logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2024
1h 2m

ADRIENNE MAREE BROWN on Pleasure as Birt...

FOR THE WILD
About this episode

This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with adrienne maree brown which originally aired in April 2019.

adrienne maree brown begins this week’s episode by asking, “If we were not ashamed of our pleasure, what would become possible? If we started to understand that pleasure is something that everyone should have access to, what would become possible?”

This week on For The Wild, we are exploring how to embody pleasure in its many forms with adrienne maree brown. Drawing upon Audre Lorde’s seminal publication, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, adrienne maree brown’s latest book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, reiterates how once we truly know the pleasure of being alive, suffering becomes unimaginable. Above all, pleasure resides in our body, but many of us seem to forget this through lifetimes of social conditioning, performative identities, and the multitude of ways in which capitalism and patriarchy have filtered love and desire through the lens of ownership. Yet, whether we are cognizant of this or not, our pleasure and our liberation remain inextricably bound together.

adrienne maree brown grows healing ideas in public through her multi-genre writing, her music and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transformation. She is the author/editor of several published texts, cogenerator of a tarot deck and a developing musical ritual.

 Music by The Boom Booms, JB the First Lady, and Small Town.



Support the show

Up next
Yesterday
ILLUMINATING WORLDVIEWS on Land, Language, and Love S1:2
Continuing our Illuminating Worldviews series, we hear from X̱ʼunei Lance Twitchell in conversation with Guná Jensen exploring the vital work of Tlingít language revitalization. Together, they reflect on the deep emotional resonance of speaking in one’s ancestral language, and ho ... Show More
58m 6s
Oct 2
ILLUMINATING WORLDVIEWS on Emotional Competency S1:1
Over the past months, For The Wild has journeyed to the Yukon in partnership with Illuminating Worldviews. Illuminating Worldviews is a space for examining the worldviews in which we find ourselves and to learn how they actively shape the material realities of our lives. This pro ... Show More
59m 58s
Aug 5
JOANNA MACY on the World as Lover and Self⌠HOMAGE⌡ /371
On July 19th, Joanna Macy, beloved teacher and past guest, passed away peacefully at home in Berkeley, California. In honor of her legacy, we are rebroadcasting her episode “The World as Lover and Self,” originally released in 2015 when the show was titled Unlearn and Rewild.In t ... Show More
59m 43s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 22
Joanna Macy, In Memoriam — Beauty and Wisdom and Courage (and Rilke) to Sustain Us
This rich, gorgeous conversation will fill your soul. The singular and beloved Joanna Macy died at home at the age of 96 on July 20, 2025. She has left an immense legacy of beauty and wisdom and courage to sustain us. A Buddhist teacher, ecological philosopher, and Rilke translat ... Show More
50m 57s
Oct 2024
Rapid-Fire Wisdom: Donna Lancaster on Life, Success, and Authentic Living"
In this episode, Amanda introduces Donna Lancaster, author of ‘The Bridge, a 9-step Crossing into Authentic and Wholehearted Living’ and Wise Words for Women: Words to Soothe, Comfort, Challenge, and Inspire . She's a healing, transformative, insightful, self-proclaimed writer, g ... Show More
12m 8s
Jul 2024
adrienne maree brown — On Radical Imagination and Moving Towards Life
The wonderful civil rights elder Vincent Harding liked to look around the world for what he called "live human signposts" — human beings who embody ways of seeing and becoming and who point the way forward to the world we want to inhabit. And adrienne maree brown, who has inspire ... Show More
1h 20m
Dec 2024
054 - Jenny Dinovi
In this enlightening episode of the Think Tank podcast, Robert sits down with Jenny Dinovi, a global sensation whose authenticity and deep wisdom have made her an almost overnight phenomenon on social media. Known for her ability to channel profound insights and connect deeply wi ... Show More
1h 26m
Jun 2022
Pride on Stage: Holly Woodlawn
Holly Woodlawn (1946-2015) is an actress and transgender icon whose impact spanned decades. Typically, pop artist Andy Warhol gave different artists and performers their fifteen minutes of fame through his experimental films and avant garde party scene. But this star’s legacy per ... Show More
5m 59s
Jul 29
Best Of: Barbara Kingsolver on ‘Urban-Rural Antipathy’
“It’s so insidious, people don’t realize it,” Barbara Kingsolver told me, describing the prejudice against “country people.” Kingsolver is one of those “country people,” as well as a literary legend in her own time, who set out to write the “great Appalachian novel.” And I think ... Show More
1h 1m
Apr 2025
Special: Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Is Dying
From October 9, 1997: Oprah talks with author and psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross about her autobiography, Wheel of Life. A pioneer in death and dying studies, Elisabeth shares the greatest lessons she’s learned from those who are dying, how she is welcoming death at the end o ... Show More
31m 31s
Jun 2024
Wordsmiths: Paula Gunn Allen
Paula Gunn Allen (1939-2008) was an American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. With works that often explored Indigeneity and feminism, she helped establish a Native American literary presence in the United States.  For Further Reading: Paula Gunn Allen Ch ... Show More
3m 45s
Nov 2024
Joan Baez — "This Gift of a Voice"
She is known as the voice of a generation. The Queen of Folk. A legend. An icon, the one who sang “We Shall Overcome” alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington. As much as anyone, Joan Baez embodied the spirit of that decade of soaring dreams and songs and ... Show More
57m 54s
Sep 13
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Davina McCall, Papua New Guinea, Jung Chang, Fawning, Sophie Ellis Bextor
Davina McCall, one of TV’s most popular presenters has a new book out, Birthing, co-written with the midwife, Marley Henry. Davina joined Anita Rani to talk about her stellar career so far, including hosting Big Brother for 10 years, campaigning for better menopause care and buil ... Show More
55m 13s