A Sensual Awakening

“How do we learn to harness the power and wisdom of pleasure, rather than trying to erase the body, the erotic, the connective tissue from society?” – adrienne maree brown

Words by Ania Zoltkowski, film by Annelie Bruijn 

There is a sensual awakening arising within the world, a reconnection to experiencing this life more fully through the divine intelligence of the body. Modernity articulated our separation from nature, which further generated mind-body dualism, the disconnection between mind and matter.

As formulated by René Descartes, dualist thinking – still prevalent today – rejects the body as a source of intrinsic wisdom. The dichotomy between mind and matter in our society and religious traditions has resulted in a devaluing of and repulsion for the physical, which has further commodified the flesh, in particular women’s bodies. The sensual has been distorted, degraded and even made unsafe. Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies link this toxic sexualization of the flesh to an “absence of a sensual interaction with nature, the direct consequence of the capitalist and patriarchal alienation from nature”. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty points out, the body “is the horizon latent in all our experience and itself ever-present and anterior to every determining thought”. There is an embodied nature of our experience with the world, where the body is not merely static matter, but the connective tissue that links us to the entire web of life. Congruently Joanna Macy contends that to heal our separation from the Earth, we must also restore our relationship with the physical world.

Intertwined with the corporeal is the sensual, a relationship with life experienced through the senses and where pleasure is created, an invaluable source of information and power within our lives. Audre Lorde said it best: “When released from its intense and constrained pellet, [the erotic] flows through and colours my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience.”

Pleasure & Dress

Our garments are an extension of our bodies, which represent a particular way of being in the world, a fluid continuity that blurs the borders between self and material. Clothing acts as the communicator between the flesh and the outside world and allows us to tune in to the various sensations that may arise as we feel it gripping, draping, folding upon, enhancing, hiding or hugging our flesh. It can re-orientate us out of our minds and into our bodies, reconnecting us to the bodily senses that ask us to slow down, pause and listen. 

The sun, the air, the Earth against my skin, the ocean surrounding me are sensations that awaken my body and spirit and remind me of my interconnectedness to all life on this planet. As my body is clothed, how do garments that are with me in relational times enrich and amplify my experience with self, others and the Earth? All materials have at some point originated from the land, and as such garments can bring us into closer communion with nature.

It is not only the look of a garment that draws us to it, but also the tactility of the fabric, the cut and how it falls on the flesh, the warmth it provides, the skin it reveals or conceals, and how it expands or restricts our movement and presence in the world. As philosopher Iris Marion Young reveals, touch moves beyond the feeling of fabric on the skin towards an “orientation to sensuality that includes all of the senses”.6 Our culture continues to dictate how our bodies should look and the clothing that is suitable, even desirable for others to see ourselves in, whilst many do not feel safe to fully express themselves and to be in their full beauty through adorning the body.

How can we re-orientate ourselves towards dressing for pleasure, wearing clothing that makes us feel good within and enhances our experience with the world, yet isn’t informed by the patriarchal gaze? And how can these relations that are formed between the body and materials assist us in creating systems of care, reciprocity, reverence and radical responsibility for all life on this planet? 

Embodied Sustainable Fashion

So much of the sustainable fashion space is disembodied, operating from industrialized practices, a paradigm that values efficiency, growth, optimization and measuring over elements of the heart, slowness, sensuality, joy, rest and pleasure. To create a new world, these ways of taking action need to evolve. This requires a shift in reconnecting to the heart but also to the body, recognizing the innate wisdom and capacity the body has in guiding us towards transformations.

Arising from this embodied place enables me to imagine new and rich possibilities and take action in regenerative ways that are rooted in wholeness. Through this, I become more energized and empowered for my work, and less inclined to accept other states of being thrown on to us each day, such as fear, despair and unworthiness. There is a potency in living from within outward, as I allow the pleasure generated in my body to seep into my work in the world.

How can we transition and organize our communities towards a sustainable fashion system that focuses on what we love about and desire for this world, as opposed to what we are trying to diminish? What diverse fashion ecologies and practices could we see manifest if all garment workers, designers, farmers, the entire supply chain community, were connected to pleasure? 

Pleasure as Power & Activism

Adrienne maree brown invites us to centre pleasure and joy as an organizing principle in activism work, as she introduces us to “pleasure activism”, which focuses upon “integrating pleasure into all facets of our lives, centring joy and pleasure as resistance”. She asks: “How do we learn to harness the power and wisdom of pleasure, rather than trying to erase the body, the erotic, the connective tissue from society?” Through connecting to this natural abundance that exists within us, between one another and with the Earth, pleasure offers an alternative way forward. As our Western society continues to bombard us with notions of not-enoughness, allowing ourselves to be in our pleasure, joy and wholeness is a rebellious and political act, and a daily practice that requires tending to. 

Jenny Odell’s How to do Nothing – Resisting the Attention Economy posits “doing nothing” as “resistance in a way that undermines the authority of the hegemonic game and creates possibilities outside of it”. “Doing nothing” is about having time to think and connect to the “nuanced, poetic, and less than obvious actions” that prioritize self, community and place. As Black-Latinx transdisciplinary artist Brontë Velez critically states, “shame is not a generative tool for liberation and pleasure can lead us toward accountability and restorative justice, that makes us more accountable with the Earth and with one another”.

Each of us experiences pleasure in diverse ways, and this calls for a careful tuning in to the body and the senses and deep listening to that which makes us feel alive. For me this presently includes listening to the laughs of the kookaburras outside my window at the crack of dawn, basking in the radiating spring sunlight, sitting in stillness and feeling my breath expand in and out of me, the intense oneness I experience when immersed on the land, the movement my hips generate to a favourite tune, the touch of a lover against my skin. What does pleasure look like for you? 

In close partnership with pleasure is rest, one of the truly most nourishing acts that we can take part in. In a culture where productivity is king, and we have been conditioned to believe that rest is a privilege, cultivating the practice of resting is a defiant act against the oppressive and exploitative structures of our world. Rest rejuvenates the body, mind and spirit, connects us to our full self, one another and the Earth, and leaves us energized to serve. The Nap Ministry believes in the liberating power of naps, where rest is a form of resistance and reparation, and a revolutionary tool for community healing. Founder Tricia Hersey claims that: “We were not created to live in a cycle of grief and fighting. We are not created for scarcity and trauma. Please do not internalize the exhausting ‘fight and battle constantly’ narrative. Rest and slowing down is a political protest. The more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into these systemic lies.”

This work begins within each of us, but it also needs to encompass the community and the collective transitions toward sustainable futures. How can we guide ourselves and our communities towards pleasure and rest, and create spaces that allow the most disadvantaged to connect to their pleasure? By its very nature, clothing has the capacity to do this. 

There is a profound knowledge seeded within the body, and I wonder what may be made manifest when we allow ourselves to tap in to this daily, and let it penetrate our lives and our pathways towards sustainable and regenerative futures. To once again quote the brilliant adrienne maree brown, “When we are happy it is good for the world. Folks who are rooted in sensing and seeking pleasure, and bring that energy into their work and relationships, are shining a light for others – there is another path that isn’t full of stress, self-doubt, pain, victimization and suffering. There is a path in which everything is learning, playing, practising, doing things anew.” This is a way forward I can fully get on board with.

References:
René Descartes (1596–1650) posited that there were two kinds of substance in the universe: mind and matter, and that the two are exclusive of each other, hence totally separate. 

Vandana Shiva & Maria Mies, Ecofeminism, 2014.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, 1945. 

Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self. 1991.

Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”, 1978. 

Iris Marion Young, “Women Recovering our Clothes”, in On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays, 2005. 

adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, 2019.

Jenny Odell, How to do Nothing – Resisting the Attention Economy, 2019.

Brontë Velez, For the Wild podcast, “On The Pleasurable Surrender of White Supremacy”, ep #139 part 1, 2019. 

Tricia Hersey, The Nap Ministry, 2020. www.instagram.com/thenapministry/ 

The model of the short film is artist and singer Jasmine Karimova. Find her work on jasminekarimova.com.