MILKING IT

A Title Optimizer Turned my Innocent Story into Smut

I was only trying to write about pumping breastmilk

I’m currently writing a story about my husband’s friend and his amusement with my breast pump.

The Titty Gritty — Joe and I were new college grads who’d just had a baby, but Joe’s buddy Kenny was still living his best life at MSU. We were visiting our alma mater for the weekend. I’d needed to pump for our 10-week-old son, and it was Kenny’s couch I was sitting on.

Prior to our visit to East Lansing, much of Kenny’s experience with nipples was from asking if he could motorboat girls at The Riv — or, as was his favorite bar line activity, measuring them “nip to nip.”

Kenny was all eyes when I switched on the breast pump. Here’s the needlessly smutty story title —

I’m a new Medium writer. I’m looking for ways to make my parenting humor and titty stories stand out, so to speak. A recent piece by (someone I am still trying to locate and tag) suggested using a title optimizer. So did Michael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier) when he edited one of my stories.

The HamBURGlar is wiser than at least 50% of the rectal-foreign-body patients he’s seen in the ER, so I took his advice — I used an optimizer.

The original breastfeeding piece (see above), along with its mildly saucy title, is already in Skin-emax territory. But my title optimizer, Headline Studio, thrust it into RedTube land.

See for yourself:

Me (typing a working title): “I Let My Husband’s Friend Watch Me Pump Breastmilk.”

Headline Studio: Meh. That’s an okay title. But you should add “emotional” words. (Examples: “love,” “adore,” “amore,” etc.) Add some fluff.

Me (stretching the truth): “I Loved Letting My Husband’s Friend With a Butt-Chin Watch Me Pump Breastmilk”

HS: Whoops! Now it’s too complex. You need it to be more streamlined — and with more $5 words. What the hell is “breastmilk”? Use bigger words that are not “breastmilk.”

[Editorial note: Headline Studio’s Title Optimizer was clearly programmed by a man.]

Me: God dammit. This is like making a password! Okay.

Me (wildly exaggerating): “I Absolutely Loved Letting My Husband’s Friend Watch Me Pump.”

There. I’d fixed it.

At this point it occurred to me that for many Medium users — or maybe just my kind of readers, anyway — the word “pump” is misleading. There’s no “breastmilk” context. It sounds like I was letting Kenny watch Joe and me give our baby a sibling, or give Joe an old-fashioned, perhaps.

Hah!

Kenny is a fun guy and all. Even though he let us sleep in his room a few times when we visited, Kenny’s never going to be in said-room when Joe and I hit it sideways after bible study.

Nevertheless, there needs to be a “Take This Title into Smut Territory” feature on this title optimizer. For amusement’s sake!

I’ll go first.

Titles Gone Wild: “I Loved My Husband’s Friend Watching Me Pump Him”

Taking it Way Too Far: “I F*cking Loved My Husband Watching His Friend Pump Me”

Now Entering Super Duper Smutsville: “My Husband’s Friend Pumped Him and I Absolutely F*cking Loved Watching it”

The breastmilk context is, of course, implied.

Kenny, if you’re reading this, you can measure me nip-to-nip and maybe even try to motorboat my saggy boobies.

But you can’t pump me — or my husband.

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