A statue of a naked breastfeeding man in the foyer of what is now knowns as the Gender Museum in the Danish city of Aarhus has casued some division among the public.
The 3.5-metre-high statue “Agape”depicts a naked man with classic male features such as broad shoulders, narrow hips, a penis and a beard, yet also has female breasts and is breastfeeding a baby.
The statue by sculptor Aske Kreilgaard was designed using 3D scans of his own body and that of his girlfriend.
The goal of the statue, according to Kreilgaard, is to “question what the man should be and be able to do”.
In Aarhus, Denmark outside what was formerly called the Women's Museum, is now renamed to the "Gender Museum."
— Michelle Uriarau (@singlikeadiva) April 21, 2023
The erasure of women. pic.twitter.com/ya4OrxfZva
TGP reports: According to its website, it is “one of the few museums in the world, focusing on gender and equality.”
After the statue was placed, sculptor, photographer, and writer Suste Bonnén wrote an article for Kristeligt Dagblad titled, “Statue of breastfeeding man is a pedophile’s dream.”
“Isn’t Agape a pedophile’s dream? A grown naked man who enjoys putting a small child up to his nipple for him to suck is to me the epitome of what pedophiles dream of,” Bonnén wrote.
She pointed out that while the nipple is an erogenous zone for both sexes, “the mother satisfies the child’s needs,” while a man who cannot nurse “only satisfies his own.”
“I don’t see that the gender roles are being played with, as many others do. I see an exploitation of the little child, and a man playing with his own gratification. That is why I find it disturbing that both genders and audiences today welcome the message: The grown man can do whatever he wants with a small child, as long as we call it Agape.”
The museum that once celebrated women’s accomplishments has taken an extremely woke turn in recent times.
“Much has changed in the world of gender perception since the Women’s Museum Society saw the light of day; also men’s role and function has changed significantly,” the website says. “In some areas, the cultural heritage still rests upon the old-fashioned division between gender and roles, whilst the present expects a more open display of all genders.”
According to a report from Reduxx, the museum “offers sex education for children in primary school ‘through a culture-historical and norm-critical view of sexuality and gender.’”
“The societal norms that [children] experience on their own bodies are set against cultural history through objects from the history of sexual culture. In this way, we show the students that sex, gender roles and understandings of sexuality are rooted in our cultural history, and that ideas about gender, sexuality and sexual practices have changed over time,” the course description states.
Reduxx noted that in 2018, “an endocrinologist from Boston Medical Center claimed that breast feeding was an important method of validating a trans-identified male’s gender identity.”
