With Pleasure: Managing Trauma Triggers for More Vibrant Sex and Relationships

by August McLaughlin, Jamila Dawson LMFT

Overview

A companion for anyone experiencing the effects of trauma, featuring true stories of survivors from a broad, inclusive range of backgrounds

With Pleasure: Managing Trauma Triggers for More Vibrant Sex and Relationships is a companion for anyone experiencing the effects of trauma. Through true survivor stories, expert insight, writing prompts, and grounding exercises, it explores pleasure, relationships, and community as worthy and essential antidotes in trying times.
 
Written by trauma-informed sex therapist Jamila Dawson, LMFT, and sexuality journalist and podcaster August McLaughlin, With Pleasure provides a much-needed alternative to harmful “self-help” ideologies that instruct people to “change their thoughts” or “choose to be happy.”

Instead, Dawson and McLaughlin encourage readers to respect their feelings, understand the complexities of a society and systems that fuel trauma, foster self-compassion, and embrace pleasure.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641605038
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/14/2021
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	656,484
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

August McLaughlin is a nationally recognized health and sexuality writer, trauma-informed certified sex educator, and host and producer of the podcast Girl Boner Radio. Her articles have been featured by Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, Salon, HuffPost, LIVESTRONG.com, and more. She is the author of Girl Boner: The Good Girl’s Guide to Sexual Empowerment, featured in the New York Times, Health, and Shape. She has presented at colleges, recovery centers, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. Jamila Dawson, LMFT is a licensed sex and relationship therapist, writer, and educator. She runs her private psychotherapy and consulting business, Fire & Flow Therapy, and teaches as adjunct faculty at Antioch University Los Angeles. She has lectured at the University of Southern California and AASECT Summer Institute, and collaborated with a variety of sex therapists and educators, as well as Buzzfeed, Playboy, Harper’s Bazaar, and other media outlets. She presents locally and nationally on sexuality, empowerment, BDSM/kink, pleasure, relationships, and trauma-informed/healing-focused psychotherapy.

Table of Contents

About This Book 1

1 "Why Is This Happening to Me?" 8

August: In Her Own Words 8

Jamila: Why Sex Therapy? 15

2 "What Is Happening to Me?" 20

Desires: Trust, Disability, and BDSM 28

KM: Finding Zen 32

3 "How Can I Slop This?" 37

Anne: Reclaiming Self-Worth 38

Wolf: Chosen Family, Consent, and Cis Male Survivors 46

4 "I Need Help." 53

Gloria: Different (Not Broken) and Sex-Positive Therapy 62

Nadia: Day Programs, Group Therapy, and Settling into Love 66

Ginny and Jean: Grief, Communication, and Safer Self-Help 70

5 "I Am Such a Problem." 81

René: ADHD and Self-Understanding 88

Robert and Hannah: Building Trust, Intimacy, and Communication 93

6 "Healing Is Taking Too Long." 107

Natalie: Awareness, Reframing, and Orgasmic Meditation 109

Beth: Intergenerational Trauma and Ancestral Strength 117

7 "They Don't Understand." 123

Taylor: Lifesaving Psychiatry and Developing Her True Self 126

EL: Embracing Desires and Sexuality Integration 129

8 "How Can I Get My Life Back?" 137

Kimleigh: You Are Your Own Superhero 138

Arden: Awareness, Magic, and Sexual Narratives 145

Jazz: No Longer Conforming and Ancestral and Animist Practices 151

9 "Should I Forgive? If So, How?" 162

Cheryl: Owning Her Story, Forgiveness as Freedom 164

Andrea: Pleasure to Behold, Forgiveness as Optional 169

10 "Dang. I Thought I Was Healed." 174

Winnie: "Baby Steps" Back to Pleasure 177

Brian: Permission to Struggle and Grow 184

Afterword: Our Process with This Book 190

Acknowledgments 200

Appendix: Suggested Exercises and Illustrations 202

Additional Resources 209

Notes 214

About the Authors 217

Editorial Reviews

“For too long, trauma work has been analytical in focusing on body neutrality and decreasing trauma responses. Through With Pleasure, the authors offer us more—a healing path that leads to pleasure and reclaiming our bodies. For everyone who has experienced trauma, thought they were alone, or did not know where to start, this book is a beautiful, powerful, and gentle guide back to yourself.” —Dalychia & Rafaella, Creators of Afrosexology


"At long last, the book that so many of us have been waiting for! Dawson and McLaughlin’s text is a necessary addition to our understanding about the relationship between sexuality and trauma. With Pleasure combines needed information about the biological, psychological, and social context of interpersonal and intrapersonal trauma from a lens of sex-positivity, social justice, and liberation. This text is accessible for a wide audience, including helping professionals, helping its reader focus on needed healing using systemic change and self-connection as core principles. A must-have for the clinician’s library." —Dr. Theodore Burnes, PhD, author of Teaching LGBT Psychology


"Jamila and August have collaborated to create a book experience that is guided by the ideas of collective justice in service to our healing needs. By centering and being guided by a principle of pleasure, they offer us a new way forward that is a disability justice dream: transcending trauma, reminders we are not broken, that we are whole as we show up in this world at any given time, and that we are worthy of care, love, and radical acceptance. With Pleasure offers a variety of ways to engage in a healing practice through archiving our process, writing, documenting, and identifying our ways through a pleasure-centric focus. An important book for seasoned and emergent healers and therapists alike, With Pleasure is paving the way for the future of healing justice." —Bianca I. Laureano, PhD, MA, CSE, CSES award-winning sexologist and sexuality educator, co-foundress of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network and founder of ANTE UP! Professional Development

 

"August and Jamila have created a much-needed opportunity to talk about healing and trauma with wisdom, relatability, and compassion. This book reads less like self-help and more like a circle of peers learning and growing together. If you’re on a journey of self-reclamation, With Pleasure is a loving step." —Shadeen Francis, LMFT

"A diverse and open-minded resource . . . I appreciated the warmth and encouragement the authors put into each page. The healing process can feel lonely and overwhelming, but August and Jamila remind you to center your pleasure and safety as you look toward your next chapter." — Ella Dawson, @brosandpros

"Blending stories, sexpert insight, and activities, it helps you tap into pleasure as a healing power. And, it reads like you’re talking to your bestie." — Passion by Kait

From the Publisher