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Spark Fire: A Zine About Getting In Touch With Your Desires
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Spark Fire

A Zine About Getting In Touch With Your Desires

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Intro

“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves…”
- Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic

Sexual desire is a huge taboo in American society. School’s sex education programs, are, at their worst, delusionally preaching abstinence and in denial that people are having sex, or at best, still put the emphasis on shame and fear by focusing on STIs and pregnancy. Western culture as a whole has only recently, and very slowly, started to develop language and processes for holding people accountable for harm, but talking about how to avoid it in the first place still disempowers people by feeding into a narrative that people are either predators or victims. Control of sexual expression, activity, and education has always been a means of controlling people in other ways. With so much of the culture we have constructed around sex being focused on the bad stuff, where is the space for joy, connection, and healing?

I created this zine because I wanted to explore the possibilities of using somatics to explore our sexual desires. I have been involved with many sexual health and rape prevention programs in my life, and I have always felt that in order to create a world full of trusting, honest, and loving relationships, conversations about consent aren't enough. To me, consent is still a form of gatekeeping of our bodies, deciding what we do or don't want based on what other people want first, and then decide to offer us. I wanted to give folks the space to explore what they want or are curious to experience, alone and/or with others, so that all sexual partners are showing up with agency, autonomy, curiosity, and imagination.

Overview

This zine is broken up into 3 parts:

  1. Writing: background information about desire, pleasure, rape culture, consent culture, and how somatics (tuning into to your body’s wisdom) fits into navigating all of these things.
  2. Prompts: various questions for you to reflect on to help discover your desires and notice how they feel in your body.
  3. Resources: more information to keep learning about these topics, references to sources I used, and awesome people to follow and support who are also doing this work.

(It is currently still in a google doc but will eventually be made into a physical booklet with accompanying website.)

What this zine does not cover

Trauma and Abuse

 I fully admit that I am not an expert on any of this, especially when it comes to how trauma and abuse play into the process of desire mapping. For that, I have a few resources at the end of this zine and welcome any additional ones you would like to contribute.

Psychology

This zine is intentionally focused on the somatic experience and how it relates to sensing desire. Obviously psychology is a big factor in this, but I’m choosing to not go too deep in that direction for the sake of keeping focus on the body.

I hope you enjoy what I have created here, and that it inspires you to join me in the movement for a just, liberated, inclusive, sex-positive, joyful, and violence-free world. And please let me know if you have any questions or feedback for me, I would love to hear it.

Who am I?

I’m Laika (they/them), a pleasure activist, sex educator, entertainer, and instigator. Seeking my own liberation and inspiring the liberation of others through exploring sexuality, gender, and healthy relationships has been a core part of my life since I was young. I am white, Russian, Jewish, queer, non-binary, polyamorous, and fat.

My story, in a very small nutshell:

I grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco. The Bay Area is often seen as a bastion of sex-positivity, and in many ways it lives up to that reputation. My college years and onward were, in fact, filled with pretty wild sexual adventures, but the idea of having my own desires, acknowledging them, and seeking out fulfillment with others did not occur to me until my late 20’s. Most of my sexual experiences were focused on either the other person’s pleasure, or a fiercely tit-for-tat dynamic where both (or all) parties had to get the same attention, had to have an orgasm, etc. When I think about the evolution of my sexuality, and how social norms have influenced it, it kinda looks like this:

Phase I: Desirability

→

Phase II: Boundaries

→

Phase III: Desires

All people, but especially those who are marginalized and/or experience oppression are often taught that they should be grateful for whatever sexual attention they get, wanted or unwanted. I internalized this pretty hard. I wanted to be wanted, to be ‘good at sex’, to please. Beyond that, I had no idea what I wanted.

It was many years into being sexually active that I learned to listen for and to my boundaries, and to express when something wasn’t working for me or made me uncomfortable. This was huge progress over silent people-pleasing, but still just a response to other people’s desires. The only agency I had was to decide if I liked what someone else was offering me, or not, and if I felt up to communicating the latter, otherwise the former was assumed.

It wasn’t until a solid decade after I had become sexually active that I realized that I was entitled to expressing my own desires. It felt so foreign, after years of trying to fit a mold of desirability for other people’s approval and consumption. What kind of sex do I want to be having? What do I want to try? And with whom? These thoughts overwhelmed me. But it felt powerful to know that the possibilities were there. Despite years of experiencing other peoples’ entitlement to my body, I found that I had internalized that same entitlement, and had to work on unlearning it.


Phase IV: The next step, then, has to be about imagining what could be. Listening for what I want, learning to embrace the feeling of desire as a powerful force of possibility, not something that makes me "desperate," "greedy", or "needy," and practicing resilience in asking for what I want without expectation or entitlement.

Things that have aided my exploration of desire:
Gratitude

I am deeply grateful for so many magical humans, including but not limited to adrienne maree brown, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Ev’yan Whitney, Rawiyah Tariq, Allison Moon, Doja Cat, Beyonce, Cardi B, Janelle Monae, Stas Schmiedt, Leander Roth, and Theo Isoz. Their work and existences in this world have blown my mind more times than I can count and have influenced this zine in profound ways. I list many of their creations in the resources section of the zine, please support and amplify their work. I also honor all of the recognized and unrecognized labor that BIPOC, queer and trans folks, women and femmes, disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent folks, elders, and so many others contribute to the movement for a just, liberated, inclusive, sex-positive, joyful, and violence-free world.

“When we begin to live from within outward, in touch with the power of the erotic within ourselves, and allowing that power to inform and illuminate our actions upon the world around us, then we begin to be responsible to ourselves in the deepest sense. For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like their only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within.”
- Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic

Part One: Writing

Desire, Pleasure, and Somatics

What is Sexual Desire?

"Desire actually consists of three distinct stages. First, getting clear on what you want. Next, communicating it. And last, being available to actually receive what you want, and recognizing it when it comes. Often, this process breaks down for people in one of these stages. Sadly, after a number of failed attempts, many people subconsciously learn to push away desire, as it has become the source of pain."
Dr. Pavini Moray

Why is exploring/knowing what we desire important?

We need to challenge sexual scripting

Since we were young, we have been fed scripts and expected to adhere to norms by the societies and cultures we are part of. These scripts dictate what sexual desires are "acceptable" or "appropriate" to act upon, or even think about. In American culture, those scripts often uphold systems of oppression such as patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, cisheteronormativity/homophobia/transphobia, and more. If you aren’t actively seeking to unlearn, subvert, and dismantle these systems in your relationships with yourself, your lovers, your friends, your community, and society as a whole, you might find it difficult to tap into what desires are truly your own.

Some examples of sex scripts in mainstream American culture:

*(I’m including trans, cis, LGBTQ+, and straight people in these gender identities because they seem to universally apply to people who identify as ‘men’ and ‘women’) 

Have you experienced any of these examples? Either when having expectations about yourself, or others? Personally, I find these scripts to be boring. Also, a lot of pressure! The irony of the third example, for me, is that exploring my queerness was actually what helped me break out of the trance of heteronormativity. To quote Jaime M. Grant, "This, in my humble opinion, is one of the superpowers LGBTQ people bring to the party in any liberation project—the terrible genius of surviving being targeted and often cast out around our genders and our sexualities. The daily decisions we’ve made to embody ourselves and connect with the people we lust and long for—these choices are the clay and the fuel of our vision for a more expansive, more just world. Even as the costs to us have been so monumental."[1]

We need to dismantle rape culture

Sexual scripts are a big factor in the prevalence of rape culture. Rape culture is “a culture in which consent violation is normal and pervasive and we rationalize it unless it is particularly violent egregious.”[2]

“I once got to swim in a body of water where saltwater met freshwater,” writes adrienne maree brown. “With goggles on, I could see the subtle horizontal line between the freshwater on top and the heavier, denser seawater below. That visual comes to mind as I think of the cultures in which we swim in the United States. The heavier seawater is our much-defended rape culture, which is fed by fantasies of incest, rape, coercion, boundary transgression, force, transaction, and scenarios where the masculine wields power over the feminine. Floating about that is the culture of repression, often rooted in religious spaces. Repression fantasies focus on purity, innocence, virginity, monogamy, and youth.
“These fantasies are one of the ways we get trained in the gender-normative behaviors that sustain our layered culture. We learn from parents, teachers, extended family, media, religious leaders, and basically all adults we encounter. And, of course, our early lovers, who are often fumbling in their own confusion and learning.”[3]

The #MeToo movement has shifted the sexual zeitgeist in a powerful way from "let’s teach people how to not get raped" to "let’s actually listen to victim’s stories, believe them, support them, hold harm-doers accountable, and call out the parts of our culture that have made harmful behavior acceptable."

Unfortunately, in the context of a punitive and sex-negative society, sexual desire is still under a great deal of scrutiny. Accountability for causing harm often results in punitive measures, and when that punishment involves incarceration, we further dehumanize and alienate people. Labels like perpetrators/rapists and victims offer no room for growth or healing. Transformative justice practices heal and repair wounds within and between people and communities, so that we’re moving “...from a rigid, punitive, disconnected society to an adaptive, resilient, and interdependent one.”[4]

Consent culture has limitations

Consent culture, on the other hand, invites us to have more nuanced communication before, during, and after sexual encounters, and to communicate with the intention of balancing out any inherent power dynamics that may be at play. "Considering what someone else desires isn’t a bad thing. Actually, it’s a form of empathy. The consideration just needs to be reciprocal, and not at the expense of one’s own desire."[5]

The problem with using a legal framework like consent for negotiating sexual activity, however, is that it implies a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from one party to another as a way to waive liability. We need more nuance, empathy, and collaboration[6]. Another issue is that we need more practice naming what we do want, and not just what we don’t.

Consent is nuanced!  Boundaries and desires are not a binary system. There is a huge range between ‘Fuck Yes’ and ‘Fuck No’. Sometimes an activity can be an ‘I don’t personally enjoy that, but I enjoy that you enjoy it!’ or an ‘I’m not sure, let’s try it and find out if we like it or not’. The important thing is to notice what you feel, and be honest with yourself and your partner(s).

The tea analogy isn’t perfect, but gets closer to describing this than anything else I’ve seen:  

By @ZiziFothSi

Desire is a key factor of sexual autonomy and liberation

True sexual liberation, then, requires us to put our imaginations to work. We have to think outside the boxes and binaries that constrain us. We have to get curious and brave new territory. We also have to [re-]learn to listen to the innate wisdom of our bodies, to filter out the noise of everything we have been taught about how we should look, act, think, and feel.

“For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavors bring us closest to that fullness.” says Audre Lorde, in Uses of the Erotic. “Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.”

Desire is Complicated

A note on the wackness of sex-obsessed, sex-negative culture

The expectation to be horny 24/7, for people of any gender, is fucking ridiculous. We see sexuality flaunted everywhere in our culture, it’s hard to not internalize the message that we should be sexy and ready for sex at any time. Just like the pressure to be as happy as a white woman eating salad in an Instagram ad all the time, this is a toxic expectation, and I by no means am here to perpetuate it.

Some things that might get in the way of accessing our desires:

Expressing Desire is Vulnerable

Asking for what you want is hard!

The potential for rejection, judgment, and other negative reactions can be high. It also takes practice. Like riding a bike or lifting weights, you have to build up the muscles of determination and resilience to get comfortable with doing it. Just remember that fortune favors the brave. Also, vulnerability is a universal human experience. Being vulnerable is what connects us. If you’re asking for something from someone who doesn’t appreciate your gift of being vulnerable with them, they don’t deserve your time and attention.

As Audre Lorde writes in Uses of The Erotic, “The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.”

Practice makes progress

I highly recommend Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent as a tool for practicing! Practice expressing your desires with everyone - friends, family, co-workers… this skill goes far beyond sex.

Desire and Pleasure

A lot of the time, desires can be difficult to access if we don’t first acknowledge our right to pleasure. As adrienne maree brown states in Pleasure Activism, “A central aspect of pleasure activism is tapping into the natural abundance that exists within and between us, and between our species and this planet. Pleasure is not one of the spoils of capitalism. It is what our bodies, our human systems, are structured for; it is the aliveness and awakening, the gratitude and humility, the joy and celebration of being miraculous.”

Cultivating a pleasure practice can be as simple as taking 5 minutes to stretch in the morning, or smelling flowers while on a walk, or calling an old friend to connect. Like many other things, pleasure has been co-opted by capitalism to be packaged and sold to us, but it is not a luxury only afforded to those with expendable income. It is a human right, and perhaps one of the most human practices there is.

Enter Somatics

Somatics is a field within bodywork and movement studies which emphasizes internal physical perception and experience. I like this definition from Generative Somatics: “Somatics works through the body (individual and collective)—and engages our thinking, emotions, commitments, vision, and action. It is a resilience-based method that helps us change embodiment or ‘shape’ moving from reaction and increasing choice. It acknowledges the deep wisdom in our survival strategies and adaptations and offers many ways to transform what’s become automatic and no longer useful.”

Somatics is a practice of connecting with your body’s wisdom - an acknowledgement of the fact that all of your experiences – pleasurable, painful, and everything in-between and beyond – are valid, important, and have created a wealth of knowledge for you to trust in, draw from, and get curious about. Being present in our bodies and learning to listen to them with curiosity and without judgment is a powerful practice that is crucial for developing agency (the capacity to act) and autonomy (the capacity to make informed, non-coerced decisions), which are key elements of consent culture.

Tapping into what our bodies are trying to tell us and feeling trust to share with others builds a culture of communication and compassion. And these are key elements of good sex! We are not robots all programmed to like the same things. Everybody is unique, and every body is unique.


Part Two: Prompts

Before you dive into the following prompts, I invite you to create a container for doing this work. Find a space in your home, in nature, or wherever you feel safe. Grab a favorite beverage and/or snack. Put on some music. Change into something comfy. Put your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. Do whatever you need to feel at ease in this moment.

Also - don’t feel any pressure to fill this all out in one sitting. Take breaks. Leave it and come back to it later (or don’t!). If something is triggering, take care of yourself. Listen to your body, heart, and mind for cues.

Lastly, you are under no obligation to share this with anyone. These desires are your own, this exploration is your own. Enjoy the process and whatever emerges from it without judgment.

Sensuality

Sensuality lives in the body. It is, quite literally, the practice of acknowledging what pleases your senses.

For each sense, list 3 things that you enjoy:

Sight

Smell

Taste

Hearing

Touch

Choose a few things from your list above. Close your eyes and imagine experiencing those things, one at a time. What does thinking about them (or if you have any of them nearby, actually experiencing them) feel like in your body?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

List 5 ways you like to be touched:

(doesn’t have to be sexual)

  1. _______________________________________________________________
  2. _______________________________________________________________
  3. _______________________________________________________________
  4. _______________________________________________________________
  5. _______________________________________________________________

What are 3 things you love about your body, and why?

  1. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  2. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  3. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Eroticism

Eroticism lives in the brain. It’s what turns our imagination on. It’s important to listen to what that feels like in our bodies, as the somatic experience often has information for us that our brains don’t.

Do you consume any of these forms of sexy entertainment? Why or why not?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is a movie, book, song, poem, work of art, etc. that has sparked a desire for you recently? What was exciting about it? What does that excitement feel like in your body?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read the following phrases out loud, and write down notes on anything you notice in your body as a response. What feels like a clear ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? What are you not sure of or curious about?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is a desire that society says you should want? Does it interest you? Why or why not? Is there an opportunity to subvert it in a way that is more exciting to you?

Sometimes wanting something cliché can make us feel just as ashamed as wanting something risqué. Nothing is off the table! Tropes exist for a reason! The ask here is to just notice what it brings up for you.

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Space of Infinite Auto-Erotic Possibility

Auto-eroticism is the practice of “Feeling Yourself” (cue Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé). Use the space below to go on an auto-erotic creative adventure. Write a love letter to or erotic story about yourself! Take a sexy selfie and print it out and tape it here! Get out some colored pencils and draw your Big Self-Crush Energy!

Past Sexual Experiences[7]

What have you enjoyed?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What have you not enjoyed?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What do you want more of?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What do you want less of?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Action Plan!

What is one desire that you would like to explore?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Does it involve other people? If so, do you have someone in mind?

Make sure your request is specific, actionable, and relevant to the person.

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What might get in the way of making it happen? What risks should you plan for?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reflection

Did you make it happen?! How did it go?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Would you do it again? Why or why not?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Did fulfilling this desire give you any ideas for other things you’d like to try?

_____________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Part Three: Resources

🔗  Website/article  /  📱  App  /  🎙  Podcast  /  📖  Book

Getting In Touch With Yourself

Inspiration

Pleasure As A Political Act

Tools for Navigating Consent

Desire and Trauma

Awesome People/Orgs To Follow and Support

Misc

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Thank you for going on this journey with me! I hope you never stop learning new things about yourself and your desires.

Have any feedback? I would love to hear from you. This is most definitely a work in progress. Please submit feedback here.

With all my love ❤️and 🔥,

Laika

[1] How 'Mapping Your Desire' Can Help Transform Sexual Shame Into Self-Love and Social Justice, Jaime M. Grant

[2] Theo Isoz, in conversation

[3] Pleasure Activism, adrienne maree brown

[4] We Will Not Cancel Us, adrienne maree brown

[5] That Obscure Subject of Desire. Let's talk about pleasure, Natalie Portman 

[6] See Spring Up’s Cultivate Consent Zine for more information on the history of consent.

[7] The questions in this section have been consensually borrowed from Getting It by Allison Moon.