When I first heard of the term ecosexuality, it conjured images of white hippies, white performance artists “marrying the earth,” and a movement of people whose concept of the land rarely acknowledged already-existing practices of Black and indigenous land stewardship. Much of the literature on ecosexuality seems to suggest that an erotic relationship with the land is something new and groundbreaking, something that will open people’s eyes to what it means to love the earth. Two of the most well-known ecosexuals are artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, who are often described as the founders of the movement. In their “Ecosex Manifesto,” they write that “we will save the mountains, waters and skies by any means necessary.” Exploring writing and work by prominent (largely white) ecosexuals, I was struck by the repeated assertion that they are the ones who will save the earth, who hold the key to reversing climate change and ushering us all into a new paradigm. While I have no doubt that ecosexual artists and activists have made beneficial contributions to environmental organizing, there’s something that feels arrogant in assuming this role of savior and visionary. So much of this approach feels similar to colonial land practices which assume a position of absolute authority over the earth and its inhabitants.
I’m not really interested in reclaiming the term ecosexual, or using it as a framework for land-based practices. But I am interested in exploring the ways Black and brown artists and communities continue to cultivate erotic and embodied relationships to the land. I’m interested in the silences and omissions that have made ecosexuals’ white savior claims possible. In my study of the connections between bodies and the land they move through, between pleasure and the histories of soil/water/plants that shape us, I’ve learned the most from Black artists, writers, facilitators, and ritualists. These thinkers remind me that seeing the earth as a living being, an ancestor and a friend, is not a new idea but is in fact my birthright. I’m grateful to find myself continually sheltered and challenged by their love practices.
I’m sharing a few of these thinkers here, as both an offering and an invitation. I’d love to hear from you about Black eco/erotic thinkers who have inspired you. I recognize this list leans heavily towards U.S. and North American folks, so I’d especially like to learn about thinkers from other parts of the world. I’m thinking of making a collaborative document with these names and resources. Would you be interested?
I’d also like to note that not all of these artists use the word “erotic” in their work, or directly name sexuality as part of their framework. My approach to a Black feminist eco-erotic is also rooted in the recognition that our bodies are inherently sensual, that the erotic is not just about sex, and that there are numerous ways our physical and emotional selves connect in sensuous ways with our environments.
Jamilah Sabur is a Jamaican artist whose work explores Jamaican architectural forms, land art, indigeneity, and geography. In this interview with BOMB magazine, she talks about water as womb, memory carried in rivers and oceans, and her own relationships to geologic formations in both Florida and Jamaica. In many of Sabur’s pieces, the body becomes a channel for the watery, porous rememberings of the landscapes that have shaped her.
Donika Kelly is a poet and professor who has written the collections Bestiary and The Renunciations. I love her work for its explorations of trauma, mythology, landscapes (both external and interior), and the more-than-human. I highly recommend the series of love poems found in Bestiary, which include “Love Poem: Centaur,” “Love Poem: Satyr,” and “Love Poem: Werewolf.”
Cy X is a “black queer agender love influencer, earth tender, and cyber witch.” Through their eco-erotic practice Pleasure Ceremony, Cy shares herbal products and designs sensory experiences that invite people into deeper relationship with pleasure and play. Cy’s artistic work encompasses music, digital art, performance, ritual, and more.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a writer who has written extensively about Black feminist poetics, Black care practices, and ancestral/ecological linkages with marine animals. She is the author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, and Dub: Finding Ceremony, among others.
Bayo Akomolafe is a Yoruba writer and philosopher who has written and spoken extensively on interdependence, cosmology, and what it means to live in a time of crisis. In this interview, he says, “What we rudely call 'nature' today does not even have a name in Yoruba culture because there was no distinction between us and the goings-on around us…Mountains could be consulted, trees could have privileges.” I also love this interview he gave about goodness, morality, and the possibilities of the sensuous.
Camille Dungy is a poet and editor of the anthology Black Nature: Four Centuries of African-American Nature Poetry. Through this anthology, Dungy creates a space for Black poetry on ecological connection that brilliantly explores themes from the bodily and erotic to the granular, mundane, and absurdist. Camille’s own work is often concerned with motherhood, family, plant life, and memory. Recently, I enjoyed this essay of hers titled “Dirt: A Love Story.” Dungy' s forthcoming memoir Soil is a reflection on her evolving relationship with plants and the earth, a relationship that “demands she consider questions of family, history, race, nation, and power.”