m doing is documenting our sexual culture and creating an archive of those moments. I’m also documenting my own sexual evolving and development. I’ve been in the industry for the past eight years, so it’s really amazing to look back and see how much I’ve changed, grown up, and sexually developed on screen and be able to have those sexual explorations with the camera there documenting it. It’s like looking back at home movies, it’s my photo album, but I feel incredibly privileged to be in this industry and be a pioneer who’s directing and creating these works. As a director, I love bringing together people, talking with someone, finding out what their fantasies are, what they’re into, what they’ve always wanted to do but never been able to explore, and let them know that it’s ok to explore those things. It’s very validating for someone to give them permission to explore things sexually that maybe they haven’t been able to communicate to their partners before that they wanted to explore, and then finding the right partner for them to explore those things with, and creating a safe environment for that while at the same time making sure it has all the elements to make them hot.
Maybe they’re really into dirty spaces and want to have sex in a garage; maybe they have a real thing for cars, old cars like a Mustang or an old truck. I love old, dirty trucks personally; it’s what gets me hot (smiles). But listening to someone, having coffee with them and really listening, seeing what they want to do, seeing who they’re attracted to, who they really want to have sex with. If they have partners they want to engage with, or performers they have crushes on that they want to have a scene with, and making that happen. And then facilitating a good experience for them all the way, making sure they have water, time to communicate with the partner they’re going to be working with, connecting those two performers ahead of time so that if they haven’t met they have time to go have a lunch and meet each other, so they don’t just see each other for the first time on set. And if that does happen, making sure I pull them aside and that sometimes I’ll facilitate the discussion because they may feel a little awkward talking to each other.
At the same time, I’m creating films that couples can watch together that can be educational, showing them healthy sexual communication, and that can help them to explore more. I’ve gotten so many emails, mostly from women, that said I saved their relationships. A lot of times this happens because their sexual relationship was growing a little dull, so they watch one of my videos and started exploring something new like incorporating a little BDSM, or fetish, or maybe just trying a new position and feeling comfortable in doing so; because they saw Madison do it and she’s just the girl next door, she’s from Ohio, I can do it too. I also try to make myself very accessible and approachable, making sure to email all my fans and stay in contact with them , letting them know I’m available to answer their questions. I think that we need more sexual education and dialogue happening and I think that my films can help catalyze that dialogue.
VO: That sense of connection and playfulness is very easy to see in your work, even in the scene that you shot with Kimberly Kane that was featured in the Real Sex special where it looked like the two of you were just having the best time, fooling around while still connecting on a very, intense intimate level.
MY: Right, I think the thing is when people see my films and see me perform they know that it’s not constructed. It’s not two bodies that are just trying to look good on film; it’s two people who are really connecting and are going for it. I tell people all the time that, I don’t always make the “prettiest” faces when I’m orgasming but I am there. I am present, the sounds that come out of me are guttural, and they’re animalistic. I let whatever is happening happen and don’t worry about the camera. The only thing the camera does for me is that it feeds more energy, I feel all the energy of everyone who is watching coming through and feeding the scene.
*To learn more about both Madison Young and Femina Potens, check out www.madisonbound.com and www.feminapotens.org for the latest news and events
