Liberation through Exploration: The Rebel Heart Manifesto
The world is scary right now.
We're watching a conservative fascist takeover unfold in real time, complete with military parades and gold-plated everything. The planet is melting. Our rights are evaporating. And our collective response has been to doom-scroll ourselves into a catatonic state while waiting for someone else to fix it.
So I'm not here to tell you that your anxiety isn't justified. It absolutely is. But I am going to offer at least one thing you can do to empower yourself: now is precisely the time to prioritize pleasure.
The Weaponization of Joy Deficiency
Here's what I've come to understand: the disempowerment we feel isn't just about politics. It's by design – a feature, not a bug. Capitalism has commodified our time, our attention, and our connections. Silicon Valley's dopamine merchants have replaced genuine human interaction with algorithmic facsimiles of connection.
Dating apps have transformed intimacy into a marketplace where humans swipe through each other like items on Amazon. "Hmm, this one has good reviews but the shipping time seems long. Next."
We're told our worth is measured by productivity. That our bodies are problems to be solved. That our desires are either shameful or must be packaged into marketable identities. That our loneliness can be solved by purchasing the right products.
Here in New England, with our Puritan hangover, we've been especially susceptible to the idea that suffering is virtuous. That pleasure is suspicious. That to be morally good means to be constantly sacrificing and uncomfortable.
Meanwhile, the yacht-owning class is having a grand old time.
Pleasure as Resistance
What if we've been getting it backward? What if joy isn't the reward for winning the revolution but the fuel that powers it?
The systems that oppress us maintain their control through three primary mechanisms:
Fear – keeping us in a state of perpetual anxiety
Isolation – preventing us from forming genuine connections
Shame – making us doubt and hate ourselves
When we're afraid, isolated, and ashamed, we're easier to control. We're less likely to take risks. We're less likely to trust each other. We're less likely to believe we deserve better.
The radical act, then, isn't just to protest (though please, please, DO THAT TOO). It's to actively claim your right to pleasure, connection, and embodiment in a world designed to disconnect you from all three.
When Your Heart Rebels
My thesis is simple: liberation begins in the body.
We've become so disconnected from ourselves that many of us don't know what actually feels good anymore. We don't know how to ask for what we want. We don't know how to say no to what we don't want. We're so busy performing pleasure that we've forgotten how to experience it.
If this world is to be healed, it will happen through honest connection and secure attachment – to ourselves first, and then to each other. Through learning to be truly intimate with ourselves and others, we reclaim the energy that's been drained from us.
When you know your own desires, you're harder to control. When you can communicate boundaries, you're harder to exploit. When you have genuine community, you're harder to isolate. When you embrace your body, you're harder to shame.
Make 2025 the Year of Liberal Pleasure
So yes, call your representatives. March in the streets. Donate to causes that matter.
But also:
Put down your phone and pick up your vibrator.
Call a friend – not to doom-spiral together, but to laugh until you snort.
Touch your own body with curiosity rather than judgment.
Host a dinner party where screens are banned and conversations go deep.
Dance in your kitchen like no one's watching, or with everyone watching.
The revolution might not be televised, and anyway who has cable, but it will definitely involve orgasms, laughter, and connection.
I plan to throw parties. I plan to cultivate pleasure. I plan to build community where authentic connection is the currency.
Because joyful people are harder to control, and fearless hearts are harder to shame.
So let 2025 be the year we ride something other than the bicycle of the apocalypse… maybe a vibrator instead? Let's make it the year of liberal joy, embodied resistance, and radical intimacy.
Who's with me?
