Sensual Faith

The Art of Coming Home to Your Body

By: Lyvonne Briggs, Briana Boyd - introduction PhD

Narrated by: Lyvonne Briggs, Briana Boyd PhD

An invitation for women to discover a healthier approach to spirituality and sexuality that centers pleasure rather than shame, from body- and sex-positive preacher and author Lyvonne Briggs

“Home is not an address. Home is where you feel safe. And your body is aching to be your home.”

How you view your body and your sexuality is informed and strengthened by spiritual practices, but how many of us can say that religion has drawn us closer to our bodies? That’s because worship spaces that are intended to be spiritual safe houses have not historically been welcoming to our bodies, forcing us to leave our flesh at the door. This ideological amputation is at best a disservice and at worst a sin. The remedy? Radical self-hospitality.

In Sensual Faith, Lyvonne Briggs charts a path for us to practice spiritual wellness that aligns and harmonizes our bodies with pleasure and sexuality. By centering the rich traditions of ancient West African spirituality, Sensual Faith offers a radically inclusive model of companioning one’s self. Filled with wellness rituals, journal prompts, affirmations, and practices, Sensual Faith shows us how to celebrate our bodies as our very homes.

“Pleasure is your birthright,” writes Briggs, so whether it’s accepting your flesh, nurturing your intuition, learning the language of consent, or sumptuous self-care, let radical self-hospitality guide you to healthy sexuality.

Critic reviews

“Lyvonne Briggs is fearless, fabulous, and unflinchingly talking taboo. Sensual Faith is a groundbreaking work of spiritual decolonization and a powerful reclamation of the body.”—Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free

Great read overall!

I loved everything about this audible so much so that I also purchased the hardcover! Great narration and Lyvonne Briggs definitely deserves all her flowers NOW! Will be gifting a copy to my close friends as well.

Liberated

I feel so liberated after this. I have been on a journey of healing and renewal and this has been what I needed to help me move along.

Medicine

This is a book for everyone but especially for Black femmes. Truly sacred text that we have been waiting for. It’s a blessing to have access to these words. Definitely a book that you will have to return to over and over, receiving new insight each and every time.

An On Time Word

Lyvonne Briggs is now a revered, older sister in my head. Not only did this book affirm the liberatory theology I’ve developed in my twenties, it gave me new language to love God, myself, and others fully. Black women of faith, you need this book. Be free and full, because “that is your birthright” (paraphrasing a phrase she repeats in the book). Briggs is transparent, relatable, thoughtful, fierce, and yet still gentle with her exhortations. Do not sleep on this new gem in this womanist theological canon.

Confessing

This book allowed the girl in me to be heard and freed! Thank you for your obedience in writing this story and most importantly openly sharing it!