Reconsidering Power: From Domination to Embodied Relationality
Power is often understood through a narrow and largely negative frame. We tend to assocate it with domination, control, and acting over another. And this makes sense. Many of the systems that shape our lives are structured through forms of power that are hierarchical and extractive. Colonisation is a clear example of power exercised over people and land. The ongoing exploitation of natural resources also reflects this kind of control over the environment. At an interpersonal level, domestic and family violence, sexual assault, and coercion are also expressions of power over, experienced within relationships and intimate contexts.
Power is not understood in this way because it is an outlier, but rather it is embedded within political systems, media narratives, and institutional structures. As a result, these shape how power is understood and experienced in everyday life. We may come to resist, fear, or reject power entirely. And in doing so we lose sight of the possibility of power, that it is not inherently harmful, but rather shaped by how it is used.
Within community organising, we often work with the idea of power with. This is the understanding that power is built in relationship with others, through shared purpose and coordinated action, rather than something that is taken or imposed. In this sense, power grows through coming together rather than being constrained and weakened by it.
My work in community organising has involved supporting individuals and groups to recognise their own capacity to influence change, and to build the relationships and strategies necessary to act on that capacity. Even though this work is described in terms of strategy, plans, or practical outcomes, there is also another change happening that people do not always notice. A less visible but significant shift that occurs at the level of the individual experience. What I have observed and experienced, is that as we begin to recognise our agency, there is often a corresponding change in how we might carry ourselves, how we make decisions, and how we engage with others. This shift is not only cognitive, it is embodied.
This is where my work in somatic sexology intersects with community organising. Somatic approaches see the body as a place of knowledge and experience. From this perspective, power is not only something that we are able to understand intellectually, but it is something that is felt, processed, and expressed through the body. The way we experience power somatically, whether as contraction, expansion, tension, or ease, shapes our relationship to agency, autonomy, and connection.
If power feels associated with threat or harm, there can be a tendency to shut down or pull back, especially in moments where we need to lead, be seen, or speak up. On the other hand, when power feels grounded and supported, there is often a greater capacity to act, engage, and stay present even when things are challenging. In this sense, how we experience power in the body is not separate from how we use it. How we experience power shapes how we show up in our lives.
This becomes especially relevant in relationships, intimacy, and sexuality. Power in these areas may often be misunderstood or avoided because of its association with harm. But avoiding it does not remove it, it just means it tends to show up in ways we are less conscious of.
In intimate and sexual contexts, power can show up as control, performance, or disconnection from the body. It might involve overriding our own instincts to maintain connection, staying within familiar but limiting dynamics, or relating to intimacy through expectation rather than responsiveness. One way of working with this is to reframe power as the capacity to stay connected to our own body, to recognise and communicate desires and boundaries, and to engage with another from a place of awareness.
In this sense, power in intimacy and sexuality can be understood as a form of power with. It is about staying connected to ourselves in a grounded and responsive way, and being able to stay in relationship with another without losing that connection. This does not remove power, but shifts how it is held, which can reduce control or coercion and allow more space for connection and responsiveness.
How we relate to power in intimacy and sexuality is not separate from how it operates in wider social and political spaces. Changing systems of power over is also about how power is lived and embodied.
This can be understood as a more embodied way of working with change. It recognises that how we show up in relationships, intimacy, sexuality and in life more broadly is shaped not only by how we think about power, but by how we actually experience it in the body. Becoming more aware of this creates the possibility of relating to power more intentionally, where it is neither avoided nor repeated unconsciously. Rather, it is met with more awareness in real time.
Across relationships, intimacy, sexuality and life more broadly, the question is not whether power is present, but how we are relating to it. Where do you notice power in your life? Where does it feel controlled, effortful, or like you are doing too much? And where does it feel more open, where you feel connected, resourced, and in relationship with others?
This does not mean ignoring the risks or harms of power. It means recognising that power exists in both personal and shared life, and learning how to engage with it in ways that support connection, agency, and change.
