Finding purpose in pleasure

A Black woman reclaims sensuality through group twerks, yoga, music in women-centered course on “seduction” 

Twerking isn’t just a fun ratchetness we do with our friends; it can be a deeply embedded healing modality. image credit: Shutterstock

For me, reclaiming my sensuality has been a predominantly solo expedition.  I have always loved sensual movement. I have loved all things that shake, roll and wobble, ever since I was a child. But as I progressed through life, it was bashed into my head that this type of movement was inappropriate. It was something shameful and only appropriate when done in privacy and for men.  

West African dance taught me differently. These movements were taught as something healing, cultural and to be done in community. I finally had a place in adulthood where I could shake and move my hips without shame. What West African dance taught helped me to reclaim my body and my sensual movement as something that was mine, something I could do with my community sisters. 

Yoga teaches us we release trauma when we release tension in our hips. image credit: Shutterstock 

The coming together of these two ancient wisdoms made everything click for me — why twerking has carried over all these years. Twerking isn’t just fun ratchetness we do with our friends; it is also a deeply embedded healing modality. When we gyrate, we’re activating and releasing our muscle tension so our bodies can move freely.  You have to release tension in your hips to shake, twerk or wine your waist and do many of the shunned dances of today. It is like we have not forgotten the practice, but we have been disconnected from the wisdom of it.

I believe this is why my sensuality is tied to my purpose. I use my gifts to reconnect the movement to the purpose, healing, creativity and community it was designed for. I create spaces that gather this wisdom and give it back to us in a safe environment.

When we gyrate, we’re activating and releasing our muscle tension so our bodies can move freely. You have to release tension in your hips to shake, twerk or wine your waist and do many of the shunned dances of today. It is like we have not forgotten the practice, but we have been disconnected from the wisdom of it.

My most recent offering, Art of Seduction, is an exclusively women-only space to play in pleasure and create in the energy of arousal. We began the experience with sensual exploration to discover new ways to experience pleasure through our five senses. We did a sensual dance to activate the sacral chakra and took our erotic energy to the page with creative writing and painting.

Preparing for the Art of Seduction helped me to realize arousal is a state I want to be in more often. I spent two weeks preparing what people would experience during Art of Seduction. For two weeks I curated an atmosphere of arousal in my home to experience how arousal fed my creativity and something surprising happened.

I built a sexy playlist song by song; I created a silhouette station and seductively danced in it; I dipped strawberries in chocolate and traced my lips and bit and sucked the juices; I wrote sultry poetry and recited it with all the lust my vocal cords could reverberate. I danced in the mirror and created sexy shadow dance recordings in tiny shorts and a bra. I watched it an ungodly amount of times, sometimes for editing and sometimes just to enjoy.

When arousal was persistently present, I used to label it "cravings” or even “addiction.” Then I considered arousal to be something that had to be satisfied. It was an experience that had to be chased away by sex or masturbation. It was something that had to be satisfied so it could leave, and I could focus and go back to my regularly scheduled program.

It never occurred to me if I didn't satisfy it, it could stay around and satisfy me. Just like any other emotion arousal can be sat with and invited to stay as long as it needs to. It isn't a distraction if you don't consider it to be something that needs to be undone. This arousal immersion made me glad to have a vulva . Women get to walk around with this secret no one else knows. We get to have arousal in our pocketbooks and carry her around like our favorite song playing in the background, providing a splash of delight that makes mundane moments a little sweeter.

Leading up to the opening session of Art of Seduction, I thought, “I want to feel like this all of the time. How do I keep this up as an experience? How do I cultivate juiciness and the state of arousal into more of the things that are required of me?”

I used to think duty killed arousal, but these weeks have shown me maybe it's not duty that kills arousal but our lack of attentiveness to it and our lack of presence with it that pushes it away. No one wants to stay where it is ignored. Now that I know arousal doesn’t have to be a distraction or an addiction when I am present with her, I want to invite more sensual pleasure into my life.