The necessity of a “guilty pleasure”: your emotional & political power-bank
Guilty pleasure synonyms: Hedonism; self-indulgence; pleasure-seeking; mindless fare; weekly cheat meal; pleasurable vibe. What do you like to indulge in & what would it feel like without the guilt?
When I first came up with this week’s Substack idea, my original plan for this piece was to write about how much I love queer reality dating shows. In fact, this was the topic of one of my Sexual Dissidence cultural studies essays during my master’s degree. Picture this: “1 bisexual bachelorette, 16 guys, 16 girls. Who will she choose?”
And while I will definitely be writing a piece about this passion of mine in the near future, what I’m feeling to write this week is the necessity of the “guilty pleasure” for our emotional wellbeing and political activism – and so, if you’ll let me, I’d love to unpack the concept with you!
Even though this content is not behind a paywall, I want to share that it takes time and energy to create and upload the content that I create, do please consider becoming a paid subscriber of ‘Pleasure Anxiously’ for as little as £3.99 a month to support my work.
Pleasure needn’t be guilty!
In all honesty, we have enough we are coerced into feeling guilty about under the weight of capitalism, “not doing enough” “not good enough” “not productive enough” - which, I believe is exactly the culprit behind this.
And it infuriates me when I work with clients who, not unlike myself, have been conditioned to think that pleasure is something “frivolous” or needs to be “earned”.
Taking inspiration from the author of Pleasure Activism, and total sci-fi dream babe, adrienne maree brown, who demands that “pleasure is our birthright”.
Not to mention that Neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach at the University of Oxford explains that “we need to be able not just to survive for ourselves, but also survive as a species.” He goes on to say that this means “the fundamental pleasures are the ones where we can have some food that gives us the energy to go on, but also sex that allows us to basically work as a species.”
Our bodies are quite literally designed to receive pleasure – in all of its forms, whether that be physical pleasure, emotional pleasure, social pleasure… whatever pleasure means to you, you are worthy of experiencing it. As long as it doesn’t harm others, right?
So why is some pleasure deemed guilty - while others not so much? And can these guilty pleasures be redefined as important tools for healing, connection, and freedom?
But hey, while we are here. Let’s just dive into our own guilty pleasures. ‘Cause I have plenty. Some of which I’m happy to divulge, perhaps in the hope that we can relieve some of the shame.
Some of my guilty pleasures
Every single reality dating show I can get my hands on
Bingeing teen American series: last year was Diary of a Vampire / this year is Gossip Girl
Listening to cheesy pop music (all day, everyday)
Eating a whole bag of Doritos or a tub of Ben and Jerry’s fish food ice cream
A quick wank
Scrolling through cute cat videos
Working from bed in my fluffy dressing gown
Splashing out on any pink item of clothing I can see in a charity shop (as you can see from the feature image)
Exercise: Take a moment to write down as many of your guilty pleasures that you can think of. Notice if there are any patterns between them - and ask yourself: why do you think they feel “guilty”?
If you feel like sharing some of your “guilty pleasures” and “whys”, pop them in the comments:
Unearthing shame
Taking stock of our own patterns is one way to start to shift our relationship with them. But what we can start to investigate is what makes a pleasure a guilty one?
A few reasons why we might feel guilty around certain pleasures are:
Pride: we might feel ashamed of our choice of TV show, or worry our music tastes aren’t “cool enough”
Health: we might be concerned that our pleasure habits are “bad” for our body, or that we’ll be seen as “too greedy”
Productivity: we might think about our to-do list and feel guilt that we are wasting time
Fear: we might imagine a future where we regret indulging in ‘said’ guilty pleasure
Connection: we might be aware that our behaviours are disconnecting us from ourselves or the people around us.
Now, of course, there may be some truths to these, such as I’m sure it’s not greeeat for my stomach to eat a whole tub of ice cream, nor is it ideal for me to scroll on my phone for hours on end when I’m in a social scenario. Nevertheless, I do wish to challenge some of these reasons.
Why? Well, first and foremost, the shame that we may feel around pleasure is often the thing that blocks us from accessing our full enjoyment of it. So unearthing that shame by bringing it to the foreground i.e. connecting with our communities, might be one way of relieving some of the negative associations.
Contrary to what I just said, there may be an element of “guiltiness” that adds a layer of pleasure that we get from the sense of “taboo”. Are you with me? As humans descended from Eve who bit that juicy ripe shiny apple, we all know too well how much we crave the “forbidden fruit.”
It’s definitely something that has inspired a lot of my sexual research – considering the world of kink and fetish as something deemed dirty and sinful according to the mainstream, but deeply erotic for many.
Compassionate regulation
Another layer for dismantling the ideas around “guilt” is the fact that while we may believe disconnecting from ourselves as something “bad”, there is an argument to be made around the necessity of something called “auto-regulation”.
When I was studying Somatic Attachment Therapy, I was so relieved to learn about the three valuable tools we have as humans to regulate when we are going through difficult experiences:
Self-regulation - processing and addressing emotions through compassionate self-awareness i.e. meditation.
Co-regulation - processing and soothing emotions with another safe person by attuning to each other’s nervous systems i.e. a warm hug.
Auto-regulation - strategy of distancing from ourselves or from what is happening in order to create space i.e. dissociating on our phones.
The leading facilitator, holistic psychologist, and trauma-specialist, Dr. Scott Lyons, shared that “resourcing and regulating are the tools that support our capacity to be present.”
What may be deemed a guilty pleasure or a “bad habit”, may actually be a helpful and necessary tool when there isn’t time or energy to self-regulate, or there isn’t another person there to support co-regulation.
While, of course, there may be more “self-destructive” behaviours at play, such as bingeing alcohol or disconnecting from our loved ones, the key here is that some may offer the necessary space from an overwhelming emotional experience.
Healing comes in many forms
I’m not necessarily saying we need to celebrate the behaviour or go “guilty-pleasure-positive”, but I’ve found offering some gentle compassion to ourselves, recognising them as essential tools for our survival.
Our bodies have been designed not only to feel pleasure and pain, but have also evolved to be able to dissociate us from the pain of being alive - of being a human that exists in this very scary and stressful time.
Our bodies are so wise, and by holding space for these “comforting pleasures” I’ll rename them, we can maybe soften our impulse to disconnect from ourselves even further creating a shame spiral (been there).
As you may have gathered, I’m a person who is obsessed with growth and learning, so I know I also need to give myself some grace when it comes to the healing process.
We cannot be present in our feelings 24/7, and as someone who is going through ongoing trauma healing, and a break up (whew), not to mention the horrific news of what is happening in the world, I have found so much comfort in my guilty pleasures. Not as a way to avoid processing and facing the difficulties, but as a way to recharge, to feel ready for when I’m ready for self-regulation and to show up for others.
Healing doesn’t have to look like you sitting meditatively on a mountain somewhere (though as I’m off to the Tuscan mountains next week, I hope to be doing some of that too haha), it can also really look like resting and indulging in some “seemingly guilty” creature comforts.
Pleasure activism
Another reason why some pleasures might feel “guiltier” than others, is due to power. In other words, who gets to decide what is an acceptable form of pleasure?
Dr. Sami Schalk, a Pleasure Activist and Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, went viral a few years ago when she tweeted:
“Can I instead write an article about how the concept of guilty pleasures is based in classism, racism, & sexism instead? Because “low brow” often means poor/working class, racialized or feminized things? How bout that article?”
She went onto research and write “Lowbrow Culture and Guilty Pleasures? The Performance and Harm of Academic Elitism” sharing that thanks to the “deeply puritanical roots” of our culture, pleasure is seen as “sinful and bad and self-indulgent.”
She goes on to say the term ‘guilty pleasure’ “is a way of kind of distancing ourselves from pleasure” and that often these types of pleasures “are associated with women and people of colour, marginalised folks.”
Emphasising that the people at the top, typically straight, white, cis men are typically the people who have historically decided which pleasures are deemed valuable or worthy (read: not guilty).
In Pleasure Activism, brown asks “How do we make social justice the most pleasurable human experience?”
Incorporating joy as a form of resistance is essential for the revolutionaries in the world to a) imagine a future where pleasure is accessible for all people and not just the privileged few, and b) ensure the process that gets us there is just as pleasurable as a form of energising political activism. For example, self-care and community-care in the form of healing spaces in between actions or demonstrations.
Pleasure can be the life-force, the energy that challenges the systems that seek to oppress our pleasure.
Oppressive governments thrive upon a capitalist culture of burnout. Thus we must be careful not use pleasure as a form of bypassing the work that needs to be done such as being more present and intentional with our activism.
Intentional pleasure
So how do we become more intentional with our pleasure? Even if that means perhaps indulging in the ‘guiltiness’ of it!
Shalk emphasises in her piece with:
“I encourage people to just ask the question about why: What’s the problem here?” she said. “Is it something that’s harmful? Is my pleasure hurting someone, or are you just telling me that the way I experience the world joyfully is bad because it’s different from the way you experience joy in the world?”
Journaling Questions:
Considering my guilty pleasures, which ones do I want to be more intentional with?
How do these make me feel?
How do I want to feel before, during, and after when engaging with these?
What would eliminating guilt from the pleasure feel like?
If I could rename my “guilty pleasure” as something else, what would I like to call it?
What would being compassionate to myself look like when I’m engaging in them?
Thank you for reading ‘Pleasure Anxiously’. As a brief reminder, here are some of the offerings & treats I have for you at the moment: