Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

by adrienne maree brown

Pleasure Activism is a radical, genre-defying exploration of how pleasure can be a tool for liberation, healing, and social change. In this collection of essays, conversations, and reflections, adrienne maree brown challenges the idea that justice must be rooted in sacrifice or burnout, arguing instead that feeling good is both deeply political and necessary for sustainable transformation.

Drawing on Black feminist thought and the work of thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Joan Morgan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sonya Renee Taylor, and Cara Page, brown examines how pleasure intersects with race, gender, disability, sex work, drugs, climate justice, and community care. The book invites readers to consider what it means to organize our lives—and our movements—around joy, desire, and connection rather than punishment or denial.

Rather than offering a single framework, Pleasure Activism encourages experimentation, curiosity, and imagination. It asks expansive questions: What if justice felt nourishing? What if activism was erotic, playful, and life-giving? What if pleasure helped us refuse anything less than a fully alive existence?

Why I recommend this book

I recommend Pleasure Activism because it reframes pleasure as essential, not indulgent, especially for folks doing healing, community, or justice work. This is a book I return to when pleasure starts to feel like something I have to “earn.” It’s particularly powerful for people who’ve been taught that care, joy, or eroticism are distractions from serious work. Brown reminds us that pleasure is information, strategy, and resistance, and that building a world worth living in has to feel good, too.