Pleasure is needed for a revolution

Suffering will suffocate us. We need pleasure.

Pleasure is as essential as breathing when it comes to creating change. It’s vital for life. Our humanity. For those of us, and I would argue that it’s most of us, who see this world hurting; pleasure can’t be forgotten.

Pleasure doesn’t need to be over-intellectualised, you don’t have to justify seeking and relishing in the things that bring you joy. Pleasure doesn’t have to come with a disclaimer that mentions all the suffering that exists at the same time as you feeling that pleasure. Pleasure doesn’t need to be attached to a list of all the reasons why you deserve it or you’ve worked hard for it. Pleasure doesn’t need guilt that lives alongside it.

You are simply allowed to feel, receive and prioritise pleasure. Just because you’re alive. Just because you’re alive.

If compassion and empathy are solidified in your bones, then yeah, feeling pleasure while others aren’t, is going to make you feel things. Why should I enjoy this if they can’t? How can I feel all of this joy, when they are fighting for their lives? Because, there will always be someone suffering on this planet at the same time someone else is experiencing bliss.

It’s part of our human condition. It’s part of nature. The natural world would not be what it is, if those two things didn’t co-exist. It doesn’t mean that we give up now, and stop caring about all those who are suffering. It’s also not just the kind of suffering that’s splashed on the news. It’s the daily, quiet suffering that goes unmentioned, existing in our friendship groups, families and wider communities. Health concerns. Depression. Grief. Financial insecurity. Anxiety. Shivering in homes with no heating. All of it.

To acknowledge and feel pleasure, is not to dismiss anyone’s pain.

It’s also not to dismiss anyone’s joy. There’s a tendency in some forms of current activism to speak on behalf of any group of people who have been oppressed or othered. Describing platitudes of what they would or wouldn’t want as if they are monolithic. There’s an infantilisation in doing so. Diminishing their existence to one that is only filled with plight, and not naming that during their lives that are harder than most of us can comprehend, there may well be moments of joy and pleasure that they are craving and holding out for. Pleasure that might come in the form of seeing a rainbow, hugging a loved one, dipping a toe in the sea, the enjoyment from food.

Pleasure is found even in the most unlikely and unfathomable of situations.

I struggle to understand the backlash often given to content creators and celebrities on social media, the moment a breaking news alert screeches onto our phones.

“How can they be posting their outfit photos when all of this is happening?”

“How can they just be going about their lives as normal?”

Because, it’s their right to do so. They are people, just like you and I. People who might also be suffering in their own way, and continuing with their lives is what is saving them. Maybe they just need to work. We can’t assume ignorance based on the depiction of some pixels. Whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not, it is their right to live. It is our right to live.

As a Black woman, I refuse to be challenged on the ways I choose to find pleasure and seek rest, as ways to survive living in this system. It is our right to live.

The continuous “us vs them” rhetoric sure ain’t gonna save us. Moral superiority won’t either. I don’t want to be a part of any so-called revolution where everyone is fighting for position on who is better at being “good”, than someone else. There’s no space for perfection. There’s no space for shouting about the sacrifices you’ve made for the cause, but complaining about those sacrifices, and resenting those who’ve chosen not to do the same.

There is absolutely no space for punishing yourself in the name of service, either. Not everyone feels things in the same way we do. Not everyone has the same level of awareness about sensitivity as we do. Plus, we just don’t know the depth, thoughts, background and emotional resilience of others. No-one has the right to take someone’s pleasure away from them.

We all have the right to live, isn’t that the whole point of this?

Suffering will suffocate us, unless we centre pleasure.

If we want a safe, equitable, heart-led, and compassionate world, then that world is not going to be born from us narrowly focusing on pain instead of pleasure. That world can only exist if we know what it is we’re living for.

Fear sells. Suffering sells. We gobble up dystopian fiction. Doom-scroll. We all know probably more than we need to about crime scenes. We get ourselves worked up about how dreadful everything is. The cynicism. Nihilism. We’re doomed. The world is just shit. It is what it is. It’s cool to blame capitalism for absolutely everything, and blame technology for everything else. While allowing it all to render us into a state of apathy and perpetual misery, devoid of any helpful action or alternatives to actually exist and thrive within it all.

Then, if you’re not sufficiently weighed down by all of that and your own personal circumstances splattered on top, the moment you find a crumb of joy, you can intuitively feel the eyes of resentment deriding you from experiencing it.

“How are you not being affected by all of this?”
“I’m sad. I don’t like that you’re not sad too.”
“Ugh, toxic positivity.”

Or, to paraphrase a contestant on Celebrity Bear Hunt, “I’m not sore about losing, I just don’t like how they’re celebrating winning.”

So much so that we can predict it, when we see someone’s success, soon enough we can predict a downfall. Isn’t it sad that we can see it coming? That we just know that they will not be given the right to live in the beauty of their hopes being realised for very long. This silent knowing that them winning will not be tolerated. It’s likely that there will be a backlash, comments sections will shift from raising up to tearing down.

Acting from comparison and envy, and how incredibly pervasive the myth is that there isn’t enough pleasure for us all. If someone has it then it brings up our lack of it. We’re told from an early age that there isn’t enough money for us all. There’s not enough water for everyone. There’s not enough resources. There is lack. Yes, there is lack, and overpopulation plus the way that we’re diminishing and ploughing through our natural resources is proof of how unsustainable the way we’re living is, but not because there isn’t enough. There is enough if those occupying seats of power and control, those who hoard and abuse their wealth, and if those deciding who receives those resources, were to share them fairly, equally and broadly.

I don’t want any part of it. My entire identity is based on how delicious life is, the small pleasures, and quiet joys that it contains in its multitudes.

I have experienced suffering, boy have I, but I will never allow myself to forget how delicious life is.

I refuse.

We can have pleasure outside of the typical and assumed conventions of success. Getting out and feeling the sun is pleasure. Slowing down to eat something and actually enjoy it is pleasure. A good old hearty laugh is pleasure. Dancing is pleasure. Making art from found objects is pleasure. Cooking with your community is pleasure.

I’m not a fandom kind of person. I’m not anti-celebrity, because why would I be anti-people, but I’m not a weeping in their presence, parasocial relationship kind of person, because they’re people, just like us. Just like us. I’ve always had a soft spot for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and it both fascinates and disgusts me, how much hate she gets for simply existing. The woman smiles and people say she’s showing off. I don’t usually comment on things like this, but Vogue did an Instagram post about her TV show and I wrote a comment supporting her.

I said how excited I was to watch the show and wished it well. It’s such a gift to see any woman fully in her pleasure, doing all the things that give her joy. A woman who has also given much of her life to being a humanitarian and philanthropist too, but even if she didn’t do any of that, is so deserving of pleasure. As we all are. Not over-explained or justified pleasure.

My comment received a response from someone who was quite mean and said how Meghan doesn’t want to be my friend so why am I saying all of that for. Girl. I just responded by saying, nope just wishing someone who I don’t know some joy and happiness, as I do for everyone, whether I know them or not.

How sad. How sad that our society has caused us to have such disconnection from ourselves and each other, that it’s hard to witness pleasure in someone else if we ourselves are not experiencing pleasure. Or even if we do have pleasure in our lives, we decry someone for having “more”.

Can’t we just give each other the gift of experiencing pleasure, even if the shapes of that pleasure aren’t ones we understand or would choose for ourselves?

Pleasure isn’t even all that we can purchase, but all that we experience that causes us delight.

This topic has been particularly loud for me at the moment, themes I’m unpacking in therapy, my threadbare journal, women’s circles and in late-night chats with my best friend. The awareness that I’ve spent the majority of my life prioritising the comfort of others ahead of my own. Something that slipped beyond the surface because I practice boundaries, I don’t do anything that I don’t want to do, and social anxiety, well I don’t know her.

Yet, I’ve subconsciously not prioritised pleasure and also, in some regards, making sure I had enough money to live on, in favour of centring others, looking after others, being of service and helping. The caregiver complex, right? Not helped by how we reward that in our society too. When it’s seen as the noble thing, the thing with most integrity, but it’s only healthy if you yourself are being fed and that you are also okay. It’s only healthy if you own your own pleasure without contemplating the whole world before you give yourself permission to.

I realised that much of what I do, even creative projects, all of my work, has always had a sole focus on helping others. Yes, something I’m proud of and something that is also deeply who I am, but until recently, when it comes to the work I do, I have been sinking more into the idea of what pleasure actually means to me.

The not-so-revolutionary idea that I can just want things because I want them. No need to over-explain, intellectualise, or find some tenuous link to why it might be good or helpful. I can just experience pleasure. Choose it. Prioritise it.

There’s so much happening in my life right now that’s heavy and scary. I could be swallowed up whole into suffering, but instead I’m choosing pleasure. I’m choosing weekends of love and laughter. Phone calls with people who remind me of who I am, and just listen. I’m choosing to bring projects into the world, that while yes still have an impact beyond me, are genuinely exciting and move me creatively. The main reason for my life is not just what I can give, it’s how much pleasure I can receive alongside it.

We have to remember pleasure, and not feel guilty about prioritising it. It gives us strength. Allows us to keep going. It gives us the space to show up for others. It gives us the fight we need to remember what it is we’re even fighting for in the first place. The desire for all of us to experience moments of pleasure in our lives. We can’t afford to allow ourselves to be suffocated by suffering, because that’s the world we’re trying create less of.