“You should move out to San Francisco, Dad.” I smiled, laughing at the thought of my father trying to fit into this environment.
“Nah! If I lived in San Francisco where would I vacation? When you live in a place like Cincinnati you have a reason to want to leave and visit other places that are more exciting. Come on, let’s get you and that little muskrat inside. I’ll buy my little girl a Shirley Temple. You still like those?”
“Sure, Dad.” And we stood, looking out at the ocean together, watching the sea lions on the rocks as they barked and pointed their noses into the air.
Emma soundly sleeping, I tiptoed out of the nursery and made my way into the master bedroom, which served as both an office and a pocket of space for wakeful nights of sleep. I sat down in my office chair in front of the computer. My heavy antique desk was one of several items of furniture James had hauled into the moving truck to bring along to the desert. It was cluttered with papers and DVDs of pornographic footage waiting to be edited. Model releases, grant applications, artist submissions, and outlines for workshops lay in heaps on top of parenting books. The wall above the desk was pinned with collages and photographs, inspiration boards, and shelves full of feminist porn awards.
On the desk there was a photo of Daddy and me leaning against a tree in a beautiful amber field in Marin County. Next to the photo was a valentine he gave me only three months ago. The handmade red heart read, “Thank you for saving me. You are my hero, Maddie. I love you. J.”
My flesh goose-pimpled from the cool air-conditioning, I swiveled around in my chair and reached for my cardigan off the quilted bed. I logged onto my virtual therapy session and accepted my therapist’s video call.
“Hi, Alex.”
“How are you today, Tina?”
I had been speaking with Alex since our move. Since I was unable to physically visit a therapist, video conferencing seemed like the next best option. It still felt a little awkward when she referred to me by my legal name, but it felt intimate and healthy to have a few people in my life that were a part of that small circle of people who knew Tina.
“Well, I’m struggling with a few things.” I cleared my throat and glanced down to my hands, to the braided rope ring. I gazed at the way the light reflected off of the gold and toyed with the ring, rotating it around in circles.
“Let’s talk about that,” Alex offered, and I sighed. It was hard work, delving through the past, understanding our emotions, our actions, and creating new pathways. Sometimes it felt like more than I could bear, but that was why I had support.
“Well...I just got back from San Francisco. It was just really intense. I went to the Armory.” I breathed, exhaling. Even saying the name out loud made my throat start to close up a bit.
I walked up those familiar castle stairs joined by a Femina Potens board member and a visiting artist from New York. The artist had a ravenous curiosity for the San Francisco Armory and the debauchery contained in those thick stone walls, so I agreed to accompany them on a guided tour of the Armory during his stay. In an effort to prove that the company had nothing to hide, it started offering an entertaining, guided tour similar to what you might expect at Disneyland or Universal Studios but with a pervy comedic twist. The guide joked about the padded cell and boiler room while leading us up the staircase to The Upper Floor. My stomach churned around every corner as I was reminded of so many disturbing memories.
Tourists giggled and blushed, but I felt like I was visiting a haunted mansion. Luckily, the tour guide hadn’t recognized me, despite my having worked for KINK for a decade as a prominent model. I clocked over 150 scenes for the company. Now, as a ghost, I could float from floor to floor in the house I used to live in, now just a forgotten memory tucked somewhere among the archives.
As we entered the decadent dining room on The Upper Floor I looked up at the wall and was surprised to find her likeness permanently stored, contorted in a back bend with thick, heavy steel restraints, in an oil painting surrounded by a gold frame—Sarah Chasm. I couldn’t stomach her ball-gagged face, that troubled girl still filled me with anger and pain. I needed to get out of this room.
I stepped out onto the fire escape and closed my eyes. I let the anxiety wash over me. I acknowledged it, mindful of how it affected my body and, speaking softly, talked myself through the anxiety.
“It is only a space, only a castle, it is only as powerful as I allow it to be. This space has no power over me any more.” The words dropped from my lips into the crisp San Francisco air.
There was nothing grand about the Armory, nothing spectacular. There were no princes and princesses here, regardless of titles and stage names and egos. These were all psychological constructs that we built and that the viewers, the performers, the public and even celebrities bought into and fed.
This wasn’t my life any more. A few months calling a suburban desert home seem like a much-needed and even appreciated rehabilitation for all of us. I was letting the past go, ready to move forward, and so was James. We learned to do that in our own ways. We were slowly becoming rejuvenated, healing bit by bit, forgiving each other, and raising our family, flaws and all.
“I’m really nervous about finishing this book; my memoir. I’ve been working on it for so long. What if they crucify me? What if people hate it? People are going to hate me. Feminists won’t understand why I stayed, why I believed in Daddy.” I was finishing up the session with Alex and nervously digging my fingernail into the cuticle bed of my right thumb.
“People are flawed, Tina,” Alex responded. “All of us. I think people will find it honest and brave and relatable.” Alex seemed so confident, so much more confident than I.
“But don’t people want a hero? I think people want a hero. They want to believe that there is someone out there that has it figured out. All I’m sure of is that...I don’t.” I released an exasperated sigh, covering my face with the palms of my sweaty hands.
“How is James?” Alex smiled, changing the subject.
“He’s good. Going to meetings. We’re good. It’s like we’re in love all over again. This time we have all of our flaws laid out on the table. Emma gives us a reason to be better people. We’re not perfect, I don’t think perfect really exists. We’re in this together, and for us, that’s huge.” I swiveled around in my chair to gaze out at Daddy in the garden. He pushed on his wide-plated shovel, spearing the earth, making room for Emma’s olive tree. It still has small, cream-colored tags strung on the branches with blessings for our daughter.
“Tell me more about that.” Alex nudged and I glance at a lavender envelope on which Daddy had written: “Things I Love about You.” The envelope was full of small inky notes that held phrases like: “I love the way you make me want to be a better person,” “I love you for giving us Emma,” and “I love the way you call me Daddy.”
James—my partner, my hero, my lover, the father of my child, a humble man from Massachusetts with flaws and years of baggage who bravely left his own white picket fence behind years ago in search of a mythical father figure, a different kind of family. We aren’t that different, but it’s taken us many years to find each other. James fills a fatherly role in my life, a role that provides stability and comfort from a respected masculine elder. But James isn’t my father and I don’t need him to be. I have a father. My father is funny and charming in a goofy way. My father has a warm heart and is kind and loving, though he is not without flaws. We are all just people. Beautiful fallible creatures, regardless of the number of superhero capes in our closet, #1 Dad coffee mugs in the kitchen cupboard, or a young girl’s unrealistic expectations. In this realization, through much love and exploration, I found myself. I found my Daddy, and I found the family that I had been searching for all this time that storybook fairytales had never prepared me for.
If I close my eyes and exhale the past, I’m only left with the present, this very moment: inhaling the spicy scent
of Daddy’s aftershave, my face nuzzled into Daddy’s white ribbed A-frame, the strong thud of Daddy’s heart pumping against my pink cheeks, Daddy’s one hand fingering my red tangles of hair, his other planted firmly against my underside. Maybe we’re all flawed and nowhere near perfection, but we are also perfectly human, aspiring toward our own inner truth, our own moments of heroism, our own moments of Daddy.
Afterword; Aftercare
Let’s take a collective breath and sit with this moment. Pause. It’s time for closure. It’s time to say goodbye. It is the end of a book but also the end of an era. In the past two weeks I have witnessed the closure of San Francisco’s Lusty Lady and the death of bondage pioneer and erotic engineer, Jeff Gord.
One, an iconic sexual institution which fought for labor rights and union worker rights for feminist sex workers. The other, a man who re-invented and re-invisioned the world of fetish and bondage with highly complex engineered creations which transformed the human form into living art.
Their voices will endure. The Lusty’s contributions to the labor struggle and unionizing of worker owned cooperatives will remain a part of our feminist history. Their imprint is lasting, lasting longer than the now unemployed erotic dancers dwindling bank accounts. Jeff Gord’s remains will be buried this week, but his contribution to the evolution of fetish and the sexual history of America is long documented, celebrated and will last. It will last longer than the orgasms catalyst from his ingeniously engineered mad scientist inventions. And yet properties will be bought up by capitalist money hungry corporations and bodies will decompose.
Goodbyes are not easy. It is not easy to let go, acknowledge the passing of time, the passing of life, but still it passes, and we breathe. We must allow the moment to be what it is, to allow the moment to exist and know that moment will transform, transitioning into something new. Change is inevitable. We can count on that.
As we both discover our own closures, you and I, and make room for new beginnings, I invite you to treat yourself with gentle hands, with a gentle heart.
Instructions for Aftercare
a) Draw a warm bath
b) Add a few drops of luscious scented essential oil
c) Soak body until your fingers and toes acquire zebra stripes
a) Bake warm chocolate chip cookies
b) Devour them straight from the oven
c) Share them
d) Give one to your love
a) Drink water: All journeys require hydration
a) Prepare a tea: chamomile-lavender-rose petals
a) Ask a friend or lover to hold you
b) To stroke your hair
a) Call a friend
b) Talk to a friend or don’t talk to a friend, but allow them to be present with you
The journey we just experienced contained some intense moments and potentially triggering material. It has taken me thirty-three years to process and live through these moments. It’s important to document our lives, to sink our hands deep into the cement as proof that we were here, that we existed. To purge the life that bubbles within us. Beautiful, beautiful, raw visceral life. You just ingested a small slice of my life, my love, one slice of many.
I am a feminist. I have pursued and chosen the life I live with the clearest of intentions. I understand my actions and choices and life are not the simplest to digest. But they are my choices, my truth, my humanity. I only hope—wish—for you to pursue your own truth.
May these pages be dog-eared and used often. May your life be rich and your stories be full of wonder and happiness. May you live each moment with a fullness and lustfulness that exemplifies your truest self.
—Madison Young
“We will all have so many incredible memories that most people only dream about.”
—Jeff Gord (1946 -2013)
Acknowledgements
My heart is full of gratitude to all of those who stood by me and supported me in my journey in writing this memoir, and in telling my story. I’d like to thank my mother for supporting me and standing by me, and for being such a strong pillar of womanhood and fierceness. You gave me courage, Mom. Thank you. Dad, I want to thank you for convincing Mom to let me go to performing art school and teaching me to dream big, lead with my heart, and believe in myself. I want to thank my fairy art mothers, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. I love you both dearly and you are a constant source of inspiration and strength, you are family and I love you both. Much gratitude to my tribe of bad ass queer performance artists and Queer X Tour alumnae: Wendy Delorme, DJ Metzgerei, Judy Minx, Mad Kate, and Sadie Lune. My close inner circle of friends and support: Henry Catalinich, Katy Chatel, Adria Lang, Mev Luna, Joe Freund, Brian Kidwell, Lydia Daniller. To the Queer Porn Mafia (Syd Blakovich, Jiz Lee, and Courtney Trouble). To all of the volunteers and interns who helped to make Femina Potens a reality. I couldn’t have done it with out all of you. To all the mamas at Hacker Moms who cheerled me through the last few chapters of this book and helped in providing a creative DIY art space in which my child could engage in art while I was finishing my manuscript. To the artists, activists, and radicals in my life that continue to push the envelope and forge forward fearlessly: Carol Queen, Michelle Tea, Lee Harrington, Robert Lawrence, Nina Hartley, Tristan Taormino, Jennifer Lyon Bell, and Midori, you all inspire me. Thank you to Diane DiPrima for inspiring me and giving me courage to write. To my child, Em, I love you with all of my heart, you make my heart dance. To my Grandma Virginia: your courage, bravery and strength comfort me still. To all the folks at Barnacle Books that made this book a reality. Tyson, thank you for believing in me and this project. Dave Naz, thank you for helping me to find a home for my memoir. Manjula Martin, thank you for holding my hand, dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. My gratitude extends to my fellow outsiders, the misfits, the sexual outlaws, the fringe seekers and boundary pushers, the gender benders, the queers, the femmes, the freaks, the artists, the daddies, and the little girls. And above all, thank you Daddy for taking this journey with me, for standing by my side and believing in me and my art. You inspire me in all you do. I looked forward to a life of collaboration with you, my papa bear.
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