Sprinkle Sparkle

When you were young, who showed you what pleasure could look like?

For Kendrick Jones, it was his parents — his dad had an after-work ritual he followed every day, and his mom spent Sunday mornings dancing to gospel and cleaning house. But he also had a more unusual role model: a drag performer named Li’l Ronnie.

“He was one of my mom's closest friends. When he was not performing, be the cleanest fella in the room. Girls is flocking all to him, he’s just floating like he's walking on the cloud,” Kendrick says.

When Kendrick was six or seven, he saw Li’l Ronnie in drag for the first time. “He's still floating right through the room, and women and men are still flocking to him! He just floats through this world no matter what he looks like, where he's at, Li’l Ronnie is Li’l Ronnie.”

Kenrick and his wife, Amber Burns-Jones, join Nubia Bennett on this episode to explore the pleasure in partnership and family.

They talk about how holding space for pleasure makes them more successful parents to their two sets of twins (you read that right: two sets of twins).

Amber and Kendrick model for their children, and each other, how to find joy in daily life, even when we have tremendous responsibilities.

Listen in and get ready for a little Sprinkle Sparkle!

On this episode, we meet Arielle Clark, owner of Sis Got Tea, a Queer-owned, black-owned, Louisville-based tea shop.

Nubia and Arielle explore how mental health is a vital part of pleasure, and what obstacles can get in the way.

Arielle takes us through her own mental health journey through learning the beauty in boundaries and their enforcement.

She says her home is her safe space, and she's curated it intentionally to feel that way. "I have a super comfy couch that I can lay on, and work from, if my chronic pain is acting up. I've got an inversion table where I can literally flip upside down if my back hurts. I've got a bathtub so I can soak. I've got a super comfortable bed. My home is relatively quiet. I have incense and candles. I have a cat," she says.

"When I have sensory overload, I just want to come home to like a muted space so I can calm down."

And she talks about how therapy and sobriety have both contributed to her recovery from trauma, and her ability to make space for pleasure in her life—and to know that she deserves it.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a huge period of change for everyone. For Phelix Crittendon, it was a chance to improve her pleasure practice, and reimagine her future—which for her, meant moving to New York City.

“I don’t want to be a what-if person,” she says. "I am self sustainable, and I'm a hustler, and I'm gonna make whatever I want to make happen."

On this episode, Phelix joins host Nubia Bennett to explore the pleasure in living authentically. Phelix reflects on how her grandma taught her the power of confidence, and having the audacity to go after what you want in life.

Y'all know life beats you down sometimes. You know the people, places, and things that you lean on to get you through. Your crew. Your girls. Your chosen family.

Host Nubia Bennet shares the mic on this inaugural episode with two of her best friends, Minda Honey and Shauntrice Martin.

Minda says you can't have pleasure without agency: "I think for women, particularly Black women, trans women, women who are marginalized in general, as we take more agency over our lives in general, it only makes sense that we would also take more agency when it comes to pleasure."

Shauntrice talks about how social stereotypes have affected her relationships, delaying her journey toward pleasure. “As Black women, we’re taught you have to fit in this box or you’re too ghetto,” she says. "And so like, for a really long time, until my 30s, pleasure was just not even on the table."

In this episode, we center the joy, pleasure and importance of close friendships between Black women. The conversation came at a particularly poignant time for Nubia herself, reflecting on the loss of someone in her own life who modeled the value of close friendships with women.

"It just touched me deeply thinking about how much the practice of good, good, deep friendship contributes to joy, and how much your friends actually really mean."