Pleasure-First Living: The Radical Act of Choosing Joy on Purpose

We’ve been taught to think pleasure is something that happens after the workday, after the laundry, after we’ve earned it.

But what if pleasure wasn’t a reward?
What if it was a way of being your baseline, not your bonus?

Pleasure-First Living isn’t about more sex (though, yes, that part gets way better).
It’s about being fully embodied; awake to your senses, your boundaries, and your choices. It’s about learning to listen when your body whispers yes or no before your brain starts calculating what’s “right.”

When you’re rooted in your body, you stop performing and start experiencing.

When Pressure Runs the Show

I know this story all too well. For years, I measured my worth by how exhausted I was at the end of the day. If I wasn’t “doing,” I felt like I was falling behind. It took a heart attack at 35 and six days in the hospital when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done something simply because it felt good. My life, to include the simplicity of pleasure was void of intentional joy and it showed in everything that was supposed to bring me life sustaining pleasure. 

That’s when I started to understand that pleasure wasn’t frivolous. It was vital.

Take this ride with me for a second, imagine you’re about to walk into a meeting where you know you’re going to be put on the spot. You take a deep breath, remind yourself how bad ass you are and you take that first step towards the next few minutes of your life. You know that feeling—the subtle tension that hums underneath every step towards that conference room. The tightness in your jaw when you smile through exhaustion and stress.
The way you say “You got this girl” when you most certainly do have “it” but you’d also be happy at home in your pajama’s relaxing inside of your cozy comforter.  

That’s performative living.

I used to call it “survival smize.” You know what it is—you catch yourself smiling on Zoom with a tight jaw and reminding yourself you need this paycheck, answering emails from your car between school pickups, showing up to events you didn’t want to attend because you didn’t want to disappoint anyone (or not seem like a team player). That’s not strength; that’s survival in a pretty outfit.

Performative living keeps us in motion but out of touch with our bodies, our needs, and our joy.

Pleasure as a Compass

Here’s the truth: pleasure is not a construct it’s an absolute.
It’s the most natural state your body knows, hardwired into your nervous system to help you identify safety, creativity, and joy.

When you start asking,

“Will this enhance the pleasure in my life or in the lives of others?”

you begin to make decisions that are inherently more sustainable, connected, and effective. Read that last sentence again if you need to, we will wait.

Don’t believe me? Try this:

The Pleasure Audit: A Quick Experiment

1. Pick a project—something you’re currently working on at home or at work.
2. Pause. Notice what your body does when you think about it. Do your shoulders tense? Do you feel open or closed?
3. Now ask: “What would make this project more pleasurable for me to do?”
   Maybe it’s turning on music, shifting where you work, adding color, asking for support, or building in recovery time.
4. Change one thing.
5. Observe what happens.

I did this recently while working on a presentation. I was feeling tense, pushing through, and the content wasn’t coming together because I was too emotionally and physically deprived of pleasure, and realized I hadn’t moved or taken an intentional breath in hours. I lit a candle in my workspace, gave myself a good stretch, a few intentional breaths and changed the playlist to something less stimulating than my gym mix. Within minutes, my words flowed easier and the work actually felt good. I was back cookin’ again! That quick moment of intentional pleasure literally made me better at my job and more effective in under 15 min. Ask yourself this final question, “what if I started looking at my life as several opportunities a day to seek and find pleasure vs all of the things standing in the way of it?” 

A 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that when people experienced positive affect, feelings of joy, ease, or pleasure they not only performed better but were more resilient under stress (Fredrickson, 2019).

Translation: pleasure doesn’t make you lazy, it makes you effective.

When we lead with pleasure, we stop working against ourselves.
Our nervous systems regulate, our creativity spikes, and our bodies move out of survival mode into expansion.

Pleasure Is Healing

Pleasure teaches us to trust again to touch again, to breathe again, to be curious again.
It’s what rewires trauma, releases tension, and restores safety to the body.
Every moment of laughter, every deep exhale, every “yes” to something that feels good is a form of self-repair.

When I began letting pleasure lead; real pleasure, the quiet kind that starts with listening I noticed my body responding. My heartbeat slowed. My laughter came back. I stopped bracing for life and started living it.

And for those of you who want to know the nitty gritty of it all, my orgasms were far easier to reach when my nervous system found peace and pleasure was in control. Did I mention pleasure-first living through The QUIVR Method isn’t only working for myself, it’s working for other women too? The over 40, the perimenopausal or just discovering the joys of their bodies and the possibilities of what pleasure could mean for them?

So no, living a pleasure-first life isn’t naive.
It’s necessary.

And if you’re thinking, “But Amber Joy, everything can’t be sunshine and daisies. I can’t just do what I want.”

You’re right—you can’t control life.
But you can decide that pressure isn’t the only way to move through it.
You can ask:

“What if I trusted myself as much as others trust me to get the job done?”

 

This November, We’re Exploring It All

This month at QUIVR, we’re diving into what it really means to live pleasure-first—through your body, your relationships, your creativity, and your healing.

• With your partner: Bedroom Reboot (Nov 9) brings couples together to rediscover connection and playful intimacy that fits real life.
• With yourself: Rewire Your Pleasure Nervous System (Nov 13) helps you teach your body safety, softness, and desire again.
• Through creativity: Floral Vulva Shadow Box Class (Nov 19) turns anatomy into art, reminding us that our bodies are beautiful, diverse, and worthy of celebration.
• Through change: Sex After Hysterectomy (Nov 23) offers a space to reclaim sensuality after physical transformation.
• And even for our me/masc partners: Supporting Her Through Change (Nov 30) invites partners to meet women’s bodies with empathy and care.

Pleasure isn’t something you earn; it’s something you remember.
And this month, we’re remembering together.

I’m still learning this every day; how to pause, breathe, and choose what feels good over what just looks good. But I can tell you this: every time I do, life opens wider.

Love you all the most,

Amber Joy