On Jun. 9, 2022, 大象传媒 Editorial Director Sunnivie Brydum hosted a conversation with three contributors to our 鈥淧leasure鈥� issue:
- adrienne maree brown, the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. adrienne鈥檚 work as a writer and podcaster focuses on pleasure activism, emergent strategy, visionary fiction, and abolition.
- Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts, a prolific author whose most recent book is the highly anticipated聽Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration. In 2021, Tracy contributed to the groundbreaking book聽You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience.
- Goddess Honey B, a professional Dominatrix, purveyor of pleasure, and sex and kink educator who is deeply invested in the freedom of Black people鈥攅specially Black women, femmes, and gender-expansive people鈥攁nd the exploration and reclamation of our pleasure practices.
Watch the recording of the event here.
Sunnivie Brydum: Hello and welcome, everyone. We鈥檙e so thrilled to welcome you to 鈥湸笙蟠� Presents: Pleasure As Power.鈥� A conversation with three contributors to the new Pleasure Issue of 大象传媒 Magazine. Each of our panelists today has come to embrace pleasure through different means. And I鈥檓 excited for all of us to learn more about each person鈥檚 journey to discovering and centering pleasure in their lives. Throughout this conversation, I invite our audience members to reflect on your own relationship with pleasure: where you found it, when you denied it to yourself, and what centering joy and pleasure might look like in your life. Because, as guest editor and panelist adrienne maree brown reminds us in her framing essay for our new issue, feeling good is not frivolous; it is a measure of freedom. And after having the pleasure of editing this issue, I would argue that our collective work to build a more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate world is strengthened when we make the time for joy, relaxation, and celebration of one another, and this planet that we all share.
I’m Sunnivie Brydum, Editorial Director at 大象传媒 Media, a non-profit, reader-supported publisher of Solutions Journalism for more than 25 years. 大象传媒 is based in the Seattle area, which is the ancestral land of the Coast Salish people. Specifically, the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. I invite you to read our full land acknowledgement on the About page on our website.
So without further ado, it鈥檚 my pleasure to introduce our guests. adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public from her multi-genre writing, her music, and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E. Butler Scholarship, and her work as a doula, adrienne has nurtured emergent strategy, pleasure activism, radical imagination, and transformative justice, as ideas and practices for transformation. She鈥檚 the author, or editor, of seven published texts, and the founder of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute. Where she is now the writer-in-residence. As guest editor on this issue, adrienne authored our feature story, 鈥淭he Power in Pleasure.鈥� And worked closely with the 大象传媒 editorial team to determine the frame and stories you鈥檒l find in this issue. Welcome, adrienne, it鈥檚 great to see you.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts has published 18 books, including her most recent, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration. In 2021, she contributed to the ground-breaking book, You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience, edited by acclaimed researcher Bren茅 Brown, and founder of the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke. Tracey has spoken on a number of platforms around the country on topics related to race, social justice, healing, and faith and spirituality. Her freelance work has been published in print and online in Essence Magazine, Ebony, Oprah Magazine, TheRoot.com, The Grio, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and more. For the 大象传媒 Pleasure Issue, Tracey offered the story of 鈥淏lack Joy: In Pursuit of Racial Justice.鈥� Welcome, Tracey.
And last, but certainly not least, Goddess Honey B is a professional dominatrix, purveyor of pleasure, and sex and kink educator. Her work is in the service of the freedom of Black people, especially women, femmes, and gender-expansive people. She鈥檚 a writer, thinker, translator, facilitator of magic and mischief, and loves conversations about the intersections of kinky sex, Black freedom, and the reclamation of our pleasure practices. Along with Kharyshi Wiginton, Goddess Honey B co-authored the story, 鈥淔inding Freedom in Black BDSM鈥� for 大象传媒 Magazine鈥檚 Pleasure Issue.
Welcome, Goddess Honey B, Tracey, and adrienne. Thrilled to have you all here. I鈥檓 so excited to be sharing space with the three of you today, so let鈥檚 jump right in.
I want to ground today鈥檚 conversation in a thread that I saw woven through each of your stories: the concept of embodiment. To start, I鈥檇 like to hear from each of you, about what embodiment means to you on a physical level. How do you know when you鈥檙e feeling embodied? And, how does that connect to your pleasure practices? adrienne, let鈥檚 start with you.
adrienne maree brown: Awesome, Sunnivie. First of all, thank you for hosting. Thank you so much. I also want to shout out to [former executive editor] Zenobia Jefferies. When we first started working on this, she was in the mix. And it鈥檚 just been such a pleasure. And such a growing experience working with y鈥檃ll on pulling something like this off. So I just want to say that.
And for me, I鈥檝e been on a somatics path now for over a decade. And in the somatics pathway, they talk about 300 reps of something gives you muscle memory. And 3,000 reps gives you embodiment. And embodiment means under pressure, that鈥檚 the thing you鈥檙e gonna do. Like, you鈥檝e been practicing something, and you鈥檝e got it embodied so deeply, that鈥檚 what you鈥檒l do. So, for those of us, for instance, who鈥檝e experienced trauma, what might be embodied in our system is fear around pleasure. Or a feeling that there鈥檚 always something to be hyper-vigilant about. We can鈥檛 ever fully let go, and surrender into the good, or surrender into just being present. That鈥檚 what鈥檚 embodied.
And so it鈥檚 like, how do we practice? What are the practices that allow us to embody something else? And for me, I for a long time looked at orgasm, and orgasmic meditation as just practices. To be like, what if I am just giving myself 15 minutes a day, where I just feel, practice feeling safe enough to surrender to pleasure? And that embodiment has grown throughout my life. So that now it鈥檚 like so embodied, that when something comes against it, I鈥檓 like, oh, mm-hm, that doesn鈥檛 go here. And I can鈥檛 wait to hear Tracey speak on this. But one of the things I love is, once you have embodiment, you can actually hold contradiction. You can hold multiple things at once. You can be in the complexity, and not just the embodiment of survivor mode, which so many of us get into. So, I鈥檓 really excited about thinking what we embody, not just as individuals, but on a collective level. Like what is the embodiment of women in this moment? Of trans people in this moment? What’s the embodiment of Black people? What鈥檚 the embodiment of those of us who are pleasure activists, and really trying to grow something inside the shell of suffering and misery?
Sunnivie Brydum: Thank you, adrienne. Tracey, what does embodiment look like and feel like for you?
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: First of all, again, thank you for having me. Thank you for hosting this. I am actually a little bit weepy, so I think that鈥檚 a great place maybe to start when you talk about embodiment. Because, when I saw Goddess and adrienne kind of pop on the screen, there was some energy that I began to feel. And so, I think what I will say is: I am fairly new to embodiment and somatic healing. And I stumbled, if you will, upon it. Because I鈥檝e been doing deep trauma work, unearthing EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization for childhood trauma.
Sunnivie Brydum: Awesome.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: And also dealing with an enormous amount of grief as a result in losing a family member to racial violence. And I began to recognize that, as adrienne just said, my default mechanism was fear. My default was a sense of insecurity, or safety. And so everything that I did was acted out of that space. And it wasn鈥檛 until I began to do work to feel safe in my body, to allow, to make room for joy and pleasure, that I began to, No. 1, embrace it, and to hold it, and to make it part of my practice. But then also, realize that it is actually living in that same space as rage and sorrow and grief. And that was okay, that I could hold those. And as a Black woman, that my ancestors been doing that, right? We’ve been holding all of these things. And it鈥檚 just for me.
I think I鈥檓 at the stage now where I am reaching embodiment. I love what you just said, adrienne. Because I think that I have practiced this enough, where my default is now shifting from what it was before. But I鈥檓 still challenged by it, if I鈥檓 honest. I鈥檓 still very much challenged about notions of safety, and what that looks like, and how those things kind of show up in my body. And so, one of the first things for me, even writing Black Joy, was my therapist asking me a question, “What does joy feel like in your body?” And it stumped me. I鈥檓 40-something years old, and I didn鈥檛 have any concept, any ability. I鈥檓 a writer, and couldn’t describe what joy felt like. If she hit me with rage, if she hit me sorrow, I had clear images, clear things that I could draw from to describe it. I couldn鈥檛 鈥� pleasure, breath, joy, happiness, whatever. All of those things created tension, and created fear in my body, to the extent that I rejected it. And so, I think the work has been for me, through my writing, and my storytelling, and just my own work of settling into my body, to the point where I feel safe, feeling all of those things simultaneously. So that鈥檚 sort of my intro.
Sunnivie Brydum: Good one. Goddess, what about for you?
Goddess Honey B: Echoing, of course, everyone鈥檚 gratitude for holding a space for this conversation. And to jump right in, honestly, if I鈥檓 honest, I鈥檝e been in touch with pleasure since birth. I arrived two weeks late by emergency cesarean. I came when I was ready. And that鈥檚 pretty much been the story of my life. And I鈥檓 really fortunate that my mother, who was raised at a time where women especially, and especially Black women. I鈥檓 the grandchild of sharecroppers, and I鈥檓 a grandchild of people who worked in white people鈥檚 homes in order to make money. And so for my mother, what was really important to her, was raising myself and my sister to never be afraid of our own bodies. And never be afraid of what we feel. And I was the 5-year-old telling people, 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 have a pocketbook, my love, you have a vagina. Right? That鈥檚 a vagina.鈥� I later learned, no, that was a vulva, but you know, it certainly wasn鈥檛 a pocketbook.
And so this question of embodiment. adrienne and I are in some of the same groups of practice, communities of practice around somatics. And this idea of 300, 3,000, it just makes a lot of sense why pleasure for me feels like an embodied experience. And that when I think about the things that I learned, when I think about the way that I move through the world, so much of it is continuously asking myself: Is this in alignment with deepest yes? And that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that I鈥檓 always going to be excited about what I am doing. And I think that’s interesting, right? Because the pleasure may be in the end goal. The pleasure may be in recognizing that I鈥檓 doing these things for the sake of this bigger thing. And when it comes to kink, and really specifically BDSM, there are so many practices, that I would argue are somatic practices. Because they are very much about the body. They are entirely about the body.
And it鈥檚 what makes me excited, the continually developing field of somatics sexology, is that this idea that paying attention to what adrienne taught us in emerging strategy: what we pay attention to grows. And being able to pay attention to, like Tracey said, we are so practiced at paying attention to the places that hurt. We are so practiced at paying attention to the places that don鈥檛 feel good, to the places that remind us of our worse moments, and our worse selves. And if it really is true that our best thing, that it means what we must pay attention to, has to be the things that really deliver joy. Being able to walk with someone who has made the choice to surrender to me, to surrender their bodies to me, being able to walk with someone on that journey of healing, of confronting those things, of creating a reality where that body is celebrated, where that body is desired, is a really deep honor. That鈥檚 how embodiment shows up for me.
Sunnivie Brydum: That’s so powerful. And I think each of you touched on this, and it鈥檚 something that I think we don鈥檛 always talk about in these kinds of spaces. And I think you鈥檙e right, Goddess. Most people think pleasure is, if we鈥檙e not focusing on the pain, and we focus on the pleasure, and we don鈥檛 always think about the work that it takes to get there. Pleasure might be the end goal. It might mean we鈥檙e doing things as a means to reach that. And that perhaps are not inherently pleasurable, but we know will ultimately bring us relief.
But I think a precursor to a lot of that, and you each touched on this, is safety. And feeling that sense of safety. To be able to even access the thought that we might feel joy in our bodies, and know what that鈥檚 like. It鈥檚 also a thing that I鈥檓 working through in therapy. But, how do I? Am I allowed to feel this kind of joy? Am I allowed? And what do I need to feel safe enough to do that? Because feeling joy and being ebullient like that is vulnerable, because our society teaches us, particularly as folks who are socialized as women, our joy should be for the consumption of others. It鈥檚 the, 鈥淥h, you would be a lot prettier if you smiled, honey鈥� kind of thing. We鈥檙e like, 鈥淚 should smile because something鈥檚 making me feel good, not because you, stranger on the sidewalk, think I look prettier if I did.鈥� Right? But we are not taught that, culturally. And I think there’s this collective healing that has to happen.
And that鈥檚 another thread that kind of runs through each of your pieces. Tracey, in your article you write that, 鈥淎s much as I want collective change, I want collective healing, whether or not the dismantling of white supremacy systems or laws ever happen.鈥� And I think that鈥檚 really critical. Because we spend a lot of time in movement spaces thinking and talking about all of the hard stuff, the trauma that occurs, the systems that need to be dismantled, the challenges we have to face head on. But we tend to spend less time talking about the necessity of pleasure, or even as a precursor, how we built safety in those spaces to be able to access that pleasure, and do so collectively.
So I鈥檓 wondering if you could each share a little bit about the role that joy, or pleasure, has played, or that you believe the role of joy and pleasure should play, in our journey towards collective healing. Whoever wants to jump in, that鈥檚 for all of you.
Goddess Honey B: I鈥檓 down to jump. Because what immediately came up for me, was like a bubbling inside of me, as you talked about it. In BDSM, nothing鈥檚 ever really safe, right? I mean, for me, my specialties are knives, wax. I play with fire, I hit people. I do things that are 鈥� Yes, I am practiced at them, and so it is safer than someone who is not practiced at them. But at the end of the day, and this is why a lot of folks in our community move from safe, sane, and consensual, to risk 鈥� It鈥檚 because it isn鈥檛 that you’re necessarily engaging in things that are safe, but it is that you are fully aware of the risks of what you are engaging in.
So I think that when we think of what it means to create safety, it isn鈥檛 necessarily about safe-proofing, or baby-proofing all the services. We’re never gonna be in a place where everything is soft, and everything is safe. But, it is about thinking about, how do I 聽鈥� work, so I know that I can always come home to myself, that I always get to be my safe space. And, how do I build the muscles to enter into things, enter into situations, take risks, fully aware? And, what would it look like for people, all of us, to be engaging in relationships, in work, in activities, and anything, where we actually go to choose fully where our yes was full yes? Because we knew as much as we could about what we were entering into. And so much of what we consent to, especially when I think about labor, so much of what we consent to, is like what we think we have to consent to. It isn’t necessarily about what we really want to do, or what moves us. It isn’t that we’re fully-aware of the risk of entering a particular field. So much, as we’re aware of the risk of not participating in capitalism, that we’re aware of what happens when you don’t try and compete. So I guess that’s what I wanted to say about safety.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: I鈥檇 like to jump in, because I think one of the ways that we can create safety, experience joy and pleasure, I think it鈥檚 very much connected to self-compassion. It鈥檚 very much connected to the processing of guilt and shame. I think one of the reasons why I wrote Black Joy, with these movements of resistance, resilience, and restoration, is because resistance is only part. That I鈥檓 going to have joy, and experience joy as a kind of defiance to the systems, is only one piece of it. And from that we get resilience. We get that creativity and that bounce back that comes from resisting.
But that restoration, the refreshing, the restoring, the healing that happens, that鈥檚 a piece that I almost feel like my ancestors are saying 鈥淩un on. That鈥檚 the piece that y鈥檃ll need to take care of.鈥� Because at some point, I think what was passed down is this idea of what you just said, Goddess, which was like doing things, not because it鈥檚 a full yes鈥� I just love that language鈥攂ut it鈥檚 because we feel like we kind of sort of feel we should be doing that, and that’s what we were told we should do, and that鈥檚 what we’ve been socialized to do.
And so, that鈥檚 the next course of action, whether or not that gives us that inner feeling, that inner safety, that inner sense of self and grounding. That wasn鈥檛 what I was given, I’ll speak for myself, that wasn鈥檛 what I was given. What I was given was a lot of guilt and shame around experiencing joy, and foreboding joy.
So I sit, I’m sitting at the shore. My thing is water. I鈥檓 a Cancer. Water is very much the thing that soothes and heals, and brings me so much joy, so much pleasure. And so I moved to the water. But in the process of moving to the water, I had so much stuff around, like 鈥淗ow dare you? What? Who are you to?鈥� I鈥檓 from the South, and there was a lot of that kind of audacity, right? You have a lot of audacity to want this for yourself, or experience this for yourself, or want this for your children.
And so I think, for me, how we get to collective healing, despite what鈥檚 going on the world, how we get to safety. Because I mean, you鈥檙e right, Goddess. When I look at the world, the reality, I don鈥檛 know if any safety is going to come from the outside. I want us to know what inner safety feels like. And again, I feel like that鈥檚 connected to how much compassion we have to ourselves, for ourselves. How much grace we give ourselves. How much empathy we have. Because if I can do that for myself, then I can do that for Sunnivie and Goddess and adrienne. I can extend it. And then, that’s when the collective healing happens.
Because I have an inner safety, and inner security. And room for all of my emotions. And I’m not feeling a way because I have so much rage. I鈥檓 not standing in, I wrote in the piece, standing in solidarity with my rage, and not allowing joy in, because for some reason that would be bad for the people that are grieving. I’m operating in the fullness of who I am. And so therefore, I can. Here鈥檚 the peace. When I can do that, I can allow you, trans person, I can allow you to be who you are, because I鈥檓 so full and secure in who I am. And I鈥檝e given myself all the grace and all the space, and all the safety. I鈥檝e done that inner work, that I don鈥檛 need to devastate you. I don鈥檛 need to hurt you and bring pain to you. I don鈥檛 need that, because that鈥檚 not gonna serve me, and it鈥檚 not gonna serve the collective. So I feel like I was rambling, but yeah, that鈥檚 what I wanted to say.
adrienne maree brown – Where I come from, we call that preaching.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Okay.
adrienne maree brown: I don’t want to intervene on your inner story of yourself, and what you鈥檙e doing, but I had to write notes, because y鈥檃ll are just invigorating my mind. And that feeling of safety from within is everything. It鈥檚 becoming everything to me. And I鈥檝e been saying this a lot lately, that healing is the actual victory. I was trained up as an organizer. I was like the victory is like, we have to win some policy over some other people and make them heal, basically. And it just keeps going back and forth, swinging back and forth.
I never felt more free because of those kind of victories, in the long run. But what I鈥檝e absolutely felt more free, and where I would say, we sitting on this call, are some of the freest women who ever existed in history. I think that鈥檚 because of the healing work that we鈥檙e doing, that the healing is the victory, that we are reclaiming ourselves from all these constructs of oppression. All these acts of oppression, all these violences of oppression. What our ancestors, it鈥檚 like they survived, and stuff got passed down. And there鈥檚 things that we are unlocking and unraveling. And shifting out of our systems at a somatic level in this lifetime. And that to me, feels like the victory.
And one of the things that I鈥檝e been sitting with lately, is this idea of, I thought I had figured it out in my 20s. I was like sex! Okay? Sex is my freedom land. Sex, I can feel so alive. But what I鈥檝e been recognizing is, it is an aliveness, but it was an aliveness in absence of all the other aliveness that I was due. So I would allow myself to be actually in quite dangerous circumstances to access that aliveness. And when I look back now, in some ways I gave away the keys to the castle to people who did not deserve to be inside of it. And I self-negated in this way. Because I just wanted the aliveness so much, I was willing to trade it all. And, as I get older, I can see that.
I’m like oh, look at this desire to be alive, desire to be seen, desire to be free. I don鈥檛 want that to ever make me feel unsafe. So this feeling of safety from within is, who deserves to come into my body? Who deserves to come into my life, in my home, in my space at all? And the more healed I am, the easier it is for me to feel that. And then, I also flux with the idea of moving from safety to risk and bravery, and other assessments, right?
Because I do think that inside of racialized capitalism, and patriarchy and all of that, there鈥檚 a limit to the external conditions of safety that we can set. But within that space, I can say where does it make sense for me to be brave, and take major risks? Where does it make sense for me to be vulnerable? I鈥檓 gonna come be vulnerable with whoever shows up here. This feels like a space. I might not go over, in some of the areas, right near where I live, and bust out and be like, 鈥淗ey, y鈥檃ll, let me tell you about my queer, sexual awesome adventures.鈥� Because it might be very brave, but the risk is so high, it’s no longer safe. And as I learn to feel it in my body, it鈥檚 so small, it鈥檚 so small, still.
What the feeling is, I have to slow down. And y鈥檃ll, anyone who knows me, knows that I like to barrel through everything in life. I’m a fast mover. And I鈥檓 having to slow down, and drop in. Like when someone offers me something that feels like a delicious ripe fruit, that鈥檚 gonna be just so good for me, I have to slow down. Because if I slow down, I can be like, 鈥淥h, there鈥檚 a poison in it.鈥� I can sense something in my system is saying no. Something in my system knows that鈥檚 not the fruit for me. It鈥檒l be good for someone else鈥檚 system maybe, but it鈥檚 not the one for me. And I wasn鈥檛 able to feel that until very 鈥� I’m 43鈥� it feels like it鈥檚 three months old. And, I also want to name that, because it鈥檚 continuous.
I feel like I see so much presentation, like 鈥淲e got it, we figured it out, I got it. I鈥檓 in my body, I’m free!鈥� I’m like no, no, no. It鈥檚 ongoing. And I expect it to be ongoing. Because it鈥檚 centuries that I鈥檓 trying to address and unravel and heal, through my lifetime in such a way that now people who are born into the world right now, can look and be like: Oh, those are some fat Black free queer women, and they鈥檙e satisfied. Or at least, they touch into satisfaction.
In some other phone call, I want to talk about the erotics of the ocean. Because I鈥檓 also like, I find water just to be one of the most erotic spaces for my body. I like to be surrounded by water, to be in water. It鈥檚 just like, I am water. I鈥檓 this powerful. So, I鈥檓 like, 鈥淵ou moving to be by the water?鈥� I’m like, 鈥淵es, I also need to live by the water.鈥� And now I’m like, I’m not gonna ever get, I don’t think I ever want to live in a land-locked place. I want to feel free. I want to be where the ancestors who left for freedom, I want to be near them.
Tracey Michae鈥�l Lewis-Giggetts: Can I just say something really quick? Because like, y鈥檃ll just brilliant. The inner ear, it鈥檚 an inner ear, it鈥檚 an inner listening that you鈥檙e talking about, that feels so right. And you said, 鈥淗ealing is the victory.鈥� I just want to share this story, because I was talking to my partner the other day. And I just blurted out like, 鈥淚 think I’m in my hoe phase.鈥� And he was like, 鈥淯m, excuse me? Whatcha mean?鈥� Because we鈥檙e monogamous. He鈥檚 like, 鈥淯m?鈥�
adrienne maree brown: So you鈥檙e like, do you need a negotiator, baby?
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: No, but I had been doing some journaling. And I had made this acronym called Healing Over Everything, which is H-O-E. And I was like that鈥檚 it! I鈥檓 in my hoe phase. I鈥檓 in my healing over everything. That healing really is the victory. But it鈥檚 not a destination, though. It鈥檚 not like this stopping point up ahead. And like the fact that you said there鈥檚 like this little, it seems really small.
adrienne maree brown: That鈥檚 right.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: But it鈥檚 like a seed.
adrienne maree brown: Yes.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: And it鈥檚 planted, and it鈥檚 ah 鈥� yes.
Goddess Honey B: Bringing it back to the question, or the question around somatics, that鈥檚 what practice does, right?
adrienne maree brown: Exactly.
Goddess Honey B: Being able to practice something different enables us to embody something different. When we are embodying something different, we are literally changing our reality, we are being different. And so being about what we鈥檙e talking about, the power of somatics, the power of practice. Like good sex, good times, good conversation鈥攖hat shit doesn鈥檛 just happen.
adrienne maree brown: No.
Goddess Honey B: You plan for it, you practice it, you get it wrong. You evaluate, and then you continue to practice. You continue to get it right. And the hope is that you get it right more than you get it wrong. Perfection isn鈥檛 the destination.
adrienne maree brown: And there鈥檚 so much about it, Goddess Honey B, there鈥檚 so about it. It鈥檚 also about communication. That鈥檚 part of why it felt so important for me to do this issue of the magazine. Part of why it was important to me to publish pleasure activism, and read Black Joy, and everyone doesn’t know this yet, but Goddess is also working on a book about Black kink, and pleasure, and BDSM. Part of why it is so important to me that we write it down, that we communicate, that we talk about it is: Every leap forward that I have made in these realms, has happened through conversation with others. It鈥檚 not something like, it鈥檚 like, I from very, I was 4, 5 when I was first, oh, a clitoris, hello! Welcome to this realm. But I needed conversation with other people to be like, and there’s no shame in that, it鈥檚 okay. And actually, we all feel these feelings. And actually, don鈥檛 feel sad that you gave yourself away because someone told you that no one would want you if you were fat. So you had to disprove that through practice, or whatever. And all these conversations, and often conversations that were deep-cut, deep enough to let the tears out. It was like open the water, get it out, move it out. Like the stuff that’s blocked has to flow. And I think that communication is one of the ways that it flows. I always feel if I can鈥檛 say the truth, I鈥檓 not safe, period.
adrienne maree brown: That鈥檚 right.
Sunnivie Brydum: And the water that we are is what feeds those seeds, that grows into, that grows into our safety, that grows into our richness, and ultimately our liberation. I think each of you in conversations have touched on these ancestral legacies. And Tracey, in your piece, you write about this, as well. About this ancestral legacy of joy, which is distinct from happiness. Happiness is like, you might feel happiness in this moment. I feel happiness like when my dog comes and cuddles with me, or my child says something adorable. That鈥檚 happy.
But joy is different. Joy is deeper. I think it鈥檚 more rooted in your body. And ideally is more resilient, and can help carry you through some of these difficulties. But then, we do experience these moments of grief, of sorrow, of profound suffering. And culturally, we focus on that quite a bit. But Tracey, you wrote really powerfully about this ancestral legacy and your journey to embrace the both/and. Writing in your piece, you talk about 2020 was a great year, and it was a terrible year. And so I鈥檓 wondering as we talk about these things, and I think racialized capitalism, and patriarchy, and everything about the U.S. has taught us that we must have, we must not only be perfect at what we鈥檙e doing, if we鈥檙e gonna be worth doing at all, but we also have to get to a destination right away, and there鈥檚 only one way to do it, and there’s only one destination. And I just don’t think that鈥檚 true.
And so I鈥檓 wondering if each you, if you feel you also have been on this journey to embrace that duality of both/and. That we can experience joy and sorrow, and that neither are actually cheapened by the presence of the other. If you can share a little bit about what embracing that looked like for you, or what shifted for you, as you embraced that duality. And since the discussion is rooted in Tracey鈥檚 article, I鈥檒l start with you.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: I think Black and Brown folks are made to believe that the totality of who we are is trauma, pain. And all of the residue of our trans-generational experience. And that鈥檚 probably the least of who we are. And so I think what my work was, realizing that me saying Black joy is a resistance, or a resilience, that wasn鈥檛 a new thing. The phrasing was new, I guess. But my great-great grandmother, my great-great-great grandmother, who lived on a plantation in Wilmington 鈥� I should say held captive on a plantation in Wilmington, North Carolina 鈥� understood something about how to move. I come from a family of women who are rockers. So even like in this call, or when I鈥檓 in a Zoom, I鈥檓 a rocker. And like in some of what I realized through therapy and through some of the working, and actually being able to put language to it, is that I self-soothe this way. This is, and my mom self-soothes, and my grandmother, and all through the matrilineal line, we self-soothed through rocking.
And I say that because, I think that when circumstances aren鈥檛 particularly happy 鈥� I’m grieving today 鈥� there is still an undercurrent of something else that drives us to soothe. And yes, joy is physiological. Like it鈥檚 the dopamine, and the adrenaline, and it鈥檚 all of the stuff that physiologically is happening in our body when we experience pleasure. But I think for Black and Brown folks, it鈥檚 housed within a particular experience, and so is a duality, as you said. Or even multiplicity, I guess. Where there鈥檚 a bunch of stuff happening at the same time.
And my great-great-great grandmother, and my grandmother, they knew that. And so, they could simultaneously live in very horrifying situations and circumstances. They could migrate from North Carolina to Kentucky, and wherever else they went. They could have these real hardships, and yet know how to rock. And know, love to dance. Swear we can sing. All of these things that are living simultaneously in our bodies.
And so I think, something happened, though. And I don’t know if it鈥檚 personal trauma. But for me, something happened that cut it off. It said, 鈥淵ou only get your rage, you only get your grief, you only get your sorrow. This joy stuff, this peace stuff, that鈥檚 not for you.鈥� And so, the work I think for me has been鈥攁gain, we keep coming back to this embody鈥攊t’s like understanding that there was a gift given to me that I lost somewhere along the way, that said that I could have both my rage and my grief. And maybe, this is something I just want to put out to adrienne and Goddess, because I鈥檝e been pondering it, but I鈥檓 not sure I have worked it out yet. But, is it that, it doesn鈥檛 cheapen our rage, our sorrow, our grief, to have joy. But, does it serve it in some way? Does our joy, I mean, does our joy, and all of the good, juicy pleasure that we love, how does it serve our grief, and our rage, and our sorrow? I know it keeps me from jumping off the edge. And it keeps me from running up in somebody鈥檚 mouth. It keeps me from hurting myself, or hurting other people. I get that.
In what ways does it hold space for, using that language, the other parts of me? I think I鈥檓 wrestling with that. I don’t know that I know the answer to that yet. But I do feel like since I鈥檝e been on the joy journey, and since I鈥檝e been practicing joy, and writing in my joy on a daily basis, and doing these things that I love, that something is happening to my grief and rage. It鈥檚 not going away, though.
But it鈥檚 informing it. Maybe that鈥檚 what it is. It鈥檚 informing it. And it鈥檚 changing it. To what, I’m still trying to figure it out. So, I just want to put that out there. That鈥檚 what I was thinking.
adrienne maree brown: I see you, go ahead, B.
Goddess Honey B: I feel like yes. It absolutely, speaking for myself, my joy definitely tempers my rage. And I don鈥檛 mean temper as in lessening, or cheapens, or like it makes me less angry. I think it actually makes me more focused. And instead of having me focus only, what my rage does, and adrienne knows, I can be a very angry person. When I鈥檓 very like, I鈥檓 a Taurus. So you know, I get angry, and I like to stay there. And what I found was that when I’m angry, I have a very narrow vision. I鈥檓 really not 鈥� all of my options are not available to me. I am sitting in that rage, and all I can think of is how to break something down, I want to tear it down. I want to burn it down.
And when I’m in my joy, I am reminded of the things that I want to create. When I am with people, when I鈥檓 in collective, and we are experiencing joy together, we are experiencing pleasure together鈥� I just got goosebumps 鈥� when we are with Bold, which is a collective that we belong to, I sit in the midst of that, even when we are still in the midst of such Black suffering. And go to this space, this maroon space, this powerful, powerful beautiful space is what I want. This is what I want. And it helps me focus on it. It helps me go, 鈥淭his is the thing that I need to pay attention to.鈥�
Everyone knows that everything’s fucked up. And so okay, and we tear it down, and then what? We don鈥檛 have practice at, what are the things that you want to create? How does, when your therapist, Tracey, that was so powerful when your therapist was like, 鈥淵o, where do you feel pleasure? When you think about pleasure, where do you feel that inside of your body?鈥� And we can鈥檛 answer that. I mean as a movement, we cannot answer that. We have Black joy events, and Black joy is just like a separate thing. It鈥檚 this other thing that we’re doing when we’re not fighting. And really, it鈥檚 our joy, it is our pleasure. It is our deepest yes. It is our ancestral knowing. It is all of those things that inform what we want to see. What we want in the world. And, how powerful is that?
adrienne maree brown: Really this question feels like the heart of my life. I鈥檓 like, oh yes, this is it. This is the heart of my whole existence. One of the first poems I was ever introduced to, collections, was Kahlil Gibran鈥檚 The Prophet. And he has that line in there, 鈥淥ur sorrow carves out the space, that will then be filled with our joy. And our joy carves out the space, that will fill with our sorrow.鈥� But they are the same act in different phases of time. And I feel they’re also signs of aliveness. That when I’m alive, I can feel joy and love, and I care, and I’m scared. And I can feel loss, and I can feel grief. All of that鈥檚 happening because I鈥檓 alive.
When I sink into my most depressive, despair states, I don鈥檛 feel almost any of that. The range is not available to me. I could give a fuck, I could care less, right? And I think, one of the things I talk about is always like, there is a before. Before the trauma became the main condition, or the way we think of ourselves, there鈥檚 something that predates that. And I think our bodies remember that. At every birth, there鈥檚 a memory of that.
Every birth, you look at the baby, and you鈥檙e like, 鈥淵ou don’t have it, you don’t have it.鈥� And as a doula, looking at someone and being like, 鈥淥h, no one hurt you.鈥� And someone鈥檚 going to. Because of the world we live in, it鈥檚 gonna happen. But, it hasn鈥檛 happened yet. And, how can I infuse you with the power of your joy? The power of knowing there鈥檚 nothing to fix, there鈥檚 nothing wrong with you. I鈥檓 so curious about who you are. How do I infuse you with all of that? Because that鈥檚 what’s gonna help you get through.
And sometimes I think, how did Black people survive slavery? How did Indigenous people survive the genocidal attempts? How did we survive? I think it鈥檚 because in ourselves, there鈥檚 a memory of the before. When there was nothing wrong, there was nothing to fix. We were figuring it out. We were being humans figuring it out. And if there鈥檚 a before, I believe there鈥檚 also a beyond. There鈥檚 something in us that can feel that we鈥檙e moving towards something. This is a middle passage, still. We鈥檙e still in that journey, where we鈥檙e on someone else鈥檚, stuck in someone else鈥檚 imagination ship. And we鈥檙e stuck in here. But this is not the fucking world, and we know that. Because we can feel it from within.
And I also think this experience of, particularly satisfaction, like for me, joy, when I feel fully satisfied in that moment is just like, oh fuck, this is what I鈥檓 alive for. This is, I’m supposed to be here, completely being held and surrounded by these children who love me. I’m supposed to be here with this lover, rocking my world. I鈥檓 supposed to be here with this ocean and the sunset. And I feel this joy. And sometimes I wish I could time travel and just go talk to Harriet Tubman about joy and satisfaction.
Goddess Honey B: Yes!
adrienne maree brown: Because I feel our movements, something we鈥檝e lost, is because we don鈥檛 incorporate and focus on joy and satisfaction. And particularly, we land, we settle for the false orgasms of almost everything. We鈥檙e like, that鈥檚 good enough, that鈥檚 close enough. I don’t know, it鈥檚 good. Just, you know, finish. And it鈥檚 like, I don鈥檛 want this campaign to finish if I鈥檓 not fucking satisfied, if I don鈥檛 feel joy, right?
Joy is a sign that we鈥檝e actually completed the thing that we were here to do. That we鈥檙e here, that we landed it, right? And I鈥檓 like, Harriet Tubman, I think she knew a lot about satisfaction and dissatisfaction. That she was like, I got myself here, that鈥檚 not enough. I鈥檓 not satisfied. Which is how I feel. Often I鈥檒l be like, I feel so free: I鈥檓 writing, I’m doing what I want to do. That鈥檚 not enough. Because I鈥檓 looking around at all the people I love. And they鈥檙e like, I鈥檓 still stuck in these institutions. I鈥檓 still stuck in these miserable relationships, I鈥檓 still stuck. And I鈥檓 like, 鈥淕et the fuck free.鈥�
We鈥檙e not doing that. It has to be in community. And then it鈥檚 like, who鈥檚 gonna be the shotgun on each other鈥檚 backs? Like what is the loving version of that, to be like, I won鈥檛 let you turn back to misery. Not on my watch. Even if the only thing I could hold up. Sometimes I think the shotgun is the mirror. It鈥檚 just sort of like, I just want you to see, like you can be alive, and it鈥檚 not, this isn鈥檛 it. Your aliveness is not intact. And I think if you鈥檙e not willing to grieve, if you鈥檙e not willing to risk the loss of everything, you can鈥檛 gain anything.
And I鈥檒l just say the final thing, I promise. There鈥檚 a way that, when I feel great joy, I also feel often a great release. Like I think of an orgasmic release, when I feel or get. Often orgasms bring me a release of intense laughter, and crying, everything is just releasing all together. It鈥檚 like I feel like the feelings are, 鈥淥h, catch the wave! We going!鈥� You know? But there鈥檚 also something about, it makes me let go of the structures that can鈥檛. I’m like, who cares how I look, who cares how I sound, who cares about anything but this aliveness. I can release everything else. And I feel we have to be willing to release that completely, for the level of stuff that we need to release. To release capitalism, as a structure that we鈥檙e all maintaining, we have to be willing to shake it all loose and grieve, and feel lost, and feel sorrow. And then taste joy, and be like, it鈥檚 worth it. It鈥檚 worth not having Amazon deliver packages to my house, because I feel so good about this future we鈥檙e co-creating. Whatever it is. So there鈥檚 something in there to me that I鈥檓 like, we have to learn how to feel deep satisfaction. We also have to learn to feel grief and honor, and be like yeah, that鈥檚 because I fucking loved. I can鈥檛 grieve anything that I don鈥檛 love.
Goddess Honey B: Right.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Right.
adrienne maree brown: And thank God, I have so much grief. That means I鈥檓 loving so fully, so much, so often, so frequently, so intensely.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: What I hear you both got, both of you are saying is that the joy and the pleasure, and this resonates with me. It expands you. It makes you bigger. So that, of course, if I put a little bit of water in a little cup, it鈥檚 only gonna go so far. But if I put a little bit of water in a big cup, it has all of this room to move, and to you know. And so, I feel like maybe that’s what I鈥檓 experiencing. And somebody in the chat said, 鈥淭ransformation is happening in that moment.鈥� Because the grief, the sorrow, the trauma, all of that has more room, because I’m getting bigger. Because the joy is making me bigger. We talk about orgasm. And I always, when I think about orgasm, and I鈥檓 not one to usually talk about it, but I will. But, I always feel bigger than my body.
adrienne maree brown: Yes. Because we literally are, Tracey.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: I am like this is physical, but like I feel like I’m outside of myself. And I feel like that must be some correlation between that, and what鈥檚 actually happening in my spirit when it comes to all those other emotions. So, I鈥檓 sorry, I just keep-
adrienne maree brown: And you know, it makes me feel so pleased to think that all along the path going back, that was available to our people, right? No matter how big the suffering was, and maybe how rarely they got to get in that moment, there鈥檚 so many love stories all along. There鈥檚 so many stories of pleasure, there鈥檚 so many stories of stolen moments, sneak into the cabin. I don鈥檛 know, it just helps me to remember that. And sometimes I’ll have an orgasm and dedicate it backwards. I鈥檓 just like, send this one-
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: That’s for you, great-grandma!
adrienne maree brown: That鈥檚 for you, great-great-great grandmother. Like I hope this reaches you and sustains you a little bit, because you gave me so much.
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts: Powerful.
Sunnivie Brydum: This conversation is actually a really beautiful segue to one of the audience questions. And we鈥檙e gonna run a little long. I think, that鈥檚 what鈥檚 gonna happen. I want to talk to the three of you for like the next four hours. We鈥檙e not gonna do that, unfortunately. But, I would love to. And a reminder to our participants, if you have questions for the panelists, please put them in the Q&A, not in the chat. You all are just dropping brilliance in the chat, and we can鈥檛 keep up, so put it in the Q&A, if you鈥檝e got a question for us.
But this question comes from an anonymous viewer, who is wondering if the panelists can speak to the intersection of chronic pain and pleasure? They shared that they’ve had a chronic lower back injury for the last 13 years, and find that 鈥渕y body has created such an intimate relationship to pain, that is so consistent. And the sensation of it in my body, has now overpowered my ability to allow for pleasure.鈥�
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts: 聽I can definitely at least speak to this, as someone who lives with a chronic illness. Even during 2019 I was pretty much bedridden for eight months. And they really didn’t know what was going on. It was constant and chronic pain. Headaches, vertigo, the whole thing. And I went to an acupuncturist to get, to do something. I had done, got some pain work done, pain management. And she put the needle right here in my, I guess, clavicle. And when she hit it, I wailed, I cried, I cried, I cried like I had never cried before. And it was kind of funny because I was like, 鈥淲hat’s happening to me? I don鈥檛 know why I鈥檓 crying.鈥� I didn’t know what was happening. But there was so much in my body that was seemingly trapped. That when she hit that one particular pressure point, there was an unloading that happened.
And so, what I began to realize, was that some of what I experienced as chronic pain, has been two things. One, trauma, and pain, and grief, and emotion, and all those things we鈥檝e just finished talking about. Finding space in my body to be. And that鈥檚 not taking away from actual, physical illness, or anything like that. But for me, I know my chronic pain was – some of it was connected to trauma. And also, because I had it for so long 鈥� fibromyalgia, diagnosed, 20 years, the whole nine 鈥� I became quite comfortable with it. It was familiar, it was safe for me. And so, if there was any moment of relaxation, or like when I was pregnant with my daughter, for some reason, all my fibromyalgia just went away. For some reason, I didn’t have hardly any chronic pain. And it scared the daylights of me. I thought every day I was going to die. Because I did not have pain. Because I did not, I was so frightened at this idea that, and I was thinking, 鈥淪o y鈥檃ll just walking around here free like this, with no pain in your body, like no…鈥� It was so hard for me. And even, there are times when I struggle with that even today where I am in a complete state of relaxation and calm, and I’m terrified, it feels, because I had spent …
It is definitely connected to a particular sexual assault that I had. I had to be hyper-vigilant and alert, and make sure that I was aware of who was coming in my room.
adrienne maree brown: Yes.
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts:聽 Also holding my breath, which is a reason why I shallow breathe for 30 years. Deep breaths, which creates relaxation in the body, terrified me. I thought I’m not in control, something bad is going to happen. And I experienced that, and it鈥檚 been part of the joy practice. Part of mine is experiencing joy, and I’ve been double-dutching with joy. Like, okay!
adrienne maree brown: Wow.
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts: Okay, I get it. Oh, I鈥檓 safe. And so some of 鈥攖here’s a concept called internal family systems. Where I have conversations with the various versions of me. Because my therapist uses the bus as an analogy. She鈥檚 asking me all the time, so who鈥檚 driving the bus right now? Because if 8-year-old Tracey’s driving the bus, you gonna crash. Because the only way she knows how to be safe is to hold her breath, to hold her muscles really, really tight, and to not relax for any single moment because anything can happen. And so, if she鈥檚 driving your bus, then of course, when you go on that vacation, you鈥檙e not really gonna vacate. Like you鈥檙e still gonna be present. And so, I mean, present with your pain, and present with your fear. And so the work for me was someone who still wrestles with, lives with chronic pain, very real chronic pain. That I take my CBD for, and everything else.
adrienne maree brown: Here’s my CBD right now.
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts:聽 There you go! There you go. Like very real. Has been figuring out, what鈥檚 physiological happening, what鈥檚 physical, and what is connected to my trauma. And I think for anybody who has chronic pain, I encourage them not to throw away your meds, or anything like that, but 鈥�
Goddess Honey B – Don’t do that!
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts: Yeah, don鈥檛 do that, I鈥檓 not saying do that. But try to figure out what鈥檚 showing up. Is it the trauma that鈥檚 showing up in your body, in that moment, or is it 鈥� they鈥檙e very much connected. So is the trauma that鈥檚 showing up is then triggering your muscles to contract? And if they’ve been contracting like me for 35, 37, 38, 46 years, then of course you鈥檙e gonna have a physiological response. Because your body can鈥檛 hold its muscles tight for 46 years, and then not be one. That鈥檚 how I would respond to someone who definitely has that.
adrienne maree brown: I鈥檓 really moved by what you鈥檙e sharing, Tracey. And it feels like, as someone who鈥檚 also living with chronic pain, part of what I鈥檝e had to orient around is it鈥檚 not an accident that even though I鈥檓 more free, my body is still conditioned to cage. It鈥檚 still conditioned to the cage, it鈥檚 still conditioned to create limitations. And it鈥檚 also the reaction of living in these systems. How would I relax? How would I relax here? Someone鈥檚 gonna shoot me if I relax, someone鈥檚 going to assault me if I relax. Someone is going to aggressively be racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, or something to me, if I relax. Why would I ever do that?
And that holding that you spoke of, which also feels ancestral. I look at the shapes, I look at pictures of my grandmother, how she held herself, and I鈥檓 like, 鈥淚 hold myself like that.鈥� And I didn鈥檛 get that much, not nearly enough time around her, to be like, 鈥淥h, I didn’t learn that by watching her body.鈥� That鈥檚 passed directly down to my body from her. And who knows who it came from? Who knows who first had to hunch their shoulders in to protect their heart, and to shrink their breasts, and to be less sexualized? Who knows who first had to bend over so much that their back could never fully recover. Who knows who had to squat until they could no long stand back all the way up. Like who knows?
I think of the chronic pain that鈥檚 in my body as missives from my ancestors. That I may not fully be able to resolve this, but I鈥檓 listening, I鈥檓 listening. And I鈥檓 listening for what are the places where I do have agency that you didn鈥檛 have, that I can change my practices. So one of the things, like for instance, I鈥檝e been really paying attention to 鈥� I come from lineages, people who didn鈥檛 get to choose their food. So, we live in a toxic food system that is having a horrific impact on our bodies. And the less resources you have, the more oppression you have, the more likely it is that you鈥檙e eating food that is literally poisoning your system, and your body is just trying to survive somehow through that.
And so, I’ve been really getting intentional about how do I want to befriend my body and figure out what it actually, what health looks like from that place. And I do notice that impacts my chronic pain, even though it takes a shit ton of work to try to do. But I notice, I’m like, oh, if I stop letting this white sugar toxin, basically white supremacy in the form of food 鈥� like white sugar, white flour, all that stuff, it really, white salt 鈥� when I reduce those things in my system, everything in my body, the inflammation calms down some.
But then I also one thing I want to say related to pleasure is disability justice has also been a super-liberating framework for me, particularly from the Sins Invalid lineage. Of naming how do we start to talk about what our bodies are like, what they need, what care looks like. For me, my knees were the first to go. So I was like, okay, I just can’t be bouncing around on top of somebody to get the kind of orgasm that I like. So what鈥檚 the adaptation I can make? And how do I communicate this is what my body can do and can鈥檛 do? Don’t you dare throw me around, and throw my leg over somewhere, right? Here’s what I can do. And that doesn鈥檛 mean that you have to be totally gentle with me, but we鈥檙e gonna have to find the part of my body that can handle more intense touch.
And trying to get more and more creative about that, understanding that the greatest sexual organ in my body is my mind. And from my mind, I can make almost any place in my body available for pleasure. I’m like, okay. You gotta work this elbow, and it鈥檚 gonna feel great to me. I know I can do that. So I want to offer that, because I think for a lot of people who experience chronic pain, there鈥檚 this idea like you have to get rid of the pain in order to feel the pleasure. Rather than, there鈥檚 a balancing, and there鈥檚 a communication that鈥檚 like, the pain is here. It walks with me in this life. But pleasure can also be here. And when I do feel deep pleasure, it relieves everything else that鈥檚 happening. And every time I have that full body surrender and relaxation, it actually does something for that pain, for me.
Goddess Honey B: What I would add is, I have a person who bottoms with me often, who has chronic pain. And one of the reasons why they came to me, was because they really wanted to investigate that pain. And they wanted to investigate specifically their relationship to pain. And so what they were asking, was for more pain, but a different sort, with a different relationship. And so much of 鈥�
adrienne maree brown: And they had some control, that they were like 鈥�
Goddess Honey B: That they have all the control over, not some, they had all the control over it. And that being able to shift that relationship has been able to help them begin to shift their own relationship with that chronic pain. That is never gonna go away, right? Maybe, maybe it will. But it hasn’t so far. And they鈥檙e very, very grown. So shifting their relationship with their pain, and releasing a commitment to orgasm. And that鈥檚 hard, because orgasm, especially when we are talking about sex, is so great. I love coming. And people who are inorgasmic, also experience sexual pleasure. People who have real difficulty climaxing, like there are so many things that can bring pleasure. And one of the things that I really like about impact play, about pain play, about that investigation, is it allows you to really turn up your curiosity about your own pain, about your own body. And about the practices that support that reorientation.
adrienne maree brown: Thank you.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Yes, so good.
Sunnivie Brydum: Well, there鈥檚 so much. There鈥檚 so much here. There鈥檚 so much wisdom and joy, and I keep myself calm as all of you keep saying things that are landing directly in my heart. Thank you. There are some more questions from the audience. I know we’re running a little long on time, so I鈥檓 gonna bring us one more audience question, and then we’re gonna wind down.
This next question comes from Michelle Zenarosa. Hi, Michelle. She says that a friend and her were talking about solidarity economies and racial capitalism, and hope. And this friend said something that really stuck with her, that the way change is going to happen is not how everyone thinks about a revolution that will topple the empire. They see it more like a bunch of termites eating away at a house. Eating away at this kind of prison that we鈥檝e been kept in. And that will eventually make that big house topple. And she said this conversation is making her think of that. And so, she鈥檚 interested in what you all can say about pleasure and building practices of pleasure, as a means to help eat away at the foundation of this big house that we鈥檝e all been trapped in by society.
adrienne maree brown: I will say for me, Pleasure Activism, was the second book in the emergent strategy series. And the reason for that was because, it’s like for me, the emergent strategy concept is that we are this fractal-based system. So what we do as individuals matters to what happens to us as a community. And what we do as communities, matters to what happens in our interactions with each other. And we are also part of this whole. I say that because I do think that pleasure activism is one of the ways we change the frequency of what鈥檚 happening at the cellular level in each of our individual lives, in the relationships we鈥檙e in. And that’s what a community is even longing for.
That feels so important to me. Because I feel like so often we’re stuck longing for what someone else tells us is success, or what someone tells us is freedom, or what someone tells us is victory. And I learned this by achieving, right? So I would get to someplace, and I鈥檇 be like, 鈥淚’m the boss. I’m a boss bitch.鈥� And I was like, 鈥淭his is horrible, I hate this. I’m now responsible for all these people. I’m not being paid enough. I’m being disrespected, I’m overworking, I’m exhausted, and I’m burning out.鈥� That鈥檚 what boss means? Boss equals burnout? Okay, no. There鈥檚 gotta be some other path to feeling powerful and free in my own life.
And I say that because I think exactly this, it鈥檚 not just that we鈥檙e toppling the house. I think that these systems we鈥檙e in are so dysfunctional and illogical, that their fall is inevitable. But they got us tricked into thinking that we’re supposed to sustain them, and save them somehow. This is why I鈥檓 a post-nationalist. I鈥檓 not trying to save this American experiment that was rooted in my subjugation, and stolen land. And that鈥檚 not my bag, right?
What I’m really interested in saving is small experiments of democracy. Small experiments of collectivism, small experiments where people are actually able to care and build communities of care and pleasure, and delight, and wonder and safety. I want to build small communities where there would never, ever be an instance where we let our children be in danger. From sexual harm, from gun harm, from any of it. That the whole thing would be focused on their safety.
I think you, there was another question that you were talking about, Sunnivie, at one point about vision. And for me it鈥檚 like, when I think of my vision for any kind of future, it鈥檚 one in which our practices are those in which safety for children, and happiness of children is at the center of all society. Those are people who grow up really in touch with their pleasure, and in touch with their bodies, and in touch with how to relate and consent, and get their needs met, right?
When I think 3,000 years into the future, whatever, I’m like, all I want to see is these little pockets that are like in some technological inter-web. We still have coconut water and stuff. But where people are like, I know who I am, it鈥檚 great to be in my body. It鈥檚 great to be in the relationships I鈥檓 in. I feel really satisfied with my life, that that鈥檚 what it means to be a human. Like that we鈥檙e compatible with the Earth in the same. I don鈥檛 feel like lions are walking around, like fuck. I feel like I鈥檓 just really satisfied being a lion, I really understand my purpose, I鈥檓 living into it. I鈥檓 like humans are so off track.
But I feel like, to me, the pleasure is one of the ways we keep planting that seed. And I know it matters, because when I was first writing about this, I was like, I鈥檓 gonna ruin my career. Like, no one is gonna take me seriously as a leader, or thought person, or anything, if I try to say how important orgasm is to liberation. Luckily Audre Lorde had talked about it, and I trust her. And luckily Toni Cade Bambara had talked about it, and I trust her. And there is this lineage of folks who have been hold up. There鈥檚 something over this way that actually stops us from self-sabotage, stops us from self-negation. And I think participating in these current systems is a self-sabotage act. And I think pleasure is one of the ways we pull ourselves back from that and say, I don’t need to buy anything, or fix anything, or surgery anything. I don’t need to do any of that to feel joy, to feel freedom, to feel myself. If I want to do those things, cool. But I don’t need that. My body is a complete joy machine, it鈥檚 already whole.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: That鈥檚 it, woo! That鈥檚 it. I love what your vision for our future is this post-nationalist, this vision. I think that the challenge will always be, as long as we have boundaries, as long as we have demarcation, then lines where we decided this is mine, and that鈥檚 yours, this is my land, you know, this is your land, from this spot to 鈥�
adrienne maree brown: Meanwhile the Earth is just laughing. Y鈥檃ll think you own me? You haven’t figured out 鈥�
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Exactly.
adrienne maree brown: I鈥檓 in control?
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Exactly. And I write a lot about tiny revolution. So I think it is a revolutionary act. But they鈥檙e seemingly small. So every single time I allow myself the freedom to laugh loudly with my daughter at the park, as loud as we want, as we swing, and my 46-year-old self on the swing, just you know. Every single time that I do that, I feel like it is a kind of resistance. It鈥檚 a crack in what I鈥檝e been told, what my ancestors have been told. Should uphold these systems that you’re talking about. Should, what we should be doing. It鈥檚 beating up against that. And so I love that so much.
And I feel like if everybody is having an inner revolution, having tiny external revolutions, then we鈥檙e bound to break up. Which might be some of what we鈥檙e seeing, right? What we鈥檙e seeing is a very real awareness that, what has been built is falling apart, people are fighting violently against, they鈥檙e holding tightly against. White folks are holding tightly to what they believe is theirs, but was never theirs. So, I love that, I love that vision that you have.
Goddess Honey B: I love that this question involves termites. I often go into very deep rabbit holes around things. Which emergent strategies is like a joy, it is and continues to be such a joy. Because I鈥檓 like, yep, this is exactly how my little brain works. I鈥檓 like, oh yeah, cancer is actually brilliant. I remember the first time I learned about HIV in third grade, and I was like, that is brilliant. You have tricked the cells, you鈥檝e gotten them all on your side. Like how do I be like HIV? And termites are, I mean, they are matriarchal, like many insects. So the termite daddies take care of the babies. Termites can鈥檛 see, so 鈥� talking about disability justice 鈥� termites are blind. They are moving in concert, though. So they literally cannot see one another, but they have all these other ways to feel into one another. They, just all sorts of like cool ways that termites. They are actually really important to regeneration of the planet. So even though they鈥檙e annoying when they鈥檙e in your house, termites鈥� jobs, they鈥檙e the turnover. Termites, earthworms, there are lots of creatures whose role is bringing things, birthing things anew. And so I think 鈥�
adrienne maree brown: And they don鈥檛 need attention while they work.
Goddess Honey B: They don鈥檛!
adrienne maree brown: Don鈥檛 mind me, I鈥檓 just gonna make your house fall down.
Goddess Honey B: I鈥檓 just termiting! And you don鈥檛 know that the termites have termited, until you go get an estimate, and they鈥檙e like, sorry, actually it鈥檚 my house.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: And they鈥檙e only invasive to us.
Goddess Honey B: Exactly! Only humans!
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Which gives me questioning, are they really invasive?
Goddess Honey B: And they鈥檙e not!
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Who are the invaders?
adrienne maree brown – Who is the problem?
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Who are the invaders, really?
adrienne maree brown: Exactly.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Who took the trees to build the house, right? And they were already with the trees.
Goddess Honey B: I was just coming home. I was just coming home! Okay? There are all these ways, that like yes, just make so much sense, like just be like the termites. And when I think about this idea of revolution, and this idea of freedom, there is no one revolution, there is not. There could not be. There鈥檚 no one freedom. My freedom is different from adrienne鈥檚 freedom, different from Tracey鈥檚 freedom. Maybe not that different, but I’m sure. And part of it is, God, what you said is exactly it. It鈥檚 like being like, oh yeah, I get to just be. And if I鈥檓 born in a body, like being born in a body, no matter what, it鈥檚 not a disabled body. Because there is no sort of like litmus test, where like this is abled, and therefore you鈥檙e disabled. Just like, oh, this is my body.
And because we recognize that we鈥檙e important to each other, and that we鈥檙e critical to each other, we make sure each other has what need to be able to move through the world. We are interdependent like the termite. We are collective like the termites. We are moving, and we are anti-patriarchal like the termites. And I think it really could be beautiful if we pay attention to all of these unlikely places. And unlikely leaders, and unlikely gods. Who are really giving us all of the answers that we say that we are looking for. And they’re just screaming, 鈥淧ay attention to me. Pay attention to me.鈥�
Sunnivie Brydum: A message of interdependence, I think, is one that we as humans just keep learning, and maybe failing at learning. And I assume we鈥檒l continue to keep learning.
Goddess Honey B: Capitalism does otherwise, so we鈥檙e really up against a wall here.
Sunnivie Brydum: Right. We give a lot of messages that say that鈥檚 not the case. And yet I think, even this conversation, where each of us are building off what the other was saying, I think, is a beautiful demonstration of what happens when we are vulnerable, when we are real with each other. When we realize the ways that our lives, our liberation, and our pleasure is bound up with one another. Because if it is safe for adrienne and Goddess, and Tracey to experience pleasure, then it will be safer for me to experience it, as well. Even if we come to this world, and this work, from different places. That鈥檚 what I learned, as I was putting the Pleasure Issue together, and getting to work with each of you. Like I said, I would love to keep talking all day long. But I know that we all have busy lives. Capitalism tells us that we have places to be. I鈥檓 gonna wind this down.
I just want to say thank you so much to each of you. To adrienne, to Tracey, to Goddess Honey B for joining us, and helping us learn about the power and potential of pleasure. It鈥檚 been an absolute joy to hear from each of you today.
adrienne maree brown: Can I take a picture of us?
Sunnivie Brydum: Yes.
adrienne maree brown: Like a selfie. I think I got it. We鈥檙e so cute!
Goddess Honey B: Yay!
adrienne maree brown: It鈥檚 just like, this feels like a historic conversation to be in, at least like personally historic, it just feels like really big.
And just before we go, I felt each of us taking risks here together. And I want to just thank myself for my risks, Goddess, I want to thank you for the risk of what you shared. And doing this writing is a risk for you. And I鈥檓 so proud of you for all the choices you made in your life to take these risks. It’s so brave. And I don’t think you have any idea how often I’m in a conversation where people are talking about how you are changing their lives, just by seeing how you claim your own. So, I just want to say thank you for the risk.
And Tracey, you are stunning and so brilliant, and so incredible to interact with. And I felt the huge risks that you took with what you were sharing with us today. And just how honest you were in it. And, it鈥檚 so important, it鈥檚 so important that you speak exactly from where you are. And that you tell the stories that you tell. And I hope you just feel well held in how you did that. Because you鈥檙e so brilliant, and I just want you surrounded by care.
And Sunnivie, it鈥檚 a risk to write about this. I know you took major risks to bring this to the 大象传媒 community. And I think it was worth it. And I hope you feel like it was worth it. And even coming on this call today, and being like, 鈥淚鈥檓 gonna host it, I鈥檓 gonna be here.鈥� You did a great job, and I just want to affirm everyone. Because we did this together.
Goddess Honey B: I want to shout out my co-writer again, who was like 鈥�
adrienne maree brown: Yes!
Goddess Honey B: Because that can be a thing. Oh yeah, one person and not the other. I just really appreciated all the incarnations of wisdom. And everything that she brings to our writing process.
adrienne maree brown: That’s right.
Tracey Michae鈥檒 Lewis-Giggetts: Thank you all, I鈥檓 in tears. I can鈥檛 even speak right now. But thank you all just for, through your work and your voice, just creating safe spaces and places, for us to do what we did here today. Yes.
Sunnivie Brydum: And thank you to all of the folks watching. I can see the numbers have stayed pretty constant throughout, which is 鈥�
Goddess Honey B: It鈥檚 wild.
Sunnivie Brydum: I met a lot of folks hanging out with us today. And there are just incredible conversations that have been happening in the chat, in the Q&A. Folks are being vulnerable, they鈥檙e sharing about their own journeys, their own embrace of pleasure, or the struggles they鈥檝e had to do so. In the meantime, I hope you will check out the Pleasure Issue. If I can do this without blurring. It鈥檚 adrienne鈥檚 beautiful face. Here we go.
If you don’t already have a copy, you can subscribe to it. And you can just, excuse me, you can subscribe and get one. At yesmagazine.org/subscribe. Or even better, you can join our monthly supporters at yesmagazine.org/donate, and you’ll get a free on-going subscription to “Yes!” Every day at 大象传媒 we seek to elevate hope, provide inspiration, and offer solutions for a better world. This work and events like this, are only possible thanks to the generous gifts from our community of change-makers.
And right now, we have one generous donor who’s offered to match any gifts made by midnight tomorrow. So, I鈥檓 inviting you to visit yesmagazine.org/donate if you鈥檇 like to make a gift in support of our work. The impact of that gift will be doubled, if you鈥檙e able to make that gift by midnight tomorrow.
And thank you so much to all of our current supporters who are determined to create a more equitable, and compassionate, and sustainable world. And allow us to put on incredible events like this. Thank you so much to everyone here for joining us. Thank you to Tracey, and Goddess, and adrienne. I hope that all of you have a joyful rest of your day. Thank you so much.
adrienne maree brown: Thank you, thank you so much.