00:00:17.180Welcome to For the Wild Podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.
00:00:23.000There's a lot that we take for granted right now that I don't think is actually going to be around
00:00:27.140for much longer or I don't think it's going to be around in the same ways much longer but I think
00:00:32.820we I think there will still be humans and there will still be relationships and so a lot of the
00:00:38.000book you'll notice is not like how do I get access to things but it's how do I be with others in a
00:00:44.960way that's actually liberatory. Today we are speaking with Adrienne Murray Brown. Adrienne
00:00:54.100is the author of emergent strategy shaping change changing worlds and pleasure activism
00:01:00.660the politics of feeling good and co-editor of octavia's brood science fiction from social
00:01:06.980justice movements adrian facilitates social justice and black liberation through the emergent
00:01:13.860strategy ideation institute the detroit narrative agency and is a part of black organizing for
00:01:19.860leadership and dignity she and her sister autumn brown co-host the podcast how to survive the end
00:01:26.420of the world we ended our last interview with a really brief bit on your most recent book pleasure
00:01:33.700activism and i'm so happy we were able to pick up again this year well i guess a year later and for
00:01:40.800our listeners who are yes it's been a while yeah and so for all of our listeners who are tuning in
00:01:46.460who are unfamiliar with pleasure activism. You write in the book's introduction that your
00:01:51.280intention around this topic is to connect pleasure to freedom and that in increasing what gives us
00:01:57.720joy and pleasure and then decreasing self-denial and repression, we can actually really achieve
00:02:03.920liberation. And I just have to say your writing and the essays and interviews you include really
00:02:08.880convey this. And pleasure activism is just such a beautiful map that really guides us through
00:02:15.060lessons on relationship, harm reduction, embodying pleasure, and so much more. And I see this book
00:02:22.120really as a catalyst for many meaningful conversations around re-centering pleasure.
00:02:27.860So thank you, Adrienne, for all you do. And thank you for sharing this time with us.
00:02:33.260I'm glad. I'm really glad that it's landing that way with you. This is always the interesting
00:02:38.340part of releasing a book when you're like, okay, I know I wrote something that was meaningful for
00:02:43.720me. And now let's see what happens when it goes out to the world. And, you know, is it going to
00:02:49.460be what people expected or something different? And so it's great to be in this place now where
00:02:56.520I'm just starting to hear back from people how it's landing with them. Yeah, I feel like it's
00:03:01.480going to be a manifesto for many. But I'd really like to ground this interview with a quote from
00:03:08.760audrey lord's power of the erotic great so quote we are taught to separate the erotic demand
00:03:15.180from most vital areas of our lives other than sex and the lack of concern for the erotic root
00:03:21.080and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do
00:03:26.720for instance how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult the principal
00:03:33.100whore of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need
00:03:38.080or which defines human need in the exclusion of the psyche and emotional components of that need
00:03:43.360the principal horror of such a system is that it robs our work of its erotic value
00:03:48.140its erotic power and life appeal end quote and this really seems to be a foundation which so
00:03:55.640much of pleasure activism is built upon that during this point in time when we have responded
00:04:01.940to suffering, collapse, and unfulfillment for so long, it's critical that we reorient our practices
00:04:08.520around the power of the erotic. However, at the beginning of pleasure activism, you clarify
00:04:13.480that you want to broaden the scope beyond the terminology of the erotic. So I'd love to begin
00:04:20.220by asking you how you differentiate erotic activism versus pleasure activism.
00:04:25.360them? That's a great question. I feel like for me, it was really important to be tuning into
00:04:32.860pleasures that are not necessarily sexual or pleasures of the body. They might be pleasures
00:04:39.220of the mind. They might be pleasures of connection, but I wanted to give myself some space for
00:04:45.500pleasures that were not sexual, even though a lot of what the book is, is talking about sexual
00:04:50.060pleasure. But when I was doing the research around it, you know, when I looked up, you know,
00:04:55.800I was like, oh, the erotic, the erotic is specifically around pleasure and the body.
00:04:59.980And then there's pleasure, which was like contentment, satisfaction, and joy. And that
00:05:07.160that could happen in the body, but that could happen in other spaces too. Like it could happen
00:05:11.780in the collective space and it could happen in activities that have nothing to do necessarily
00:05:17.420with sex. And that felt important to me. I don't know if it actually is important. So I want to
00:05:22.860make that distinction is that it felt important for me to take the risk I wanted to take in the
00:05:28.040writing process. But I'm always, you know, I'm really open to people being like, oh,
00:05:33.240it's not actually that big of a difference or there's no need to make this distinction. Like
00:05:37.660I always, you know, I'm just like, okay, teach me, you know? So I'll say that that, that for me was
00:05:44.380when I heard the term pleasure activism, it was a long time before I read the piece by Audre Lorde.
00:05:51.180And so I had heard this term from, I speak about in the book, Keith Kyler, who was the founder of
00:05:58.400Housing Works, which is a program in New York that does incredible work. They started, the main thing
00:06:05.120that I'm most familiar with is that they started basically like a series of thrift stores where
00:06:11.180people come and you donate your items. So you donate your goods or stores can donate extra
00:06:16.020items that they might have to this service. And then they sell those in these thrift stores.
00:06:21.940And then all the profits go into things that help with folks who are living with HIV and AIDS and
00:06:28.360who are dealing with homelessness related to that. And I was blown away by the program and I was
00:06:33.260blown away by Keith. He's one of these beautiful humans who like, if you were around him, if you
00:06:39.200ever saw him on a dance floor, if you ever like were in a meeting with him, you just wouldn't
00:06:42.340forget him. He was larger than his body and larger than life. And then he passed away shortly after
00:06:49.400I met him, maybe a year or so after I had come in contact with him. But that terminology really
00:06:56.520stuck with me, that he lived in a way that was like so vibrant and so alive and there was so
00:07:02.320much pleasure in it. And so much of it was like, we need to stop feeling so ashamed about the things
00:07:07.000that bring us pleasure. And I was hooked on that idea. And it started to unfurl for me in, you know,
00:07:13.700that like, oh, if we were not ashamed of our pleasure, what would become possible? And if we
00:07:18.540started to understand that pleasure is something that everyone should have access to, what would
00:07:23.280become possible? And then I went down the rabbit hole, you know? So then it's like, well, why don't
00:07:28.640we all have access to it? And Audre Lorde's thinking on this, right? That it's like, once you
00:07:35.280have actually felt pleasure and erotic aliveness flow through you, it becomes impossible to settle
00:07:40.760for suffering. And so that that will spill over into your work and spill over into family and
00:07:45.820spill over to every part of your life. That became like, I just was like, okay, maybe we're
00:07:52.000going about this in an opposite way from where we need to. That when we get full of anger and
00:07:58.660we feel disempowered, we point our finger kind of like the furthest away from us and say, that's
00:08:03.560the place where we need to start fighting and that's who's to blame for this oppression. And
00:08:07.860it's like, absolutely. But how are we partnering with our oppressors? How are we collaborating
00:08:13.460with them? And I think one of the major ways we collaborate in our own oppression and suffering
00:08:17.680is by buying into the lie that we don't all deserve access to pleasure.
00:08:23.200Wow. I really appreciate how you just said, how do we collaborate with our oppressors? That's
00:08:31.980really, gosh, I'm going to have to think on that a lot, um, after this interview, but I know you
00:08:38.580give a lot of, I think it's one of the main things we do. You know, I think that like, when I look
00:08:44.200back, I know as a black woman with ancestors who were enslaved, I look back and I'm like, oh,
00:08:49.720we didn't opt to be slaves. I don't believe that in any way. And I think that there's all these
00:08:54.760ways that we begin to collaborate with white supremacy and collaborate with slavery during0.51
00:08:59.300that time, including, you know, folks who were like, I'll try to get ahead by becoming an overseer
00:09:05.140who participates in the oppression of my own people. I'll try to get ahead in by, you know,
00:09:11.660being kind to people who are beating me on a regular basis. I'll try to get ahead. And, you
00:09:16.340know, you, and by mixed race, you know, mixing babies, right? Like I'm a mixed race baby from
00:09:22.560this time, but I look back and I'm like, oh, like that was a strategy that some people were engaged
00:09:27.840in to try and reduce harm. It didn't necessarily work, but it was a strategy that people were
00:09:33.000engaging in. And I get really fascinated by all the ways that people were trying to survive back
00:09:37.380then and which of them were collaborations in their own oppression for the sake of survival.
00:09:42.660And it makes me think, oh, we must still be doing that. I see people still doing that now,
00:09:46.900trying to approximate something akin to whiteness, even if they're a Black person or living in a0.74
00:09:53.480black skin. And I get curious about it or watching women be like, okay, the only way to get ahead is0.99
00:09:59.660to take on this hyper masculinity to move into the workplace. And, and often that means, you know,1.00
00:10:06.900stomping out femininity in the workplace of other women. So I see all the ways that this shows up.
00:10:13.700And I think it's something we have to always be mindful about is that I don't think anyone can
00:10:17.340keep us enslaved if we don't want to be. And I don't think anyone can keep us oppressed if we
00:10:22.160don't choose to participate in some way in it. And I just had this incredible panel that I got
00:10:27.900to sit and listen to where folks were talking about the slave rebellions in Haiti. And it's
00:10:33.860so invigorating and enthralling to just hear about the ways people are like, no, we are going to
00:10:39.760fight back. We're not going to accept this. And to think about what has to happen for people to
00:10:45.040ever say no to their oppression. Thank you for that. Now, I know you give a lot of examples
00:10:51.380of social conditioning that transpires through our lives. And it's just so apparent that these
00:10:57.020norms strip us from our lineages of pleasure, power, and agency, really. For example,
00:11:04.600from an early age, we learned that we are meant to be pleasurable for others,
00:11:09.540but not for ourselves. We understand desire through the needs of others rather than our
00:11:14.600own bodies. So around this topic, I'm thinking about our own personal pleasure lineages
00:11:20.200and why is it so important that we see and experience pleasure growing up in our families
00:11:25.860and or our communities? You know, there's a little section in the book that I keep thinking,
00:11:32.660I wish this section was like 10 times bigger, but this is the way books go. But there's a
00:11:37.740little section in there on raising sexually liberated children. And one of the things I
00:11:42.800talked to a few parents who I know, who just are kind of blowing my mind with the ways that they
00:11:49.540have raised or are raising their kids as it relates to pleasure. And one of the things they
00:11:56.160speak about is how the most important thing is that your child actually sees you as someone who
00:12:02.820is unashamed to experience pleasure and who makes that a part of their lives because children learn
00:12:09.580so much just by watching and mimicking and they learn what's important because they see what we
00:12:15.240place priority on, right? If we place priority on being on our phones all the time, then children
00:12:21.860will want to constantly be holding your phone and using the phone to interact because that's what
00:12:26.520they think is an important thing, right? So I think about that. I'm like, oh, what are the ways
00:12:31.880that you show that you don't hide your affection for your partner in front of your child? And what
00:12:38.800are the appropriate ways to be in relationship around children and with children so that children
00:12:44.060understand like it's beautiful to be in relationship with the adults in your life and to love them and
00:12:49.740to care for them and also you get to have boundaries what do boundaries look like it's
00:12:55.000really hard to teach children boundaries if they don't see their parents having any right so it's
00:12:59.940like how do we model good boundaries practice good boundaries with children one of my favorite
00:13:05.820practices for that is really letting kids know they have the right to say yes or no to hugs or
00:13:11.640kisses or anything. Um, and you know, I wasn't raised in a generation where that choice felt
00:13:18.120like a option, right? Just like kiss your grandfather or hug, you know, whoever's coming
00:13:23.740around to give them a hug and the kiss. And I'm around so many parents now where you can just
00:13:28.920feel the subtle shift. That's like, actually you have choice. Do you want to give a hug? Do you
00:13:33.720want to say goodbye? No. Okay. And not shaming, not embarrassing a child for making a choice
00:13:39.240about what they want to do with their body in that moment. And I will say with a billion nibblings
00:13:43.820in my family and in my community, it feels so good to have that authentic love from a child,
00:13:51.480you know, where they're like, I do want to hug you. I do feel safe. I do want to blow you a kiss.
00:13:55.980I do care about you, you know, and that it's not a coerced expression of, of care or intimacy.
00:14:02.640It's like an authentic one. And I get excited about what those children's lives are going to
00:14:07.960unfold like because from this very early age, they're being encouraged to express authentic
00:14:14.020emotion and being respected for their expression of authentic emotion. I get excited. Yeah. I want
00:14:21.000to continue on this theme of authenticity and, and lying as the, maybe on the other end of that
00:14:28.660spectrum. Cause I know collectively we are also taught that lying is one way to show care and
00:14:34.880consideration and you give examples of little white lies that we often tell for the sake of
00:14:41.280convenience or in order to spare somebody's feelings even and while an individual you know
00:14:48.080white lies here or there seem harmless the long-term effect is that we lose authenticity
00:14:53.440along the way so I'm wondering how is practicing radical honesty necessary if we want to pursue
00:15:00.400any avenue of pleasure? I am a big fan of radical honesty. I'm also a big fan of kindness.
00:15:09.200You know, Octavia Butler taught us that kindness eases change. And I think about that a lot.
00:15:13.820And I think that there's some place between radical honesty and kindness where we can find
00:15:19.440like the, the most caring and loving way to communicate to each other. You know, so I noticed
00:15:26.220that like, if I've spent a lot of time cooking something and I bring it and set it before the
00:15:32.380kids and they're just like, no, you know, I hate that. Or I won't even try it or anything. I'm like,
00:15:38.640oh, I appreciate your radical honesty that you're not, you know, going to force or curse yourself
00:15:43.240into eating something. And where's the kindness, where's the acknowledgement of labor. And I think
00:15:48.900a lot of times we end up with a sort of passive aggression and expression of inauthentic emotion
00:15:55.360that's actually trying to attend to this other thing, which is, can we, can we acknowledge
00:16:01.760all the component parts that go into care without necessarily wanting to be the recipient of that
00:16:09.380particular mode of care? Right. So I think about this, like with my mom, my mom and I have an
00:16:15.020amazing relationship and, and she's a very sensitive person. And so I think all the time,
00:16:20.800Like when she's making an offer to me, I want to be kind, even if it's an offer that's like, that's not really what I want right now, or this is not a good time for that. And I want to be really open to her so that she knows like, I love you. I love the way you love me. I love the offers you make to me. And this is not a good time. Right. Or, and this is not the right offer for me.
00:16:41.720And, like, a great example of this is around the holidays. Like, sometimes she'll give me an item of clothing and I am ridiculously picky about clothing for no good reason. Like, it's not like I'm, like, a style maven necessarily. I just am particular, right?
00:16:57.120and so she'll get me something and like this past year she got me you know a shirt or something and
00:17:02.880I was like I could hold on to this and pretend like I like it but I don't I would never wear it
00:17:09.100and it would be kind of a waste of her resource when she wanted to give me something so instead
00:17:14.460I was like this isn't really my thing and she was like awesome let's go find your thing and you know
00:17:19.240we ended up having a great outing to go find something that was going to be really useful
00:17:24.600and, um, and give me pleasure, you know, like it's, we've got these like awesome pants that
00:17:30.460make me happy every time I'm aware of them. And I think about the day that we spent together and
00:17:34.120going to find them together. And, you know, like I just was able to create an authentic
00:17:37.900experience together instead of lying and suppressing even this small thing, um, which
00:17:45.060would decrease authenticity between us and decrease then our connection. Yeah. And, and
00:17:51.700decrease the the intention behind the gift she was trying to give you even like the energetic
00:17:56.640exactly yeah yeah yeah I definitely have exactly moments that I can recall like that and I think
00:18:03.900it's really important that we see all the ways in which we distance ourselves from others by trying
00:18:09.200to stay connected but really it it does create this fissure now I'm thinking about how in developing
00:18:15.980and activism oriented around pleasure, we really have to grapple with our understanding of what is
00:18:22.760reasonable. On The Rigorous Practices of Love, he writes, quote, we can no longer afford to love
00:18:28.840people the way we've been loving them, end quote. And I really immediately thought of an article
00:18:34.020written by Chiesse Lamon in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin's murder. And Lamon writes, quote,
00:18:41.800I want to be loved unreasonably by an unreasonable love because we've nearly drowned in the poison
00:18:55.220and reasonable political discourse, end quote. Yeah. And I love this quote.
00:19:01.040He's so good. I know, I know. And I'd really like to ask you about the importance of understanding
00:19:07.840and practicing love and pleasure outside of linearity and reasonability in terms of how
00:19:13.920these practices contribute to creating society that values life. We've been given so many
00:19:20.460templates that limit our desires and fantasies. And of course, all dominant templates center on
00:19:26.100the whims of history of what the Eurocentric male gaze has dictated and valued. So I'm thinking
00:19:33.120about, you know, how we need to play with desire and fantasy and how liberating this for everyone
00:19:39.420who occupies a body that has been in some way shamed by society. You know, we have to begin
00:19:44.220creating fantasies that center ourselves and QTBIPOC, non-binary folks, you know, those who
00:19:50.760use wheelchairs, neurodivergent people, you know, the list goes on because by and large,
00:19:55.400almost everyone has been written out of the accepted desire. So I'm just curious to hear.
00:20:00.720Except as fetish, right? Like, I think this is so important. I mean, I, I include Casey in the book, you know, he talks about, he says, you know, child, we need all the pleasures, you know, and I remember it sticking with me of like, yes, I want to hear, particularly hear a black man from the South, talking about pleasure, and talking about love and talking about the things we, we rely, we need.
00:20:26.480So I'm really grateful for you uplifting that. And I do think this piece around the whole idea
00:20:33.520of something being reasonable and being able to be categorized as reasonable is in and of itself
00:20:39.820limiting, right? And I think all the time about all the different limits that have been placed on
00:20:47.240our radical imaginations and that that includes our imagination for what our body can feel,
00:20:52.840can do, how it can be treated. And I get blown away whenever I find myself communicating clearly
00:21:00.660to a lover, for instance, here's how I really want to be touched. Here's how I want to be treated
00:21:05.660and finding that it's possible. And then wondering like, why is it such a surprise to me
00:21:10.560that I could have what I want? And it's like, oh yeah, like a lifetime of socialization that
00:21:16.200that my body is not meant to have its own desires. I'm meant to sort of put on a play
00:21:22.100for a man who desires me. And I'm supposed to be able to put on a play in which his pleasure is
00:21:30.200the center of the engagement and the beginning and end of the engagement. And so it's been such
00:21:37.020an interesting thing. You know, my own journey really began with trying to really see my body
00:21:43.480outside of the lens of colonization. And to see my body as, you know, so I'm like, oh,
00:21:50.860through the lens of colonization, I have a fat black body that's wearing glasses,0.89
00:21:56.940that's moving slowly, that's, you know, that has scars on it. This is the body that I have.0.81
00:22:03.580But through my own eyes, I see something so different. I see a body that is full and that
00:22:09.720is lush, that has been well-fed, that has survived. And I see a body that is extremely desirable to me
00:22:16.160over time. I've learned to really be like, oh, when I look at myself, I'm like, yes,
00:22:21.520excellent. That's great. And now I'm in this next phase of it, which is like, okay,
00:22:27.880I love how my body looks. And now I want to really love how it feels. And it feels like,
00:22:33.040oh, I'm focused on what feel like the right things in my lifetime rather than putting a
00:22:38.160lot of attention. So I don't put a lot of attention on like, how can I prepare my body to be palatable
00:22:44.280for the male gaze? You know, I'm not thinking like, let me shave and wear, you know, shoes that
00:22:51.140are damaging to my entire skeletal structure and let me do my eyebrows a certain way or whatever.
00:22:57.140I'm really not thinking about anyone else's gaze. You know, I'm just thinking what, what looks good
00:23:01.800and feels good to me and to my body. And then what makes me a good member of community inside
00:23:07.100this body. And that's been a really interesting thing to learn is that when I'm, there's one
00:23:12.840value or one, I think it's a principle in the book that says, when I'm happy, it's good for
00:23:17.780the world. And my friend Jodi is the first person who said this to me. And I was like, what? That's
00:23:23.120like a mind blowing concept to me. You know, like, how do you not teeter into individualism?
00:23:28.160But then I noticed that when I walk out into the world feeling really beautiful and powerful in my
00:23:34.620skin, then other women, especially other women who are fat or other women who are black, look at me
00:23:41.380and they're like, what, how did you get all that freedom? And like, you look like happy, you know,0.91
00:23:48.380and there's a lot of surprise. There's a lot of wonder and it opens up conversations. I sit in
00:23:54.480the gym and just had the most amazing conversations with people about how we're loving up our bodies
00:24:00.220and what we're doing to be good to ourselves and what we're learning about it.
00:24:05.220And a lot of these women are like over 50, over 60 years old, getting to this place of like, wait,0.99
00:24:11.140my body is not just a working body for someone else. My body is like for me. So a lot of it is1.00
00:24:19.000to try to figure out like, how do we reclaim that earlier in life? And how do we understand that it
00:24:24.100is an act of decolonization? And then, you know, the book has a lot of practices, right? Like,
00:24:29.540do some homework so that you can start to shift that relationship if there are places where it's
00:24:34.600stuck. And I'm hopeful that it'll be a few generations, but it's not out of reach,
00:24:41.420that it'll become a new norm. It'll become a new norm that children are raised to feel
00:24:46.100excellent in their bodies, whatever their bodies are like. It'll become a new norm
00:24:50.340that we're not centering anyone who's not ourselves in our pleasure, but we center
00:24:57.380connection you know I love the idea of centering a connection and being able to please and be
00:25:02.540pleased and there's a mutuality to it but it's that piece you know nurture the nodes nurture
00:25:09.200the nodes nurture the connection between the nodes instead of thinking all the time how do
00:25:14.720we nurture the top of some pyramid that's far away and it's never ever going to give us anything back
00:25:27.380I'm out of the gate and I'm feeling it out.
00:25:33.480I'm out of the gate and I'm feeling the sound.
00:25:35.600I'm out of the gate and I know what it's about.
00:25:37.640I'm out of the gate and I'm doing it loud.
00:29:33.040And I think it's very, I think it's very deep to me that it's like she, as a black woman, as a person who kind of got this off the ground and put these words, you know, out there is someone who cares about pleasure. So that's a first and foremost piece for me. It's like, yes, like her call was not let's go out and, and tear people down.0.70
00:29:54.760It's like, how do we unveil and lift women up and lift survivors up and lift these stories up?
00:30:03.020And something that I feel like I'm wrestling with and trying to figure out is the idea that, you know, we want to eliminate or desexualize every part of society and that we think that somehow that will keep us safe, right?
00:30:19.400That, like, you shouldn't be thinking about sex in the workplace.
00:30:22.780You shouldn't be thinking about sex in the store, in the gym.
00:31:19.540So there's a constant sense of, do I own you?
00:31:22.780do you own me are you my possession are you my belonging are you going to please me do you think
00:31:29.440that you could possibly please someone else I don't think so you belong to me and then we turn
00:31:34.640it all into consumerism right it's like because you belong to me I buy you this expensive ring
00:31:39.680and I buy you a house and I give you money and you raise our children you know it's like really0.80
00:31:45.860looking at like what is the old sort of construct of marriage and construct of love and that sex0.96
00:31:51.860was supposed to happen only in that context of you belong to me, so you give me sex. And if I0.91
00:31:58.980tire of having sex with you, then I'll go buy sex somewhere else. I mean, it's fascinating when you1.00
00:32:03.480really start to understand how deeply capitalism and patriarchy have got us hemmed up into thinking
00:32:10.880that pleasure and sex and love are things that have to be part of ownership. And so then you
00:32:18.180end up in this hyper repressed state where we have really taken away the, the nature that is
00:32:24.600in us. That is like love and attraction flowing freely, um, bodies flowing freely, bodies belonging
00:32:30.400to the person who has the body and not to anyone else. And so I'm interested in a return to those
00:32:35.800things. And I think there's a lot of interesting experiments around this. Like, I think a lot of
00:32:40.000what people are trying out in terms of poly relationships plays a role in this. Not because
00:32:45.240that's, um, I don't think Polly is some higher state of being or higher, you know, some better0.52
00:32:52.640way of being, but I do think it's as prevalent as monogamy, right? Um, like I think there are0.76
00:32:59.480as many people who want to be in multiple relationships at a time and who feel the
00:33:05.300capacity to be in that as there are people who want to just be in a monogamous relationship.
00:33:10.180and so I think it's one of the ways to challenge these old assumptions right it's like oh I love
00:33:17.240you and I care about you and I don't feel ownership over you and if you feel attracted to someone else
00:33:23.680that's okay too and here's what I need around that let's have some good agreements and like
00:33:28.360make sure we talk about it or maybe the agreement is I don't want to talk about it right and making
00:33:33.120sure you're aligned with your lovers or your partners around those things and all of it just
00:33:38.420means being able to say stuff. And I also have to say, I'm not really a big process person,
00:33:44.940so maybe to my detriment, but I'm not necessarily putting out like we should just be in a million
00:33:51.880processes around everything we feel and think. It's much more, we need to practice being in our
00:33:57.980own agency and freedom and giving people room to be in their own agency and freedom, acknowledging
00:34:03.340that we have a complex set of emotions, including attraction, and that this is ever-changing.
00:34:10.560And so because we have all that, we need to have great practices of communication,
00:34:15.320boundaries, and consent. And it feels like the repression and the shame really actually
00:34:22.800stop people from being able to communicate what they need, what their desires are,
00:34:27.840even what boundaries are and it's it's so interesting to hear your take on it all because
00:34:35.140yeah we're in a big we're in a big mess and and it's we've gotten ourselves in this really complex
00:34:43.660state where many of us don't even know how to be in a healthy relationship how to express
00:34:48.920healthy desires whether or not some of us even understand what our desires even are I mean really
00:34:54.120starting at that base level so it's yeah um another part of the book you know and this kind
00:35:00.780of reminds because the me too movement you know kind of going back to that there there's a lot
00:35:04.980of pain associated with you know the experiences that people have had and while reading through i
00:35:10.900kept coming back to the relationship between pain and pleasure and how if pain is so often the
00:35:16.920messenger in our lives how can we understand pleasure as a remedy and you write quote i
00:35:23.240recognize that my sorrow carves out the space for my joy and that both in this lifetime and in the
00:35:29.740cycles of my lineage there is so much space that has been carved out by sorrow and i get to fill
00:35:35.700it up with joy and pleasure what a pleasure it is after all to be a free black queer woman
00:35:41.320to be a human self-aware to be of the earth with such beauty and interconnectedness pleasure is
00:35:48.660the point. Feeling good is not frivolous. It is freedom, end quote. So I wanted to ask, what is
00:35:54.920the role of pleasure in alleviating our pain? And then maybe to take it a step further, I'd like to
00:36:00.500discuss the difference between healing pain through pleasure versus numbing pain through pleasure.
00:36:06.800And have you found a successful way to navigate this thin line?
00:36:10.500um there's a lot in that question ayana i feel like um you know well one thing is that one of
00:36:20.620the first books i was ever familiar with as a child was the prophet by khalil gibran and i felt
00:36:27.060like it's a great teacher in terms of this that your your sorrow carves out the space for your
00:36:32.100joy and conversely your joy carves out the space for your sorrow and that part of being a human
00:36:38.420is being on the pendulum between those two spaces and that you don't get to live without one
00:36:45.200or the other, right? So that feels important because it's the thing that makes the distinction
00:36:52.260between pleasure activism and hedonism for me is that I'm not saying, you know, hedonism says
00:37:00.560pleasure without the pain, right? That it's all pleasure and that we want to live in a society
00:37:07.080where suffering doesn't have to happen, pain doesn't have to happen. I don't see it that way.
00:37:11.860I feel like I know what it is to really love so deeply that when you lose someone, you feel pain
00:37:19.380and that the pain is a direct measure and a direct expression of the love and the pleasure and the
00:37:25.080joy that that person brought to you. I don't want to necessarily give up the pain. I don't mind it.
00:37:31.500You know, like it feels like it's at, it's appropriate. I feel like there's a lot of
00:37:36.020inappropriate suffering. There's a lot of pain that is wrong. And I think that there's a
00:37:41.180distinction, you know, to me, when I think about like, Oh, what are the cycles I'm trying to end
00:37:44.980in life? It's not like grief in general, you know, it's not the grief that comes from losing someone
00:37:50.140who is naturally aged and died. It's the grief and suffering that comes from violence and harm
00:37:57.100an inappropriate death and unnecessary death and unnecessary suffering and suffering that
00:38:02.360falls along the fault lines of race or class or sexuality or something else that you don't have
00:38:07.740control over. That's the kind of suffering, you know, that I move against. I will say that
00:38:13.760in terms of pleasure being able to heal versus being able to numb, I think this is such a
00:38:20.340crucial question and for me the answer lies in my somatic practice which is centering really being
00:38:27.840able to develop a sense of deep connection with my body and with my body as a place that I can
00:38:33.880center in I can continue to come back to and that is a source of a ton of data and if I'm actually
00:38:40.440listening to my body I can tell the difference between what is healing me and what is help what
00:38:46.480is numbing me. And sometimes I'll say I need mindful dissociation, right? I'm like, things
00:38:53.420are too hard and I do need to numb it down. I do need to soften the blows somehow, but I don't
00:39:00.120want to live my life that way. Right. And right now we're in this political sociopolitical moment
00:39:06.760that is so overwhelming and so taxing that I see a lot of people who are like, I just can't really
00:39:13.000handle being present in life at this moment. And a lot of people who are choosing to numb and
00:39:20.280it concerns me when I see it in myself and when I see it in others, because I think what happens
00:39:25.960is we, we miss the miracle and we miss the cues that are coming, that are saying it's time to
00:39:32.320move or it's time to divest. It's time to stop participating in these systems. Like when it
00:39:39.260hurts this much. It's actually not a sign to numb. It's a sign to leave, right? Or it's a sign to
00:39:45.140revolt. So I'm thinking a lot about that. And I feel like, um, the numbing piece, you know,
00:39:53.140there's a piece in there. I talk about my use of ecstasy and how there was a period where it made
00:39:59.000me feel so alive and really helped me move through sadness and understand that feeling good was a
00:40:04.980possibility. And it was such an interesting juxtaposition to smoking weed at the same time.
00:40:12.880This was a while ago, you know, before it was like in dispensaries everywhere. And you, you know,
00:40:18.900this is before I knew the distinction between indica and sativa and like what actually made
00:40:24.280me feel more alive and what actually made me feel numb. But I would often smoke and then feel like
00:40:28.980I can't move. I can't really talk and I can't really feel anything. And that's how I'm moving
00:40:36.620through life. And the juxtaposition of that with ecstasy, where I was like, I can move in ways that
00:40:43.140I don't even know if I normally can move. And I want to move. I want to dance. I want to touch.
00:40:48.420I want to kiss. I want to feel happy. I want to run outside, you know, like it's just such a
00:40:54.540different feeling. And what I realized is like in my life, when I was healed, I wanted to feel
00:41:02.040that ecstatic feeling all the time or often without having to take anything to feel it.
00:41:08.420And now at the age of 40, I feel that often, like I feel that on a regular basis,
00:41:15.260as I'm moving about the world, as I'm doing my work, as I'm playing with the children that are
00:41:21.040my life as I'm facilitating a meeting of social justice warriors, I often get this flood of
00:41:27.800ecstatic aliveness that comes through me. And it's a way that I know that I've healed,
00:41:34.800that there's some parts of my system that tend towards depression because of long pain that
00:41:42.060have actually healed. And now when I say healed, it doesn't mean, I don't think it means there's
00:41:47.780no scar and there's no adjustment that's left behind. I'm changed by everything that I've lived
00:41:54.540through, but I also am not bound by everything that I've lived through. And that feels really
00:42:00.840important. Um, and that feels important for people. And they're looking at any place where
00:42:05.660there could be addiction and numbing, you know, it can happen in the realm of sex and the realm
00:42:10.180of drugs. It can happen in the realm of how you relate to food. It can happen in the realm of,
00:42:15.280You know, tobacco, coffee, it can happen in the gym, you know, anytime you're chasing something and moving away from feeling instead of relaxing and surrendering into feeling, it's time to be careful and see if there's adjustments needed.
00:42:31.640Mm hmm. And I also really admire how you have spoken to, of course, you know, we the surrendering to the feelings are ultimately, I believe what we need to do as well. But there are times where, you know, we can, we can use numbing as as medicine, or maybe that's not the right way to say it. But I do. I know in my own life, there's times where I'm like, wow, I really just need to tune this out.
00:42:59.680I actually don't have the capacity to surrender at this moment, although I don't want to escape from it. There is a lot of love and medicine to being able to lower the frequency of situations when we really need that.
00:43:15.660So I appreciate you being able to speak to the complexity of that and, and really being open to diving into all the different angles in which people will come to this, this issue in their own life. So this next question is a bit different than the rest so far. And there's an essay.
00:43:35.640Right. Well, it's just, there's an essay that was titled Burlesque and Liberation.
00:43:42.540And in it, Una Aya Asada. Oh, great. Okay.
00:43:45.660And so Una and her sister speak on exploring their identities as queer femmes of color through burlesque.
00:43:52.400And I especially love this passage where Una says, quote,
00:43:56.400We know the road to liberation for all peoples is a long one and something we might not see in our lifetimes.
00:44:02.820I feel like burlesque creates moments of liberation, moments of experience, end quote.
00:44:08.140And I just really love this focus on moments of liberation that are so accessible.
00:44:13.360And it reminds me of Chela Sandoval's writing in Methodology of the Oppressed, where she
00:44:20.040looks at brief moments like trauma, desire, or love in which a rupture happens.
00:44:25.960And through this rupture, there is a direct conduit to social change.
00:44:30.340And these brief experiences in our everyday lives actually move us towards a different consciousness. And I guess this line of thinking makes me or takes me towards this topic of utilizing pleasure activism and working towards justice.
00:44:45.960so I just really love to ask you to speak on how you see acts like burlesque or even sex work as
00:44:54.020acts of social justice and how can we broaden our activism to encompass unconventional and
00:44:59.920pleasurable performances as as measures you know how does this impact accessibility oh that's great
00:45:07.060um well I mean I think the you know I was really excited by both the piece that Una and Mishi did0.64
00:45:15.660And also the piece that Chanel Gallant does, which is Fuck You, Pay Me, which is about sex workers and sort of the pleasure that comes from having, you know, actually being able to support your life and your family and meet your needs, you know, through sex work.0.74
00:45:34.760And I feel like so much of it is really about where we enter and recognizing the system that we live in.0.98
00:45:41.640So I've always felt this, you know, and I got this education pretty early in my life. It was like, as long as we live inside of capitalism, people are going to pay for everything. And so we need to stop punishing anyone who's surviving inside of capitalism by charging for anything.
00:45:57.940you know like that's just not that's not the place if someone's saying this is mine and this
00:46:03.520is something that i can trade that i can give that i can use in this way um i think there's
00:46:08.400something really powerful about that and so both burlesque and sex work use that basic technology
00:46:13.720which is like here's the body i know how to make another body feel good with my body and i'm going
00:46:19.540to do that i'm going to do it for money i'm going to do it for reward for pleasure for exploration
00:46:25.220getting to tell a story. And I do think there are these moments, like the moment of sitting
00:46:30.400back and having enough, the moment of sitting back and knowing that you were just seen and
00:46:35.860that people felt desire for you. The moment of having control, total control over people's
00:46:42.220experience of pleasure, even for a moment. I do think there's something really liberating about
00:46:46.820it. And I think for a lot of us, we don't know yet how to sustain a long, like an ongoing
00:46:54.760experience of pleasure. So I'll speak to this very directly that I, I had a moment like a few
00:47:00.920weeks ago where I was, I was with a group of people that I adore and we were watching something
00:47:06.760together and I, I had seen it before I was showing it to them and it was the Amanda Seals comedy
00:47:12.900special. I'd be knowing and I love it. I think she's hilarious and it's a really, you know,
00:47:18.740she really captures a lot of what I want. So I'm laughing and I looked around at the group and I
00:47:22.920just felt this deep, like deep, deep, deep contentment in me. Like I was like, I love
00:47:28.280all these people. I love that they're laughing. I know how much hardship everyone in this room
00:47:34.020has been going through. I know that folks are tired. A lot of these folks are like,
00:47:38.880you know, um, I would say they're like joints inside the body of black liberation. Like they're0.52
00:47:45.140not the frontline workers, but they're the ones who are holding on and moving between these
00:47:50.500different parts of that black liberation body that is trying to organize to get us free and to sit
00:47:56.740and to say them rest down in the system right because when you're laughing there's so much
00:48:01.420surrender so much relaxation that's happening in the body it's just it was so nourishing but i also
00:48:07.260recognize them like oh i can't keep this level of awareness right like the whole time we're together
00:48:12.760it feels this good but i can't stay i don't know how to sustain this level of awareness of the joy
00:48:19.360And I think in part it's because my socialization still is to stay in awareness of what's wrong, what's missing, what needs to be deconstructed.
00:48:29.520So one of the things I'm often trying to do is create moments of deep pleasure and joy with others and keep growing my capacity to sustain them.
00:48:38.540And then I think burlesque is one of those places where a lot of it is sustaining the experience of being under the control, under the seduction of someone who really knows what they're doing and who is letting you follow them on a journey of self-exploration, on a journey of them exploring their own power and making often very political statements about how power works in the stories that they're choosing to tell.
00:49:06.040So I'm a big fan of, you know, burlesque.
00:49:08.520I'm a big fan of strip clubs that are run well and run fairly.
00:49:13.840I'm a big fan of anything where people feel like I'm an agency.
00:49:16.980I'm in my agency to give pleasure and I'm being compensated for it in a way that feels