On "Pleasure Activism"

Last night, adrienne maree brown took us to church on pleasure activism at Community Book Center. Community Book Center is a black-owned book store with over 30 years of serving our community located at 2523 Bayou Road. adrienne maree brown is a writer and activist that believes in our individual and collective pleasure activism. She is the writer and gatherer of "Pleasure Activism."

After nearly 20 years of sex-positive activism, I had the pleasure part down pat. The Activism part was giving me concern. I know ecstasy and bliss intimately. I move through the world in a state of pure bliss on a normal day, on a rainy day, on a hot day and even in the New Orleans winters. I figure this out the other way around: sex-positive communities taught me how to say no, how to explicitly say YES, that my pleasure is divine and sacred and beautiful. My issue was not with pleasure.

My issue was with activism. How do you act up in your life in the midst of your bliss? How do you bring joy into each moment in the social justice movement?

adrienne pointed to Mother Audre (Audre Lorde) and her essay “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” DSC just did a workshop using that text for our self love and liberation. This text gives us a banquet of good news on our own source of power that once we have experienced it, we can demand no less for our lives including our love work, social justice.

I have to simply apply my pleasure principle to the rest of it. I can not hoard it all for the moments I am in heaven with another soul or souls. There is no need. The Erotic comes from a place of abundance and does not need to be hoarded or held back. That is internal oppression telling me to not apply this pleasure principle which I have followed for nearly half my life to every filament of my life.

adrienne affirmed what I know to be true about social justice and pleasure. Social justice should not happen in misery for we are the ones we are working for. We are the ones we are liberating. If activists are miserable, what kind of liberation are we offering ourselves and our communities? Our pleasure, our desire, our bliss needs to coexist with our work. Bring your Bliss into your work, Beloveds. It is our pleasure, our “Orgasmic Yes” that gives our work its power.

NOTE: Thanks for the community support to get back and forth to the event. Special thanks to Community Book Center for their continuous love work to our community.

adrienne maree brown is the writer and gatherer of "Pleasure Activism."

Community Book Center is located at at 2523 Bayou Road. Go buy a copy of her book and pick up many of the wondrous books, bags and community goods.