Deliberate Orgasm EV 6/10

Over the past two years, I have embarked on a journey to connect more deeply and intentionally to my own pleasure, and to unlearn many myths around love, sex, and relationships. In 2012, I came out publicly about my abortion, and after a year of traveling around the country sharing my story, I realized that I was not talking about the systemic conditions around my abortion, that is, the way that our society scrutinizes, shames, and represses all expressions of sexuality. I revisited all the fear-based messages that I received around sexual pleasure as a child and adolescent - messages such as “Close your legs! Don’t give it up. Don’t. Get. Pregnant.” For nearly 25 years of my life, I wasn’t taught how to ask for what I desired sexually. I did not have the tools to understand the complexity and the possibilities of my body. And rarely, very rarely, did I ever prioritize my own pleasure. I had always considered myself a liberated women, yet in my 30’s I examined the many parts of my own sensuality that I did not have access to. Only because I was either too fearful to talk about it, or too shameful to explore it.

Beginning in 2013, I had major shifts in my sexuality. I began to celebrate pussies in my art and activism, especially my pussy, as a source of empowerment and a reclamation of agency and of pleasure. I felt that when it came to sex, our culture overwhelmingly promoted messages of shame and duty, or hypersexuality, and those messages did little for me when it came to my own pleasure and orgasm.

By being active in pursuing my own pleasure and getting in touch with my orgasm, I was able to tap into my joy, to explore my body, and to lead with pleasure - not fear, nor guilt, nor shame. The title of this collection is “Deliberate Orgasm” inspired by a workshop I attended by the Welcomed Consensus, who taught me about how to take responsibility for my orgasm. They taught me that I don’t need relationships, nor romance, nor external validation to experience full orgasm. Since then, I leverage my orgasm to support my joy, my art practice and my activism. Because pleasure is a human right.