Young is the executive producer, director, and television host of the original documentary series Submission Possible, which was first released on
Revry TV in 2020,[4] and is the co-host and co-producer of the feminist parenting podcast Wash Your Mouth Out.[5]
Young moved to the Bay Area in 2000 and founded
Femina Potens Art Gallery, a nonprofit art gallery and performance space in San Francisco.[8] Femina Potens served the
LGBTQ and kink communities and curated over 500 events and visual art exhibitions during its 14 year long run.[9]
They entered the world of erotic filmmaking in 2002, initially as a performer and subsequently as a director.[10] During this time in Young’s life, they founded the Erotic Film School, an annual erotic filmmaking intensive which sought to empower underrepresented queer and feminist communities to document their own narratives through erotic film.[11]
Career
Performance and curation
Young curated the Askew Festival, a three-night "experimental, interactive exploration of performance, activism, and counterculture through documentary and experimental film coupled with performance art, readings, and dance" that took place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA in 2012, and again in 2014.[12]
They co-starred in the Queer X Tour, a
sex positive cabaret show featuring explicit performance art by six performers who addressed sexuality through a feminist and queer lens.[13] French filmmakers
Émilie Jouvet and
Wendy Delorme followed the tour through Europe from Berlin to Malmö for their 2011
docudrama film Too Much Pussy!.[14]
From 2016 to 2019, Young co-wrote and performed their “one-womxn show,” Reveal All Fear Nothing: A Journey in Sex, Love, Porn, and Feminism, which examined their personal experience in the world of erotic film as both a feminist porn performer and director.[15] The script was inspired by
Annie Sprinkle'sPost Porn Modernist theater production and written in collaboration with Sprinkle.[16] The show influenced actress
Maggie Gyllenhaal's work on the HBO series
The Deuce.[17]
Young’s other performance art work has been showcased internationally by institutions including the
Museum of Sex,[18]Highways Performance Space,[19] Grace Exhibition Space in New York,[20] and Max Black in Sydney, Australia.[21]
Directing and producing
Young founded Empress in Lavender Media, a production company working to bring queer, transgender, and sex worker stories to mainstream media through filmmakers within those communities. Their first series, Submission Possible, explores "the queer sexual underground worlds of kink, fetish, and BDSM” across the nation.[22] The first season of Submission Possible was released from 2020 through mid-2022, after delays in production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and features New Orleans, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oakland.[23][24]Submission Possible was screened at the 2022 CineKink Film Festival and has been selected for screening at the 2022 San Francisco PornFilmFestival.[25][26]
Other media ventures
Writing
Young’s memoir, Daddy, was published in 2014.[1] Young followed their memoir with The Ultimate Guide to Sex Through Pregnancy and Motherhood and The DIY Porn Handbook: Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution, both published in 2016.[27][28]
Young’s writing has also been published in anthologies including Rad Families: A Celebration,[29]Subversive Motherhood,[30]The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge,[31]Ropes, Bondage, and Power: Power Exchange Books' Resource Series,[32] and the Routledge Porn Studies Journal.[33]
Young has been interviewed for HuffPost,[42]xoJane,[43]The Rumpus,[44]Salon,[45] and Curve,[46] and has been written about in The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure[47] and Pornography Feminism: As Powerful as She Wants to Be.[48] They have also appeared on
Amanda Palmer’s podcast, The Art of Asking Everything.[49]
Young is married to James Mogul, a former adult filmmaker, BDSM educator, and photographer. They have two children together.[52] Young is
non-binary and uses the term
queer to describe both their sexuality and gender.[53] They use
they and
she pronouns.[53]
^Young, Madison (2012), "Submissive: a personal manifesto", in
Taormino, Tristan (ed.), The ultimate guide to kink: BDSM, role play and the erotic edge, Berkeley, California: Cleis Press,
ISBN9781573447829.
^Young, Madison (2009), "Thoughts on rope, submission and feminism", in
Harrington, Lee (ed.), Rope, bondage, and power, Las Vegas, Nevada: Nazca Plains, pp. 51–62,
ISBN9781935509028.
^Trouble, Courtney.
"Hot n' Heavy". CurveMag.com. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
^Shimizu, Celine Parreñas;
Taormino, Tristan; Penley, Constance; Miller-Young, Mireille (2013). The feminist porn book: the politics of producing pleasure. New York, NY: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
ISBN9781558618183.