Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

by Adrienne Maree Brown

From the Publisher: How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience? How can we awaken within ourselves desires that make it impossible to settle for anything less than a fulfilling life? Author and editor Adrienne Maree brown finds the answer in something she calls “pleasure activism,” a politics of healing and happiness that explodes the dour myth that changing the world is just another form of work. Drawing on the black feminist tradition, she challenges us to rethink the ground rules of activism. Her mindset-altering essays are interwoven with conversations and insights from other feminist thinkers, including Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Cara Page, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Together they cover a wide array of subjects–from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs–building new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own.

Building on the success of her popular Emergent Strategy, brown launches a new series of the same name with this volume, bringing readers books that explore experimental, expansive, and innovative ways to meet the challenges that face our world today. Books that find the opportunity in every crisis!

Praise for the Book: “Adrienne Marie Brown dives deep, head first, into a fast swirling pool of pleasure-related topics. She swims her way from one end of the pool to the other with some help from her body-wise, experienced, friends. This book is all at once so cool, and so hot, with a rainbow of glorious compleXXXities. Pleasure Activism is bound to make a huge splash!” – Annie Sprinkle, author of Explorer’s Guide to Planet Orgasm

“Pleasure Activism is an invitation to know ourselves and be in conversation with the desire of our lustful imaginations… [I]t makes our personal liberation irresistible.” – Jasmine Burnett, activist and anti-oppression consultant

“Adrienne Maree Brown…continues to stake her claim as one of our most critical thinkers and strategists by intentionally combining the power of story-telling with practical applications to help readers conjure their own definition of pleasure and how it is inextricably linked to every part of our existence.” – Monica Simpson, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

“Engaging with politics and social justice issues, whether it’s climate change, race, or gender, can feel like work (and it is). Adrienne maree brown makes the case that you can feel good while doing so … [Pleasure Activism] will challenge you to rethink your approach to changing the world.” – Victoria Rodriguez, Mashable

About the Author: Adrienne Maree Brown is the author of Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is a social justice facilitator focused on black liberation, a doula/healer, and a pleasure activist. Adrienne lives in Detroit.

ISBN: 1849353263    EAN: 9781849353267