If collective liberation is the framework through which we seek to reclaim our sovereignty, agency, freedom, and the infinite pleasure and pain of what it means to be embodied on the body we call home, then the erotic is in charge of paving our way towards it.
Erotics are our ultimate domme, y’all.
The erotic I use here is of course the one Audre Lorde has defined for us in her 1978 essay in Sister Outsider, "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”.
In the essay, Lorde takes us back to the etymology of the word erotic: “from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects - born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the life-force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.” She earlier in this text talks about the erotic as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings”.
Lorde also introduces the erotic not only as a life-affirming right within the systems that kill us (“Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours bring us closer to that fullness.”), but also and most importantly as the requirement to destroy those systems from within (“The aim of which thing we do is to make our lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible.”)
A point of divergence between Lorde and I is our relationship to sensation (that she opposes to feeling) and pornography.
[The erotic] “has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with its opposite, the pornographic.”
As I am sure you know by now, I try to stay away from black or white thinking and instead always look for the hues of grey, the nuanced. I stay away from lines, and instead try to draw circles.
I do not necessarily believe that the erotic should travel far beyond our sexual lives because I do not believe that our sexual lives have to be separated from the rest of it. In other words, I am playing with the idea that the erotic doesn’t have to go beyond our sexual lives because our sexual lives color every parts of our lives. There is no separation between those, even when we believe there is.
I do believe that the way we do sex impacts/says something (if not everything) about the way we connect to the rest of our lives, that no landscape of our lives are disconnected from others, even when we have built those areas of our lives as “opposite”.
Take me as an example: I came to my computer this morning to write this piece and wishing I could just vomit my thoughts directly into y’all’s brain. Not kidding. This thought came to me because I feel often overwhelmed by the amount of thoughts I want to share with the world. I sweat profusely while writing and often need to stop and walk in circles thinking “how will I ever say it ALL??”
Often, I don’t write for long periods of time until I can’t hold it anymore.
You see what I am saying??????
Overwhelm is a big part of my sexual life. I love to overwhelm folks with the pleasure of pain and/or the pain that pleasure opens. I love and demand that they beg me to stop so that I continue. When they beg me to never stop, I might deny them. (Of course, we create safe words before so that I know the plea to stop is just an offering to Me, their domme, and not a clear indication of taking back their consent).
I love to be overwhelmed too. As a fluid being and a retired service top, all I want from my partners is that they do to me what I do to them.
I often want to do it all (not just in my sex life, but in all spaces of my life). My mother kept saying to me as a child: “you just want it all, all right now” and all I could think was: “lady, yes… Why would I want any less????!!!”
And if we’re speaking about overwhelm, then we should know that its pervert cousin will be lurking! Denial ! I love denial too. Not writing for long until I can not hold it anymore is to the lowest keys an erotic game I play with my selves. I deny my selves of my own thoughts taking shape until it’s so overwhelming I feel like I’ll die! I beg my selves to sit my Black ass down just to write. And yes, I am a domme and sub to my selves, sprinkled with drama queen cream, too.
Maybe my favourite definition of the erotic by Lorde is: “The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge”
This one got me giggling and tapping my feet.
nUrSeMaiDDD???? Come on!
This definition really sat me down. I am a caregiver and that has informed my domme-itude more than anything. I love to care for folks. I love to see them eat. I love to see them cry. I love to see them reconcile with pain through ceremony.
If you’re wondering if I am referring to my somatic practice or my domme-life, your confusion is what I am getting at.
Although there is nothing sexual between my clients and I, I do recognise that the work I do is not so different from my fellow sex workers. I do not engage with sex with my clients, but my fellow sex workers don’t always either! I am paid to take care. I am paid to see unfold. I am paid to witness pain and guide through homeostasis, even when it’s scary and shameful. I am paid to create spaces where folks can unfold a thousand times and access their deepest knowledge, the wisdom held in the soma. We do this via talking, alchemizing and touching (consensually & non sexually). Sex workers do exactly the same (and that sometimes include sex, but is all ways surrounded by lots of external structural prejudice and harm. Did you know that in some countries touching clients during bodywork is seen as sex work???!).
Finally, talking is what I do. Words are POWERFUL and SEXY to me. I talk, feel, think all day, and I want my sex life to be exactly the same. Talking to me is how you get me there. Science has taught me that orgasms happen in the brain, and I know my G point is there, too.
To come back to Lorde and our disagreement, I do believe that if we are cut off from the erotic in our lives as a whole, our sexual lives can be a potent conduit to reintroducing the erotic in the rest of our lives (don’t get me wrong, our sex lives don’t always have to be spaces of reclamation, fuck that. They get to be just what they need to be).
In other words, and put it frankly: be a heaux ! And see how that changes your work life, your connection to your loved ones (including the ones you’re not sexually involved with!), your connection to your own sense of self.
Like Lorde said, people “so empowered are dangerous”, because that deep connection to their “assertion of life force energy” means that our lives become terrains of absolute sovereignty and agency.
But starting with our work life can be scary, hard and even unattainable in systems of forced labor founded on chattel slavery. Not every one can or is even interested in feeling the erotic in their work life.
Starting with our sensual/sexual life however (our connection to our felt sense of self), although it might not be easy, can be much more accessible for a lot of us. We don’t need other folks, we don’t need toys, and it does not have to be penetrative sex. All we need is us and our will to speak our desires to our selves. And that’s a lot of work… that’s shadow work, too!
There is nothing harder than speaking desires that are unfamiliar, queer (as in, strange) - not only to others but to our own selves - especially, especially
(!) when it comes to sex. Our sensual & sexual desires are filled with shame and repression, and like many writers/organizers/poets/heaux have said before me, I do believe that owning the shame we have around those desires opens gates of healing that only heaux somatically understand. We become ungovernable, a true heaux. We become forbidden, criminal… or like Lorde said, dangerous.
Going deeper, I do believe that our sex lives can be powerful channels for abolition.
As a Transformative Justice practitioner and domme, I do not believe in punishment and yet I do believe in (corporal) punishment. I do believe that our sex lives, when channeled in safer spaces that center consent, negotiation, play and depth, that can adapt to our emotional range in width and not only in height or intensity, can become conduits to come to terms with our fears, desires (often those are one and the same or at least are deeply enmeshed), our struggles, our joy, our pleasure and what we haven’t had found any translation for, yet. It is also where we get to come to terms with the body. How special it is, how truly ungovernable it is, but also how weirdly beautiful it is. If the body is so deeply ungovernable, why would we want to relinquish agency and sovereignty to anyone (who doesn’t want our highest pleasure and to whom we haven’t relinquished our agency with consent, someone who isn’t our domme)? Why?
Forced labor that is not consented to? Ew! Or like my friend Zïada would say: “Honestly? Yawn.”
Abolition, then, becomes erotic. The erotics of abolition is where it’s at. More on that another day.
For now, here are some questions that might allow the erotic to flow through you so that it can color all spaces of your life, starting with you.
In those questions, I center the pelvis as a source of wisdom and power. The pelvis is indeed our center of gravity and if you sing or play sports, you know that this is from where we draw our power.
And, connecting to this part of our soma is for many of us, if not all of us, complicated. Make sure to take care of you, do this exercise with other folks if easier or with your somatic practitioner. And most importantly: don’t shy away from discomfort. This is where we grow.
If your pelvis was a landscape, what would it be?
What do you think it says about this part of the soma, your power, your relationship to your power and how it shapes your life now?
If your pelvis could speak about its own power, what would it say?
What does pleasure feel like to you? What color, shape, texture, smell is it?
How often is pleasure part of your day-to-day?
Re-member a moment of eroticism or pleasure that softened your tissues. This can be the last amazing meal you had, the last kiss a dear friend gave you and how softly it landed on your cheek, or the last cuddle with your cat and how they refused you (cats are the ultimate domme-inspo). Notice how the erotic flows through your tissues, and your pelvis. What sensation do you notice? How does that feel? Are you smiling, sweating, do you want to giggle? Take note of those sensations.
How can you speak from the pelvis, more? What does it need?
Stay strange (as in: queer) & rebel, y’all !