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Enrollment for the 2017 Explore More Summit is OFFICIALLY open. The summit is free, runs for ten days, and features interviews with 30 incredible thought-leaders. You can sign-up at exploremoresummit.com. It all starts March 8th, 2017.
This week, Madison Young is here to talk all about porn, submission, motherhood and sex, and her Erotic Film School, which I’m attending in a few weeks.
Madison has had the unique and powerful opportunity to document so much of her sexual journey and personal stories on film, thanks to porn. And now, she is hard at work writing books on submission and BDSM, DIY porn, and parenthood.
We roll around in all of the things she’s learned and experienced, plus we share our struggles as people who have trouble prioritizing self-care (which many of you can relate to).
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
In this episode, Madison and I talk about:
- Madison was just a judge at an erotic short film festival called Briefs. We talk about what that was like and what her favorite film was (shout out to Erika Lust!). Porn festivals and public erotic film watching are incredible.
- Erotic Film School, which I’m attending, and Madison’s record enrollment for this year’s course. So many people are interested in learning how to film and create erotic film and porn for such a wide variety of reasons, which we need now more than ever.
- Why DIY porn is so critical to our lives and our world – it’s the only artistic medium where we really document sex, and it’s also a way to engage with politics and create dialog around important issues.
- How Madison got started in porn and why it ended up being such an important part of her work and her activism. The way she talks about it is absolutely enchanting.
- Motherhood, pregnancy, and sexuality. Madison documented her sexual experience on film through pregnancy and after, and she wrote a book about it all.
- What submission means to Madison and how it’s a part of her identity. Being a submissive has changed quite a bit over the years, and she shares a little of her journey with us, including what submission looks like with two young children and how she still makes time for these little sexual containers for her and her Daddy.
- Madison’s advice to parents who want to nurture erotic connection post-baby. She suggests reconnecting with your own body and your own sexuality first before worrying about connecting with a partner.
- Madison’s new book on BDSM and connection called “Surrender.” It’s all about mindfulness, breathing, and energy work through pain, through spankings, through submission. It’s a marriage of tantric practices and kink.
- Her definition of surrender and how raw and vulnerable it is – exposing ourselves to the person or people we are connecting with. Madison talks about how surrender is for both the submissive and the Dominant, which is where beautiful connections come from.
- How do people start down the path of vulnerability and surrender if it’s super scary or new for them?
- One of Madison’s most fond memories of submission with her Daddy, which is also written about in her book, “Daddy: A Memoir.”
- Why Madison is so grateful that so much of her journey has been documented and what it means to her to have these images.
Resources mentioned in this episode
“Daddy: A Memoir” by Madison Young
“DIY Porn Handbook: A How-To Guide to Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution” by Madison Young
About Madison Young
Madison Young is an artist and activist dedicated to creating space for revolutionary love. This body-based performance artist grew up in the suburban landscape of Southern Ohio before moving to San Francisco in 2000. Since then this Midwestern gal has dedicated her days to facilitating safe space to dialogue on the topic of fringe identities and cultures as well as documenting healthy expression of sexuality.
Young’s breadth of work, in the realm of her artistic manifestations, intersects the fields of sexuality, identity, and pornography. Her work spans from documenting our sexual culture in her Internationally screened and award-winning feminist erotic films to having served as the Artistic Director of the forward-thinking nonprofit arts organization Femina Potens Art Gallery for over a decade.
Young has exhibited Internationally with her performance art, video art installations, and photography. Young values sexual freedom and self expression of queer identity in her work and has taught workshops, lectures, and acted as a panelist on the topics of sexuality, feminist porn studies, the politics of BDSM and queering the body with in the arena of performance art, at institutions including at Yale University, Hampshire College, Northwestern University, University of Toronto, University of Minnesota, and UC Berkeley.
Her memoir, Daddy, was published in February 2014 through Rare Bird.
Madison Young lives and creates work in Berkeley, California where she recently completed her second book The DIY Porn Handbook: Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution (Greenery Press).
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hey listeners, Dawn Serra here with this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I am so excited for this one. So before we jump in, first, I want to let you know make sure that you go to exploremoresummit.com and sign up for the summit. 30-hour long talks from the world’s leaders in sex, relationships, emotions, communicating, kink. It’s really good this year. In fact, there’s so much about it that’s good and life changing. I am going to be changing the way that I do sex advice, the way that I even experience touch and pleasure in my personal life. There’s so much, so I want you to check it out, exploremoresummit.com. Also, a huge thank you to those of you who have been popping over to Patreon to support the show. Every single time I see a new notification, it literally feels like pure elation. It just feels so good knowing that you want to support the show and that you like the work that I’m doing. I have to get through the summit, but then I have some really fun things planned for Patreon supporters. Last week, there was even a little special behind the scenes clip that Patreon supporters got. So if you want to support the show, even if it’s just $1 a month, that would be amazing. You can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. This week, there’s also a listener confession, which you will hear in just a second. Then after the confession, I will come back and tell you all about Madison young.
Listener Confession: “Have you ever seen a customer be a real jerk to a store clerk? Back during my days, I took a day job in the 7/11 so that I could have my nights free. When I was there, I heard it all and saw it all. Even worse than I ever did at a gig. Those were some of meanest customers I’ve ever seen. I’m sorry to say that while some of them were women, most of them and the meanest of them, were all men. But maybe that’s just because, it’s one thing to get in a spat with a woman. But a man could hurt me in a way that a woman just couldn’t. Taken by themselves, the stuff they did didn’t really seem that bad. It was pretty ridiculous. For instance, they would mumble, “Ugly bitch, ugly bitch,” while I write the cash register. But couldn’t look me in the eye and imitate said it. Or they’d asked me for a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and wouldn’t tell me which kind, and make me show them all the 10 or 11 kinds that we had behind the counter before they took a box right off of the little counter display and threw it straight at my boobs.”
“Toward the end of the day, it really started to add up and after months and months, I really started to feel worried about not just going to work, but about talking to men in general. You see, I had a similar thing going on in my band. That’s another story. And in my primary relationship too. So the three biggest parts of my day was spent with men, whom I really just wanted a good interaction with and couldn’t get. What I wanted so much to happen in that 7/11 was for a male customer to just come in and be polite to me – no eye rolling, no mumbling, no smirking. Just look me in the eye and say, “Hi, how are you doing today?” There was one customer who did. He was kind of a quiet and shy fellow, looked like a mountain man – a bear type – wears a beard and flannel shirt. I always liked it when he came in because he was the one bright spot of niceness in my day. I come home in the afternoon after my shift and lay on the floor and cry myself to sleep.”
Listener Confession: “I thought my co-worker who was tall and willowy with big blue eyes was their favorite and that they liked her, and just didn’t like me. But I met up with her about five years after I managed to quit. She gained weight and got color in her face. She told me it was because she quit. She came home and threw up after all of that abuse all day long. I was glad to know it wasn’t aimed at me personally. But I did wonder, if they would treat her like that, too, what did it mean about them? So many mean men so difficult to deal with, and so hurtful. I knew that I got bitter, and I needed to heal myself. So before I put myself in contact with real men, I decided to do something on my own, to make myself feel more comfortable with them. I want them to see men in a completely different context and interact with them, and experience them in a completely different way than I had. Specifically, I wanted to see some naked.”
“Now in those days, most of the porn available was either Playgirl, or it was the porn that has the plastic female stereotypes in them that I just didn’t want to see. Then that left gay porn. Although the men weren’t there for me, and I could tell, there was still plenty of opportunity to see men unarmored in an erotic context, and at their very best. So every once in a while, I would go to the one porn shop we had in town and go into the gay section, which was set off from the rest of the store in its own little glass enclosed area.”
Listener Confession: “One day, no different from any other day, really, I went in. As I passed through the door, a man passed to the side of me on the way out, and I heard his voice, “How you doing?” He sounded a little scared, as I would imagine he would. My gut reaction was that it was awesome to know somebody who came in here and did the same thing I did. It was validating to have a man see me in a porn shop, and totally be totally okay with it. Even though it didn’t dawn on me right away who he was, I looked over to return the greeting. There, of all people, was my customer. My one customer who was nice to me with a gay bear magazine in his hand. As he walked on by me and went on, the implication sank in. The one guy who was nice to me all day long in that place, was the one for whom sex was not on the table. What was it about my sexuality that made all those men want to be mean to me? That dark period of my life did eventually pass. I met higher quality men and forged better relationships with them. I also learned some things about why those men acted the way they did. But at the time, it really contributed to my losing faith in men.”
Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for sending in that submission. That was by Polyhedron, and that was for February’s theme of confessions. So it just made it in. The March theme will be going out in just a couple of days to all of the newsletter subscribers for Sex Gets Real. So stay tuned for that, I can’t wait to get your March submissions. Now we are going to jump into my interview with the incredible, the amazing Madison Young. I’m sure loads of you are familiar with her. But let me tell you a little about her and what she does, and then we will jump in because we’re talking about BDSM and submission, and surrender and porn, porn, porn porn porn. So it’s a really fun week.
Madison Young is an artist and activist dedicated to creating space for revolutionary love. This body-based performance artist grew up in the suburban landscape of Southern Ohio before moving to San Francisco in 2000. Since then, this Midwestern gal has dedicated her days to facilitating safe space to dialogue on the topic of fringe identities and cultures, as well as documenting healthy expression of sexuality. Young’s breadth of work in the realm of her artistic manifestations intersects the fields of sexuality, identity, and pornography. Her work spans from documenting our sexual culture in her internationally screened and award winning feminist erotic films, to having served as the artistic director of the forward thinking nonprofit arts organization Feminine Potenza art gallery for over a decade. You can check out Young’s memoir, Daddy: A Memoir, which was published in February 2014. Madison lives and creates in Berkeley, California, where she also recently completed her book, The DIY Porn Handbook, which we talked about a lot in this episode. So enjoy, make sure you go check out the explore more summit. It starts March 8. Also, pop over to Patreon.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to the show, Madison. I’m so excited to have you here.
Madison Young: Thank you so much for having me.
Dawn Serra: So I saw that you were just a judge at Briefs, which was an erotic film competition and I’d love to hear how that went.
Madison Young: That was super exciting. I love, love, love erotic film competitions and erotic film screenings. I truly love more than anything seeing erotic film on the big screen and coming together with other people in the same room and watching erotic film. I think my experiences in performance and theater, and events – I love the gathering of people together watching sex. I think that’s so important.
Dawn Serra: I totally agree. I went to one porn festival maybe two summers ago, it was the Queer Porn Film Festival in Brooklyn that Courtney Trouble put on, and it was my first opportunity to be in a shared public space and to watch all of these incredibly diverse films, and then to talk about them. Jizz Lee was there and Stoya was there. So then we got to ask questions with the performers and the filmmakers. It was such an incredible bonding, intimate experience, but also so refreshing.
Madison Young: Yeah, I think it’s a huge step in destigmatizing sex and bodies and sexuality, and really opening the conversation around sex so much when we all come together and watch together. It’s a great catalyst for that dialogue.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think that traditional porn and mainstream porn, and the way that a lot of people use porn is so steeped in shame and secrecy. And, it’s something you do alone at night when your spouse is in bed. So to be able to actually do this as an act of sharing, and to do it proudly is just refreshing and we need more of it. I’m wondering if there were any standouts that you really loved – like little things that surprised you or something that was new for you that you saw that a filmmaker had done, anything that you might be able to share?
Madison Young: Yeah, I thought a really nice element of Briefs was that it was so diverse and so very different. Some of the work wasn’t necessarily sexual film. It was talking about sex or addressing sex versus showing graphic depiction of sex. There was a really large gamut of how professional or amateur a film was. There were definitely some beginners that were in there, and then there were very polished professionals that have been around as long as I have like Erica Lust had a film that was in the festival. So that was really nice, as well, to see films in such a range from the filmmakers, so that was really great. I always love Erica Lust films. I thought she had an excellent film in the competition. I know that often she does film that are inspired by questions that people have about sex or sexuality.
It started off with if a woman is menstruating does it make a vampire want to eat her? Or make love to her or something like that.It was this whole very well done, extremely well shot vampire cunnilingus menstrual blood scene. That was beautiful, it was really beautiful.
Dawn Serra: I had a chance to see that one. Maybe a month ago and I remember being so surprised, but also there was so much humor in it and this little wink at the end. How wonderful to eroticize menstrual blood and also use these like Modern Romance themes of vampire.
Madison Young: Yeah, yeah. I feel like it really smashed some taboos there and that it also was extremely so lovely to watch, so well shot. The cinematography was amazing. It was really beautiful.
Dawn Serra: Speaking of cinematography, I know that you are gearing up for erotic film school in a couple weeks which I will be attending and I’ve been telling other listeners about
Madison Young: I’m so excited that you’ll be there next this year.
Dawn Serra: I know, me too. It sounds like you’ve got a whole bunch of people enrolled.
Madison Young: Yes, we do. I think that we’re going to have double the students this year than we have since our first year. This is our third year doing the full three day program, although I’ve been teaching DIY porn workshops in smaller versions like one day intensives for a long time. I think back in 2007 was the first DIY porn workshop that I taught. So it’s come a long way since then. I’m extremely excited to see so many people very interested in the program. It’s pretty amazing to see how it’s grown.
Dawn Serra: Oh my god. I’m so excited to actually get my hands on some of these skills. But I’m also so excited to see who’s in the room, and hear people’s ideas and connect with all of these incredible creatives. Then of course, the lineup of speakers that you have looks phenomenal. I’m drooling at the opportunity to get there and actually do this.
Madison Young: It’s amazing. The diversity of the students and what inspires them to take the course. Some people are coming in as sex educators, others as performance artists or video artists. Some people are coming from kink or poly or queer communities and simply want to see more of the way they identify in their sexuality and their gender represented better in erotic film and pornography.
Last year, we had a student with a theatre background who was a Shakespearean historian, and he was interested in making Bard core films. And he wrote a book about how incredibly sexual Shakespeare and his writing is, and how we often gloss over a lot of the very dirty details because we’re lacking an understanding of what Shakespeare actually meant. So he’s very dedicated to bringing the raunchiness of Shakespeare to film.
Dawn Serra: Oh, I love that.
Madison Young: Yes. So there’s a lot of different people coming for different reasons all very passionate about creating new film and showing a new perspective of erotic film.
Dawn Serra: I know that between the DIY Porn Handbook, which anybody who’s interested at all in filming erotic film or porn, whether it’s just for yourself or actually produce for others, need to get this book. Then you created this three-day intensive certification program of erotic film school. I’d love to know, you’ve put so much of yourself into your DIY porn workshops and now the film school, and then this really comprehensive book. What is it about DIY porn and teaching others how to create is so important to you?
Madison Young: For me, all of my artistry – all of what I’ve done as far as within porn and creating an art gallery and activism in theater, very little of it has come from any formal training. It’s mostly been all DIY. Seeing that there’s a lack of something and working with others to create resources and to create change and to create dialogue, so that we can largely change the world. Smash sexual shame and stigma around sexuality and bodies, so that we’re able to enjoy ourselves better, connect with others, have healthier relationships to our own bodies and to other people. I mean, I feel like sexual shame affects so many different things in politics, in our society, and it’s really damaging. So it’s so very important to advocate for that and for us to get over that sexual stigma and create healthy environments to talk about sex. I can’t just do that alone and there’s no reason for me to be the only person doing that. So I want to empower others.
I can’t tell everybody’s story. The best thing that I can do is find my own honest truth and put that out there, and hold space for other people to tell their stories. But part of that holding space is giving resources like the DIY porn handbook and erotic film school. So sharing those resources so others can tell their story and show a greater diversity of bodies, gender, sexuality, desire.
Dawn Serra: I feel like we need that now more than ever.
Madison Young: Absolutely, absolutely.
Dawn Serra: I think one of the things that’s so beautiful to me around DIY porn, feminist porn, ethical porn is it’s personal stories with personal aesthetics, and it allows us to center female gaze and queer gaze, and have this rich dialogue. At the same time, it’s also a very political activist-y thing to do of smashing the patriarchy and telling new stories about how genders can relate and how bodies can look. So I love that you’re creating a platform where people feel invited to step into the role of activist and storyteller. I think it’s really powerful.
Madison Young: Absolutely. I mean, the book entitled DIY Porn Handbook: Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution. Someone was reviewing the book recently and mentioned how I am consistently referring to porn as documenting our own sexuality, and I really see it as that. It’s like porn is one of the only artistic means in which we have documentation, graphic documentation, of sex. So it’s so important for us to add an authenticity there and not simply perpetuate this idea of, “Okay, what do we assume the viewers want to see and creating this artificial idea of what sex looks like and perpetuating that false idea.” Instead, really showing something authentic in whatever that means.
Dawn Serra: You’ve had such an incredible journey as an activist and a creator, and a filmmaker and you have so much experience both performing and directing. From the time that you first started creating pornography and being a part of erotic imagery as activism to now, what for you has changed around either your aesthetic or the way you tell story or has it changed? Has it just gotten stronger as you’ve gone on your journey? What was it like in the beginning compared to now?
Madison Young: Well, I entered into erotic film as a performer. I went to college and a performing arts school as a theater major, so I had a theater and performing background. Then in 2002, I started working in erotic film as a performer. It first originated as a way for me to fund my feminist art gallery. But I quickly understood that I was like, “Okay, this is something that I enjoy.” I think this is amazing for me to be able to document orgasms and find my sexuality in front of the lens. It was something I really enjoyed. But I have a hard time doing anything in a small way. I quickly saw that porn was not only this funding source for the gallery, but was this amazing platform to talk about sex, to talk about gender, to talk about feminism. And simply by being authentic – that could mean as little as–
I mean, some of the roles that I’ve played are very fantastical, but being honest in your sexuality, so having even genuine orgasms. I have a one woman show that premiered last year and one of the lines in it was that it talks about how in mainstream porn the the director of a mainstream porn would say, “In 10 seconds, I want for you to fake an orgasm and then the performer, he’s going to cum on your face or cum on your tits.” I told him, I was like, “Give me 10 seconds, I’ll have a real orgasm and then he can cum on my tits.” I said, “That’s feminism.” Demanding space to have an authentic orgasm. I can do that on demand, just give me the time – 10 seconds is what you want to give me? All right. I’ll work with that. But what I put on on the camera, what that camera captures is going to be real. I may have missed the question.
Dawn Serra: No, I love it. I wanted to know what your journey had been. But I love that, you’re just talking about being radically real. If you’re real in the beginning and your real now, it’s basically getting to see your journey as an artist unfold.
Madison Young: Yes, yes. So I guess the thing that has changed the most is my life and reflection of where I am in my sexuality at that moment. That goes for filmmaking, porn, my writing. It was very important for me to document my sexuality during pregnancy, and then in postpartum. I mean, I started doing this when I was 21 years old, and I’m now 36. My entire 20s are on film and well into my 30s as well. I’ve changed during that time, my body has changed, where I am in my life has changed.
I think that it’s important to document that span of how we change. And that when you’re pregnant, your sexuality still exists – you still have sex, what’s that like, how our bodies change, what it’s like to have sex after having a child. Just because you become a mother doesn’t mean that our sexual desire disappears, but how that can morph. All of those things have informed my art and the film, my filmmaking experience.
Dawn Serra: I’m so glad you brought up motherhood and sexuality, and your sexual journey through being pregnant and now as a mom. A lot of my listeners are either super kinky or kink curious and trying to find the courage to try stuff. I’d love it if we could start with some basics and then dive a little bit more into your experiences. But you’ve written extensively about being a submissive from your book, Daddy: A Memoir, to your contribution to the Ultimate Guide to Kink, and so many other things. I would love it if you could share with everyone what submission means to you and the way that you’ve lived as a submissive,
Madison Young: My submission is definitely something. Being a submissive is part of my identity, it’s part of who I am. What that looks like in actuality has changed quite a bit over the years. Me and my partner, my dominant, my husband and co-parent, we have a lot of different roles that we balance. When we first started our very first dominant submissive agreement, we were much more – almost 24/7. We definitely tried it out kind of 24/7 for a while and then had days and hours in which I would be in service to him. And that could mean a lot of different things – that could mean writing an essay on submission or doing service for the community, or practicing my flogging, so that I could be a service top for him in one of his films. It could mean a lot of different things.
Submission, for me, is about service and the joy of serving another person and expecting nothing in return. An absolute surrender and service to, not only this individual but to something larger, to a kink culture, to a leather culture, to that entire community and that history. It’s not just about that individual, but serving the whole as well through this individual. So for me, that’s my core of what submission is and that definitely has… Right now I have a four month old and a child about to turn six. So 24 hours submission is not happening and often my service is to my children currently. My service to my dominant, to my partner, to my daddy is within what I call “containers”. We build a container, a scene, a set time for that exchange, it might be at a play party, it might be after the kids have gone to bed. Sometimes we will earmark that container with a call and response we’ve used before of, “Fetch my slippers, slut.” If I’m like, “Not right now, daddy.” Or I will fetch the slippers and be like, “Yes, sir.” So both people have to agree upon the time. Everyone is different. It might be on a day where I’m way too depleted. It’s important for us to fill our individual vessel with nourishment and love and energy, and self care for us to gift that love and service to our dominant, to our community, and to all the people that we care about.
Dawn Serra: I love that you’ve gone on this journey with what it means to act out your submission and the way that you incorporate it into your relationship so it’s like this living breathing thing. That’s now incorporated pregnancies and children, and of course, the super busy lives that you lead. I would love to know for the moms and the parents that are listening out there, what would be your number one advice for when you have kids and you’re just endlessly exhausted and rushed? How can you maintain that little fire of erotic connection when life seems so busy and overwhelming?
Madison Young: Yeah, it can be very, very tricky. Be kind to yourself is really my first and foremost – be kind and be gentle to yourself. Especially a new motherhood, that first year is really tough and requires a lot of energy. So in getting through that, it’s really important that self care – it comes back to really filling that vessel and sorting out what your needs are and you won’t be able to likely fulfill those needs in the same way that you did pre-child.
Self care for you may have looked like monthly massages and getting your nails done every week, or going to the sauna once a week with your girlfriends or something. It might look like having a bath, having someone hold your baby while you take a 10-minute shower with your favorite shower gel or something – something that feels good to you. Reconnecting with your own body, touching your own body – masturbation, even in the shower or in the bath – great place to reconnect with your body. But reconnecting with your own sexuality, first, in your own body and giving love to your body, because our bodies really morph and change a lot during pregnancy and into postpartum. And having a sense of acceptance and love of who we are and how we are in our bodies in this moment, and knowing that everything changes and will continue to change that this is not forever.
Madison Young: I feel like that acceptance and love of ourselves is essential in our connection with our partners. In finding time, sometimes sharing a sitter, making time for date nights. Even if it’s, ideally, once a week, but at the beginning, it might only be once a month. Finding time for each other, even to snuggle up, to massage each other’s feet, to have an adult conversation, to touch each other, to kiss each other, to make out – really physically and emotionally connecting, and staying connected with your partner. A lot of that is also communication about what your needs are, where you’re feeling that you are emotionally, because sometimes we don’t know what our needs are until we’re so depleted. And that can be a scary place to be. It’s really important to articulate those needs and then work together to see how those needs can be met.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I’m not a parent, but I am definitely the type of person who pushes and works, and runs and does, and then all of a sudden I hit that wall of – everything feels like it’s crumbling and everything feels like an emergency. And it’s because I’ve gone to the point where I’m past being able to care for myself and that’s when I really have to practice that kindness of like, “It’s okay to just ask for the tiniest things to start building some of those reserves back up before you can really do more exciting things.” But yeah, just finding the words to say like, “I just need five minutes for by myself,” or whatever it is. I love that.
Madison Young: Yeah. So essentially. I used to do that with my work as well. I haven’t driven in 16 years since I moved to the Bay Area, but I used to do that with my car as well. I would always be like, “Oh, I can go so far past empty. I know that the car will still run if I go this much past the E. It’s okay, I don’t have to stop yet.” And I’d ride the car until the last drop of gas and then call AAA. I feel like I did that to my body as well, when I was in the midst of balancing a full time porn career and a gallery, and traveling two to three weeks out of a month. It was a lot and I think that I was always going past the E – past the empty. And actually children have balanced me out quite a bit in that respect, because I must take care of myself in order to take care of them.
Dawn Serra: So I know that you are working on a new book that, from what I read, was a guide to mindfulness and connection through BDSM, and it’s called Surrender. I am so excited about this project. I’d love to hear what it’s about and what you’re birthing with this.
Madison Young: Sure, yeah. I’m really excited about it as well. Let’s see, when did I start doing this workshop – probably back in around 2005, I started doing a workshop called the Zen Submissive. It brought in a lot of mindfulness exercises into how we address and connect in BDSM. So bringing in visualization, breath, how to move energy through our body, utilizing breath, how to gift and receive energy through a spanking, through a flogging.
Zen Submissive workshop expanded into a two-day intensive, where really took couples deep into meditation, utilizing meditation in our practice in BDSM, gifting each touch, each spanking, each strike of the cane with intention and really inhaling that energy and giving it a color, giving it a shape, and sending it to somewhere in our bodies. And really working with that energy, creating orgasmic, tantric-like energy in our bodies through impact play, through dominance and submission, through bondage. This book is taking a lot of that information that I share in that intensive and bringing it out into the world.
Dawn Serra: That sounds so delicious. I know for me, being flogged is definitely an act of meditation where everything becomes very singular and present, and all the mind noise completely goes away. It’s this repetitious, beautiful connection to my body, the moment, the movement, and my partner. So I love this concept of intention, and I also really like what you’re saying about directing the sensation and the feelings to a part of your body, and actually being able to move that, that sounds really powerful.
Madison Young: Yeah, and even with the implements. I mean, if it’s a hand, if it’s a cane, if it’s a paddle, if it’s a flogger – really connecting with… Whatever is the element which the energy is flowing through is this conduit, right? It’s a conduit for energy. So connecting with it and thinking about what intentions are being set in that scene and with this implement, really inhaling and breathing in that implement that’s connecting the two of you or more of you. So I think when we’re able to slow things down and give some mindfulness to the scene and the way that we’re connecting there – there’s a whole nother level of depth and where we can really go in our scene and with each other much – deeper connections.
Dawn Serra: The title, to me, is so erotic and delicious of this word of surrender. I’d love to know, what does surrender mean to you?
Madison Young: Similar to submission, really – giving ourself over to something bigger than ourselves, to this scene. So letting go, just letting go of everything and opening up our heart – like ripping open our body, our heart – everything. And not just the submissive doing that. It’s like all these layers of who we are or who we think we are. Tearing all that away and the core of our being being exposed with this other individual or other individuals, depending on how many people are in the scene. But that rawness, being so vulnerable and exposed,and letting everything else go so that this the slightest thing is so tender – so tender and lovely.
I think something that doesn’t get discussed enough is that the dominant can be doing that as well, in a really deep scene, they are – the dominant is also really exposing so much and opening so deeply. So in the book, I address that as well not just for the submissive but also for dominants. So that can be a really rich and meaningful connection for everyone.
Dawn Serra: I love those moments of that raw, vulnerable, we don’t really know how deep we’re going to go but we’re going there together kind of energy. I know that can be really scary – I mean, it’s scary for me which is part of why I like it, but I think there’s scary “Oh, let’s do it,” and then there’s scary “I don’t know if I can share myself in that way.” I wonder if you have any tips for people for whom surrender and being vulnerable in an intense either kink scene or even just sexually, might feel a little too scary? What’s a good starting point, do you think, for people to start that path to surrender?
Madison Young: I think that the key element is communication. So in one of the chapters I discussed, creating our containers, creating a safe space for that surrender. We have to feel relaxed and comfortable, and really safe. So creating a safe space, a safe container for everyone in that container to be able to let go and open up; and much of that happens with communication, with negotiation talking about expectations, and what both parties really desire, constructing the scene together as equals, creating that container together as equals, before stepping inside that container together. I think that is the way to really build that trust and to feel safe enough to really go there.
Of course, utilizing safe words and having communication in place, and knowing that maybe you’re not even going to a super intense place physically, but that it’s really important to have and to use safe words emotionally as well when we reach places where we might need to stop, take a breath. Part of being a great communicator and building trust is being able to use our communication tools, being able to use our safe words. I think that when I was a young submissive, I thought, “I’m so badass, I never need to use a safe word.” But as the years went by, I learned how important it was to be a really good communicator to know my body, to know myself. And that allowed me to actually go to deeper levels with different dominants, and to last longer in a scene, because sometimes it’s not about calling the scene, sometimes it’s just about checking in or adjusting things either physically or navigating the scene in a different way.
Dawn Serra: I’m so glad you said safe words and your emotional psychological space because I think a lot of submissives – I know I have done this – of thinking that the safe word was about my physical limits, and trying to mentally talk myself out of discomfort or telling myself my body can take more, even if my internal landscape is feeling a little off. And giving permission that you might be able to take another 10 whip strikes or 50 more paddles, but if inside, you’re feeling discomfort and you’re not connecting, or you’re feeling like you need something else emotionally, that’s also what those safe words need to be used for. Because that’s where that depth and that surrender comes from.
Madison Young: Absolutely, absolutely.
Dawn Serra: I’m wondering, I know that you have experienced amazing things over the course of your professional and your personal life. You have tried things that a lot of people can’t even imagine trying and you’ve gone to these incredible places. When you think about the act of surrendering, is there a memory or a moment that really comes up for you when you think about that, that you’d be willing to share with us – like a favorite moment of surrender or submission?
Madison Young: One of many that is actually documented is my training with Mr. Mogul, with James, my daddy – training about when I did that and I write about that experience as well in my book, Daddy. It was very interesting to share that with the camera. But it was our real life, training and real life working on our very first DS agreement and my collaring, and there were a lot of emotions. There were so many emotions going on between me and James at that point and in that space of the armory, and an immense amount of courage and trust that both of us were exposing ourselves in front of the camera, and in this really tender place, and going to some really deep places. There’s a whipping scene in there in which he’s whipping me and so many of those layers had disappeared and had been ripped away. I was so tender and felt so connected and so full of love – my heart was just bursting. I told him I was like, “I’m going to cry.” And I was smiling – my chest was out and I was smiling, tears were just about to run down my face because I was so full of emotion. I told him that. They used to, at least, have a rule about no crying on film at kink.com. That was mostly to not go past a point – they didn’t want to show distress. James said, “Go there, I want you to go there.” We were still in the scene and I just let it out and I just said, “Thank you. Thank you, my love. Thank you, sir.” And just had tears running down me in this huge smile ear to ear. It was such a loving, beautiful moment in my life.
Peter ended up keeping it. He was like, “If we’re going to do tears, this is exactly–” So that was definitely a moment of absolute surrender and connection that I think of. I feel so very blessed to have that to look back on. It’s so nice documenting so much of my sexuality, I’m really able to look back on these scenes like a beautiful photo album of my sexuality and my sexual self, and see these really nice moments of growth and change. So that’s one of the nice parts about being in front of the camera.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I was just thinking to myself, when I think back on some of my favorite moments, those only exist in my head and to have opportunity to actually watch that back both on your own and with James, and with others, and to have that memory living on in a very visual real way is such an extraordinary thing.
Madison Young: Yeah, and for entire different generations. It’s very interesting aging in this profession because I’ll talk to folks and they’ll be like, “Oh you you really inspired me watching that. I remember watching that training when I was like a teenager.” I’m like, “What? What, what? How old are you?” They’d be in their 20s now. Knowing that folks saw this material that inspired or helped shape their sexuality when they were a teenager is a very interesting experience like, “Wow, okay. I forgot I’m getting older. I’m not that same age.”
Dawn Serra: You have all of these new experiences now that you get to share and create around.
Madison Young: Absolutely.
Dawn Serra: I would love it if you could tell everybody how they can find out more about you and your books, and the erotic film school and stay in touch with you.
Madison Young: Sure. So, the best way to see all of the ongoings that I have happening is to go to madisonyoung.org – org as an orgasm and that has all of the things on there. I tried to keep it as up to date as possible. Also, daddythememoir.com is where you can find out more about Daddy, my memoir. If you are interested in the erotic film school, there are still a few spots available. You can go to eroticfilmschool.com to apply.
Dawn Serra: Well listeners know that the moment I get home from film school, I’m going to be recording everything that happened and sharing with them all of the deliciousness that I learned, and dreamt of, and experienced. So hopefully that will inspire a whole new group of budding filmmakers and artists for next year’s round.
Madison Young: Absolutely. Sounds good.
Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for coming on Sex Gets Real, Madison, it was such a delight to have you sharing all of your wisdom and your stories and your adventures. I loved it so much.
Madison Young: Thank you so much for having me, Dawn.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. To all of the listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Of course, you can go to dawnserra.com to find all of Madison’s links, and I will also be linking to all of her books and the film school so you can check that out. If you’ve got any questions for me about this episode or anything you’d like me to cover in the future you can use the contact form. Don’t forget Sex Gets Real also has a Patreon, so if you want to help support me to continue doing the show, pop over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. Until next week, this is Dawn Serra. Bye.