Stop Turning Me Into Inspiration Porn — Ericka Hart on Nasty Work

Ericka Hart (she/they) is a sex educator, author, and breast cancer survivor who has spent their career arguing that pleasure isn't a luxury — it's a right that's been systematically withheld from Black, brown, queer, and disabled bodies. In this conversation, Erica and Shan trace the throughline from childhood activism that was never a choice, to being expelled from Peace Corps for loving who they loved, to the night they disclosed a double mastectomy mid-hookup and got the response that became their whole love story: "titties, I don't care." They talk about going topless at Afropunk and getting turned into "inspiration porn" instead of being seen as desirable, and about the gap between the two: being praised for surviving versus being wanted for who you actually are.

Erica shares what it actually means to write a book, Nasty Work, for the most marginalized people, because when you center the people the world has held least, everybody gets to see themselves. This is a conversation about reclaiming a body the world has always tried to act on instead of let you inhabit, and what it costs, and what it feels like, to do that work on your own terms, even when it's still in progress.

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