Dj Sexstasy: Everything You Need Is Already Within You

Long before DJ SEXSTASY gave sensuality a name, he watched his mother embody it. A disco or house classic would bring back stories of the 80s and 90s, but what stayed with him was not nostalgia. It was the way she described dancing as an expression of absolute permission. No embarrassment, no negotiation with the room, no distance between the person she was and the body moving through it. Years later, after losing much of that certainty in himself, he would find his own way back through the same act.

"My mother was my first contact with electronic music and I loved every time she said, 'I danced so much to this back in my time,' whenever a disco or house classic was playing. Her voice carried a sense of freedom and pride when she spoke about her party era in the 80s and 90s. She lit up entire dance floors because of her immense charisma and magnetism. She was never afraid of dancing and being unapologetically herself, which ultimately made me curious to experience parties just like she did."

Music continued to enter his life through different routes, including trance through his brother and Psytrance raves in Northeast Brazil. By then, the dancefloor was becoming somewhere he could understand freedom physically rather than simply observe it.

That relationship became harder to access after moving to Germany. DJ SEXSTASY had been working as a photographer and filmmaker since 2016, shooting events, DJs, fashion and tourism. He relocated in late 2018 for a relationship. Adapting to a new country was already difficult before the pandemic removed much of the work and social contact around which his life had been built.

"My first year adapting wasn't easy and once the pandemic hit, I could barely do or find any consistent work, which turned those passions into stress, but they were also my escape. Being isolated, far from family and friends and struggling to find new ones in Germany made everything harder, including my relationship with my partner at the time. At some point I had zero self-esteem, no joy for life and I didn't recognize myself anymore because I was once the happy boy who grew up at the beach in Brazil."

What followed was not one miraculous night, but a series of encounters through which movement acquired another meaning. Some happened in Brazil. One happened at VOID Club in Berlin, where nothing was required beyond a room, music and his own body.

"I had several life-changing nights that felt like some sort of spiritual enlightenment. I learned things while dancing that I carry on in my personal daily life. The Psytrance raves I used to attend in northeast Brazil gave me the foundation for self-expression, for example. Upon moving to Germany I went to VOID Club Berlin where I danced for 3 hours straight with my eyes closed, sober, and that also made me understand that I can achieve higher states of consciousness, meditate and grow using only the movement of my body, which ultimately brought me the realization that I have everything I need already within myself."

That experience sits close to the centre of how he now understands club culture. Dancing can be pleasure without needing another justification. But for DJ SEXSTASY, it can also create conditions in which people briefly alter their relationship with themselves and, through that, with each other.

"Everyone has their traumas, self-doubt and insecurities, but I believe we are capable of healing through movement and community. If you combine dancing with the right environment, that creates the conditions for someone to reconnect with themselves and process emotions. Once that happens, it facilitates the connection with others around you."

His own events, including BUNKER in Fortaleza and Sexpressions, extend that belief into the spaces he creates for other people.

"The dance floor gave me not only my best relationships, but also a more loving and optimistic view on life. I make my own events because I hope that people experience some sort of positive transformation as well, and we always get to see each other again. I might not be close friends with everyone in the crowd, but it feels like a family to gather everyone again once in a while to celebrate the music we like."

The sensuality now associated with DJ SEXSTASY emerged from the same process. A decisive moment came in São Paulo in 2023, at Rumors by Guy Gerber, during one of the first parties he attended after coming out of depression.

"The music and atmosphere there was so sensual that something had finally clicked in me. I felt confident in my own body for the first time in years, and I haven't been hateful towards my appearance ever since. I realized that all my insecurities were not born with me. They were seeds from bullying at school that I kept feeding. After that night I started to frequent more queer events as well, because the music is sexier and the community always made me feel so welcome and safe to get to know myself better."

Out of that return to confidence came the language he now uses for his sound: sexytechno. Techno remains its foundation, but tribal percussion, Latin rhythmic influences, provocative vocals and visceral basslines are selected according to what they provoke physically rather than how neatly they fit a category.

"Sexytechno for me is the type of dance music that makes you bite your lips or touch your own skin or flirt. It's when you hear something that makes you want to swing your waist or move your whole body in a wave-like motion. It feels empowering, it makes you feel hot and maybe even irresistible."

For DJ SEXSTASY, sexuality in music is less about provocation than access to an energy that everyday life often asks people to contain.

"Sexual energy is creative energy, and that energy is very often repressed in society. Sexytechno is the music to awaken that energy, so that we can move more confidently with it."

Fortaleza gives that physicality another dimension. He does not want sensuality to become the project's only emotional register. The place he comes from carries a different kind of intensity into the way he performs.

"I don't want people to only feel sexy through my music, I want them to feel truly alive and uplifted as well. This aliveness is the identity of where I am from. The people, the food, the ocean, the local music, the nature, the sun, everything is vibrant, playful, colorful and full of joy. My performances are a direct reflection of that, especially in the way I move and I connect with the crowd."

His ability to access that freedom himself changes according to the physical relationship between booth and audience. A 360-degree setup at dancefloor level can remove the sensation of performance almost immediately. Distance changes the process.

"If it's a 360 stage where I am at dance floor level and the crowd is constantly and immediately giving energy, I will trust my body more and move more confidently. If I'm up on a stage a bit further away, I will take some time to get into flow state and fully let go, because it feels like I am being watched at first."

The vulnerability does not disappear. His relationship with it has changed.

"One way or another, I've learned to replace being nervous before a show with being excited and just trusting the process."

That desire to let something unfold rather than announce itself immediately also shapes his criticism of contemporary techno. For DJ SEXSTASY, intensity cannot be measured only through speed, hardness or the efficiency of a drop.

"I think a lot of music today has become insanely predictable because they rely too much on the same formulas for streaming success or for sounding harder for cool social media clips. The element of surprise is now much more rare, sets feel more monotonous and people are playing safe instead of being experimental."

His reference point for emotional scale reaches outside the techno conversation altogether.

"We should be exploring the enormous range of emotions that music can carry. I was a big fan of 2009-2015's EDM because of the emotional weight and epicness of the tracks. I want to bring more soul and more feelings back."

That intention connects the music he plays with the environments he wants to build. The dancefloor, in his view, does not need to be framed as an escape from the outside world. It can become somewhere to practise ways of returning to it differently.

"In a world more and more consumed by fear, technology and division, dancefloors are the ultimate safe spaces to create more hope, spread love and grow collectively. Our ancestors celebrated community, the divine and their existence through ritualistic practices that resemble what the dance floor experience can be."

For DJ SEXSTASY, the ideal result of a night is therefore not exhaustion, spectacle or even memory. It is something the body can retrieve later.

"I want to create more parties and DJ sets that feel ceremonial, in which you leave lighter, calmer, more confident than when you arrived. I want people to enter states where they're more in touch with themselves, become aware of their strengths, and then they can tap into this state again in their daily lives."