Oftentimes, activists work can occur in silos and the praxis of feminism through groups and rest is a teaching that is left with an older generation of older Black feminists. However, Hedone returns to the grassroots joy of community while utilizing the online space for accessibility. This diverse project includes various activities to ensure the attainability of pleasure for members of the society.

What is Hedone and what was the catalyst for starting the initiative?

Hedone started as the first step in creating my own sex toys and the idea has evolved since its inception. I wanted to begin by creating a community where I could discuss, explore, teach and learn what I could about the ways we interact with pleasure. Then hopefully, in time, create visibility around an ecosystem of African pleasure through research, archiving in various mediums, and consistent community. 

I was fortunate enough to get a grant to produce a digital zine about online gender-based violence and the community started forming around me. Working with Michel’le Donnelly, Nkhensani Manabe, Rendani Nemakhavhani, and Deyo Adebiyi, we produced the zine collaboratively with all the creators, whether they were writing, creating a mini-documentary, sharing photography and poems, or creating filters to allow for people to share nudes online safely. Once the zine was published, I realised just how many more stories we could be sharing and decided to start self-funding this experiment in archiving the experiences and opinions of my community. It’s always been incredibly important for me to ensure that young creators are paid for their work (even when being self-funded comes with its hurdles). 

We’ve been able to publish just under 40 creations since, with topics varying from dealing with grief, accountability, various relationships with pleasure (the mundane, complex, asexual), fantasy, psychedelics, and BDSM. We’ve also recently been able to partner with tech start-up Storya in a writing challenge around queer erotica. 

You have a background as a sex positivity educator amongst other roles. What pulled you towards this area of expertise and the active transgression of respectability politics around sex with particular reference to kink?

I wish I could say it was something I had the foresight to make happen intentionally but it started with a Wordpress blog I had after a friend suggested I try blogging. One of the blog posts that got quite a bit of attention was titled ‘Confessions of a Submissive’ (years later, I gave a TEDx talk about a similar experience). I had recently joined Twitter and was connecting to Black sex-positive feminists and kinksters. The more I was sharing my experiences online, the more I was offered opportunities to write articles and host workshops around my loved experiences, rape culture, and consent. My work has always been quite community-oriented, working in collaboration with others, creating space for younger creatives to get paid for their work, and dreaming up ways [and] spaces that my younger self would’ve been incredibly happy to be in. This is basically all inner child work for me. 

3. There are certain categories of people who are invisible when we see images of positive sexuality. It is still mainly heterosexual or the images are of queer able-bodied persons who meet beauty standards. How is Hedone traversing this expectation by providing representation? 

This is such a beautiful question and something that has always stayed on top of my mind for me as I gathered images and experiences to share on our Instagram. I’ve always been a deeply visual person and being able to see diverse bodies in images portraying pleasure, whether sexual or not, has been a healing balm for me. Just being able to source imagery that shows self-connection is a form of entering and prioritisation ⁠— it feels like an intentional love, and quite honestly, survival. As Sonya Renee Taylor has said, ‘Living in a female body, a Black body, an aging body, a fat body, a body with mental illness is to awaken daily to a planet that expects a certain set of apologies to already live on our tongues. There is a level of “not enough” or “too much” sewn into these strands of difference.’ My hope in all I do with Hedone is that it carves that space for ourselves, that it sees the fullness of our community and replenishes our erotic power. We may not always get it right, but every attempt is an intentional carving of space that divests from the shame many still associate with being ‘outside’ of the margins of beauty standards. 

4. Community fostering seems to be important to you, especially in the queer community. How does Hedone operate to create a community in both the digital and physical realms?

Honestly, most of the time we simply share things online and hope for the best. Hedone is based mostly online because as a founder who’s chronically ill, I don’t have it in me to organise in-person gatherings I feel will be safe in the ways I and other community members need. This online platform was created in late 2020 and has been running completely online since. We connect with our community online and have been growing quite slowly. The slow growth is both intentional and incidental in that Instagram has basically banned us from doing any paid ads so we have to rely solely on organic sharing to grow. This has, however, made our community intimate, creating a wonderful web. 

5. Can you expand more on the Community Learning Garden? 

The Community Learning Garden is an intimate digital gathering where we learn from our own experiences; I realised just how many people around me are brilliant, skilled and some natural teachers. Knowing that I, myself, was fortunate enough to be given spaces to do informal teaching around pleasure, BDSM, consent, and rape culture when I was younger, I hoped that this space could become that for others. A space to share without the pressure of being ‘accredited’, feeling like a lecturer, and rather focusing on sharing and conversation. 

Our first offering is Care Work [which is] a virtual discussion group around identifying the care we need and asking for it. Future offerings we’re currently developing include discussion groups around Pleasurable Feminisms, Anarchitecture + Beyond (a support space around disability and sexual intimacy), amateur photography, as well as workshops for parents looking to have protective conversations with their children. I love learning and am building a lot of what is in the garden around my interests (hoping that this will slowly become a place where others know [what] to access when). They have a specific interest and want to explore topics they couldn’t usually without it being expensive or inaccessible. 

6. You seem to employ a holistic approach to education and accessibility. We have spoken in the past about the possibility of a feminist reading group. What would this look like given the challenges around the accessibility of materials and accessibility of language?

All the offerings we hope to have within our community are grounded in discussion first. Whether it’s a reading group, support group, photography, or yoga, we work with each creative offering in ensuring that the ways, concepts or teachings shared are accessible. Even when texts are complex, I believe completely in the ability to break things down into language that is easy for most to understand. By ensuring those who offer their skills to the garden are also aware that they don’t have to rely solely on their knowledge, and base their sharing in conversations and lived experiences. We all have so much to learn from each other and having a space to explore, question and collaborate in knowledge creation and sharing is how we create more accessible education spaces. 

7. Activism work can be quite harrowing and exhausting. At times it may resemble the story of Sisyphus. What helps you to cultivate joy and intention in your work? 

Our work grounds itself in the work of Audre Lorde’s ‘Erotic as Power’, Adrienne Maree Brown’s ‘Pleasure Activism’, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s ‘Care Work’ in the ways that it seeks to make space for pleasure, rest and care as the foundation of our activism. The majority of our contributors are Black, queer, or disabled; people who often feel pressure to overperform as a way to ensure they have future opportunities. We weave those lessons in everything we do, working gently with creatives, never with the pressure of deadlines. As much as we know that this work is transformative in fractal ways, we also know that our labour does not need to be urgent or strain those who are contributing. We offer support in developing creations, especially to those who are baby writers and creatives, often anxious and in need of creative ‘holding’. The way we care for our community also includes making sure that everyone knows the amount we pay for work upfront.