Hi, my name’s Jessamyn and I practise yoga naked. No, that’s not a typo. For me, naked yoga is the epitome of a pleasure practice – it’s how I connect to the wild child that lives inside me.

Recently, a yoga teacher friend of mine asked what it feels like when I practise yoga naked.

Initially, I didn’t understand her question. I thought she was asking what it’s like to host my naked yoga classes on OnlyFans, so I rambled a bit about the judgement and shame I’ve had to contend with within myself in order to share my practice of naked yoga publicly.

But that’s not what she meant. She literally meant, “What does it feel like to practise yoga when you’re naked?”

I cocked my head to the side and said, “You’ve never practised yoga naked?” She’s been practising yoga a lot longer than I have, so the idea that she’d never done it naked was hard for me to understand.

She shook her head. No, she never has. In underwear maybe, and once naked for a photoshoot, but otherwise no.

Reflecting on it later, I thought, “She’s not alone.” I think most of us are reluctant to get naked for much more than a shower. And why not? We live in a world that doles out shame for weighing even a little over the national average, let alone getting naked for an online yoga class. It’s no wonder most of us are afraid of our bodies.

All images by: Sass Art

For me, teaching yoga naked is the most free I’ve felt in my entire life – not just as a yoga teacher but as a human being. You’d think all yoga classes would make you feel that way but that’s not what I’ve experienced.

When I practise yoga naked, it feels like I’m taking ownership of myself and releasing allegiance to a system that profits by making me hate myself.

As soon as my clothes come off, I revert to being a buoyant little kid running naked through my neighbour’s backyard sprinkler. I never stopped being that wild spirit, even when I started being a co-worker, a partner, a friend and any of the other titles that get in the way of being myself. When I get naked, I release expectations of who I’m supposed to be and I’m able to exist without the barriers and boundaries that consume my daily life.

Yoga poses always seem like they’re going to be really calm and gentle and sweet but that almost never happens. The first few moments of practising any yoga pose feels like the universe is roundhouse kicking me in the face, repeatedly.

Image by: Sass Art

Alot of yoga poses are hard, even the ones that look easy.

They push my physical, emotional and mental limits, and peel back at the edges of the emotional baggage I’ve forgotten I’m carrying.

It’s not unusual for me to burst into tears while I’m practising a seemingly innocuous yoga posture, or to get mad and storm out of a yoga class because of the emotions that got kicked up.

When I let myself feel my emotions all the way through, every yoga posture unveils a truth within me. The challenge is to witness these truths – it doesn’t mean I have to like them.

The freedom and pleasure I’ve found within my yoga practice have also shown up in my practice of polyamory. I came out as polyamorous when my partner and I realised that in order to be true to each other, we needed to be true to ourselves. In my experience, polyamory is not about being in partnership with other people – it’s about having a solid and complex relationship with myself and learning how to be honest with everybody else.

Developing a relationship with myself is the key to pleasure for me. It ignites that sense of freedom within me.

In my experience, polyamory is not about being in partnership with other people – it’s about having a solid and complex relationship with myself and learning how to be honest with everybody else.

When I was a kid, I felt like seeking pleasure was selfish.

I’m not sure I ever really valued pleasure. I had a habit of seeking out pain and chaos. The pursuit of pleasure is relatively new in my life.

I didn’t grow up in a household that championed honesty. I was well into adulthood before considering that honesty really is the best policy. It’s very easy to lie to myself, and seeking pleasure through authenticity remains a practice – it’s not perfect.

I experience pleasure when I’m able to lean into a moment and accept all that it is. This works best when I can control my environment. Obviously, I’m more likely to experience pleasure if I’m doing things that I actively enjoy.

If I’m in a clawfoot stone bathtub having my toes sucked by a lover, while being fed grapes by another and listening to a perfectly curated playlist while the smell of dinner being prepared by yet another lover wafts in the air, then yeah – I’m probably going to feel pleasure.

Pleasure can look like a lot of different things.

Depending on the day, it might look like masturbating, eating my favourite food and doing my skincare routine on the side. It could be taking a bath or looking at the ocean. It might be screaming until my heart feels like it could explode and staying in bed with a box of chocolates and/or a box of joints.

It could be staring at the sky, re-reading something I’ve read a thousand times before or belting out my favourite show tunes in rush-hour traffic. It could be starting a brand-new finger painting or fully committing to that doodle I started in the margins of that overdue bill. It could be walking up the street to visit a new friend, writing in my journal or throwing a tea party for one. It could be a fashion show for and by myself.

If I’m in a clawfoot stone bathtub having my toes sucked by a lover, while being fed grapes by another and listening to a perfectly curated playlist while the smell of dinner being prepared by yet another lover wafts in the air, then yeah – I’m probably going to feel pleasure.

Pleasure is wrapping myself up like a gift, so I can experience the gratification of unwrapping my favourite present. It is the self-satisfaction of being enough for myself and doing precisely whatever the fuck I feel like, in whatever way is possible, at any given moment.

Pleasure is allowing every part of myself to exist without making any excuses. It is the freedom to do what I please without the judgement of others, and what is the judgement of others if not my own judgement in disguise.

Judging myself is my favourite drug. I do it with such ease that I don’t even notice it most of the time, which makes it hella easy to judge other people, too. And when I’m in a cycle of self-judgement, pleasure is nowhere to be found.

Image by: Sass Art

It’s harder to metabolise pleasure when it doesn’t look like what my imagination says it should. It can be hard for me to find pleasure when I’m talking to someone who annoys the shit out of me or when I have to deliver news that makes me feel like I’m being disembowelled.

Emotions are much more complex than the one-note definitions of pleasure that we usually read about.

Sometimes pleasure feels like a free-fall into an abyss of loneliness that is actually the open-hearted wisdom of being true to myself. Pleasure can be walking the road of life alone and finding comfort in my own shadow. This week’s pleasure might look different from that dream of a clawfoot bathtub, but to me it feels just as good.

When I’m waist-high in shit and I’ve got nowhere else to turn, sometimes I find that the greatest pleasure is finding a smile while I’m standing in the shit. There’s a clarity and satisfaction that comes from allowing myself to free-fall into the nothingness of the present moment, and there’s no better, deeper, truer laugh than the one that’s hard-won.

Dealing with death and grief is what I always think of when I think of being waist-high in shit.

The day my Aunt Tiriah died, my partner and I went out for ice cream after we got the news, and I promptly dropped my cone on the ground moments after walking out of the parlour. In that moment, all I could do was laugh at the irony of life, and also at how much Aunt Tiriah, who loved to laugh, would have loved the irony of that very moment. How much she was, in fact, loving the irony of that moment, just because I was enjoying the irony of the moment.

The pleasure was multidimensional and fraught with fear and loss, as every moment of life always is.

When I practise yoga naked, it feels like I’m taking ownership of myself and releasing allegiance to a system that profits by making me hate myself.

I find that everything is pleasure.

It lives in the trees, the breeze and the sunshine. It’s in the dirt, the weeds and the leaves. It’s in the shitty moments as much as the scrumdiddlyumptious ones. Pleasure is a mistake well-lived and a lesson learned, and it’s being alive when the day is done.

Pleasure is acceptance of all that I am – not just the parts that have been co-signed by society or the parts I’ve decided to like that day. It’s not actually about liking myself at all. Sometimes, my greatest pleasure is the freedom to hate myself.

This week, my deepest, most revelatory pleasure is getting off work at 4pm, taking a walk with my dog, making dinner for one, and eating that dinner alone at my kitchen table while watching reruns of Mad Men and Downton Abbey on my iPad.

I’ll clean up my dinner while listening to an audiobook or my new favourite playlist, and take the hottest shower my body can handle. I’ll be in bed by around 9pm. I always think I’m going to read a book, but usually I just stare at the ceiling listening to Spotify’s ‘Sounds of the Ocean’ playlist.

Pleasure is claiming myself for myself without further explanation. It’s taking up space and throwing my elbows around to belabour the point. It’s saying no to someone who needs me. It’s prioritising the voice that lives inside me over everything and everyone else. It’s taking up space unapologetically and experiencing the freedom to be myself, without worrying about the judgement of others.

Naked yoga may not be for everybody, and that’s okay. There’s more than one way to find pleasure. My pleasure is a vehicle for everybody’s pleasure. When I feel it, I’m making space for other people to feel it, too.

I have to find it where I can, even if it means walking the road of life alone and laughing by my lonesome.

       This article first appeared in Archer Magazine #19: the PLEASURE issue.

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