Putting Pleasure Through the Paces
Pleasure activist Amelia Lord invites you to a 3-week pleasure challenge.
I have been following the work of pleasure activist Amelia Lord for several years. Amelia is a self-described professional hedonist on a mission to wake us up to the possibilities of centering our pleasure no matter what. I have been following her work for some time and this month she is launching a 3-week pleasure challenge so of course, I wanted to interview her.
We dug deep into some of the more controversial territory of pleasure—namely, prioritizing pleasure no matter what.
TPR: Let’s start with how you define pleasure.
Amelia Lord: Thank you for asking. I love that question. To me, pleasure is that place where something is hitting the spot, where something feels deeply satisfying, which is a very personal experience. What I find pleasurable is not going to be what hits the spot for somebody else. It’s a physical experience but I think of it as a spiritual practice.
TPR: Do you ever feel like pleasure is a frivolity? I write The Pleasure Report as a way to remind myself and others that pleasure helps us stay human in this crazy world but sometimes it’s challenging. Like, “Okay, war just broke out, and really? I’m going to write about pleasure today?”
Amelia Lord: I know. It's really hard to maintain that perspective when everything in our world and everything in our conditioning says the opposite—that we are supposed to be productive and contributing members of society, that our value is in what we can produce, not in just being our inherent selves.
So, in that context, focusing on pleasure feels like it's not just frivolous, it’s an indulgence. It's something that we get on top of everything else, like, “Pleasure is a cupcake.” And it's like, “No! pleasure is not a cupcake.”
TPR: I think that’s TPR’s new slogan— "Pleasure is not a cupcake!”
So, why are you out there promoting pleasure? What do you see as its importance?
Amelia Lord: When we are nurturing ourselves we are more available to the people in our lives and to the world. When I am nourishing myself with pleasure I am more capable of contributing my unique gifts because I'm coming from a place of fullness.
If we know what feels good in every way— physically, emotionally, spiritually, then we also know what doesn’t feel good. We know clearly, “Oh, that is not for me.” So in that way, pleasure connects us to our “yes” and “no” and it makes our boundaries clearer.
Hold on. I can hear my dog whimpering. I kicked her out of the room because I knew she was gonna start barking.
TPR: Animals are such incredible teachers when it comes to pleasure.
Amelia Lord: She's the pleasure queen. Animals are so fully in the moment and pleasure demands that we be present to whatever is happening currently.
TPR: I remember you mentioned that you see pleasure as something that is alive.
Amelia Lord: Yes, pleasure shifts and changes according to whatever is current. For example, I love cups of tea but I don't want cups of tea every day, all the time. That would not be pleasurable. It's really about what's going to make me feel deeply nourished and replete in this moment.
TPR: Is the pleasure challenge about trying to find pleasure in everything? What about when you are in a situation that is decidedly not pleasurable?
Pleasure has helped me get through really, really difficult times in my life.
Amelia Lord: Last year, my dad was in hospice and my child had just had this major mental health crisis, suicidal ideation. It was really, really rough. And I mean, this was —it was a lot. And I had this thought where I was like, “Okay, is there a way can I enjoy this?” That’s a pretty radical thing to try, especially as a mother, or even as a grieving child. The focus is supposed to be on our victimization. That sounds kind of harsh, but we readily fall into those roles of, “Oh, this is so difficult.”
I had people intending to be supportive, say things like, “This is tough, but you're gonna get through it.” And I could just feel this contraction around that. It was like, brace myself, it will pass and then I'll be able to enjoy things on the other side.
TPR: As though you need to endure.
Amelia Lord: Right. In my life, I have had a long series of tumultuous things happening. So, if that trend continues—and I see no reason it won't— that would mean that I am facing a life enduring with bursts of pleasure and happiness until I have to endure again. Because as soon as this situation is over, there's going to be another one. Maybe not immediately, but pretty soon.
TPR: So, how exactly do you find pleasure or enjoyment in these painful moments?
Amelia Lord: Intense emotion has a very particular sensation in the body. What if that experience has some pleasure to it?
Assuming that things are going to always be challenging or difficult, what if I can find a way for the challenging and difficult to also be pleasurable?
Like heartbreak feels so intense and we often think of that as a bad thing. But there are other areas in our life where that intensity of yearning feels good. Like with sex, the yearning can sometimes be almost painful. So if pain in one area of life is bad, but that same vibration of pain is very good in another area of life, then why can't we just enjoy it?
TPR: Were you able to touch that experience of pleasure with your father or your child? I mean, a child who is expressing suicide ideation, that's an experience that parents dread. It seems like one of the very last places one could be thinking about pleasure.
Amelia Lord: Exactly. This is supposed to be the worst thing ever. But who says it has to be? I know that sounds insane but I like testing things. I'm kind of a scientist running my little experiments. So, I'm like, “Well, if this is showing up, let me use it.” So, yeah, here's this moment that every parent dreads. And everything says, “No, this is wrong. It's not allowed to happen.” Well, that's fucking great but it IS happening. So if it is happening, then rather than spending my time fighting the reality of the situation and being like, “No, no, no!” And getting very, very dramatic—which can be fun, there's pleasure in that too—but what if this could be fun for me?
That's the most insane way to deal with it. Like, “Okay, my dad is dying. What if this could be enjoyable for me?” What? That's fucking crazy.
TPR: I think that people hear that and they might think that is selfish or self-centered.
Amelia Lord: If we think of it as selfish, that's fine. It is. I'm focused on myself and my pleasure. It doesn't mean it's bad. If I can embrace my dad dying—because he's not the only person having this experience; I am, too—then how can I approach it in a way that feels nourishing to me? Not nourishing where I have all of the protein I need today. But even better. How can I thrive in this situation rather than just meet my base requirements? Like, okay, my child wants to die? My child wants to maybe kill themself. How can I—or can I be?— present to whatever is happening and feel replete in whatever pleasure is available to me that isn't going to be taking me away from the reality of the situation?
TPR: Does that sometimes mean pleasure is an escape?
I never want people to engage with pleasure as a way to jump out of what's going on like, “Okay, this is too much. Let me seek out something that's going to distract me.”
That is pleasure is self-abandonment, right? Whereas the way that I think of pleasure is, rather than abandoning it's really about going deeper. Here we are so how can this be wonderful? It's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one.
It's about making friends with everything inside, making friends, and having a party.
Not like, “Well, my child is having a really hard moment right now but I'll be happy when I can look at this in a positive way.” Because if I'm gonna put my happiness on my child's happiness, I'm going to be waiting a long fucking time. That's not one of the options here. I have to be happy, independent of what’s going on around me.
This is my life and as far as I know, the only one I have. So, let me make the most of it. That is the whole point of pleasure.
TPR: So, how did this play out with your child? What happened? Were you really able to bring pleasure into the experience?
Amelia Lord: It gave my child the freedom to have their own experience without the pressure of, “Oh my god, what am I doing to my mother?” When you have a child who's suffering from that kind of thing, the tendency is to think, “Oh my God, I am the worst person on the planet.”
I am not going to say that it wasn't hard. It was fucking hard. But it was also intense in the best way. My child was never able to turn to me and be like, “Oh my God, look, my mother is crying all the time. And I'm making this so much worse for her.” Focusing on my pleasure, even though it sounds selfish, makes room for everybody else to live their lives without the pressure of having to please me, or showing up in a particular way for me. It gives everybody more permission, and more freedom to do that for themselves.
TPR: You tested your ideas about pleasure in one of the most tender and vulnerable places imaginable.
Amelia Lord: It's nice to have a lot of practical evidence to support the theory.
TPR: So, now you are inviting others to take a pleasure challenge with you. What is it and why now?
Amelia Lord: With the holidays coming up, for many people this is the most stressful time of year. For 3 weeks, you can only do what’s in your pleasure, which can shine a light on all the areas in your life where you're operating out of obligation rather than choice.
People sometimes worry that putting pleasure first means that they stop being a nice person because pleasure means being selfish.
Look, I'm a generous, loving, kind person. That's because I choose to be not because I'm supposed to be this way. I'm showing up for people in my life because I want to. It fills me up and it makes me happy to be there. That's such a different way to interact than doing things from a place of obligation.
TPR: But what about doing things for the sake of tradition—the ties that bind?
Amelia Lord: I imagine some people may decide not to participate in their holidays the way they normally do but, maybe someone says, “I don't want to do the thing we always do, because I hate it and it's exhausting. What if we did this instead? That would feel so much better to me. Would it feel better to you?”
It is an opportunity to bring everybody in our lives to actively choose and to reflect and ask, “Does this serve us? Do we like this?
TPR: Or are we all operating in the collective default mode?
Amelia Lord: What's valuable is to be engaged in our lives, checking and asking, “Is this still alive for me? Does this still feel deeply supportive?” Maybe not. That doesn't mean we have to be like, “Okay, peace out. I'm never gonna see you guys again.” We get to have conversations.
My dream is that people will take the challenge with their families because how wild would that be if all of us are going to do the pleasure challenge? How can we all collectively engage with this time of year more intentionally?
It’s all about the magic of connection and being with the people that we love so that probably looks more like having more conversations than we normally do.
TPR: Which is beautiful because then we all win. Amelia, thank you testing these ideas about radical pleasure in your life and sharing your findings with us.
The Pleasure Challenge starts this week. You can join here.
Let us know how it goes!
Thanks for that lovely share Amelia about a very difficult year. Hard agree... but timing is everything.
Personally I was in numb shock in the days my father died, and tbh I can't see pleasure as part of that. A few days later tho, I decided to get a long facial. It felt like turning toward the sun of human connection and care. I shyly told the beautician why I was there, and it felt almost like a ritual of female support in the wake of a patriarch's long shadow and death. Really amazing.
A beautiful exploration of a concept that takes imagination and attention to achieve, though I don't imagine this is a place we arrive at, rather a capacity we step into and a practice. This calls to mind the idea that we must never turn away from suffering and it's corollary - never look away from joy.