Sexual & Social Liberation: Connecting OUr Pleasure to our Power

As we work to imagine and build a more liberated world, we are tasked with deconstructing external and internal oppressive ways of being. We exist in a capitalistic culture that sends us daily messages that we are less than, should feel ashamed to be our authentic selves, to operate in competition instead of collaboration, that institutional violence and exploitation are the norm, and that we are not powerful enough to actualize liberation. These messages are also internalized, normalized, and perpetuated through our intrapersonal and interpersonal interactions. Through unpacking and challenging the ways that we’ve been separated from our authentic selves, our most loving and erotic selves, our most liberated selves, we will begin to identify how pleasure connects us to our power and can serve as a pathway to social liberation.

The Oppressor Within

Liberia is the country founded by freed enslaved African Americans, who returned to the continent and essentially enslaved and oppressed the natives. As a Liberian American, I’ve spent much of my time trying to understand how oppressed people oppress others. We’ve seen this occur at a national scale in examples like Liberia and how Israel treats Palestinians down to interpersonal levels of classism and transphobia in feminist and/or Pro-Black groups. What I’ve learned about liberation from Liberia, is that it wasn’t enough to leave the physical conditions of enslavement, or to even leave the country that represented trauma, loss, death, oppression. The oppression we are fighting against is not just external, but it’s also internal. I also learned that as we work, fight, and prepare for freedom/ liberation, it’s not enough to know what we’re fighting against, we have to know what we’re fighting for, because if we don’t have a clear vision of what we want, we will replicate all that we know. This talk is around deconstructing, analyzing, and unpacking the pieces of the oppressor we’ve internalized and normalized, so that we are not limited to a future where we replicate these same conditions that we’re seeking liberation from.

The Pedagogy of Pleasure

more info coming soon…