The Secret Lives of Wannabe Wayward Women: Tells, Tales & Ways We Grow Into Pleasure

Exploring the Radical Journey of Pleasure and Self-Reclamation for Black Women

This essay is for the courageous men and women breaking cycles…and chains, too. You inspire me. And I see you.

Tale: I lay back as the woman hovering over me uses my own “Satisfyer” toy on me. There was no nervous energy. No anxieties about my body. Just remnants of too many mixed drinks, excitement, and a friend outside the door listening. I listened, too. Listened to my wetness and eager kisses. Listened to my joy and weeping. Listened…to me. My insides went haywire after that night. As if all parts of my nervous system were rewiring and reconfiguring…every story I’d ever been told.

There’s a rushed, yet slow and proper, yet scandalous work that is happening when Black women decide pleasure isn’t owned, but rented. And that “the first of the month” is every day. In my experience(s) to date, it’s not an arrival, but an excavation. Whether through journaling, therapy, or deep breathing, I’m tasked with unearthing the parts of me that my upbringing, fears, and faith buried. I am now tasked with writing this essay in a way that I hope illuminates my journey. The tenderness of it. The rage. And the curiosity about the parts in me…that can’t wait to bloom.

I know I’m not alone.

In fact, while the pleasure landscape for Black women is expanding, there are still existing structures that are too narrow—still secrets we harbor and desires we hoard…to keep peace. We cannot broach reclamation without first raising history. This nation’s appalling track record of slavery, labor, and the ongoing treatment of Black women’s bodies and flesh contributes to sexual and reproductive health inequities. And? Disparities in our pleasure (Wilson, 2021). As a result, some Black girls, women, families, and communities choose silence rather than discussing and embracing our sexuality (Hammonds, 1994; Thorpe et al., 2024). We choose comfort rather than disclosing the backshots we like, cum we swallow, and legs we’re between. This work of exploration, agency, and ecstasy—what many scholars will refer to as pleasure-mapping—is not self-inflicted terror. Instead, it’s a radicalized and wayward practice of joy (Hargons, 2025; Thorpe et al., 2024).

Tell: Reckon with your roots. While it doesn’t feel good, I’m choosing to name all the waters that have traveled through my soil…and to my foundation. Compulsory heterosexuality. Homophobia. Biphobia. The Black church. Self-hate. People-pleasing. This combination has comprised my history and been my default performance. But it doesn’t mean they’ll be my permanent story.

Tale: There’s nothing like the feeling of fresh, soft, and warm bedsheets. There’s nothing like being in them alone and realizing that…when Paul D told Sethe in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”, “You your best thing…” he was right. I am my best thing.

Much like us, pleasure doesn’t exist in a box. Aside from the patriarchal and heteronormative expectations to constantly center romance and men, there are other measurable, material, and tangible things to foster whimsical and orgasmic delight. For me, it’s been the recognition of triggers and a more regulated nervous system. It’s also been using my voice, dancing in the mirror, admiring my body, leaning into community, and setting boundaries.

Ultimately, it’s been making my “secret” life not so secret at all…and making attempts at living more authentically. Adrienne Marie Brown would call this part of Pleasure Activism, a radical politics of healing and happiness for Black women to have more life-enriching experiences and desires rather than life-threatening ones, and serve as a path to liberation (Brown, 2019). If we, as Black girls and women, are to really feel safe and free, then I’m sure both Adrienne and I would beg of us to ask ourselves the following: What would it look like…if our lives really had pleasure equity?

Tell: Reckon with your pleasure. I’m realizing more and more that pleasure requires presence. And I cannot access presence if I do not access my breath and a slower way of living. This has proven difficult. If I am to index what feels good currently, then I am to put myself first and at the top of my to-do list daily. In reckoning with my own pleasure, I am also reckoning with my own safety. And facing the music that, to me, sounds like…everything is a threat. Speaking or writing my truths into visibility is inherently teaching me…to be legible to me. And only me.

Speaking the truth about pleasure also means speaking the truth…about fear. Fear that what we like will be rejected. Fear that who we like won’t be accepted. Fear…that we’ll be alone. The spaces many of us find ourselves in—our churches, friends, families, and communities—are often operating as both a refuge and a boundary. A place that holds love, intimacy, and fierce care. And? A place that holds weight, expectation, and pressure. As a result, our relationships with these spaces, along with our sexual image and identity, are both a home…and a battlefield. Currently, I am navigating where I stay…and where I leave. I am wayfinding what wisdom I let go…and what I keep. I’m in uncharted territory trying to unclench my anxieties and release negotiation…so I can grab self-devotion and liberation instead.

Tale: Recently, I’ve been trying (and sometimes failing) at approaching my dating experiences differently. I’ve been asking myself, “Does this please me?”. In a recent interaction with a man who I so desperately wanted to please me, I found myself at a crossroad that I’ve been at before. Do I stay for the sake of the sexual action/tension and accept the breadcrumbs given to me? Or…do I decide that I actually won’t reward low effort and that pleasure is all around me? Do I use this as an opportunity to evaluate and manage my expectations and standards? Do I…leave?

I write this from one wannabe wayward woman to another…there is no perfect path to defining what “waywardness” looks like to you. There are only the steady and consistent attempts of finding y(our) answers and being honest. For many of us, these attempts rub against the very resistance that is filled with the stereotypes, caricatures, extremes, absolutes, dehumanization, repression, and violence that flattens our evolving lives. But hope is not lost. Again, pleasure is expanding. And research is showing that we are documenting more nuanced definitions and ways of embodying our pleasure and sexual identities (Thorpe et al., 2024). This includes: joy, alignment, liberation, emotion, and connection. Naming our pleasure, what we want, how we want it, where we want it, and who we want it by…is as legitimate and complex as any other political act in this country.

If this essay hasn’t done anything else, I hope it is a micro-sized liturgy for practicing “yes” and “no” even if you stutter. Practicing truth-telling. Practicing permission, experimenting, and trying on…everything. And above all…practicing forgiving yourself for the parts you may have shut down because someone told you…to shut up. To the secret lives of every wannabe wayward woman reading this right now, I hope after this… y(our) pleasure isn’t so secret after all. I hope it’s no longer a prize but a protest. And? I hope that actually…it’s not rented…but owned and NEVER bargained.

Final Tale: The little girl that could…became the woman who chose herself. Over…and over again.

Yours in Pleasure,
Adia R. Louden

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REFERENCES

brown, a. (2019). Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good. AK Press.

Hammonds, E. (1994). Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality. Differences, 6(2-3), 126-145. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-6-2-3-126

Hargons, C. (2025). Good Sex: Stories, Science, and Strategies for Sexual Liberation. Row House Publishing.

Thorpe, S., Dogan, J. N., Townes, A., Malone, N., Jester, J. K., & Hargons, C. N. (2021). Black Women's Pleasure Mapping. Journal of black sexuality and relationships, 7(4), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1353/bsr.2021.0008

Thorpe, S., Malone, N., Hargons, C. N., Dogan, J. N., & Jester, J. K. (2022). The Peak of Pleasure: US Southern Black Women's Definitions of and Feelings Toward Sexual Pleasure. Sexuality & culture, 26(3), 1115–1131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09934-6

Wilson, D.R. (2021). Sexual Exploitation of Black Women From the Years 1619-2020. Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, 10(1) Article 13. https://digitalcommons.tourolaw.edu/jrge/vol10/iss1/13