realigning through pleasure, masturbation and self-exploration with jimanekia eborn — interview by brianne patrice
*TW= rape, sexual assault/violence
i was listening to an episode of alex elle’s ‘hey girl’ podcast a few years ago. i was living in new jersey with my aunt at the time, freelancing in new york city at a place that paid me just enough but robbed me of my sanity and my freedom. i remember stumbling across this conversation she was having with jamila reddy following a disagreement i had with someone who was romantically interested. with this person, i shared my fears and my discomfort after being groped on the 6th train during my commute home one evening and how my immediate reaction wasn’t to fight back but was to stand still. it was as if i was frozen in time, immediately journeying back to my seventeen year old self remembering what it felt like to have someone assume control of your body without asking and with no permission granted. i kept thinking to myself that there was no way that this was going to happen again. and as the train pulled into the next subway station i exited while glancing over my shoulder hoping that this person wouldn’t follow me as i continued my way home. shattered and in tears, i called upon someone i thought to be a safe space. but as the call continued the only response given was his disappointment, anger and disdain. my lack of response was what upset him, weak he called me for failing to defend myself. and as I found myself explaining to him the reason for me remaining mute, i gathered my composure, hung up the phone never to speak to them again.
this year was the first year i spoke of my rape to my mother. i am 34 years of age now and have carried this secret with me through most of my adulthood. i’d been wanting to tell her but felt that it was too late, that after carrying it around for so long that she would be upset with me for not speaking up, for failing to bring this to her. but mostly i feared that she wouldn’t believe me. i feared her reaction because the person wasn't unknown to me but was once someone i shared love with. but instead she called me with a pain only a mother could possess. in her words, i could hear her fighting back the tears studying the trauma i must have silently endured. and when asked why i held onto it for so long i had no real answer for her other than “i don’t know” but in truth, i was still reconciling my own guilt and shame around it; placing blame on myself instead of the one who caused me unjust harm. i didn’t think about it then but its been circling my mind how so many events have compromised my relationship to myself, my mind and my body. how growing up in a christian household prepared me for marriage before it prepared me for womanhood. how sexual violence contributed to me objectifying myself adding to my hyper-sexuality and this need to attach my confidence, my worth and my value to the number of men who wanted me instead of learning and knowing what it meant to love and want myself.
i’ve long since mended my relationship to self. have long since gained understanding in loving and pleasing and have created a world that offers me praise and worship through the uplifting of my own hymns. my journey started in 2016 and all of it’s multifactedness brought to freedom that i once believed was unattainable to women like me. in conversation with jimanekia eborn, trauma specialist and sex educator, we candidly address realigning through pleasure, healing through masturbation and self exploration and what it means to free ourselves of shame. because regardless of our background. regardless of the pain in our histories nothing should limit our access to pleasure, sexually or platonically.
the result of trauma is often the disconnection from self. we lose trust in our ability to make decisions for ourselves and forget what it means to be discerning and intuitive. how does prioritizing pleasure help us to re-align?
when we are prioritizing pleasure we are fighting against a system that wants us to be sad; that wants us to lean into this mindset that we are lesser than. however, i personally believe that when we are in pleasure we are in happiness. and when we are in happiness we trust ourselves and we get to be in happy relationships and we get to create. and that when we are happy we are in power. as we are reclaiming these things it causes an energy shift not just in a personal way but in a communal way. we’ve been taught in this european society that things like body hair are unacceptable but with a shift in narrative we now see it as something that is protective, enjoyable and beautiful. people don’t like that you get to choose who you are. and they don’t like that you get to love yourself; that energy becomes overwhelming for them and for those who don’t know themselves or who have yet learned how to tap into their own force field. so when we do it, it’s scary because again, it’s an assertion of power.
for us, as black women in specific, it is such a radical statement to boldly and out loudly state that we openly love and enjoy sex without subjecting ourselves to all of the stereotypes and stigmas that are sure to follow. in your opinion, why do you think that is?
historically our bodies have been conveyed as something that is to be both idolized and disgusted, right? it goes back to these european beauty standards and how everyone on instagram is trying to recreate the bodies we grew up with, the bodies that we were and still are shamed for. and somewhere in between these two extremes adds to the over-sexualization of black bodies and the harm that we endure because of it and from it. for example, the word ‘slut’. i once carried so much shame around it but also, i have found so much safety in it. i can allow you to place your judgements onto me or i can embrace a word that you’ve coined as negative and as derogatory and repurpose it in way that is fun and acceptable for me— because i am a woman who likes sex. i do enjoy it. and your judgements are your own personal projections that have absolutely nothing to do with me.
when you bring up moving past shame in conjunction with the word ‘slut’, i think of a conversation i had earlier this year around respectability politics and how we as black women are taught not to like such words especially from the mouths of our partners. it’s seen as a sign of disrespect whereas many of us enjoy being called a “bitch”, or a “slut” or a “dirty little whore” in the bedroom. how did you move past that shame? and what were some of those steps for you?
i think i was kind of forced into it; not the idea of being called these things but the idea of opening my mind. i am a reader so on one end, i was able to read about people limiting themselves in this way and i’ll be honest, it intrigued me. but i am also an 80s baby who grew up in the 90s with cable in her bedroom so on the other hand, watching things like real sex and taxi cab confessions exposed me to how other people were choosing to live. thus, at a young age, i began asking questions— if it’s cool for them and they get to be happy and have fun then what if i tried some of these things and then set boundaries around it? therefore, when you’re asking steps, for me, it’s about having conversations beforehand. anytime i work with someone around sex and/or trauma, having a conversation in a comfortable setting that is outside of the bedroom is a start. boundaries are power. and they keep us safe and help us to set up how we want to have sex and with whom we want to have sex. when i think about things like self dates and masturbation, the whole thing is designed for us to learn, right? it enables us to create a cheat sheet for our partners, “you want to have sex and i want to have. you want to have fun and i want to have fun— here are some certainties that i know will make this enjoyable for me” and then we can go from there. pleasure is about freedom, right? it’s about us finding the number of ways our minds and our bodies can be stimulated and that includes exploring things that weren’t necessarily normalized for us growing up. but contrary to what we’ve been taught, everything is an option. and you hold the power. you can choose to explore and to experiment to see how good something feels or doesn’t feel within your body. you make the decisions.
in another faceted, repressed sexual shame is often the result of church trauma. regardless of our religious backgrounds most of us are taught that words like—pleasure, sex, erotic—are dirty and should be absent from our vocabulary. however, within this work we learn of their individual and collective powers. what has been your personal experience in defining the three and where does the erotic show up for you?
pleasure doesn’t have to be just about sex; we can allow it to be this full thing in our lives that ushers in more happiness. so in addition to sex, it’s also about what we enjoy? what makes us happy? what are our platonic pleasures and desires? pleasure is about connection and sharing and relationship. and it is also fun and playful. while growing up, i went to a number of different churches til becoming aware of their hypocrisies and decided to no longer attend. people tend to talk at us instead of talking to us and that serves as a distraction. they want us to live in a specific way and when we begin to ask ‘why’ they become uncomfortable and defensive while we are taking back our power and our sovereignty. in asking additional questions like, “why do you think like this?”, “why do you want me to think like this?”, or “where’s this coming from?” it throws people off. but in turn it allows you to learn, to discover and to show up in a way that is both aligned and meaningful. in terms of the erotic, it shows up all around me. like when i’m taking a selfie and i think to myself “oooh let me get that angle” and then i send it to someone to see if it enticed them as much as it enticed me. it can also be in how i carry myself, knowing that when i walk into a room my energy commands immediate attention. there’s also this quiz called the erotic blueprint by jaiya love that helps you define what kind of sex you might like. for example, my partner is very sensual and i am kinky sexual. even knowing these pieces of information is erotic for me because it allows me to receive the kind of love and touch that i want to recieve. and it also allows me to show up for my partners and love them how they want to be loved.
why is masturbation so healing?
masturbation is about learning who you are but in a different way, right? it’s about learning your body and who you are within your body. and it’s about learning what makes you happy, what satisfies you. oftentimes, people view sex as something obtained through an outside source. and while yes, having a sexual partner is fun BUT it should always start at home. set the mood for yourself— maybe you start with a hot shower or a bath alongside your favorite oils or favorite scents. allowing you to relax and ease into your body releasing tension. masturbation is the exploration and the beforehand, the foreplay, is the sensual. we often think that in order to masturbate we have to insert something into our body but the use of external things isn’t always a requirement. use your hands, your fingers. touch your erogenous zones and once you have gotten comfortable then maybe introduce toys, props and things into your self pleasure sessions. masturbation is about safety just as much as it is about exploration. it provides a safe space to weed out the possibility of being harmed thereby boosting your confidence to explicitly state when you like something, when you don’t like something, when you want them to stop and when you are open to trying. masturbation is personal and is no one’s journey but your own.
last question, why is black sexual liberation so important for us to acknowledge and understand?
black sexual liberation is about seeing who we are and being allowed to be seen. as black women, black bodies, black beings, black people we can a perform a certain act—any act—and it would be categorized as scandalous. but if a white woman or white counterpart was to do the same she would be seen as ‘forward’ and ‘strong’. we see it all the time in the comparison between women like Cardi B and Megan The Stallion vs Kim K and the whole Kardashian/Jenner clan. so for me, liberation is about restoration of power. nothing about this is new, people aren’t just suddenly fighting for black liberation; we have been fighting our whole lives for our basic freedoms and civil liberties. it might just look different. the conversations might sound different and now, they are more in your face and not necessarily happening behind closed doors. there is healing here— healing of the past, the present and of what’s to come. we are changing the generations ahead of us because as they look back they will see that one is allowed to just be no one but themselves. that that is and always will be an option.
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BRIANNE PATRICE IN CONVERSATION WITH JIMANEKIA EBORN
jimanekia eborn is a queer media consultant, comprehensive sex educator, and sexual assault & trauma expert, who has worked in mental health for the past 13 years in sex education and sexual trauma support. jimanekia is the host of the podcast trauma queen, and the founder of tending the garden, a supportive space for sexual assault survivors of different marginalized identities.