Q&A with Madeleine Holden

The one downside to March’s epic Q&A with Buzzfeed’s Gaby Dunn was that finding a suitable follow-up interviewee suddenly became a bit of a thankless task. Like a band wrestling with ‘second album syndrome’, I wasn’t sure whether to stick or twist; to offer up more of the same, or to seek out a completely different point of view.

Unlike Alanis Morissette, The Stone Roses, and The Clash, I eventually realised that if it ain’t broke, you really shouldn’t waste time trying to fix it. Smart, interesting, thoughtful perspectives on sex and gender politics will always be worth sharing, and the subject of today’s Q&A has plenty to offer.

Madeleine Holden (@moscaddie) is a lawyer and writer from New Zealand, who currently lives in London. She’s written for Vice, The Hairpin, and Wondering Sound among others, on subjects as diverse as rap music, stolen celebrity nudes, and why John Grisham should probably rethink his views on inequality in the criminal justice system. She is also the genius behind Critique My Dick Pic, a site which got added to my Bookmarks roughly 0.37 seconds after I clicked through to it for the first time.

Maddie was kind enough to give me some of her time this week, and to answer my questions on feminism, consent, life in London, and, first up, the art of the dick pic…

Along with most of the people reading this, I know you mainly through your (hugely entertaining) blog, Critique My Dick Pic. What inspired you to set it up, and how have you found the experience of watching it really take off? Has it opened any doors professionally or creatively?

I created CMDP just over a year ago after I woke up to a really good dick pic one morning. I was jarred by how unusual it was to receive a high quality dick pic shared with consent, and that got me thinking about how fucked up that is, and what I could do to help fix it. I started the blog that same afternoon, and that’s how and why CMDP was born. It was an off-hand thing that I started mostly as an in joke, but the next day Jezebel had picked up on it and run a piece about it being their favourite new Tumblr, and after that it steadily blew up. It has opened a few doors for me, mostly in the form of new writing opportunities.

The male gaze is omnipresent, not least in porn, and that clearly affects how men choose to present themselves visually. As a woman, what are the biggest mistakes that guys make when taking and sending dick pics, beyond failing to obtain consent before doing so?

The biggest mistake that I see most often is that men don’t put effort into making their dick pics appealing or sexy; and instead treat them like utilitarian advertisements for size. They’re often blurry, too zoomed in and in settings full of clutter, and most dick pics don’t show visible thought about things like pose, tone and framing. There’s no real reason taking a picture of your dick should involve less effort and photographic flair than, say, photographing your brunch, but so, so many of them do.

Do you think you might just have a bit of a hand fetish, or are they actually integral to the taking of a good dick pic? What exactly does good hand placement bring to the party?

This is definitely not just a personal thing; a lot of women agree that the presence of hands really elevates the quality of a dick pic. There’s something much more human about a dick pic with hands in it versus one without; it adds a huge amount in terms of intimacy, sexual attraction and warmth. Good hand placement can be the difference between a lackluster dick pic and one deserving of high marks.

You mention intimacy and warmth as qualities that good hand placement can bring to an image; it feels to me like what you describe as ‘clutter’ often serves the same purpose, and can make a photo feel more personal if done well, as it offers glimpses into the subject’s life. Are there occasions when a bit of background ‘noise’ can enhance a dick pic, rather than water it down? Or should the focus always be solely on the person in the photo?

I agree, some background noise can add to the intimacy and warmth of a picture, but for that to be beneficial rather than distracting, it should be tidy. For example, not everyone has to live in a sparse bedroom with a lot of white and clean lines, but I can’t think of a situation where mess (as opposed to deliberate busyness) would elevate a picture, even if it does show the “real you”.

Do you have a dick pic ‘hall of fame’, from all the submissions you’ve received? Could you share a few of your favourites here?

I compiled the top 10 dick pics from my first year of critiquing, available here. I also tag the reviews by the overall letter grade (A, B, C or D) so you can peruse anything that got an A+, A or A- by clicking on a A tag.

(Question from my friend Ella Dawson) Do you swap dick pics with people you’re actually seeing? Do they ever feel threatened by the dick pics you review on your site?

I have received personal dick pics in the past although as you can imagine I’m relatively immune to them now. I’ve only been on one date where the guy became hyper uncomfortable in a “HAHA OH WOW THAT’S COOL I’M COOL WITH THIS!” way; he asked wayyyyy too many questions like “so you must see so many dicks then… you must really see some big ones too” and I could tell it put him on edge. Literally everyone else I’ve dated has found it funny and been really cool about it.

There’s a tremendous generosity of spirit that comes through in the way you review people’s dick pics (even when your ultimate verdict is negative), and the tone of your blog overall feels less spiky than your Twitter feed. Was it a conscious decision to approach the two differently, or is social media just necessarily a more combative (and gruelling) environment for women?

I made it a conscious policy right from the start that CMDP was going to be a positive, low-snark place, which is why my byline is “Critiquing your dick pics with love”. I felt like that was necessary to encourage potentially reluctant men (who might have very good dick pics inside them) to feel safe enough to want to volunteer them for the site. I also wanted it to be immediately clear that I wasn’t going to be shredding dudes because of the size of their dicks or bodily flaws; I could imagine a site like that and I don’t think it would have longevity, because after a while even funny “zing-y” negativity becomes too draining.

If my Twitter feed feels “spiky” that’s probably because all day long men explain my jokes back to me and tell me how much sexism hurts them too, and I have a limited ability to grin and bear that quietly.

I’ve noticed that on more than one occasion people have submitted improved/follow-up pics, after receiving a poor grade for their initial effort. Has it generally been your experience that people respond positively even to critical dick pic feedback, if it’s done ‘with love’, and have there been any exceptions to that? Do you see it as a good example of how we should be talking about our own (and each other’s) bodies more generally?

I’ve been blown away by the lack of negative push back when I give someone even a very low mark, and quite a few people write thank you notes when I give them good marks. Touch wood, but I have never had a single barbed or irate reply to a bad review. I think you could be right, that because I couch my reviews in terms of everyone having room to improve, people take negative reviews better than if I was just snarking about their bodies or their efforts.

A lot of the women I interact with on Twitter have to put up with a huge amount of harassment and abuse, simply because they’re female and visible/active online. What can guys do to help make social media and the internet safer and more pleasant for women, beyond just not being a dick?

One good thing you could do as a man is really thoroughly interrogate whether your commentary or @ reply is necessary or wanted. Even the “good guys” get carried away with inserting themselves into feminist conversations and running our jokes into the ground, just because they couldn’t stand to let their take go unheard. Another useful thing to do is to take abusers to task but without keeping the target tagged in to the conversation (this is really important!). If you’re going to have a to-and-fro with a troll and keep the woman tagged in the whole way, you’re causing her extra hassle, exposing her to more of the troll’s bile and giving the impression that you’re more concerned with being seen to be good rather than just being good.

At what point in your life did you start consciously identifying as a feminist, and was that inspired by a particular event or experience? How has your understanding of feminism, and in particular intersectionality, developed over the last few years?

I’ve always been pro-women but I became interested in the feminist movement at university. Sorry to be glib, but it was inspired by the particular experience of existing while female. Over the last few years I’ve become more interested in models of feminism that disrupt mainstream feminism’s painfully white, neoliberal and carceral leanings: the work of sex working feminists has been particularly enlightening, and so has the work of black feminists, usually from the USA.  I’ve also relaxed my belief that everyone should be a feminist and I’m interested in critiques of feminism from women who would otherwise be feminists  but are put off by how isolated and exclusionary the movement has been and continues to be.

If you could go into a high school here and give a class of 16 year old girls one bit of life advice, what would it be? How about the 16 year old boys? Or your 16 year old self, for that matter?

I wouldn’t have some overarching piece of advice and if someone put me into a room full of high school kids I’d want to stay there all day chatting to them. I would encourage the girls to vigorously pursue financial independence and I’d encourage the boys to listen to the girls. My 16 year old self? I’ll tell her that she was a delight and that she was doing so well.

Sex education in this country is pretty obviously deficient across the board. To take one example, at what age would you start to teach kids about consent, and do you think there is a better way to do that? A way which would hammer home the importance of viewing it as an active, positive process?

Consent should be taught from birth and we need a greater understanding of consent as it applies in non-sexual contexts. You can teach very young kids to speak up about their boundaries and ask not to be touched even in platonic ways (hugging, say, or tickling). Culturally, we’re bad across the board when it comes to consent, and that’s why it’s no surprise that problems with consent extend into the sexual sphere. A crucial component of teaching consent is to teach boys in particular the importance of being as relaxed as possible about rejection: not taking it personally, and not fighting it. It’s common male behaviour to whine about women’s boundaries and push them until they break down, and so many of our romantic narratives are based on stories of men grinding down a woman’s no until she says yes. That’s an extremely harmful message with awful real world consequences.

I imagine your writing has had a really positive impact on a lot of the people who have read it. Have you had any (for want of a better word) fanmail that’s particularly affected you, or made you proud of the work you’re doing?

I get lovely messages all the time, and it’s an absolute pleasure. The most impactful thing anyone ever said about me is “What’s the opposite of gaslighting? Because that’s what [Maddie] does”, and that’s still one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said about me, and the most galvanising.

You’re a New Zealander living in London. How have you found it as a city? What do you love (and hate) most about life here, and what do you miss about New Zealand?

I’m really loving London. I love the parks and the endless stream of things to do, as well as the proximity to other places in Europe and Africa. People here seem to complain often and openly and that’s jarring as a New Zealander, and the British sarcasm can become wearisome. There’s a lot more choice and opportunity here, but I miss how relaxed and scenic New Zealand is, and being readily understood.

Have you taken much of an interest in our upcoming General Election? What’s your overall impression of British politics, relative to how things go down back home?

I have, and I’m voting in it. A lot of people here seem particularly disillusioned with your politicians; I have spoken to an unusually high number of people who say they won’t be bothering to vote at all because there’s so little meaningful difference between the major parties. New Zealand politics is similar to the UK’s and that’s because we consciously moulded ourselves on you for a long time; we have the MMP rather than the FPP system since 1996 though, which allows for minor parties to have more influence.

How do you describe your own sexuality? What do you look for in a partner (beyond kickass oral skills), and has it become harder to find, now that you’re such an active voice on social media?

As I am exposed to more and more personal scrutiny, I describe my sexuality on a “needs to know” basis, because, as for most people, it’s an intensely personal thing. I prioritise gentleness, kindness and humour in partners and I’m attracted to great faces. It’s no harder to find good matches since I became active on social media although I’m cautious about dating people from my circles on Twitter, mostly because they all live on different continents.

What’s next for you professionally, and where do you see yourself in five years from now? Do you ultimately want to make a living from writing, or will it always just be something you do on the side?

I’m a lawyer and doing criminal defence is still a bigger priority for me than writing. I have no particular ambition to write full time but I want to keep it up as a side hustle, so to speak, and also as an activity I enjoy. I don’t want to feel like writing is my daily grind, or a grind at all.

—

Thanks again to Maddie for sharing her views – if you enjoyed reading them, make sure you go follow her on Twitter, and check out all the great work she does on Critique My Dick Pic and elsewhere!