By Jamie Azar, Sex, Relationship, and Intimacy Coach
Believe it or not, systems like white supremacy, capitalism, anti-Blackness, ableism, and the gender binary are not separate from the way we understand and experience sex and desire. People have been socially, culturally, psychologically, emotionally, and religiously conditioned to internalize a plethora of shame, fear, judgment, criticism, and bias against ourselves and others. Who is desirable, who is worthy of being desirable, who gets access to power, and who gets access to protection and safety, bodily autonomy, and basic human rights like access to medical care. And the reality is our systems are failing us, particularly Black and Brown folks, women, and queer, trans, and gender non-conforming folks.
From media, medical, and moral messaging, pleasure itself, bodies, and desires become commodities. They become objectified. Global rape culture, the manosphere, and toxic masculinity, as well as extreme transphobia and anti-Blackness showing up in feminist rhetoric, all reinforce a reality where safety is a luxury. Society has made it clear that queerness, Blackness, gender nonconformity, anti-capitalism, dismantling ableism, misogynoir, and challenges to dominant norms are treated as threats to the social order. And so, anyone who exists in fluidity, ambiguity, and self-definition becomes a threat. Bodies become threats. Bodies become disposable. This is how pleasure and sex become political.
Masculinity and femininity, too, are ideas exploited by colonization, white supremacy, and the gender binary. White, cishetero, able-bodied people become the defining markers of these characteristics, while Blackness and queerness have been intentionally marginalized and othered outside of these constructed ideals as a means to uphold power, control bodily autonomy, and wield privilege against those who continue to be oppressed under these systems.
Desire does not exist outside of power. It is shaped by systems that determine whose bodies are protected and whose are policed. Whose pleasure is prioritized and whose is erased. Whose humanity is affirmed and whose is constantly under threat. These systems start to answer questions we did not even realize we were asking. Who is desirable? Who is worthy of being desired? Who gets access to safety, protection, and care? Who is granted bodily autonomy, and who has to fight for it?
And when these systems fail, they fail most violently for Black and Brown folks, for women, and for queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people. It is also worth noting that the impact of these systems lives in our bodies. We become disembodied, disconnected, and understandably exhausted. And when it comes to sex and pleasure, people are trying to figure that out, and rightfully so. It can feel unfathomable that there can and should be space for pleasure in the midst of all of this.
For some, there is guilt in taking what they need or putting themselves first. For others, simply slowing down or rediscovering what pleasure looks like, on a personal or relational level, can feel far off.
The reality is, pleasure is not indulgent. It should not be optional. The reclamation is not only in expressing what feels good, but in the inherent knowing and self-belief that we are unconditionally worthy and deserving of it. Worthy of safety, of pleasure, of connection. We rediscover ourselves through rejecting these systems, binaries, and forms of control, and asserting ourselves in joy, in community, and in relationship with others.
And still, for Black and Brown folks, for women, and for queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people, this reclamation can involve more risk. Safety must be a right we extend to all bodies. Pleasure must be celebrated in all its diverse expressions. Every time we give ourselves permission, we make a choice outside of conditioning and expectation, grounded in mutual consent and a right to autonomy and safety for all people. In those moments, we begin to affirm these inherent rights, resist these systems, and move toward liberation.
If you want to explore this more deeply, you are invited to work with one of our therapists or coaches here at LAST.
Jamie Azar is former graduate of the Pleasure Psychology and Sexology Certification program, a sex, relationship, and intimacy coach, educator, writer, and mindfulness practitioner based in South Carolina. She offers 1-1 coaching with singles, couples, throuples + to co-create a safe, sex-positive, transformative, liberating, and empowering space that fosters personal and relational growth. She specializes in dismantling limiting beliefs, deconstructing, and destigmatizing harmful narrative constructs, to help clients reframe and redefine their understandings of selfhood, sex, sexuality, and relationships. To work with Jamie go here!