From Survival to Sensation: Pleasure as a Pathway to Healing

By Corey Stork, LMSW

For many people, especially queer folks, trauma survivors, and those whose bodies have been

policed or pathologized, pleasure can feel complicated. Even dangerous. We are often taught,

explicitly or implicitly, that pleasure must be earned, justified, or kept small. That it is indulgent.

Distracting. Secondary to survival.

But pleasure is not a luxury. It is a language of the nervous system. And for many of us, it is a

doorway back to ourselves.

When Survival Becomes the Priority

Trauma reorganizes the body around safety. It teaches us to scan for threat, to stay vigilant, to

brace for impact. Over time, this can narrow our internal world until everything revolves around

getting through the day.

In that state, pleasure often disappears. Not because we are broken, but because our systems

are doing exactly what they were designed to do. When survival is the priority, joy becomes optional.

Many queer people, women, and other oppressed groups learn this early. Rejection, secrecy,

religious harm, family estrangement, and social marginalization all leave their mark. We learn to

minimize our needs. To tolerate instead of savor. To disconnect from our bodies as a form of

protection.

Healing asks something different.

Pleasure as Regulation, Not Reward

Pleasure is one of the most direct ways we regulate our nervous systems. Warmth, laughter,

touch, beauty, music, and intimacy send powerful signals of safety to the brain.

This is not about forced positivity or bypassing pain. It is about recognizing that healing does not

happen through suffering alone.

Pleasure can look like:

● A deep breath that actually lands

● The comfort of a favorite show or game

● Sexual connection rooted in consent and attunement

● Movement that feels expressive rather than punishing

● Rest without guilt

These moments widen the window of tolerance. They remind the body that the present is not the past.

Reclaiming Pleasure After Shame

For many, pleasure has been moralized. Sexuality, desire, and even bodily autonomy were framed as something to fear or suppress. Over time, shame embeds itself in the body, making pleasure feel inaccessible or undeserved.

Reclaiming pleasure is not about doing more. It is about listening more closely.

Healing pleasure starts with consent, with yourself.

It starts with asking:

● What feels safe right now?

● What feels nourishing, not overwhelming?

● What kind of pleasure helps me feel more present, not less?

Sometimes that answer is sexual. Sometimes it is not. All of it counts.

Pleasure Is Not the Opposite of Pain

One of the most radical shifts in healing work is realizing that pleasure and pain can coexist.

You can grieve and still laugh. You can carry trauma and still feel desire. You can be healing and still struggling.

Pleasure does not erase what happened.

It expands what is possible now.

For trauma survivors, pleasure can arrive slowly and unpredictably. It may come in flashes before it becomes steady. That is not a failure. It is information. Each moment of pleasure is evidence that your system is learning something new.

Queer Pleasure as Resistance

In a world that has tried to regulate queer, female, and non-white bodies, choosing pleasure is a

political act. It says, my body is not a problem to be solved.

It says, I am allowed to feel good here.

Queer pleasure disrupts narratives of shame and scarcity. It insists on joy, softness, and connection in spaces that were never designed to hold us.

Pleasure becomes not just personal, but collective. It becomes a way we remind each other that survival was never the end goal. Living was.

Letting Pleasure Be Enough

You do not have to optimize your pleasure.

You do not have to justify it.

You do not have to turn it into productivity or progress.

Sometimes pleasure is simply the body exhaling.

Sometimes it is a quiet yes where there used to be numbness.

Sometimes it is the courage to feel again.

That is healing.

A Gentle Invitation

If pleasure has felt distant, forbidden, or confusing, you are not alone. Start small. Start slow.

Let pleasure be curious rather than performative.

Your body has always known how to heal.

Pleasure is one of the ways it remembers.

Interested in therapy with Corey? Click here to request a free 20-minute consultation.