10 questions with our co-creator, Rafaella
Heeey,
So, I’m usually the, “Oh, I don’t like talking about myself” type of person. Much of my focus is on our community, learning about your needs, and how to best provide offerings to meet them, that I forget that folx want to know more about who is behind the work. It’s been such an honor to create and hold space for affirming, envisioning, and creating our sexual liberation journey and I’m excited to talk more about what that has looked like for me. So, here we go!
1. Why do you do this work?
I do this work because I believe that my liberation relies on the liberation of my community. A community that dreams, collaborates, and works diligently to ensure our economic, political, and social freedom. All of which impacts our sexual freedom. The centering of this work around pleasure is intentional as pleasure teaches us what our relationships to ourselves and others thrive on. As we learn and honor that, pleasure will be the experience that leads us to liberation.
2. What are some of your favorite Pleasure Practices?
When I think of pleasure, my first thoughts center feeling calm, curious, and challenged. So, I’ll share my favorite for each:
Baths – I’ve been a lover of bubble baths for as long as I can remember. I’d stay in the tub until my fingers pruned and the water chilled. I’d fall asleep on a purple inflatable terry cloth pillow, sometimes awakened by a knock on the door to make sure I was OK. Even then, I’d stay just a little while longer.
Reading and writing – This was my escape and source of healing, though I was unaware at the time. My practice started with stories in a lime green journal secured by a cheap lock full of poems, songs, short stories, and tales of the day. It included books I read in my younger days and realized I completely misunderstood them after re-reading in high school. Though frequency has wavered at times, I’ve always found myself nestled back in the grove of consuming and creating stories, as if I’d never left.
Play – This mostly involves a board game, jigsaw puzzle, brainteasers, word searches, video games, joking around, sports, coloring, making art, or whatever else I decide it is. Sometimes play involves naps, when I dare to see if I’ll wake up in time without using an alarm. Other times, play seduces me to a game of seeing how many episodes I can watch before my eyelids decide they’ve had enough.
3. Where is your favorite place to be?
Alone in my home, where the temperature is welcoming to my naked body and I have access to delicious foods, music that makes me move, feel, or think, and choices for play or doing nothing at all.
With a person/people that I enjoy being around, doing just a little something, not too much, and having a good time with food, jokes, or doing our own thing – together.
4. What does Black Sexual Liberation mean to you?
As thought, it challenges Eurocentric views and expectations that promote respectability, emphasizes hypersexuality, and justifies violence towards Black bodies.
As education, it creates space for all bodies to arrive with their experiences and questions knowing they will be met with comprehensive, inclusive, sex-positive, and accurate information that affirms their identity, empowers their choices, and silences shame.
As action, it encourages exploration rooted in autonomy, consent, healthy curiosity, and pleasure in relationship to self and with others.
As movement, it expresses confidence in self and welcomes the journey without being dismayed that there is no ‘end’ and is excited to know there will always be new beginnings.
As pleasure, it embraces learning the body and honoring the voice through inspiration, imagination, desire, and reckoning as a sexual being.
As freedom, it displaces actions and language built within patriarchal, white supremacist, heteronormative, and otherwise oppressive assumptions, and demands imagination, acknowledgment, pleasure, and liberation.
5. What is something that you’ve struggled with in your sexual journey?
As a victim and survivor of sexual violence, I became very rigid with boundaries around touch. My saying ‘no’ game was solid, and I felt so much power in the strength of my ‘no’. In my mind, the most important thing was that I could always say ‘no’, and people had to respect that. I didn’t even realize how much power was in ‘yes’ because for so long I was taught, “No means no”. So, it took time for me to realize how detached from saying ‘yes’ I really was. Finding and honoring my yes, in foods that I ate, clothes I wore, people I hugged, relationships I nurtured, sex I had…all of it was part of the journey towards being enthusiastic and adamant about saying ‘yes’ just as much as I was about saying ‘no’.
6. What do you wish you had known about sexuality when you were younger?
I had endless access to books, encyclopedias, and Ask Jeeves and dutifully referred to them for answers to my questions as needed. But more than what I wish I would have known, I wish that sex and sexuality were discussed more in households, communities, and schools. Even though I had access to information, it was hard to know what to even ask at times because, “You don’t know what you don’t know”. I wish there’d been more open conversations in general. I wish that so many things were not said in whispers or sneers. I wish that shame wasn’t as pervasive as it was and still is. I wish there were more people to talk to without fear of being called out or accused of being ‘grown’.
7. If you weren’t a sex educator what would you be?
I’d like to live in a world where working wasn’t necessary in general, but especially my work. A world where healing trauma and therapy weren’t necessary because there’d be no oppression to dismantle. But, here we are. So, I’d be a magician or a mechanic. I’ve always been infatuated and called towards the supernatural, spiritual, and unknown. Having things done ‘a specific way’ which was associated with certain beliefs, thoughts, and outcomes always felt like a necessity to me. I was called ‘particular’ or ‘OCD’ by folks who didn’t know any better. But, as I learned more about ritual, I realized that was exactly what I’d been doing almost all of my life. Oh, and I LOVE cars so that’s why I’d be a mechanic. I could see myself being a carpenter, too, actually! I like working with my hands and putting things together.
8. Outside of Afrosexology what else are you involved in?
I own Healing Exchange, which is a virtual private therapy practice specializing in relationship, sex, and trauma therapy. I work with educational programs, universities, and wellness companies to provide professional development training in the same areas. Here and there, I speak on podcasts, offer guest speaking, and provide consultation and coaching services. But enough about work! I’m involved with myself! I’m being intentional about creating and practicing new ways of being, coming home to myself, and loving myself and others. I want more time for that, and every day is an opportunity to reclaim my time.
9. If you had a superpower, what would it be?
I know this is cliché but, I’d create peace on earth and wherever else there is unrest, trouble, and violence. But if not that, then I’d have it all – super-strength and martial arts skills, great with weaponry, telepathy, and most importantly, teleportation ability. This is heavily influenced by my love of comics and superheroes, martial arts, and action movies! Such a contradiction to wanting peace on earth but hey, I like what I like!
10. Where has been your favorite place to travel?
I don’t have one specific place because, as you can see the pattern above, I rarely have a singular response for things. So, I’ll break it down by experiences:
Challenging – China. I don’t speak Mandarin and I was not a fan of having my photo taken without my permission by strangers, being stared at everywhere I went, and even followed.
Educational – Brasil & Cuba. Specifically, learning about Black culture and being engulfed in cities where I felt connected by history and stories of audacity, love, reclamation, and survival.
Food – China & Ecuador. Listen, I was already a fan of Chinese cuisine, but this was next level. I returned to the States asking for the ‘authentic’ menu, please.
Mourning – Ecuador. I went for the first time for my father’s 10-year memorial, so it was an emotionally invigorating trip. I visited the three major cities, Cuenca, Guayaquil (where my father was from), and Quito and always look forward to going back.
Nightlife – Panama & Costa Rica. All you need to know is that I lived there during my senior year of college.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now! I hope you better understand where the passion and commitment behind Afrosexology comes from, that you see some of yourself in a few responses, and that you feel inspired to answer the questions for yourself! Go ahead and share in the comments — talk soon!
Peace,
Rafaella