Pleasure Activism and Stepping Into My Womanhood
For International Women’s Day 2022, Euella shares how her Pleasure Activism Journal has helped her step deeper into her own womanhood.
During my short time on this earth, I’ve somehow managed to make it on to a fair few ‘Top Influential Women’ lists (well.. I say a few, when I actually mean two). Although the idea of these lists make me uncomfortable, I know that being on them is an absolute testament to the brilliant women* who have guided me through life. My family, friends, mentors and ancestors. Exceptional, almost supernatural, beings who are selfless, determined, generous and fearless. Women whose impact stops you in your tracks. Women who continue to defy and define gravity, break boundaries and heal with their hands. Abundance. Colour. Nobility. Values-Led. These are the people who I have had the pleasure of learning and living alongside. And although this is a blog post, an ode to these women, it is also an ode to pleasure.
First of all, pleasure is not a dirty word. Yes, pleasure can mean being in the height of ecstasy, but pleasure can also be more nuanced. Pleasure can be a quiet melody that echoes in the pit of your gut. Pleasure can be something warm that you submerge yourself into yet dangerous enough to drown in. In its purest form, it can be clarity, warmth, connection. Time. There is something incredibly pleasurable about having time, and there’s also something about a lack of time and urgency, that can force us to seek the pleasure we’ve lost or never known. In its most extravagant form, pleasure can be sex, drugs, colour, music. To me, pleasure is and always has been about nourishment, about getting what you need - a food that you can grow from within yourself and those around you.
Pleasure is something we often associate with women, which is funny because from the way our society is run, the women we admire and those we punish, pleasure is so very often denied to women (and in some respect, we deny it to ourselves). So when I think about the countless women who have inspired me, I think about the ways these women hold pleasure in their bodies and their frown lines, despite being told not to. How they gift their pleasure to others in intricate jewellery boxes to keep their pleasure safe and sacred. The way their pleasure coexists with pain, vulnerability and the hardest of work. Witnessing this has been such a blessing because it's helped me create my own rules for navigating my womanhood - one where I hope deep pleasure is a permanent fixture in my work, my home, my body and my activism.
A hand holding ‘Pleasure Activism’ book by Andrienne Maree Brown
During the pandemic, I was introduced to Adrienne Maree Brown’s book Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, by my friends and co-conspirators. The book explores how we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience. How we can awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a just, fulfilling life. It takes inspiration from Adrienne’s own pleasure activism lineage; badass women who have paved the way for connecting with ourselves in the fight for social justice. This book has been so profound for me, because it has given me a language for how I’ve always wanted to live my life. It provides a manifesto for feeling good in a world where women and marginalised people are exploited, overworked, silenced, under-resourced, ignored and abused.
After reading a few pages, I decided to start a Pleasure Activism Journal. A space for me to radically connect with how I feel, prioritise things that make me feel good and document the softer sides to my activism. In it, I write, draw, paint and doodle. I write in it as regularly as I need to. Part diary, part manuscript, part road map. I wanted to share with you my first page - a letter to myself, in the hope that it inspires you to do the same.
4th December, 2021
Hello Comrade,
Welcome to my Pleasure Activism Journal.
I wanted to start this project because the concept of Pleasure Activism absolutely treads the fine line in my consciousness between excitement and anxiety. Something deep in my gut comes alive at the thought of being led by my pleasure - what makes me feel good, the concept that my activism and social justice work can be soft, personal and affirming. A loud voice in the depths of my being yearns for an alternative like this - this is a way of living I’ve always known has been possible but never quite had the language or the gusto behind it. I love the fact that this text makes me feel seen in ways that make me simultaneously honoured and uncomfortable. A tiny voice is absolutely horrified because this text reveals something I’ve always known but never admitted; I rarely do things that make me feel good, ever. I always, always, compromise, bend, retreat, recline, deny myself in order to make others feel comfortable to avoid conflict. I don’t want to do that anymore. This journal is my attempt at trying - of doing the things I dream about in whispers. I desperately yearn to step into myself and the pleasure I deserve and can give to others. Lockdown #1 was first and last attempt at trying. This time I want it to transcend my sex life into my work, my play, my purpose. I want to feel. See this as the start of my healing journey - my way of holding myself accountable and documenting the work.
Signed, your adoring Pleasure Activist,
Euella Isis Jackson
I honestly believe that there is bravery to this work. It requires discipline, accountability and love. It is not easy - whatsoever. In order to know what feels good, you need to address past trauma, push past the discomfort to get to a place where doing what feels right, also feels good. It requires generosity and a community where you can build a world where your pleasure can exist and thrive outside of yourself. This work is necessary and whenever I feel lost or disconnected from it, I just look to the women in my life, the silent pleasure activists who continue to lead the way.
So, this international women’s month, I want to challenge you to:
1). Create a pleasure activist playlist that gets you in your feels - or listen to mine below!
2). Read Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure Activism book, if you haven’t already 😍
3). Write yourself a pleasure activism manifesto - or better yet, start a pleasure activism journal - you wont regret it.
** I am using an inclusive definition of woman to include, cis, trans, non-binary and those who self-identify as women.
