Feeling Good Is Freedom: adrienne maree brown and Pleasure Activism

Here at Staunton Pride, we’ve been reflecting on the many difficult and necessary conversations that we’ve been engaging with and seeing unfolding around us on social media. For today’s Sexual Health Tuesday, we highlight the work of adrienne maree brown, a social justice facilitator focused on Black liberation, a doula/healer and a pleasure activist. In her book, “Pleasure Activism: the Politics of Feeling Good”, brown firmly centers the idea of seeking pleasure as a revolutionary act to subvert white supremacy through transformative justice. She challenges her readers to seek their whole selves in both an individual and collective sense, so that we may organize for our collective justice and liberation.

As the article states, “She also highlights the many ways that people of color, sex workers, disabled people and queer, trans and nonbinary people have been denied joy – and why we must center their pleasure as an organizing principle. “Feeling good is not frivolous, “ brown writes. “It is freedom.”" Pleasure activism seeks to reclaim the bodies that are denied existence and joy by our oppressive social structures and systems. Radical self-care, somatics, and building communities of care are the paths forward. brown’s work sits beautifully at the intersection of mental health, sexual health, and political resistance and we encourage you to read more and consider how you might live into these principles.

Learn more about adrienne maree brown and Pleasure Activism.