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We must recognize that “pleasure is a measure of freedom,” that’s the first ambition writer, healer, and teacher adrienne maree brown has for her book and guide, “Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good.” In our movements and communities, we’re constantly trying to find ways to measure liberation and freedom, and love seems like as good a yardstick as any. What would it look like to love without fear? adrienne has joined us on the show before to discuss organizing as science fiction and the work of Octavia Butler.  In this interview, she speaks with us from Bluestockings, a feminist bookstore in New York City about the legacies of the erotic --- from Octavia Butler to Audre Lorde and what it means to not just survive, but to seek and find pleasure.

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Branching Paths to Explore

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Pleasure Activism

‍How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life?

Pleasure Activism is a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, adrienne lovingly challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Pleasure Activism encompasses everything from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—building new narratives about how politics can feel good.

Embodiment & Somatics

‍What does your body have to do with social change?

It is still a rare thing for most of us to sit with what we feel, how we feel, the reality that we carry memories and feelings from what our ancestors experienced, and that we carry our current continuous collective trauma together. The pain can open to other feelings, more nuanced and clear. It can begin to make authentic connection and collectivity more possible.

‍Ritual

‍To connect with the collective, honor your aliveness.

Rituals are practices that honor our aliveness: yours might include building an elaborate altar, or be as simple as singing a song or gathering flowers. The intention is what matters most. Our aliveness is what connects us to that which is larger than ourselves: nature, community, the divine.

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Radical Permission

‍When you give yourself permission to imagine, feel pleasure, and love, you are practicing the act of radical freedom.

The oppressive systems and structures of this world can distance us from our divine nature. For most of us, the permission to be our full, authentic, and divine selves was interrupted early in our lives, replaced by people-pleasing, self-denial, and scarcity.

To experience liberation, we have to give ourselves radical permission to live our lives rooted in our deepest YES. This YES returns us to our divine nature. When you give yourself increasing permission to imagine, feel pleasure, and love, you are practicing the act of radical freedom in real time. This is your birthright.

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