How are you working to bring justice, equity, and liberation to your relationships, intimate or otherwise?
How do things like internalized and externalized systems of oppression show up for you and your partner/s? Your family? Your children? Your community?
And how do you all do the work to dismantle these oppressions to heal yourselves, each other, as well as future and past generations?
In other words, how do you bring ethics to love? Or use love to make relationship and community more ethical and just?
Justice, ethics, and liberation in and by way of love look like empathy, compassion, nuance, the recognition and appreciation of care work and emotional labor, the unraveling and paying back of privilege, the leveling of the playing field, the questioning and deconstructing of norms, the focus on and undoing of power structures and struggles. This is true equity in partnership, especially in heterosexual relationships with entrenched and inherited gender norms, in parenting and the power dynamics between children and parents, in work and community with institutionalized power structures.
As a systems thinker, I cannot step away from inequities – I see them everywhere: in how we relate, how we parent, how we communicate, how we experience sexual intimacy…..how we love. Justice and equity are love languages of mine……and honestly, I’m over love languages. I would much rather frame things as a love ethic. Bringing equity to spaces and conversations, I am bringing my vision for more just loving, to clients, community, friends, and partners, and I would encourage you to consider how you can strive for the same.
How can you bring ethics to love to create more equitable and caring relationships and communities?
Interested in learning more about systems of power and how they show up in our relationships, please join me for one of our group events that center sexuality counseling and education, such as Pleasure Café (1/22 & 2/3) and S E X positive parenting group (2/7) or work with me one on one for your specific concerns (see below for email information). Also watch for future offerings and writing pieces for continued inspiration and work around these topics. If you cannot make my event offerings, bell hooks has many inspirational pieces of writing around the ethics of loving – consider starting with her as you begin your own just love journey.
Acknowledging and working to dismantle systems of power, internalized and externalized oppressions, and injustice are all part of intersectional justice as well as queer theory. All systems of oppression are interconnected, and I am in deep gratitude for any and all work you all do to challenge oppressive norms. *** deep bow ***
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The above content is written by Dr. Allison Mitch, PT (DPT), RYT500; sex-positive, trauma-informed sexuality counselor and educator (she/her/they/them); copyright protected, please cite accordingly. The graphic is mine.
For more offerings that support sexual well-being, please see: https://ignitewell-being.com/upcoming_events/ For more information on my offerings or to work with me directly, please email ignitewellbeing.naperville@gmail.com
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