Spiritual leader and author Lyvonne Briggs is empowering Black women to find joy in their agency over their bodies. Briggs hopes women can overcome the negative stigmas regularly attached to women’s sexuality by the church.
In her new book, Sensual Faith, the author shares her candid experiences navigating her own relationship with her body, her faith, and her sexuality.
Speaking to Religion News, she said she is specifically aiming to encourage Black women who are possibly maneuvering through struggles tied to their sexuality in relation to their faith.
“In my mind’s eye, I’m talking to Black women, 18 to 45, currently or formerly ‘churched,’ who always had this hunch that there’s got to be more to it than this — religion, faith, God, spirituality,” she said. “Growing up hearing sermons about ‘If you have sex before marriage, you’re going to hell.’ Why I gotta go to hell if I’m having consensual sex? There are harmful ideologies that attack our queer kin, right? Why I gotta hate gay people if I love God? That doesn’t make sense.”
In the book, Briggs is open about her experiences recovering from sexual assault and the emotional challenges of her divorce and miscarriage. She even goes into detail about the power she finds in masturbation following her sexual assault.
We have to unlearn the idea that God doesn’t want us to experience pleasure,” she said. “Masturbation, for me, is a tool of healing and reclamation for survivors. It’s the ultimate form of consent. If you bring (pleasure) to yourself, you’re not relying on someone else who could be harmful for you.”
Briggs also explores the concept of “sensual faith” and challenging how many Christians approach the topic of agency over their bodies.
“I’ve started to pay more attention to my body. The more you tell me to repress, I’m like, ‘How can I celebrate? How can I embrace? How can I integrate?’ I really wanted to center the conversation on the beauty of bodies — without centering sex, because Christians tend to hunker down on sex,” she said. “Our bodies are sexual, but they’re more than sexual, and I wanted to tap into the divinity of the human condition, which is not what Christians are doing.”