The Mimicry of Women
As the statue of a breastfeeding man with a penis and bosom is going viral on Twitter, the biological reality of male and female is being distorted once again.
A commentary on Aske Jonatan Kreilgaard‘s statue Agape, exhibited at the KØN Museum in Aarhus, Denmark.
Twitter is a strange place. It both influences and measures the social, political and cultural pulse of our time. Whenever certain posts go viral in the Twitter sphere, it is mostly about topics or events with a huge potential for outrage and scandal that the Twitter community can get all worked up about for a while until the next sensation causes new furor. Since the hype around any given topic tends to disappear as fast as it emerges, it is often best not to give too much of our own precious attention to these viral posts and waves of outrage.
This week, however, a photo of a statue went viral on Twitter which does deserve a little bit more of our attention. The statue shows a naked man sporting a full beard, a penis and round female breasts, who is breastfeeding a baby on his left breast. The artwork is called Agape, derived from the ancient Greek concept of ἀγάπη, which describes the highest, transcendental form of love. Created by the Danish artist Aske Jonathan Kreilgaard, the artwork had already been installed in November 2021 at the KØN Museum in Aarhus, but has only now garnered international attention, thanks to Twitter.
Art is always an expression of the current conditions shaping a society, a representation and reflection of the ideas and values that dominate and flourish in any given era. Kreilgaard’s breastfeeding man deserves our attention insofar as he perfectly encapsulates the cultural moment of the first quarter of the 21st century: Biological sex has been surrendered to arbitrariness – and with it the basic framework of how we perceive and describe reality as we know it.
The postmodern dissolution of any kind of definitions and the relativization of the most basic biological facts has made reality arbitrary. Everything goes, everything is possible, everything can manifest itself by simply uttering it or by using sheer force of will. We can see this in Kreilgaard’s artwork, which both distorts and blends biological sex into an impossible hermaphrodite: This person, as he is being depicted here, cannot exist. This man is an illusory construct, unnatural, because he cannot breastfeed the child on his own breast. Only women are able to do that, but they do not have penises. Only men have penises, only women can give birth and breastfeed. The unique role of women as the life-giving force of our society is simply being invalidated here.
It is easy to make a connection to the current wave of toxic transgender activism dominating public discourse as it seeks this very erosion of the meaning of womanhood (and manhood): Women have been reduced to “breastfeeding people”, “people with a vulva” or “birthing people” in the name of including “trans women” or “trans men”, as if the reality of womanhood wasn’t inextricably linked to biological prerequisites such as breasts, a vulva, ovaries and a uterus.1 The illusion of a man being able to turn into a woman – which is in many cases based on a fetish called autogynephilia2 – shall be declared factual reality by simply stating so. But the statue, just as any “trans woman”, will remain what it is: a false imitation, an empty mimicry of a woman.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the verb “to mimic” as follows: “to imitate closely, to ridicule by imitation, to simulate, to resemble by biological mimicry”. Kreilgaard’s male statue does exactly that, it imitates and resembles a breastfeeding woman, without being able to effectively be one. As a Twitter user commented: That kid is going to starve. This man is imitating a woman by holding the baby to his supple breast, but you know that something is not right here. This statue is a post-biological, surreal version of a man: He is simulating the act of breastfeeding, but he would never be able to do that, just as he would never be able to birth a child. Whether you like it or not, giving birth and breastfeeding has been and always will be reserved for women. But real breasts (with mammary glands, not from silicone) are not compatible with a real penis (capable of seminal discharge, not the lump of flesh that is created from the muscles in a forearm and that needs a pump to become erect).
The word mimicry is also tinged with a sense of ridicule, of copying someone or something with the – intentional or unintentional – effect of degrading or making fun of someone or something. I believe this is the reason why the statue caused such an outrage on Twitter. For many women – probably for most women, I would argue – this artwork is the grotesque caricature of a very special, very intimate, exceptional physical and emotional experience. Motherhood – producing a new life and bringing it into this world – is a miracle of nature, a reality that can only be experienced by women. Breastfeeding a baby symbolizes the unique connection between a mother and her child, even if a woman does not breastfeed. But a biological man or “transwoman” will never be able to make this experience. This has been the case for thousands of years on this planet and this reality will continue for thousands of years to come.
Where Art once portrayed man in his natural state – the way the Universe made us, they way we were born – it has degenerated into a medium that portrays a false and distorted image of nature and the essence of what it means to be human. Kreilgaard himself says that he wanted to question “what a man can and should be”. Should a man be a woman then? Should a man now be capable to effectively breastfeed? Did the artist just want to express that men should also care for a baby by adding those two breasts (a 3D copy of his girlfriend’s bosom by the way) to the statue?3 Did he just want to “celebrate the strength in the nurturing man that is not only able to kill, but indeed able to take care of the next generations by having the strength to be comfortable in one’s own vulnerability”, as he has stated himself? Whatever the artist’s intention, some might consider Agape a strange work of art at best, but for others it is an affront and yet another example of how the reality of biological sex is being distorted.
We live in strange times indeed, where people talk about women with penises and men who give birth to children, and where the word “women” only appears once on an official US government website about breastfeeding: namely when explaining that the word “women” would be replaced by “breastfeeding people” as of December 2020. So, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the KØN Museum, the home of Kreilgaard’s statue, was once the Kvindemuseet: The Danish word køn means “gender”, kvinde means “women”.
About the author: Born 1987, with roots in Germany and the Philippines, living in Spain. Constantly curious and eager to learn new things. Freedom > safety. Your own opinion > groupthink. Coffee > tea. Currently reading: “Conversations on Love” by Natasha Lunn.
Die deutsche Version des Artikels findet sich hier:
An “argument” that is often put forward in this debate is that there are also women who don’t have ovaries or a uterus, i.e. anyone without ovaries or a uterus (e.g. a man) could be a woman. Matt Walsh recently disabled this – rather misogynistic – argument in an easy and understandable manner in a debate about transgenderism at New Mexico State University.
Autogynephilia describes the experience of sexual arousal of a man at the thought or fantasy of being a woman. It is closely linked to transvestism.
From an aesthetic and artistic perspective, it is quite telling that Kreilgaard created, but not really “built” the statue: His statue is the work of a 3D printer, he simply put the parts together. One might compare this process to artistic production from the hands of incredible artists such as Giuseppe Sanmartino (1720-1793) who created marvels from marble with their hammer and chisel.
Excellent article!
A small note on sculpting; it’s hammer and *chisel* (a sickle being a sharp tool to reap grain, as well as a symbol of the Communist party).