TabuTabu Talking Pleasure
Our Partnership with The Pleasure Project began in 2021, when TabuTabu’s founder Laura Ramos Tomás was selected as one of the first 12 Pleasure Fellows. At the time, The Pleasure Project was developing the Pleasure Principles, which officially launched in 2022. We were one of the first eight organizations to formally endorse the principles as a framework for effective pleasure-based sexuality education.
What are the Pleasure Principles?
The Pleasure Principles are living principles to support and help more individuals and organizations to make sense of, design and conduct their work on sexual health and education from a sex-positive and pleasure-based perspective.
The Seven Principles are:
Be Positive
Rights First
Think Universal
Be Flexible
Talk Sexy
Embrace Learning
Love Yourself
This framework flips the sexual and reproductive health narrative from death and disease to desire and pleasure... which is why we endorse it!
We endorse the Pleasure Principles
As an endorsing organization of The Pleasure Principles, we seek to embody the concepts of the Principles in our work culture and in the policies and processes guiding our activities. We commit to:
-
Including pleasure-based, sex-positive language in our work in sexuality education and sexual health and rights promotion
-
Framing all conversations and learning materials around safer sex in a sex-positive way
-
Training of staff, volunteers and/or partners where relevant on pleasure based sexual health
How we put the Pleasure Principles to Practice
TabuTabu’s sexuality education messaging service for adult vulva owners in Brazil was brought to life with support from the Pleasure Project. The initiative provides sex-positive, pleasure-based information for cisgender women living in Rio de Janeiro’s favela (shanty town) communities, and is 100% aligned with the Pleasure Principles.
Why we put the Pleasure Principles to Practice
All of our sexuality education initiatives center sex-positive and pleasure-based approaches, whilst operating through a trauma-informed lens.
In our Impact work, we apply the Pleasure Principles as framework for constructive co-creation, effectively able to center people in and of any and all contexts:
Why talk pleasure in conversations of sexual health?
Naming and normalizing pleasure as a key motivator to consensual sexual encounters humanizes subsequent conversations about sexuality, paving the way for open dialogue around other (taboo) subjects related to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Why talk pleasure in our Impact initiatives?
The ability to experience pleasure is neither a privilege, nor a luxury - pleasure is a human right. In moments of heightened stress(es), people may rank the importance of pleasure differently, but communities living under continuous pressures nevertheless value pleasure as an integral part of their human experience.