Introduction to Shaking shame

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power 
Audre Lorde 

THERE ARE MANY kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives. 

We have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society. On the one hand, the superficially erotic has been encouraged as a sign of female inferiority; on the other hand, women have been made to suffer and to feel both contemptible and suspect by virtue of its existence. 

It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power. 

As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our 5 deepest and nonrational knowledge. We have been warned against it all our lives by the male world, which values this depth of feeling enough to keep women around in order to exercise it in the service of men, but which fears this same depth too much to examine the possibilities of it within themselves. So women are maintained at a distant/inferior position to be psychically milked, much the same way ants maintain colonies of aphids to provide a life-giving substance for their masters. 

But the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that sensation is enough...

Read the entire article here 

Shaking shame lineage from Melyn

I am thankful for Merette for being my first shaking partner, dancing naked with me in studio 607 to Nina Simone. I am thankful for Marijn for creating space for intuitive ideas to be shown and nurtured. I am thankful for Tashi, Sarah, Laura and Elliot for trusting and researching, pioneering this practice with me. I am thankful for Rita, Ashley, Estela, Sjaid for using your fire and honesty. I feel so much joy and belonging together, Angry Kids Unite! I am thankful for Floor, for your uncompromising and loving spirit which gives me courage to create such a space and practice. I am thankful for Kim, Lena and Jela, for patiently and tediously making the reflective floor happen when there was no budget. I am thankful for my class, for being my family, discussing passionately “what to do if people were to jerk off at shaking shame” during our dinner. I am thankful for Audre Lorde, for being a fiercely inspiring teacher.