I’ve been reading Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown as a way of making sense of what I’ve been calling my own ethical hedonism — not indulgence, not impulsivity, but the question of whether pleasure might actually function as guidance.

Included in that book is Audre Lorde’s classic essay The Uses of the Erotic, which I recently told a group chat might be one of the best essays I’ve ever read. In this solo episode, I unpack why.

Lorde reframes the erotic not as performance or spectacle, but as a form of embodied knowledge — a deep connection to our capacity for joy that becomes a lens through which we evaluate our lives. When we reconnect with that internal hum of aliveness, she argues, we can no longer settle for what is merely safe, conventional, or externally approved.

Along the way, I explore a resonance I can’t ignore — the connection between what Lorde calls erotic knowledge and what James Hollis describes as inner authority. They are not saying the same thing. They are not operating in the same tradition. And yet both point toward an internal guidance system that asks us to live from alignment rather than expectation.

This episode weaves together ethical hedonism, embodied joy, clinical reflections, and the responsibility that comes with knowing your own capacity for depth.

Once you know your capacity for joy, you are responsible to it