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@mattmcgorry : "Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good" by @adriennemareebrown  # After loving Adrienne's last book, #EmergentStrategy , I was very excited about #PleasureActivism .  I've found her thoughts and methods to be very different from a lot of what I read about activism, and also really necessary for our movements.  Growing up as a boy and living as a man in this world never taught me that joy should be a priority for me.  For most of my life, in fact, a great deal of my sense of value was directly tied to how hard I could grind and push myself through difficult circumstances to achieve my goals.  This was true, not only as I competed in powerlifting and bodybuilding, but also through how I moved through life, affecting all of my decisions.  So much so, that I never imagined that there could be another way. # In the last couple of years, I've been working on exploring what brings me joy.  This is a concept that I really hadn't even considered until not that long ago.  And with the absence of this mindset, my life was really controlled by things I felt like I *should* be doing, which is really based in obligation.  I was constantly living in a state of feeling guilty for not living up to my own expectations, or overwhelmed by trying to fulfill the obligations that I thought that I *should* fulfill.  And this was true across all areas of my life, from friendships to family, and activism to my career. # I love how this book urges us to get in touch with our deepest desires, and pleasure itself.  People of all genders have been socialized one way or another, away from being in touch with what gives us pleasure, especially during sex.  As a straight man, it's actually been a pretty new journey for me to understand that I could say 'no' to sex, without feeling shame for it. If “no” doesn’t feel like an option, our “yes” will always lack clarity. # Activism can be very difficult, especially for those that are directly targeted by oppression.  Even for myself, I have