This Is Not A Life-Saving Device

From WA Today, classy as ever:

'Storm in a C-cup - 130,000 boobs lost at sea'

More than 130,000 inflatable breasts have been lost at sea en route to Australia.
Men's magazine Ralph was planning to include the boobs as a free gift with its January issue. The cargo is worth about $200,000, which is another blow for publisher ACP's parent company PBL, which is already in $4.3 billion of debt.

A spokeswoman for Ralph said the container left docks in Beijing two weeks ago but turned up empty in Sydney this week. The magazine has put out an alert to shipping authorities to see if they have the container, but if they don't turn up in the next 48 hours it will be too late for the next issue, she said. Ralph editor Santi Pintado urged anyone who has any information to contact the magazine. ``Unless Somali pirates have stolen them its difficult to explain where they are,'' Pintado said. ``If anyone finds any washed up on a beach, please let us know.''

Mother's Milk Ice Cream Company

MMICCo. started as part social experiment, part business opportunity.

U.S. citizens consumed an average of 23 gallons of bovine milk in 2001. Quite an astonishing amount when you consider that Homo sapiens are the only organisms known to consume milk beyond infancy. Even more extraordinary is the fact that humans are the only organisms that consume the milk of other animals!

Female mothers in the Class Mammalia produce nutrient-rich milk for consumption by their own newborn babies. Humans have attained the unique (and bizarre) position in the food web from which they exploit the reproductive cycle of other animals (particularly Bovidae) for food. Adding to the cultural mystique of milk consumption is the widely held taboo against consumption of human breast milk either by unrelated individuals or persons beyond some generally unspecified age.


It is the mission of MMICCo. to challenge the traditional paradigm that there is nothing abnormal about conversion of mammalian milk into luxury food items. Mother's milk is a natural creation that we should celebrate, but is the milk of other species truly fair game for human consumption? If so, why isn't human milk? Our hope is to provide a delicious frozen product while framing this conversation in a way that leads to fruitful progress in consideration of the ecological niche of Homo sapiens.

Sincerely,

Bob Muscarella
C.E.O./E.X.T./D.D.T.
Mother's Milk Ice Cream Company

Orders and questions to muscarella @ bio dot miami dot edu

My Icecream Brings All The Boys To The Yard

Bless WPTZ for reporting this:

'People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

"PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.'

12DD

Enough said I think. Aside from-- YOU OUGHT TO SEE MY CLEAVAGE IN MY NEW PUSH-UP BRA!!! Good heavens, its like looking down at someone else's chest, if that someone else was some giant German frauline. Well done to Monster too, for not freaking out when accompanying me to the 'women's intimates' section of Myer. Though trust me, it was far freakier for me!

Breasts Blow-Out

My breasts are huge. This is not a brag, its a fact. They have gone up at least a cup size in the last few weeks, and they are getting more sore every day. I bled recently-- they didn't go down. When I went for my walk today, it was a struggle to keep going as every step hurt. Stairs are excruciating. Hugs must be negotiated with caution. I wake up sore in the morning. It is all quite distracting, and unpleasant.

Tomorrow I try to find a sympathetic doctor (trying FPA clinic) and then drag my aching chest into Myers or some such to get myself decked out with some sort of cleavage supporting contraption. Maybe they will go down eventually, but the pain is getting silly. What is causing this? Too much soy milk? My contraceptive implant? Am I about to start spontaneously lactating? No milk that I can find, never had this before and been hormonally contracepted for years, always had plenty of soy... hmm... its an all-over pain too, sore at skin-level then inside if given the slightest pressure...not lumpy that I can feel, just HUGE and OUCHY. This is beginning to freak me out.

Malignant Mother

Here's a performance by Yiorgos Zafiorou that I participated in at ArtSpace sometime ago. See if you can find me in the image...

Yiorgos Zafiriou Malignant Mother

In 2004 surgical nipple grafts made the artist's nipples redundant pieces of flesh. They simply became decorations marked upon his chest by surgery. Malignant Mother celebrates the transition of Zafiriou's nipples from sites of pleasure to coloured skin patches that stare out from his torso.

Like the surgery, the performance is prepared as a ritualised process. A bell rings. A tattooist prepares her machinery. A figure in a lab coat suture a chain made from human fingernails to his navel.

In the course of the performance the artist's nipples are made black. Black is used to represent a symbolic death. Black makes visible what is invisible.

Acknowlegements:
Megan Oliver (Tattoist), Fiona McGregor of SenVoodoo (Suturing), Zoo (Non-maternally manipulated lactivational performer), Peter Conlon (Performance Assistant), Daniel Cater (Costumes)

Wet Nurse

Hmm. Somebody asked the other day whether I would be prepared to wet nurse a child. At the time it totally wigged me out, but then I was thinking... wow, if I COULD, maybe it would be worth a go? Post-thesis of course. Imagine!

The Tits Are Getting Bigger

For some reason, my tits are HUGE at the moment. I'm not lactating, and I don't think I am about to bleed. So, what the hell is going on? They are SLIGHTLY ouchy, but mostly just disturbingly large and, I almost don't dare say this, PENDULOUS. Hmm, even if they don't get the total chop one day at this rate I'll be looking for a bit of a lift by the time I hit 40 lest they significantly impair my mobility, or just grow a bigger beer belly and give them something to rest upon *shrug*...

I think perhaps they are a) in revolt 'cos they know I am having a gender moment and want to reassert my 'feminine' anatomy or b) getting a bit too excited about my thesis writing. On that latter note, I have been a bit nauseous from time to time, and had cravings for chocolate and salt and grease, and been a tad more affected by smells-- I'm possibly expreiencing my 'creative body mimics pregnant body' phenomenon. Don't laugh. My body, and especially my bosom, has a rather dark sense of humour!

Repro Ramble

*Bit of a ramble, processing, catharsis*

So much is made of the sacrifices involved in parenting, the financial burden and the physical toll, the psychological tally and the time spent. But what are the costs of NOT procreating, especially if this is voluntary? What is the price of a womb that does not bear fruit, of the years of blood and eggs and hormones flushed into drains and soaked up in cotton wool? How much are we paying NOT to participate? How much have we LOST?

Have been pondering my desire to lactate and to research and write about lactation, and the choice of other childless 'women' I know to work on topics that bear much relation to female reproduction- maternal sexuality, breastmilk banking, ART. Speaking to one such person, who makes a lot of uteruses, and she suggested that we are all dealing with GRIEF. I think she is right. But what are we grieving for???

I can only speak for myself of course, and even then much of it is supposition and hypothesis. I am childless partly by circumstance but largely by design. Having always pictured myself as a potential 'earth mother' type, it occasionally still surprises me that I have reached my mid-30s sans infant, with rapidly diminishing desire to have one 'of my own'. Then what is the grief about? My biological buck stops here, no genetic inheritance-- but am I a cul-de-sac or a dead end? Maybe I need to make compost, recycle the energy and the matter, maybe I need to harness the flows, divert them, make use of their power?

A friend was referring to a practice from another culture, though which he was not clear about, where women who have not had children sort of dedicate their wombs to some other cause, and their uteruses become places of creativity on other levels. Is this how I feel about my breasts? Do I need to make some other use of their power? Is this what I am trying to do? I want to tattoo my ducts onto my breasts' surface, declare their potential, articulate their wet dreams and desires.

And what is it that I have suppressed my menstruation for years and now have found myself calling that other (mostly) 'feminine fluid'? Have I just internalised the 'milk be life and pure and good and blood be death and dirt and bad' discourse? Am I just wanting flows on my own terms, when I can make them come and go as I please? Do I want to feed other people's babies but not produce my own? Do I not want to be reminded of my childlessness but somehow mimic maternity, where menstruation ceases and milk comes in? Oh dear. Perhaps that last suggestion is it. Perhaps.

I am thinking I need to look more at women saints and mystics who remained virgins/unmarried (and thus childless) as this is one of the few places where the always-and-ever-childless female body is not seen as barren, bereft, unfulfilled and unable to participate fully. Nuns too. And many witches, though their activities are not quite so widely sanctioned. St Zoo at your calling?

Now, back to thesis, to the academic version of my personal debates and debacles and desires...

Until You Squirt Them In The Eye

Beatie Has Some Great Pix Of Curdle

On Flickr, right here. Have a perv, I mean, check out the artistic merit...

Well Ring My Nipple!

Although the process of acquiring a nipple ring is reported to involve relatively little time, pain, or money, still one asks why anyone would want to subject her/himself to such a procedure. What is the meaning of the nipple ring?
Like everything else connected to the breast, the symbolic meaning of the nipple ring draws from both concious and unconcious motivations. Women with nipple rings speak of "marking a transition" in their lives or "creating a new sexual identity" or making their breasts "more exciting" or simply wanting to distinguish themselves from more conventional folk. Perhaps they also want to signal to prospective partners that they are not breeders or nurses, at least temporarily. Many observers, however, see the nipple ring (like the Victorian corset) less at the sign of a stage of life or an erotic adornment than as a form of bodily mutilation.
Body piercing-- of ears, nostrils, navels and nipples-- constitutes just one more attempt to improve upon nature. The long, worldwide history of pierced body parts has intriguing cultural variations... The products that find their way to female chests-- falsies and wired bras, creams and lotions, breast implants and nipple rings (why not rouge or tattoos?) keep the wheels of business rolling and feed the fantasies of countless women and men, for whom the breast merits all the enhancement and attention it can get.

- Marilyn Yalom
'A History of the Breast' (1998: 203-204)

Considering this in the light of my formerly pierced nipples and lactation endeavours is a little odd. What is even odder is that this book was only written ten years ago!

Curdle- Beatie's Blog

Someone has written a blog post about CURDLE, a certain Beatie of recent acquaintance, and you can find it right here. I've added my two cents worth in the comments too, 'cos I'm like that! Overall a fabulous review methinks.

Pump Up The Milk

Hired myself a very pricy but very BIG and scary-looking electric breast pump, hospital grade. Will save me from RSI at least- and pumping so often for Curdle would be much more tedious without it. A bit hesitant to starte her up though *g*...

MilkBrained

Today is the day my brain turns to milk. Or so it seems, scatty and vague and overwhelmed by simple tasks...not unpleasant if one just accepts and goes with the flows...

Here Comes The Rain Again

I feel matronly somehow, my chest is tingling, my tits are getting bigger and harder and soon I willno doubt be able to rest entire jugs of beer (stout of course) on them. As I wrote to my supervisor:

oh, and my milk is coming in again already! not just the odd white drop from my nipple, but that fine sticky substance that seems to ooze from the whole breast, and the pains are getting stronger, and the release at pumping getting more urgently desired, woke up and pumped in the wee small hours of the morning because i just HAD to and crying every time i do it, sort of... it is AMAZING!

Curdle My Milk *CALL FOR ARTISTS AND OTHER CREATIVE TYPES*

(Please do pass this on to anyone else you think may be interested too)

By now most of you will be aware of Curdle, the 10 day installation piece that I am creating at Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill, 9th- 19th April 2008. You will also know that this work is centred around my induced lactation project, that is, I'm going to make myself milky (again). And you are all invited to come along and use my means for our mutual ends, to collaborate and work beside me to discover, uncover and recover the many meanings of milk- and quite possibly create some new ones.

Sing lullabies to my tits, use my milk as invisible ink or glaze or paint or ice or skin or soap or coffee whitener, cast my breasts, use my pump to make music, take prints from my nipples, create sculptures from my nursing pads, sketch me or paint me at work, ask my tits questions or dress them up in drag, take measurements or film or photographs… I'm game if you are

Although the gallery will only be open 11am-5pm each day, I will be available outside of these hours by request or whimsy. If you have a particularly long piece, or one that involves a lot of input from me outside of me doing what I would already be doing, please do contact me beforehand- it would be useful for me to have some idea of who would like to do what and when.Of course, impromptu and spontaneous acts of milky mayhem and magic are much appreciated too…

Where: Don't Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, NSW, Australia (a block back from the corner of New Canterbury Rd and Marrickville Rd)
http://www. myspace. com/dontlookgallery
Opening hours: 11am-5pm, every day for the duration of the exhibition
Opening night: Wednesday 9th April 2008 6-9pm. Small informal launch.

BIG CLOSING NIGHT: Saturday April 19th, from 6pm. This is where you will be able to see some of the work produced during the installation, have a dance and a drink and a bit of a schmooze.

Contact me:www. galactablogue. blogspot. com or freelanceprovocateur@gmail.com

Pumped Again

Started pumping again a few days ago, part of the slow build-upf or Curdle. Ouch, but in a good way. My breasts remember, and I think they are happy about doing it all once more? Now, to start the herbs...

CURDLE- 9th to 19th April 2008

Curdle

You are who you eat. Milk-fed and fattened up for the kill, I could gobble you all up! Swapping saliva and mammalian milk, cross-incorporation, sharing cells and selves. Spit or swallow. Dregs of mamma's special blend dribble down your chin, glazed cheeks, crackling crusts form on your suckling lips. Lap me up, swallow me in small doses. Seethe in my milk, marbled and marinated with my fat. I am eaten alive, drunk and digested. Flesh of my flesh. Nipple to mouth to skin to heart to brain to every pound of sweet juicy young meat.

Curdle is a 10 day installation piece by the artist Zoo, in which zie will induce lactation through a combination of pumping, herbs and diet. During this time the public is invited to observe, record their impressions, ask questions and participate in the work in other respectful ways. Artists are invited to collaborate, using Zoo’s lactating figure and the breast milk itself as inspiration, material- or both. Those wishing to do larger pieces, or work outside of gallery hours, are requested to organise this before the exhibition is underway (though late applications will be considered of course), and anyone is welcome to pop along when during the listed times and sketch, paint, make music, write or otherwise express themselves in milky ways…

Where: Don't Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, NSW, Australia (a block back from the corner of New Canterbury Rd and Marrickville Rd)
http://www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery
Opening hours: 11am-5pm, every day for the duration of the exhibition
Opening night: Wednesday 9th April 2008 6-9pm. Small informal launch, statement of project intentions, few beers.
Closing night: Saturday April 19th, from 6pm. This is the big one- art created during the installation will be on display, and I will have much more to say about it!

For more details or to contact me about participating please go to www.galactablogue.blogspot.com (my lactation blog).

Boundaries and Breasts

Did an interview with a dear friend today, and he was asking me all sorts of questions about how I perceived my chest, my gender, my nipples, as he writes upon such matters...

Sure he presumed I was just being vague 'cos I was a bit trashy, but it wasn't that at all, just DAMN that stuff is hard to articulate, even after having written so much and discussed so much about it all... Geez... It actually hurt to discuss it, and made me very uncomfortable, as I realised just how much of the 'bad stuff' one internalises, the 'boys don't have jiggly tits and girls don't have dangly bits' etc, despite the theorising and sitting about crapping on endlessly about it and the logical conscious 'knowing' how to deconstruct it all and being all queer and trans and whatnot... at the end of the day, its still HARD WORK to actually reconfigure the way you think of yourself, your body, your bits... Even now I am still reeling, can't quite put it into words. Just feeling unsettled, but happy that I did the interview all the same. Thanks to all those who enable me to push my boundaries, breastly and otherwise!