Pleasure Activism and Science Communication
Science graduate students–disenchanted with their careers–often ask me for coffee. These are usually students with one or more marginalized identities (e.g., black, brown, queer, Autistic). They are sure there is something more “out there,” and they see how I combine the arts, social justice, and science communication as a source of hope. I usually set boundaries around the number of free “let me pick your brain” meetings, but I always make time for these graduate students. They are a past version of myself.
I make the time. I wish there were someone to tell me it is okay to quit. That it was okay to listen to the part of myself I kept trying to stuff down. That it was okay to follow what most made me feel alive.
That it was okay to follow what most made me feel alive, even if I had no fucking clue where that would lead.
Maybe these scientists-in-training got a taste of something while talking about their work to elementary school kids. There was something there, something that made them feel safe to show up as their full, alive selves. Contrasted with an academic career that wanted them to only be their research selves, it felt like taking that first breath after realizing you had been holding it.
But I can distill these “pick your brain” meetings into one message: I give you permission to do things that feel good.
It’s okay to do something, like art or science communication, just for the fun of it. In my research, I hear from so many early career scientists who confess that they do science communication because it’s fun. They like how it feels. It brings them pleasure. This confession is usually preceded by, “And I know this is selfish, but I like how it feels.”
We have so many engrained oppressive myths that we are only worth what we can produce. There’s a lot of power in doing something just for the sheer pleasure of it. Audre Lorde in The Uses of the Erotic as Power and adrienne maree brown in Pleasure Activism bring this argument to us, with roots in Black queer feminist activism. When we tap into our own desires, it is an act of resistance. When we tap into our desires, it is a more sustainable way of moving through the world. It bucks up against structures of oppression when you show up as your entire self in full pleasure. So, go ahead–do something just for the pleasure of it.
This is not often welcomed in science spaces. This is not something an individual act of resistance will solve. This is work we have to do together. We have to do this work together.
Tricia Hersey writes in Rest as Resistance about how oppression steals the imagination of the marginalized. How might we slow down, get in touch with our dreams, and step into that as a portal? What could we become?