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Community Conversation: Pleasure
Why you can trust us
If you’re feeling burned out, you’re not alone. Living through a pandemic, constant racial injustice, economic inequality, and an ever-more-polarized political system has been, well, exhausting. What, then, is the antidote to this existential burnout that so many of us have been feeling since 2020? And how does it play a role in our movements for social change?
Our Summer 2022 “Pleasure” issue explores what it means to truly center pleasure in our lives—how do our movements, relationships, and bodies change when we prioritize pleasure? Guest editor adrienne maree brown opens the issue affirming that pleasure is neither a commodity nor a reward, but rather a foundational human need. Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts explores what it means to hold space for collective grief and joy at the same time, as a Black person living in the U.S. today. Joaquín Andrés Selva walks us through how to build resilience to the shame we have about experiencing pleasure. In compiling this issue, we wanted to provide both practical and radical ideas, tools, and ways of thinking that, we hope, will inspire each of you in your journeys to building a better world.
The issue also challenges the messages that capitalism teaches us, and the ways it can restrict our access to pleasure. Consumerism tells us that pleasure will only come from luxurious resort stays and expensive massages, but if pleasure is really a foundational human need, then it cannot be solely accessed by spending money: “There are so many ways to incorporate pleasure in our lives that don’t impact labor rights, the environment, or our own financial bottom lines.”
Our editors shared their anti-capitalist pursuits of pleasure, but we’d like to know, dear reader, what yours are. What brings you pleasure, and is free and accessible? Maybe it’s smelling the flowers on your neighborhood walk, or perhaps gathering with your loved ones to celebrate a joyous occasion. Nothing is too small or too big—as long as it brings you pleasure.
Please join YES! readers and staff in the comments below, and let us know what brings you pleasure—outside the bounds of consumerism.
You may see your answers in an upcoming issue of YES! Magazine.
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YES! Editors
are those editors featured on YES! Magazine’s masthead. Stories authored by YES! Editors are substantially reported, researched, written, and edited by at least two members of the YES! Editorial team.
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