ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN on Pleasure as Birthright [ENCORE] /367
This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with adrienne maree brown which originally aired in April 2019.
adrienne maree brown begins this week’s episode by asking, “If we were not ashamed of our pleasure, what would become possible? If we started to understand that pleasure is something that everyone should have access to, what would become possible?”
Drawing upon Audre Lorde’s seminal publication, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, adrienne maree brown’s book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, reiterates how once we truly know the pleasure of being alive, suffering becomes unimaginable. Above all, pleasure resides in our body, but many of us seem to forget this through lifetimes of social conditioning, performative identities, and the multitude of ways in which capitalism and patriarchy have filtered love and desire through the lens of ownership. Yet, whether we are cognizant of this or not, our pleasure and our liberation remain inextricably bound together.
This captivating conversation explores how the denial of pleasure contributes to our own oppression, how radical honesty and kindness can transform our relationships, moving through the limitations placed on radical imagination and desire, the importance of pleasure beyond sex, and how our pain and sorrow is a measurement of our pleasure and joy. We hope this conversation inspires you in your own experimentation when it comes to acceptance, desire, and liberated relationships as we collectively pursue sustainable long-term pleasure.
“Your sorrow carves out a space for your joy and, conversely, your joy carves out the space for your sorrow…”
Photo of adrienne maree brown
adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public through 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 is the author/editor of several published texts, cogenerator of a tarot deck and a developing musical ritual.
You can purchase Pleasure Activism here.
♫ The music featured in this episode is by The Boom Booms, "O.O.T.G" by JB the First Lady, and "Visions" by Small Town.
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For The Wild is a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling. We are rooted in a paradigm shift away from human supremacy, endless growth, and consumerism. As we dream towards a world of grounded justice and reciprocity, our work highlights impactful stories and deeply-felt meaning making as balms for these times.