36 Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good with adrienne maree brown & Amita Swadhin
Published May 7, 2019
Today we're talking with adrienne maree brown and Amita Swadhin about adrienne’s new book, “Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good”. Get your copy now from AK Press with code PODCAST for 15% off!
As adrienne says, "we have to make justice the most pleasurable experience humans can have." We learn about what pleasure has to do with our movements, pleasure after childhood sexual abuse, and other experiences of harm, why we can be suspicious of pleasure, and activist culture’s “commitment to suffering.” Check out Audre Lorde's "Uses of the Erotic," an essential foundational text for this book.
This topic is relevant to your work if you want to build organizations and movements that are fully alive and attractive for people to join, and/or if you are on a healing journey in your own life, especially after abuse.
*Please note that themes of childhood sexual abuse are discussed as Amita speaks in some detail about their own story (which you can also find via their essay in Pleasure Activism on page 293).
Welcome to Book Club!
This is our first selection for HEALING JUSTICE PODCAST BOOK CLUB: a new gathering place for our listener community to learn, explore, and practice together.
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Read the Transcript
Note: This episode was published under Irresistible’s previous name, Healing Justice Podcast.
About our guests
adrienne maree brown is a sci-fi/Octavia Butler scholar and author of Octavia's Brood, Emergent Strategy, and the recent New York Times Bestseller Pleasure Activism. She's a facilitator and doula living in Detroit, and you can hear her on the podcast she creates with her sister Autumn called How to Survive the End of the World.
Amita Swadhin is one of the contributing writers to Pleasure Activism and is an educator, storyteller, activist, and consultant dedicated to fighting interpersonal and institutional violence against young people. Her commitments and approach to this work stem from her experiences as a genderqueer, femme queer woman of color, daughter of immigrants, and years of abuse by her parents. Check out Amita’s work.
Practice: From #MeToo to #WeConsent
Check out the corresponding practice episode where adrienne offers us a practice about consent, finding our inner yes and no, and using our voices in both our sexuality and our whole lives. Subscribe to this podcast to make sure you don't miss it.
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