The CNP Podcast · Counter Narrative Project

Episode #1 - Pleasure As Liberation (National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2023 #NBHAAD)

February 7, 2023·52 min·4 clips

The episode opens with a listener discretion notice and frames itself as a special release in honor of National Black HIV AIDS Awareness Day 2023. It was conceived by CNP's Narrative Justice Leadership Lab participants. The group includes Christina Gooden, Amari Marcos, Lance McCready, Brandon Nicholas, Pure, Christopher Sutton, and Ben Robinson III. The discussion begins with a Tony Morrison monologue from Beloved and Baby Soogs's insistence on loving the flesh. From there, the group turns to the idea that Black bodies have been treated as if they are not worthy of joy, satisfaction, or sensuality. The episode keeps returning to what pleasure means and why it so often gets treated like a taboo. That question leads into the experience of discovering desire, including liking guys in a world that does not make room for that truth. The conversation does not hurry past that tension. Instead, it lets the duality stay present. A memory about buying bodybuilder magazines becomes a funny and unexpectedly intimate example of early attraction. The speaker connects that memory to body image, family misunderstanding, and first exposure to porn. The episode then broadens the frame to Black LGBTQ culture more generally. Pleasure is described as something people are often warned away from claiming. The conversation argues that Black queer people are too often cast only as sidekicks, style consultants, or comic relief. It pushes back by naming pleasure as part of humanity and validity. The group also keeps circling back to the way shame and exclusion can make even feeling good seem suspicious. One of the closing ideas is that pleasure can function as a compass. Following what actually feels good can move a person away from trauma and toward a freer self. The show closes with thanks, production credits, and a reminder about CNP's donation page. The result is a communal conversation that stays warm, direct, and politically aware while refusing tidy answers.

As heard by us

Pleasure is treated as a serious practice, not a luxury or slogan.

The special, created by Narrative Justice Leadership Lab participants, treats pleasure as a form of liberation in honor of National Black HIV AIDS Awareness Day 2023.

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Why you'd press play

When you want a Black queer conversation about pleasure as liberation.

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