Bringing #PleasuretothePeople through the Transactional Power of Sex
An interview with Dr. Rachel Allyn
MSG: Can you introduce yourself to our readers? Where are you located, and what do you do?
RA: Hello, I’m Rachel Allyn, but Ray Ray to my nephew and best friend; Rake to my childhood friends; and Dr. Allyn or Dr. Rachel to my clients. I’m located in Minneapolis, MN, and spend my winters in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and tropical destinations leading wellness retreats.
I’m a holistic psychologist, pleasure expert, yoga teacher, and writer. As a holistic psychologist, I blend Western medicine with Eastern philosophy and integrate the mind with the body. I see my role as helping clients do more than survive but to help them thrive. I reconnect people with their own life force energy. Unlike conventional therapy styles, which have focused on talking, I invite the body’s wisdom into the conversation with bodyfulness, given the ways research shows that connecting the innate healing capabilities of your physical body alongside mental insights is what leads to lasting change.
MSB: What does it mean to be “bodyful?”
RA: Mindfulness is not enough — even the name itself leaves out the body! If we leave out the body in our wellbeing, we’re leaving out a vast resource for resilience, healing and pleasure.
There are three layers to being bodyful. First, it means you practice embodied mindfulness, which is listening to your body’s wants and needs for balance, connection, stress release, pleasure and joy. The second layer is where it moves beyond mindfulness. After noticing and sitting with your experience, it’s the “now what?” that helps you recalibrate. It involves having a toolbox of methods to discharge stress from your body with release and movement. I say movement is medicine. It can also come in the form of sweat or tears. The third layer is when you trust your body, know your body so intimately (interoception is the scientific term) that you have confidence in your body’s wisdom to help you mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically and you own your right to healthy pleasures in life.
MSB: I love that! You have another endeavor, closely tied to this idea of being bodyful, called #PleasureToThePeople. Can you tell me more about this movement?
RA: This is based on America’s history of repression regarding the body, pleasure, and the intersection of the two. For centuries, pleasures in the body were taboo based on our religious history and capitalist/productivity obsession. #PleasureToThePeople is about reclaiming your birthright to receive pleasure. I encourage sensual, playful, liveliness/livelihood, altruistic and sexual pleasures and give people suggestions for physically, mentally, and emotionally permitting themselves to inhabit all the pleasures life can bring, with bodyfulness as a tool to manage pain and feel balanced pleasure.
MSB: I feel like that hints to our unconscious understanding of how sex and pleasure lead to a sort of transaction: a release of frustration or negative emotions, and a gaining of empowerment, etc. In what other ways do you see sex being “transactional?”
RA: Sex can be many different things, and transactional is commonly one of them. Most people think about “transactional sex” as an exchange of gifts, money, support, a sugar-daddy/sugar-mama arrangement, etc. Social class, culture, and economics lead people to engage in sex in order to get more financial security, and this has happened worldwide since the beginning of time.
Transactions also occur in regards to receiving our emotional and physical needs met; the need for touch, feeling validated, not feeling alone existentially, feeling desired and wanted. These can go in both directions for those involved.
Sex can also be spiritual and soulful, in which the intention may not be to receive anything literally or ego-wise, but there is still an exchange of energy. Sex always involves an exchange of energy. And there is nothing wrong with being selfish during sex. It’s important to own our desires and ask for what we want.
MSB: In September, we spoke about racism and sex. There are many ways racial bias, inequality, and racial trauma intersect with sex and sexuality. As an expert in the field of sexuality, what are a few ways you see this happening?
RA: Oh my god, this is a huge and complicated topic! It’s a very important one and beyond the scope of what I can say here, and there are better people to reflect on this than me. As a middle-class white American woman, I will defer to them and say that I am continually learning and listening to check myself on these issues.
In graduate school, my 2005 dissertation looked at the ways women were sexually objectified in magazine advertisements over time. I found that “Big Advertising” portrayed women of color in more animalistic ways — such as the way they were posing, wearing animal prints, or being treated like animals.
There has been a narrow focus on gender concerning anti-sexual violence activism, which has left out racial factors, and this silence has contributed to its prevalence. I also feel sad that in our renewed fight against racism right now, there is an increase in misogyny and women against other women across racial lines. How does that intersect with sex? It keeps women down in all realms. As a body psychologist, it is clear that not all bodies are treated equally.
This contributes to what Sonya Renee Taylor calls “body terrorism,” and I address this in my upcoming book (2021 with Shambhala Publications). It is an act of resistance to embody our pleasures and joy in a world of sick systems such as racism, ableism, a world that allows for sexual violence, prevention of free-choice to have a child or not, trans and homophobia, and media as I mentioned. These systems have waged war on our sense of self in our bodies. And, of course, that interferes with healthy and pleasurable sex in all its forms.
MSB: Do you see the conversation around sex and sexual expression going through a shift right now? Why or why not?
RA: It’s always two steps forward, one step back. And nuanced. There is still backlash. Younger generations have a hunger right now that my parents’ generation had, but mine sucked at it. Porn has made sex more performative. We have a real problem with intimacy. Younger women think they own their sexuality as they post bikini pictures on Instagram, but some are merely exploiting themselves; women’s sexual objectification remains, but in different forms. I see a pleasure renaissance where women’s pleasure is recognized as a priority, and I say hallelujah to that!
Bringing ♯PleasureToThePeople through the Transactional Power of Sex was originally published on My Sex Bio’s blog on February 18, 2020.
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