My Pleasure Manifesto
Last Spring, I exchanged coaching sessions with my friend, Mary Hoffer. Mary is a mama, an entrepreneur, a sex educator, and student and practitioner of embodied social justice. Over the course of four sessions, Mary supported my exploration of what pleasure feels like in my body, what pleasures I long for, what gets in the way of me experiencing pleasure, and what it would be like to center pleasure in my life.
For the culminating session, Mary invited me to write a Pleasure Manifesto and offered these questions as a guide:
What does pleasure look like to you both personally and culturally/in the larger social world?
How does pleasure manifest in your life? Where/when does it show up?
How has this changed or remained the same over the cycle of your life? How do you envision it moving forward?
What are some of the limitations to achieving pleasure in your life (either internal or external)?
What brings you pleasure?
Mary also shared this Pleasure Manifesto as a model which was highlighted in an Embodied Pleasure course she took with the visionary cultural worker, facilitator, and pleasure activist, Kai Cheng Thom.
Reflecting on the questions and allowing the power of Sex Worker Wisdom to inspire me, I wrote the following. On this New Moon in Cancer, I am excited (and a little nervous 😀) to share my Pleasure Manifesto with you.
My Pleasure Manifesto
My body is
my arena,
my playground,
my sanctuary of pleasure.
I am pleasured by other bodies -
their gaze,
their touch,
their stories,
their movement,
their adoration,
their laughter,
their want,
their self love,
their authenticity.
Pleasure raises my vibration,
turns me on,
satisfies my Desire,
makes me come
to my senses.
I make pleasure a daily practice.
Pleasure is consensual surrender.
Pleasure is spontaneous and responsive.
Pleasure is new vistas and familiar paths.
Pleasure is simple, accessible, and transcendent.
To feel pleasure, I release
conditioning which enforces
control, normalcy, order,
productivity, procreation,
subjugation, obedience, conformity,
and reasonableness.
Pleasure is creating for the sake of creating.
Pleasure is communing with beauty and mystery.
Pleasure is having what sparks joy and giving away everything else.
Pleasure is vulnerable connection that changes us.
Every living being is made for pleasure.
Pleasure is not achieved, it is embodied.
Pleasure is all of us
having what we need
to fulfill our purpose
in our lifetime.
What is your Pleasure Manifesto?