pleasure

based
living

a mini workbook by
che che luna
contents

02 introduction

03 the power
of pleasure

11 the power
of dance

17 the power of nature

20 the power of auto-

eroticism

30 closing
01

intro
duct
ion
pleasure is the
nutrients of life
Affirmation: I AM MADE TO EXPERIENCE
PLEASURE

We often postpone the pleasure that exists

right now because of an idea that pleasure lies
in the future.

The thing is, once we place our pleasure in the

future, that’s where pleasure stays. We’ll
always be chasing pleasure without ever
managing to catch it.

I want your pleasure to feel accessible,

integrated and intimately yours.

You arrived on earth with a knowing. A knowing

of how magnificent you are. A knowing
that the body you inhabit is a cause for
celebration. You were born with the most
unapologetic self-love there is. And maybe
you’ve reached a place where you are ready to
remember that love. Maybe you are exhausted
by systems of oppression that perpetuate body
shame, pleasure guilt and fear of all things
erotic. Maybe you feel stuck by limiting beliefs
that say you have to do xyz in order to be
worthy of pleasure. Maybe you desire to feel at
home in your precious skin. Maybe you’re
depleted and experiencing burnout from
culture's pressures to be self-less + self-reliant,
and you need help to find yourself again. Maybe
you are here because of some whispering call
deep inside your bones that you can’t quite
explain through words. No matter why you are
here, know that you are being celebrated,
witnessed and fiercely loved right now. May
this workbook plant fertile seeds that get to
blossom into the most vibrant, wild, lush
untamed jungle. 02
03

the
power
of
pleasure
a life without
pleasure is a life
without feeling
alive
Because we live in a world that depends on
you believing you must consume, buy and sell
your well-being, it is a revolutionary and
political act of resistance to put your
pleasure in the forefront of your life.
Remember that the path to more pleasure is
not necessarily the path of least resistance.
It takes courage, energy and effort to love
yourself in ways you've been taught not to.

In Western culture, the erotic has been

conflated with all things sexual. While erotic
energy can be sexual, it can also be
experienced in infinite other ways. It becomes
dangerous when the erotic is confined,
controlled or boxed in to just sex. What
becomes possible when we allow art,
movement, eating, music, being in nature,
showering, connecting with others, working,
breathing and just being to be deeply erotic?
How much of ourselves do we loose when
we're conditioned to believe that the erotic is
always inherently sexual. Embracing a wide
ranging definition of erotic can expand our
possibilities for fulfilling pleasure.

04
Pleasure activism
is the work we do
to reclaim our
whole, happy,
and satisfiable
selves from the
impacts,
delusions, and
limitations of
oppression
and/or
supremacy.
adrienne maree brown
05
numbing is the
counter to
pleasure.
sensuality is the
gateway.
Audre Lorde in her essay, The Uses of the
Erotic: The Erotic as Power, says...

"The erotic is so feared, and so often

relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is
recognized at all. For once we begin to feel
deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin
to demand from ourselves and from our life-
pursuits that they feel in accordance with
that joy which we know ourselves to be
capable of... Recognizing the power of the
erotic within our lives can give us the energy
to pursue genuine change within our world...
For not only do we touch our most profoundly
creative source, but we do that which is self-
affirming in the face of racist, patriarchal and
anti-erotic society."

06
We’ve been gifted numerous erogenous zones
throughout our bodies that are biologically
designed to experience pleasure. Erogenous
zones are places on the body that have lots of
yummy nerve endings and therefore
heightened sensitivity to stimulation.

When the cultural default is trauma-consumed

versus trauma-informed, negatively biased,
and teaching us to repress our
feelings/desires/needs, it becomes a radical
offering and service to the collective to start
focusing on what feels good. Like adrienne
maree brown says, “what we pay attention to
grows and what we practice we become.”
When we grow our ability to experience
pleasure, we grow our ability to collaborate,
be interdependent, move from generosity and
honesty, and be a living breathing example of
change and liberation.

Below are some journal prompts for you to

explore in regards to your pleasure...

07
 journal prompts

How do you know when you're experiencing pleasure? What

sensations, feelings and thoughts tell you that pleasure is
present your unique body, mind and heart?

in what ways can you slow down and take more intentional
sensual pauses throughout your day?

How would you define pleasure in one Haiku? (five syllables in the
first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in
the third line)

08
 journal prompts

Why is creating space for your pleasure important to you?

If you could personify your current relationship to your pleasure,

what kind of relationship would it be (a long distance lover, a
stranger, a best friend, an older sibling, a wise ancestor, a life
partner, etc.)?

If you were to personify the kind of relationship you desire to

have with your pleasure, what kind would it be?

09
 journal prompts

What boundaries would help you create the pleasure you dream
of?

What would feel amazing to say yes to? What would feel freeing
to say no to?

Write out in as much detail as possible your most pleasurable,

dreamy date day with yourself. See if you can include all 5 self-
love languages. (words of self-affirmation, acts of self-service,
receiving gifts from self, physical self-touch, quality solo time)

10
11

the
power
of
dance
movement can
help us integrate
new ways of
being
AFFIRMATION: I AM DATING MYSELF & DANCING
FOR MY OWN GAZE.

Dancing allows the physical, emotional and

spiritual parts of you to synchronize.

You become song.

I want to remind you that if you have a body,

you are a dancer. And your body knows how
to heal itself and tell personal stories through
movement. Dancing is somatic intelligence at
work. With all the chronic stress within and
around you, dance is a way to unwind, play,
discover and land back into your sensuality.

Let’s practice releasing capitalism’s

perfectionist, competitive and limiting
narratives that tell us we must look a certain
way or move a certain way or feel a certain
way to enjoy the magic of dancing. You don’t
need to be anywhere but where you are to
relish in your body.

12
when the mind +
body are in
harmonious
dialogue, we
heal.
Healing involves calling fragmented parts of
ourselves back home and reorganizing them in
ways that are consciously chosen from within
(rather than from the outside world). With
practice, we can slowly and incrementally
start to remember our own wholeness and
develop skills that allow us to feel more
integrated, complete and unified.

Dancing dismantles traumatic imprints and

gives us back the agency to decide what
beliefs about our pleasure, body, sexuality
and sensuality we want to keep and which
ones we want to rewrite.

13
Shaking our bodies + dancing allows us to
finish our stress response cycles.

Like Emily Nagoski talks about in her book,

Burnout, there are many stressors that are
out of our control (input any systems of
oppression you are impacted by here),
but/and also, something that is in our control
is eliminating stress (a biological
response/event caused by stressors) from
our bodies.

In other words, we hold the power to

complete stress response cycles. Which is a
fancy way of saying that we hold the power
to help our body know when it is safe again.
For example, think of a wild animal that has
just escaped a predator. This wild animal is
going to shake/run/move the stress out of
their bodies until that stress response cycle
is complete, and then continue about their
day.

As humans steeped in colonialism, capitalism

and cishetpatriarchy, we're being bombarded
with constant and ongoing stressors, which
our bodies are not designed for. And as a
result, we're left disconnected from our inner
wisdom and our innate ability to regularly
release stress from our bodies. Emily's
scientific research shows that the number
one most effective way to release stress
from the body is to dance + shake for a few
minutes each day!

14
 journal prompts

What are 5 things you want to feel while dancing?

What are 10 things you cherish or admire about your

yourself/your body?

play one of your favorite songs and let your body move to the
following prompt: dance as if you are meeting your body for the
first time.

15
 journal prompts

try this experiment: play a song + let each of the following body
parts initiate your movement and see how the rest of your body
follows: toes, knees, hips, genitals, spine, hands, belly button,
tongue, eyes

try this experiment: play a song + start with your body on the
floor, close your eyes and imagine that you could paint + massage
the inside of your body with your bones -- move in whatever
ways feel yummy

try this experiment: play a song + shake your body in whatever

ways feel good. You can shake one body part at a time, or your
whole body at once. You can bounce. Twerk. Untame. Undulate.
Get primal. Be wild. Shimmy your heart out. Whip your hair. Stomp
your feet. Get freakyyy. Allow your somatic intelligence to
initiate your movements and see how much you can let go into
feeling rather than appearance or performance.

16
17

the
power
of
nature
the earth says...
I hold you onto me, like the
most tender embrace.
Your magnetism comes from
my core.
Your passion comes from
my fiery depths.
Your tears come from my
oceans.
Your bones come from the
rocks you stand on.
Your sex is as natural as a
blossoming flower.
Your curves a mirror of my
mountains.
Your wisdom as old as I am.
When you make love to
you,
you make love to me.
che che luna
18
There is something so immeasurably special
about being in nature. Sometimes it feels like
the patriarchal veil we’ve been seeing
ourselves through is suddenly lifted. Like we
start to remember our innate sensuality and
beautiful wholeness simply by being with the
earth.

It is healing to see stretch marks on a tree

that match the stretch marks on our legs. Or
notice how the sap that drips from the bark
resembles the nectar that drips from our
genitals. Or how the moss that grows
abundantly on the rocks reminds us of the
hair that grows on our bodies.

This oneness becomes so obvious. And allows

us to question every beauty standard we’ve
ever been conditioned to believe.

What if we used nature as our mirror instead

of media? What if we started to love our
bodies as they are right now?

You are not broken. Your body is not wrong.

You are not dirty. Your sexuality is not sinful.
Your desires are not “too much”. You get to
compost whatever doesn’t serve you, so that
you can plant new seeds that grow into the
most stunning garden.

You've most likely been taight to criticize

your body or make yourself smaller, Consider
who benefits from you not seeing or feeling
your magnificence.

I want to encourage you to use nature as

your body-loving teacher…

19
 journal prompts

If you were a decadent fruit, what kind would you be, and why?
How would you like to be consumed?

how does nature resemble qualities/charateristics that already

exist within you?

what helps you remember/feel/return to the truth that you ARE

nature?

13
20

the
power
of auto-
eroticism
The truth is,
each of us is
responsible for
our own pleasure.
Yet most of us have no models or templates
for how the heck to live in integrity with this
truth. We are operating in a pleasure-
oppressed world where bypassing our own
responsibility and/or projecting it onto others
is normalized or even celebrated. How are we
supposed to take responsibility for our
pleasure if we are never or rarely spending
quality 1:1 time getting to know our erotic
selves? *remember, this is a systemic failure,
not a personal one

One very common thread that often comes up

for folx when they begin intentionally
exploring auto-erotocism is the realization
that self-intimacy is its whole own realm of
pleasure. One that doesn't benefit from being
compared to partnered or group experiences
because, it’s just...different! If we are holding
a certain expectation of what self-pleasuring
“should” feel like/look like/end like based on
experiences with other people, we might be
missing out on the deeply nuanced, unique and
sacred intricacies of solo play time.

21
Self liberation is
birthed through
body literacy
and body
competence.
Learning the ins and outs of what feels good.
Developing knowledge about how and where
you like to be touched is not something that is
magically inherited. It is a skill, like any other,
that has to be learned through experience,
practice, humility, patience, curiosity and
repetition.

One of my favorite tools for practicing auto-

erotocism is sensation play.

Sensation play harnesses the power of the

senses to heighten pleasure.

The realm of sensation play is so

magnificently expansive. There is always
room to try new things and discover
untouched layers of our erotic bodies.

Here's an invitation for you: Find 1-3 objects in

your house to use as sensation play toys
(spatula, ice, leather, hot wax (make sure to
use a soy based candle for this), feather,
flower, fuzzy blanket, electric toothbrush,
etc). Explore how many different sensations
you can create in/on your body with these
objects for 5-30 minutes.
22
Some questions to guide you: What erogenous
zones are you wanting to stimulate (nipples,
ears, neck, clit, penis, vagina, lips, perineum,
inner thighs, etc). What sensations excite
you? (vibrating, penetrating, scratching,
tickling, rumbling, rhythmic, teasing, sucking,
clamping, clawing, biting, slapping, etc)

Remember that pleasure is the only goal here.

I encourage you to move as slowly as
possible, to give yourself a chance to stay in
conversation with your body’s limits, feelings
and needs. It is courageous to try new things
and elicit new sensations! Celebrate every
step, no matter how big or small.

Now let's take a moment to talk about our

genitals, being that they are a deeply taboo
part of our bodies and a powerful playground
for reclamation.

Negative genital perceptions can have

detrimental impact on our wellbeing.
Practices that enhance satisfaction with the
natural appearance of our genitalia can
facilitate the development of a more
pleasureful self-image and result in more joy,
safety and satisfaction overall.

You are not alone if you struggle to love the

appearance of your genitals. Keep in mind
that this judgemental gaze is a product of
oppressive systems. This dissatisfied gaze
exists not only as a means to keep us
disempowered, but also as a means to project
an internalized sense of lack, which keeps us
thinking we are a problem to fix.

23
Shame, guilt, desire for change, dysphoria,
discontent, avoidance, concealment and self-
consciousness when engaging with our
genitals are all results of a sexually
repressed, white supremist, erotophobic
society. Taking back our body as our own is
our birthright. With that being said, part of
taking back our bodies is giving ourselves
space to acknowledge these hard feelings
because they are very real, very valid and
very important. Your feelings are deeply wise
and can act as teachers to guide you in
learning what you need. See if you can listen
to them without getting completely swept up
in them. *this takes practice* See if you can
let the committee of “parts” that exist inside
of you each have a moment with the mic. In
order for us to tap into our pleasure, we’ve
also got to tap into the whole spectrum of
emotions. Pleasure cannot exist in a vacuum.

“The way [gender oppressed folks] are made

to conform to this double standard is through
the deprivation of sexual self knowledge.
Deprived of their own bodies, they have no
way of discovering or developing sexual
responses. At an early age, [gender
oppressed folks] are prohibited from touching
their genitals with the threat of supernatural
or real punishment. Information about
[anatomy] and life affirming orgasms is
withheld, and [gender oppressed folks] are
instilled with the idea that their genitals are
inferior, that their main value lies in
procreation and giving a cis-man sexual
pleasure. Without any sexual pleasure of their
own, [gender oppressed folks] may come to
think of their genitals as being repulsive and a
constant source of discomfort and shame.
This kind of sexual repression is a vital aspect
of keeping [gender oppressed folks] in their
‘proper role’.”
― Betty Dodson, Sex for One: The Joy of
Selfloving.

24
 Invitation: Gaze at your genitals in a mirror
for 5+ minutes and see if you can notice
things you've never noticed before. Do your
best to observe this part of your body with
curious + gentle eyes.

When we want to get to know someone or

something, we gotta spend quality time with
it. Here’s a chance to go on an imaginative,
playful and flirtatious date with your genitalia

Disrupting the
sexcalator allows
sex to be self-
defined and
pleasure-
centered.

25
Sexcalator: a term that describes culturally
scripted sexual experiences that are
centered around the ultimate goal of
achieving orgasm. On the sexcalator, sex is
about moving quickly from A to B (very linear),
often passive, and rooted in
cisheteronormativity. It is solely focused on
“getting off at the top” and makes us feel like
we failed if the final destination (orgasm) isn’t
reached.

So, what becomes possible when we get off

the sexcalator and start to understand sex as
a lush pleasure palace that has a multitude of
rooms, pathways, intricate details, delicious
treats, decadent sensual treasures, hidden
doors and acres of landscape to play in and
discover? What becomes possible when
there’s no need to arrive anywhere specific
because the act of exploring in itself is so
deeply fulfilling?

It's so valid to want to to have orgasms!

Orgasms are magical. And if you're like me,
the harder I try to have one, the farther away
it becomes. When we shift our goal away from
orgasm and towards pleasure, orgasm can
often end up happening as a cherry on top of
an experience. It can be really exhausting to
think that orgasms are what measure great
sex. Pleasure and how we feel is what
measures great sex! Really powerful healing
can happen when the one thing we’ve been
taught to obsess over (orgasm) is taken off
the table for a chosen period of time.

26
 journal prompts

What are 3 or more erogenous zones that bring you pleasure to

touch? How do these different body parts like to be touched?

What body parts are you excited or curious to get to know more
intimately through self-touch?

If your genitalia was sacred land (it is!), what kind of ecosystem
would they be (terrestrial, forest, grassland, desert, tundra,
freshwater, marine, jungle)?

27
 journal prompts

If your current self could tell your past self some solo sex-
affirming wisdom, what would it be?

What comes up for you around the idea of taking orgasm off the
table for a certain amount of time (or completely)?

What factors create a fulfilling solo sex experience for you?

(pleasure, presence, showing up, decreased stress, joy, cathartic
release of tears, trying something new, etc.)

28
 journal prompts

In what ways has the "sexcalator" shaped your beliefs, feelings,

thoughts + experiences of sex?

List all the adjectives that come to mind when you first think of
solo sex//auto-eroticism.

If you could rewrite your definition of solo sex to be the most

affirming, empowering and expansive definition possible, what
would it be?

29
30

clos
ing
Thank you for allowing me to guide you into
your sensual magic. I’m deeply honored to
be a part of your body liberation journey.

Please feel free to email me at

hello@checheluna.com or tag me on IG
(@che.che.luna) if you want to share any
feedback about your experience.

If you'd like to go deeper and want support,

email me or visit checheluna.com to learn
more about my 1:1, online courses and
sensual dance offerings.

Sending big love, blessings and lots of

pleasure your way.

31
journal prompts

I am proud of myself because…

I feel…

Something I learned about myself is...

32