At some point in the life of my brain, the neurons associated with the concept of ‘pleasure’, and the neurons associated with the concept of ‘sex’ started firing exclusively at the same time.
I don’t know when it was built (hello, patriarchy), but I know that bridge between the two was definitely strengthened by being immersed in the coaching industry. My social media algorithms fed me gorgeous woman after gorgeous woman talking about how naturally deserving we are of pleasure, while wearing lingerie or selling a sex program. I’ve just searched Unsplash with the word ‘pleasure’ to find a photo for this article, and I’m met with the exact same stuff. Fingers in fruit. Underwear. Bare skin. Vibrators.
It’s not that I disagree with them - I believe in the power of pleasure and the power of women, and the superpower of those two combined, and I love that sex is being talked about more openly and healthily now - but I am now aware of how conditioned I have been into disregarding unsexy pleasure.
[Note: there are much more informed people than me talking about how a lot of what is being taught under the ‘divine feminine’ umbrella inherently upholds patriarchal gender expectations - this is not the article for that, although I encourage you to read more into it. I appreciate Ash Riley’s work; she has a blog post about how patriarchy shows up in spirituality.]
Why does feeling unsexy pleasure matter?
A lot of the advice I’ve been exposed to online about noticing pleasure seems to be about making the simple sexy. Eating food is sexualised. Fabric is sexualised. Business is sexualised. Daily life is eroticised as a means to make our lives as delicious and delectable as possible.
But honestly: that doesn’t feel good to me.
It doesn’t feel safe for me to engage that way with pleasure, and so my nervous system shuts it down. As we spoke about last week, I retreat into a freeze state and become numb to every type of sensation. Not only does that cause me to back off from actual sexual pleasure, but it also prevents me from feeling any form of pleasure in any area of my life.
And pleasure as an unsexualised state is incredibly calming to our nervous systems. It’s enormously regulating for our bodies to experience pleasurable sensations because it can only do so when it’s safe, and present, and responding to the positive in the here and right now, and that in turn has a positive effect on our mindset and mental health. Pleasure matters.
It doesn’t just matter, in a ‘good to have as a bonus’ kinda way. Increasing our capacity for experiencing pleasure will in turn increase the buffer we have for stress before we fall into the overwhelm hole. That’s good for us, good for people around us, and good for the complex and nuanced issues the world requires us to solve.
Unfortunately this puts us in a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Our nervous systems are regulated by pleasure, and yet cannot experience it when disregulated. Good setup, huh?
Which is why noticing unsexy pleasure has become a practice for me.
It has to be an active process; I have to consciously introduce the thought “what is pleasurable about this experience right now” while I am in it, or reflect afterwards what was pleasurable for my body, and try to recreate that sensation so I can notice it when it happens again.
I’m going to give you some examples from my week, but the key here is to try and work around that neural bridge between pleasure and sex. This isn’t about what evokes a sensation of turn-on, or sexual pleasure, and it doesn’t have to be pleasurable ‘enough’ to produce an audible response, like the “rrrggghh” of a good massage. A ‘pleasurable sensation’ can simply be a softening of the muscles around the eyes as you look out of the window to the horizon. It can be the juxtaposition of cool sheets against your hot feet. It can be the letting go of tension around the jaw. The shifting of air from the lungs. It can be tiny and seemingly insignificant. All that matters is that you note its existence in your body. You don’t need to make the fact that it feels good mean anything, and you definitely don’t need to use this practice as an opportunity to analyse your relationship to pleasure. The only important thing is to note that something feels nice. That’s enough.
1) Rubbing my face with a flannel
I forgot all about flannels. For some reason I never bought any for myself when I moved out, despite having used flannels my entire childhood life. Are flannels a 90s thing? Maybe the skincare industry discouraged them in the marketing of single use wipes. Who knows. Either way, I recently moved in with my partner’s parents, discovered a pile of flannels in the bathroom drawer, and rekindled my love for them. I think it’s that they are perfectly face-sized, so my whole face feels the texture of the water-towel combo at once. I love it.
2) Giving in to a Saturday afternoon nap
I’m not a napper. Most of my adult naps have only occurred out of a sheer hungover need. But this week I was just genuinely tired on a Saturday afternoon. It’s not the nap itself that I’m noting as pleasurable. Although it was, I was asleep so I wasn’t consciously feeling anything at all. But the sensation of allowing my body to adjust to a potential sleeping position in the chair, and feeling my eyelids get heavy before sleep - especially at a time I wouldn’t normally sleep - was wonderfully pleasurable.
3) Stretching a painful muscle
I’ve been exercising a bit more this week, so my muscles have been sore. That hasn’t been so pleasurable in itself, but I love stretching a painful muscle. There’s a few seconds of a stretch that always feel better than any other, when you find that sweet spot and gently settle in. It’s an in between state - not quite tense and not quite stretched.
4) Singing at full volume when no one’s home
Setting aside the emotional relief of unleashing ourselves when we’re alone, our vocal cords are muscles like any other. It felt really nice to move them.
5) Building a snack plate for lunch
This one might stretch the rules a little bit, because I think there’s something emotionally comforting and childlike to snack plates, and I’m not sure I can pinpoint the exact sensation that’s pleasurable about it. Maybe it’s the anticipation of eating it, because the varied bites are definitely pleasurable to my taste buds, or maybe it’s the mental break from work, or a splash of dopamine I receive from ‘shopping’ the fridge. But I find myself humming or singing a little song as I’m cutting up cherry tomatoes or pieces of cheese or apple slices, and the experience of building the plate feels great, so I’m including it.
The amazing and wonderful thing about our bodies is that none of these things may feel pleasurable to you as an individual. I love hot showers and my partner can’t stand them. We’re built differently.
But pleasure is beneficial for a regulated nervous system, and therefore a happy human, but it’s become so layered and complicated to experience it. Our capitalist society has forced pleasure into being something for the privileged, because when we don’t have our basic needs met our nervous systems are constantly activated, so pleasure isn’t easily accessible. And for the financially settled, pleasure has been relegated to sex, and sex has been commandeered by our patriarchal structures, so it’s still out of reach for many of our nervous systems, no matter what body we’re in.
Reclaiming unsexy pleasure is my small, daily rebellion against those things.
If you’re willing to share - I’d love to hear some of the unsexy pleasures of your week. Let me know in the comments!
Take care,
Alex
Love this! The few that stick out for me this week are... paddling in the freezing cold river on a super hot day with my flip flops on and the liquid centre of a soother cough sweet on my sore throat 👌