New Hero: Che Che Luna
AURORE sat down with pleasure educator Che Che Luna to discuss the healing power of dance, their work as a brujx, and advice for exploring your gender identity.
How do you express your sexuality through your choreography?
Expressing my sexuality through choreography has been a daily experiment of letting my body take the lead. I play with creating spaces for my body to tell stories that are beyond the mind. I ask my body questions like How would my sexuality move? or What does my sexuality feel like today? or What if my movement was being initiated by different erogenous zones in my body? This process has guided me to learn how expansive my sexuality really is. It is energy that points me towards my desires, my pleasure, and my aliveness.
How do you feel dancing heals? Is it spiritual? Physical? Emotional?
Dancing is somatic intelligence at work. Dancing allows the physical, emotional and spiritual parts of us to synchronize. We become song. With all the chronic stress most of us are moving through, dance is a way to unwind, play, discover, land and come back into our sensuality.
Give us some background on your work/role as a brujx? What does that identity mean to you?
As a self-proclaimed brujx, I exist in this world as a medium between spirit and Earth. I use my body, my empathy and the elements of this planet as medicine for healing. Witchcraft is my mother tongue. My Mexican lineage whispers ancient spells into my bones; my ancestors are constantly guiding me. As a brujx, I rebel against systems that say I do not hold the power to heal myself or others. That say I am less than. That say I need to conform. I am here to listen, gather and facilitate what those that came before me dedicated their lives to. I am here to ripple magic through embodiment, community + this land. To use my sexual power as fuel for change, interconnectedness and liberation.
Talk to me about inpleasure workshops! Where did you get the idea and what are the goals of the project?
inpleasure workshops is a budding vision that is centering spaces for LGBTQ+ BIPOC to explore their sensuality, sexuality and pleasure via dance. I believe there is a great need for more inclusive spaces that invite marginalized folx to get to know their own bodies. To tell their movement stories. To step into their own erotic power. It is truly profound what can happen in a room full of 20 folx that have just gone through a 4-hour individual and collective sensual dance journey together. New pathways form in the body-mind relationship. New portals open that cannot be unfelt. These spaces are a somatic and movement-based approach to sex and pleasure education. I am in the process of creating a virtual workshop that will be launching within the next month or so—to stay updated you can follow @inpleasureworkshops on Instagram.
What has your experience been with exploring your own gender identity?
Exploring my own gender identity has been a lifelong process that still contains many questions and unknowns. I always felt very limited by the gender binary and the ways I was socialized as a "woman." For a long time, I thought that I couldn't identify as trans if I didn't want to transition. I didn't have any representation of femmes who identified beyond the binary. Once I started to learn more about gender as a construct, I began to give myself permission to be honest with myself and others about how I feel inside. I currently identify as nonbinary and/or agendered.
How did you get into sex education? Why is it important?
I got into sex education through working with Ev'Yan Whitney as one of their clients. I was so inspired by the work and transformation they guided me through, that I decided to enroll in the Institute for Sexuality Education and Enlightenment (ISEE) and began my studies. As a childhood sexual trauma survivor and someone that hardly had any sex-ed growing up, I am committed to offering the education, resources and space holding that I wish I had growing up. We live in a society that is still very fearful of sexuality. Dismantling the taboos and limiting beliefs around sex and pleasure is my offering towards a more liberated and just future.
What advice would you give to someone who is curious, but afraid to explore and question their gender identity?
Start putting your attention towards finding others that reflect back what's possible to you. Curate your social media feed to be full of gender expansiveness. Search hashtags that interest you. Read "Beyond the Gender Binary" by Alok Menon. There is a whole community of people that will affirm you and love you for exactly who you are.
What makes you feel sexy?
Binding tape, mangos, generative conversations, dancing for my own gaze, self-pleasuring, being naked in nature, eye contact, sensual touch with lovers, sexting, differentiation, owning my boundaries, speaking my desires, eye liner, my mustache and oh so much more!