Pleasure: A Container that Holds Multitudes

Growing up, the idea of “Pleasure” and how to enact it was a distant hug for me. My family and I built community together for 19 years in Fort Pierce, Florida prior to my transition to Western North Carolina back in Spring 2017. It wasn’t till January 2020 that I started to unpack how Pleasure shows up for me in my life.

I capitalize the word because I view it as an entity, a container that holds many extensions and multitudes of itself, a physical + spiritual + emotional sanctuary for the body to find solace and refuge in. As a queer Black trans non-binary being that is living in quite tumultous times right now, enacting Pleasure on a consistent basis is part of my survival guide. 

Identifying as a recovering people pleaser, a term introduced to me by my dear friend Luna Dietrich, I often find myself in the position where I am a container for everyone around me to heal in whatever capacity that looks like. However, when I need that container of healing to be enacted, I often do not have the bandwidth to facilitate that for myself. More often than not, it is hard for me to lean onto those who I know would be more than willing to be that catalyst for my process. White Supremacy has instilled in me that my value and worth is secondary compared to those in my life. This last year and a half I have been working on dismantling and unlearning the toxicity of self-depreciation and dismissiveness that I so quickly turn to when attempting to prioritize my own well-being. 

I find it challenging to express to others what I need in a relationship because I have spent a lot of my time navigating spaces and situations where my needs were invalidated, dismissed or ignored.  This has resulted in me depending on mostly myself or going without my needs being met.  And I am still learning how to lean in and call on support from others. This has been a huge issue as someone who willingly gives so much of themselves to their relationships and connections. How can I show up for myself just as well as I show up for others? How can I allow that container for support and care to be given to me and fully be open to that experience? What does trouble-shooting pass my anxiety and fear of disappointment look like?

The concept around love letters lately has sparked great interest in my life. Reflecting back on a discussion I had with a pal, I posed to them the challenge of writing a love letter at some point that week to themselves. So if you are currently reading this I challenge you to write an open-ended love letter to yourself. And when I say open-ended I mean that the letter you write should be written with the intent that it is a continued mantra and reflection you look back on. This love letter should serve as the catalyst for your own healing process to be activated. I am excited for you and this journey, and may we continue to love and grow within and outside of ourselves.

Pleasure is very necessary during this time where the level of instability and pain in the world is quite debilitating. How’re you bringing Pleasure to your life and giving it to your body? Let us remember that Pleasure can also exist outside of physical intimacy and connection.

Within your relationship to Pleasure how are you combating capitalism? Capitalism tells us that we must conform and mold to fit within its systems and structures in order to coexist and enact our “rights”. 

Start viewing Pleasure as a form of resistance and not as a gateway into escapism. Pleasure is activism. Pleasure is a vessel that carries you, and your boundaries, and your well-being safely to shore despite the rocky tides you’ll face along the way. 

Pleasure is revolutionary. Pleasure is abolition in its purest form that which derives from love. Your body deserves Pleasure. You deserve Pleasure. Claim it. Receive it. Allow it.

I’m Bryan but folx also call me Bry. I am a poet that writes a great deal about bodies both on a physical and metaphorical landscape. Deeply in love with all things cinema and literature which back in May of this summer inspired me to co-found The Moonlight Book Club which you can learn more about here. Radical Self-Love is what I live, breathe, and eat. It is at the center of all the work I do regardless of the space I am occupying.