organizing comedy for tonight and this is Mira a very familiar face that you would have seen over and over again I don't guess very tiring but it's always very refreshing to have her you've definitely heard me I've been shouting at some point at one point she's gonna kill me tonight hi everyone and welcome to she says who's who's here for the first time raise your hands yes well welcome to she says and we're gonna introduce who we are we're really excited to have you here's a very intimate group we generally this is something this is a new topic for us this is not something that we've ever addressed and I'll explain why we are going into this topic and the press around it was interesting a lot of the time you see a lot of positive family supporting but there was very little said about gender neutrality female pleasure sexual health sexuality gender and this is a topic that we want to discuss just to be and it's something that is important to all of the women at she says and with the community at large so tonight it's a small group of people and we want we have an amazing group of people who are going to be up on the panel they have created sex products here sexual devices and toys in Singapore they've been fighting for the rights of sex workers many of whom I just found out as well today from Vanessa who's from project X to be a legal sex worker in Singapore you have to be female and 21 to 35 keeping in mind that our I'm Singaporeans I want to say it again but keeping in mind that our government is the state it is and the rate of gender parity I wonder why they made that age group and chose that demographic when choosing such such workers to be female between the ages of 21 to 35 keeping in mind that male sex workers exist in Singapore they are all illegal which also means that when they are victims of crime like robbery rape physical violence they have no rights because they technically sometimes shouldn't even be in Singapore so they're not going to fight for themselves so those are some of the topics I'm going to be talking about today and we're super excited to have you so would you mind just clicking the keyboard because I don't know you have well there you go she is useful there you go Sarah off to you okay so those of you who are here for the first time welcome always excited to have new people here and those of you who was joined us before welcome back always excited to have you around as well so just a quick introduction to she says very global creative network for women we focus on women within the creative digital and technology industries we're global we've got 13 chapters around the world with Singapore being one of our first Asian chapters we're quite strong in the Asia market so Singapore has 3,000 members including all of you so if you have friends always welcome to have them join us as well we're we're always having panel sessions and social nights as an effort to sorry as an effort to always to bring our community together so for you to come together as a family for you to make new friends for you to meet new people so we'll always engaging our our members to and always encouraging you guys to come and join us at every month's event that we have over to you so today we kind of briefly mentioned what the chat is about now after this there is always our standard networking session so what we'll do is that we'll have the panel and keeping in mind that it is a fairly intimate crowd it's a really interesting topic if we generally have it for about 45 minutes but we can stretch it as well till they kick us out but with the networking just to let you know we've got a couple of recruiters in the room the recruiters can you just put your hands up there you go there's one right there was some some more oh no you know how it's like but um no but we do have JK who's from talent to who's here and she'll be if you have if you're looking for a role let her know the other company that's also looking is called it's a technology company that focuses on marketing tech who's looking for a business development manager they're looking as well and they're specifically looking for women because they're looking to have more gender parity in their business as it grows in Singapore and then into Austin Asia Pacific so if you have any other roles that you're looking to hire or Phil let Sarah of myself or one of the she says girls know and we'll issue it in our newsletter and on our Facebook page to 3,500 members and growing so I want to introduce myself I'm Mira I am I get confused sometimes I have to explain myself so I work in a central I'm in digital and innovation I look at product strategy and development for transportation aviation life sciences and beauty as well beauties and odd one but it's actually quite similar in terms of supply chain to life sciences for background but I also run a street photography business and we together with Lizzie and Vicky and Sarah we run she says over to you Sarah yeah and I'm Sarah I'm an account manager at double verify which is an advertising technology company we focus on media quality media verification I used to come from the media media buying side of advertising technology so I have that background as well so from there I realized you know what there's a lot of like bots fraudulent stuff out there unsafe stuff so I decided to join the brand safety site and basically focus on how technology can help you know improve your media buying plans so this these are some of the women who are active faces at she says so the two people I want to call out tonight actually Sam who's over there at cat who are actually truly responsible for pulling together the speakers planning everything for this session so give them a big round of applause and if you if you want to have a chat with them just go up he just he guys just put your don't put your heads down raise your heads thank you and you know some of the other women who are there Alicia is over there with the camera and she's also at Ascension she's one of our designers and Vicky Lizzie Trish are away at the moment but they'll be back in town fairly soon so just co so just co has hosted us for every single event they've never asked for a dime from us they always support us with every one of our activities so massive thanks to them if you want to know more details can go on to our Facebook page an event page and there is information on how you can get a membership or how you could potentially join any one of that community events echo cafe and we've got the guys behind the thing for providing the food and drinks for tonight or if you guys want to get drunk there's beer and wine at the back I encourage you to is a Wednesday so that's Sarah by the way in case you didn't that's why I run the social nights and we've got Michael from engineers SG for lending houses camera and his expertise behind the camera so thank you so much for always supporting all our events and always being there behind the man behind the camera and we move on to the topic for the day okay so I'm gonna bring our panelists up we can give them a round of applause as they take their seats don't be shy it's plenty to be shy about all right okay so do we have the slide with oh can we click it one more time please there we go there we go so these are our fantastic panelists before we kick off I'm actually going to get them to introduce themselves where they're from and what their product or their business or what it is that they do and maybe a mantra about what you live by or what you do hi everybody good evening thank you for having me tonight my name is Vanessa I am with the nonprofit organization called project acts we are sex workers rights organization so what we do is that we go out to a lot of red light districts in Singapore with distributed condoms but more importantly we try to educate women about what their rights are in Singapore so if they do face violence discrimination or any forms of exploitation we are there to either offer them legal advice or even help them pursue their cases if they have anything to bring forward the motto that I live by is actually I wish and this is also why I was so excited to be here today is because I do firmly believe that we need to have very open and non-judgmental conversations around sex sexuality and gender in order to encourage learning and encourage people to share their own different perspectives to encourage appreciation of diversity of views in this area hi everyone my name is Martha I am a relationship counselor and clinical sexologist I have a doctorate in human sexuality being in practice almost 10 years now 10 years as of next year and I got my master's in counseling last year I have two other degrees I have many trainings and I just love studying and what I I love more than studying is helping people that's why I do what I do and a lot of people think that I'm a sex crazy because I'm a sexologist I do love sex a lot that's why I became a sexologist but actually I I more than that I actually just love helping people to live lives fully and fearlessly so I feel that sex just happens to be the last frontier of truly becoming an adult of really embracing all aspects of your yourself we we get all kinds of education with our work with our finances with a fixing fixing cars whatever but we don't get much training or much education around our sexuality at least in Asia and so what I do is I work with couples and individuals in private session and I run workshops of my own and for the last coming to 10 years I've been running a sexual techniques workshops which are very popular like penis massage workshop over massage workshop blowjob workshop so people always laugh at me however these are always the workshops that are full because I think everybody everybody just wants to be better in sex so that they can keep their partner so I have met people who are they don't have a partner they've never had a boyfriend even but they want to come to these workshops so they can just prepare and yeah so I run these workshops I have three books and what else do I do I have a YouTube channel I had a podcast for three years which I stopped this year because I'm not actually a very auditory person so I can't understand why people want to listen to me so that's why I stopped yeah that's all my name is Dima founder of five is the smart vibrator right this is a wearable smart vibrator I used to work as a software engineer in investment bank but I was in long distance that's how I got the idea because for me in long distance typically it's easy for men to release the energy right but I realized like oh my wife also need this kind of she needs to release her orgasm too right so I couldn't find something that was easy to use and then finally that's I started five is as a fun project in the beginning and my wife was just laugh about it but later on the more I learned a little bit more what is important for women then I realized like wow there's so many things that I didn't know about women right and that's how I start this project and then we started to talk to a lot of people and we always also talk to your sexologist and then one day like the doctor asked me like do you know that more than 70% women did not attend orgasm even like they having sex that's where I was like wow I didn't know that right yeah I mean like the numbers is very but a lot of women says like actually is more is higher than that right it depends which country you are from right so that was I got this info when I was in the US and then that's where I left my job I do these companies full-time in the beginning I did this as to help the long-distance couples to stay intimate but we realized that the one that is more popular is actually what we call fantasy comes to life the ideas that this smart vibrator it vibrate in sync with audiobook so this is wearable so women don't have to touch it at all just put it there you listen to your audio book and then when the guys say I'm touching you softly it will vibrate softly when the guys say I'm touching your heart then this thing will vibrate hard right that's how that's what we call fantasy comes to life but yeah I mean my motor is basically what I believe is that the world will be a better place when women can have orgasm as much as men do right I think that's will make a lot of different the thing is like the more I talk to you to a lot of people said some people's things like female orgasm is not not something is it's not really important right even if you read on the magazine or an article it when you talk about like orgasm female orgasm on the article is they always says like the problem with with the women right how come it takes so long for women to have orgasm all these things but I guess that is wrong I mean like the problem is actually with I wouldn't say is I have a problem with the man but it is just a biology biology thing right for for men typically it takes like five to ten minutes to attain orgasm and for women takes about ten to twenty minutes right so that's why like we always have this gap so the thing is like yeah basically what I told most guys that you need to understand like female orgasm is important too because it's part of human basic needs that's like thank you hi guys I'm Psy I don't think I have too much to say but I'm my associate creative director in a creative agency called ultra super new we are Japanese a Japan and Singapore based agency so we run two offices and so today I'll be talked I guess I'm here because I'm going to talk about a few campaigns that we've done about sexual wellness about how we infiltrated in the different markets over the topic about sex or like parts of our intimate women's areas so on the sideline I'm actually a co-founder of this e-commerce website called threats of artists and foxes also threats of Syria so that's sort of a place at e-commerce website where we enable craftsmen from all around Asia and beyond to to have better economic opportunities on an e-commerce space and and I'm also an LGBT advocate so the next part of that campaign is we've in threats of Syria we've also reached out to Syrian refugees and we've addressed some of the issues that they have they have by like creating products with them in collaboration to put on e-commerce website but the next part of our campaign is also one thing to address LGBT Syrian refugees and the things that they go through that is hardly expressed out to them so that's what I do but the main focus today is talk about these campaigns and how that is interesting for all of us today yeah hello my name is Jacqueline I'm the brand manager for Southeast Asia and head of corporate social responsibility at smile makers so smile makers is a sexual well-being brand we offer a line of premium award-winning vibrators and lubricants sold exclusively through health and beauty retailers like Guardian and Watson's so I've had a background in working in education from people as like children as young as like preschoolers, high schoolers and university students and I also did my university study focusing on the intersection between homoerotic behavior and ancient Chinese literature so I've always had an interest in sexuality and education and so I'm proud to be doing that at smile makers and I think just like reiterating what everyone else has said that my mantra focuses on education and the power of that and so I'm glad to be here and speaking because I think it's only through this dialogue are we able to you know give out the right information and educate the public on these very taboo secretive topics maybe I'll start with Jacqueline first now smile makers is an interesting brand because you've taken taken your business model in a different way you're available on red mark at Guardian I remember just being at Changi Airport I was like I was actually looking for something and I saw your vibrator sounds really confused because I thought it was a toothbrush with a hood on it then it was a different story altogether but then but yeah so can you tell us about the work that you're doing in Malaysia at the moment in Taiwan and specifically the work that you've been doing religious groups in Malaysia and with women and the demographics that you're working with so as the head of CSR I lead and execute all the educational initiatives charitable donations and partnerships within the medical and productive health spheres so in Malaysia for instance we do we do a lot of work there in terms of education so we partner with a family planning organization there's one of the largest in the country and we give educational workshops to the nurses and volunteers these are women oftentimes maybe 50 60 plus they've never seen a vibrator before because it's considered technically illegal there but we teach them how to be able to use these products to improve the lives of their patients that they're seeing on a daily basis and so that's very exciting for us right we get to see that there are actual medicinal or clinical uses for our vibrators and that was not the you know original intent but something that we're glad to be doing we also do a lot of research as well so right now we're working with a breast cancer association to research the importance of sexuality in the lives of breast cancer survivors and we hope that this is one of the first studies of its kind within an Asian context and specifically in Malaysia and talking about religious organizations so we also work with religious bodies to validate sexuality as an important component of marital stability so we were recently I think in April invited to the international Islamic University in Malaysia and we were the only brand there the other speakers were health professionals or religious officials and there's a photo of the co-founder with one of the top imams apparently in the country but we were there to talk about sexual pleasure and how important that is to a marriage and so we work with these religious bodies to validate this topic and make it you know more acceptable to be talked about not just at the ground level which we readily see but also at a top level so then I'm gonna check it over to Dima when it comes to your brand like with smile makers you are Singapore based there's a team of eight did you say and you're in how many markets 20 markets out of in the Asia region whereas with your business you've lied you're largely in Europe and North America yeah 50% of our sales coming from the US and 30% from Europe 20% is all over the world I guess the reason for us like focusing on the US because our product is mainly about the technology side just like it's connected phone remote control so when we talk to people in the US and Europe people straight away get it right I don't have to explain like what is the benefit of using fibrator they all know it and in fact like they already owns a few but when it comes to Asia it's a little bit harder I mean I agree with Jacqueline so education in Asia is really important and Asia is actually the bigger market compared to the US because like a lot of people's a lot of women that we talked to you like a lot of them you can kind of feel like they haven't really feel like the real orgasm right so so first time when when we started this company we talked about five years and then a lot of women especially in Indonesia or Singapore is like oh I don't touch that product is that like the from the porn movie or whatever I think right that is understandable but I get one of my friend's mom is like she says like you might can help you to sell to Indonesia I was like no I don't think so it's I don't think it's possible but the way she sell is very interesting she told her friends like oh friends I got this beauty product oh beauty product it helps you to sleep better lose weight looks younger right and all the miles are crazy oh what is that and then only that she will explain like oh yeah it basically is a vibrator like it is still kind of shy but okay I'll try it and the next week when they met her they like everyone's like oh so so the thing is like I feel yeah in Asia like like if we give the right education like like the right information is not about like because you're desperate or you're crazy we have to like for the younger women we have to tell like yeah sex is part of human basic needs it is it is part of I mean basically it is not because you're desperate it is as healthy it's good for you is it boosts your self-confidence yeah so yeah I mean like yeah if you look at the Maslow hierarchy sex is actually at the bottom together with food and shelter okay agree that it is a very conservative or it's hard it can be a more conservative market here in Asia but before we launched with any country we did our market research and we found that like in Singapore back in 2015 one in five Singaporean women owned a vibrator and then 62% of the rest were willing to try it out it's just like the retail environment or existing products were preventing them for doing it but we don't we saw that there was definitely an untapped market here in Southeast Asia and so that's why we want to start our growth here and expand us right so maybe I'll turn this to Martha and to Sai as well when we think about female pleasure which is largely what both products provide there is always a sense of shame right I mean there is always a sense of you will only use a vibrator if you don't have a partner or if you're single if you're unmarried or you haven't met that special someone how have women that use worked with or couples that you've worked with address this topic of shame or sexuality of female pleasure and when it comes to the work you guys have done especially in Japan you did a really cool program around condoms and Japan is a very closed-off culture so be interested to know that but maybe Martha we could start with you a lot of the couples who come to me they are not looking for sex toys they're looking to be able to have sex or have functional sex so the women who are coming they have vaginismus which is a condition that woman's vagina shuts now making penetration difficult or impossible so they cannot have sex they have a phobia about sex a lot of women have sexual inhibitions then men who come to me they have premature ejaculation erectile difficulties or delayed ejaculation so I assess them and make sure that it's not because of a physical health problem a lot of times is the lack of sexual skills so a lot of people are coming to me they are not looking for toys but having said that those who do ask me about toys they often ask about is it good or bad is it normal to have a sex toy can I use sex toy should I use sex toy how do I use a sex toy and so I think a lot of it is more coming from a place of ignorance and fear of the unknown or fear of what they don't know and still there's this misconception that sex toys are big and scary and very strong and very phallic looking so that's not true that a lot of sex toys now that are very beautiful and beautiful colors and designs and cute and some of them are not even phallic looking so this is when I try to normalize it for them and I work with a sex shop in Singapore where I I don't work with them I don't get a single cent but what I do is I recommend my clients to go there so that they can have a better experience maybe they mentioned my name they may get a discount but I feel comfortable working with that shop because I know they have a history of really caring for their clients so so I try to make sure that there's follow-through in terms of the the easing them into the world of sex toys so I give them some informations here and then tips on how to choose a sex toy how to buy a sex toy things like don't bite for her let her decide what she wants and go together and do your research online you can get it overseas it might be cheaper but you can still go to a shop and look and see and feel a toy and that's very important because if you don't like it you're not going to use it and in Singapore because they all look like really like you know mama shop so a lot of people don't like sex shops in Singapore but I understand they have their challenges with retail space and stock and all these different brands now coming out very very different industry when it comes to sex toys nowadays a lot of products are being launched every year now so actually the whole topic really aligns to like how we as Asian people are even like in an Asian territory how we look at sex in general like whether it's guy whether it's girl how you you you face that kind of challenges I mean I mean everyone here has in Singapore by enlarge with and marketers and and communications people here would totally understand like the climate here is that and there is just a representation of Asia right that it's always something that either you need to fetishize the thing or you need to come across as hey I'm a government body let me talk about reproduction you know and like let me draw you a pretty little padlock and then you are the key and like the illustrated key is supposed to unlock that padlock and like yeah you can unlock more kids so it's always this place of like it has to be cute it has to be funny it doesn't really talk about the address the addresses of actually what it means to have pleasurable sex or just to be able to do it so I think what what was mentioned about Japan so what we try to do in some of these most close-off markets right was let's talk about sex okay sounds like a song it's all about sex in in a broader perspective of instead of just saying hey we're a condom we're going to come into to Japan where there is a lot of sex products as you know and it's always been in the fetishized kind of market how can we talk about it in a place where it actually is educational so a lot of Japanese people that they have kind of like I won't say by and large but they do have kind of like a double-life thing where one part you have to be really really polite and conservative and come across as you understand you you are a team player and a part of it is like the deep down dark yeah like here's like some like sexualized anime and like here's a bunch of sex toys so how do we marry that to and become a more of like a national conversation so using condoms right we actually we understood that a lot of Japanese people read a newspapers it's called shinbun and skin which is the condoms that that the brand the brand is called skin we created newspapers called skin boom and we what we did was basically we disseminated this into anywhere like maybe shibuya or wherever where people are coming across and they already take newspapers like on a daily basis as they commute to work and and we actually give them something that looks like a newspaper so you take it and when you open up you don't see porn but you see a lot of interesting conversations about sexual pleasure and sexual activities and creative ways where you can explore these intimate territories with your partner or with someone else so so they will be pleasantly surprised when they open up to see like oh there's a lot of information about how I can open up the the topic of sexual illness the the articles they allude to it and hey I get a condom at the end so that's that's great and that really opened up the conversation we saw the the the market share for for skin actually rise up to be double fold and it's really understanding the the the markets that you're playing in sometimes it can create taboos like some occupations sometimes it creates opportunities it really is understanding how we play as as an Asian perspective I'm gonna direct my next question to Vanessa so just on the back of what side saying about the fact that you have something that you can tend to for information and stuff like this you work with Project X which is a human rights advocate for sex workers do you think that there is enough education for the sex workers to be able to turn into to something that can show them whether you know when they're in need who do they turn to is there enough information out there about sex workers maybe you want to tell them about what you've been doing in terms of educating the society on you know your project okay a lot of points there I think firstly the sex industry in Singapore I'll start with explaining a little bit about the sex industry I'll make it as brief as possible because it can go up to like one hour there is a legal part of the industry so that those are the legal bottles that you find in Geylang and little India there is a quota which means there can only be 1000 licensed sex workers in Singapore at any one point in time they come only from four different countries China Vietnam Thailand and Malaysia and I these are the licensed bottle scheme is restricted to these four nationalities so if you come from any other country you're not allowed to work in the licensed bottle as Mira said earlier there is a age restriction so you have to be between 21 and 35 years old so this is the government's regulation they do not make it public you can try to Google it now you won't find any information on it we've asked the government in their face and ask can you share with us how exactly are you licensing these brothels where's the accountability and you know how are you making sure everything goes well and they won't look us in the eye at all so we don't know what the policy is so as you can imagine a lot of the industry is actually underground or unlicensed illegal sex work right if you read the newspaper is quite regularly you'll be seeing this these two months alone there has been lots of rates of massage parlors masquerading sex joints masquerading as massage parlors karaoke bars and clubs HDB brothels I think that was a huge parliamentary debate about HDB brothels earlier this year late last year so a lot of the industry has spread out across Singapore so a lot of our work while we have we only three paid staff and everybody else are volunteers is actually extremely hard for us to reach out to all the sex workers I'll give you some numbers as to how many illegal sex workers they are in Singapore in 2016 the government released data to say that they arrested 3,000 unlicensed sex workers and in my opinion I don't think they managed to catch even 10% of the undocumented part of the industry so my estimate is that there at least 10 to 15,000 undocumented sex workers in Singapore and they come from all over the world okay so majority would come from ASEAN region so China Thailand Vietnam all these are there are lots of women who come from these countries but we also do see escorts and sex workers from Australia from the UK from Europe America so and so forth but they generally are of a slightly more privileged position in that they are never suspected of doing sex work or escort work in Singapore so it's often the young ASEAN women who get profiled as sex workers or they be stopped at borders so and so forth so language is a barrier so it's very hard for us to reach out to as many sex workers as possible so but we try we have networks all over the world we are part of a various global sex worker projects sort of organization so that we can try to spread our information from the source countries itself okay so that's roughly the work that we do actually one thing I was hoping to move on to is a lot of times sex workers come to us and they say the sex education in Singapore is rubbish okay so we do work with Singaporean sex workers also and and a lot of times the clients come to them with very basic questions that or do not know how to express their desires in a respectful manner right so that's when a lot of boundaries can be crossed a lot of unpleasantries and sometimes even violence can happen right so one thing that a lot of sex workers demand is that our sex education teaches us how to firstly explore our own sexuality what do we enjoy what do we not enjoy and then how do we express that to our sex partner and finally how to negotiate boundaries and and and all these kinds of stuff so yeah even sex workers yeah sex workers feel that there's not enough sex education in Singapore well in terms of you know knowing how you feel about yourself Marta you as a sex counselor how do you approach that conversation with your clients like do they where do you start with in terms of advising them where to start finding out what they like and what they don't like about sex the the first thing is if you want to learn this is a bit deja vu because I had a interview this morning on the same thing so yes so I I didn't I didn't know when I was training to be a sexologist I'll talk so much about masturbation and that's why I do I with my inhibited clients I teach them explain to them the importance of self-pleasuring so that they can first understand their own bodies and then they can communicate this to their partners and a lot of them are not really interested in their own bodies they just want to be able to have sex they want to give to their partners and please their partners so pleasure to them is not necessary and some of them have never had an orgasm never masturbated so I I have to explain to them that a lot of men are givers and they would they would be quite unhappy if they give but their partner doesn't know what to say and doesn't know how to respond and that's a that's a source of frustration for for them and so it starts from something as simple as anatomy and something as simple as encouraging them maybe even using a sex toy if they feel really uncomfortable so this element of shame around our sexuality I think it's common even for people who don't come from religious or oppressive backgrounds because masturbation is something that we do in private in somehow in secret and behind closed doors so because of that there's always that element of perceived I shouldn't be doing this kind of a thing so the normalization around masturbation I feel is very important and which is why I talk a lot about it and have YouTube videos and book about masturbation and yeah answer your question I think maybe to the rest of the panelists as well then when you look at so within your in various industries and in all the businesses that you work for what would you want to see more of in terms of the conversation what do you think how do you think that it could be improved like I mean we always want to we always talk about there you go but we always talk about solutions right so beyond the healthcare community as well right what should hypothetically if the HPB came to you if redmart which is already working with you or a more conservative organization came to the both of you and said how do we start to run content marketing campaigns or engage with sex workers in a different way or teach young young kids on the sex industry and how to respect it what you know what is it that you want to hear or see so we'll start with him ever okay so I became a sexologist because I wanted to help people have better sex and I see sex as an important part of a relationship I did not know that I would just keep working with people with problems and so that's why I do my workshops because my workshops are interesting and fun which you should attend and I feel that my intro my workshops is more proactive rather than reactive rather than seeing those people who are on the verge of divorce because they have been having sexual problems for years and years I rather have a more proactive approach so what is missing in Singapore and has been missing I've been doing this almost 10 years has still been missing is talking about sex in positive ways so that's that's why I became a sexologist because I got angry with only reading about sex in negative ways anti-abortion or anti-STI rates or be careful of this be careful of that and it's only when I became a sex expert that I get all these opportunities to be interviewed by the media that I realized that the media their hands are also tied they have to talk about sex in a moralistic way you do this and then you're going to get pregnant you do this and you're going to get a STI so there's no like just talk about sex for the sake of talking about sex and just talk about sex in the form of pleasure and so I got fed up with it and so that's why I started to make my own videos and launch my own masturbation month campaign online and read my own books and self-publish my books because nobody would publish them and so yeah I feel that this is very much missing so it's it's missing because nobody would have the outlet to do it and so then I do it okay so if Health Promotion Board came to me which they did this year I told them that they really need to be talking about sex in terms of sexual skills because that's what people want to learn and that's what people will listen but no I think I haven't shown the product but what we try to do is make the topic of sex very approachable so our I'm I'll answer the question is around about where so our main demographic is women who are vicarious or women who are curious to own a vibrator but do not currently own one and we found that there's a large market for that but also they were you turned off by the products again they look very phallic and intimidating and because they are intimidated by that kind of industry or the products and they don't also access that knowledge because they feel like it's kind of outside their their reach so we wanted to create products that can be talked about can be you know touched or accessed a bit more easily in everyday environments but I think also it's important to focus on not just like the orgasm alone and how you know the climax but also just the journey and how you can also attain pleasure through various means so so the one of our products is the fireman so it's it's pretty cutesy name but it looks like a little flame and it's supposed to be for like clitoral stimulation and again it looks like this so you use this on the clitoris like so it's pretty cute and then what we want to also say with this product is that it's not necessarily just for the orgasm alone it's not like other products out there like the womanizer or whatever that you'll get an orgasm in like five seconds because that's like then you're just like oh okay I got it I'm done but we wanted to for people to understand the journey and so this you know you can use this massager for minutes hours who knows and that should be that should be the goal right just like getting pleasure it doesn't necessarily have to be for any kind of like climax any kind of really goal but just the pleasure the pure joy of it I guess and so that's what we try to do and I think that there should be more education and information around that that's not just a one one goal thing but it's it's a whole process I guess yeah I just want to echo on what you've just said because I I guess in marketing in general here in Singapore or in by and large is that we we we need to have a KPI right you need to have a KPI to make a campaign right you need to how many things I need to sell all this thing is have the government will tell you something like oh there is STDs rising we need to make a campaign about STDs and like let's do like something cute and fun so that like when you're like a 70 year old auntie walking down the street you still kind of like I'm okay with the graphics and the visuals and not like flip over with your NTUC backs so we always need to make sure that everything is relatable for everyone especially here so I think that the bigger conversation is how actually we can change how marketing looks in in Singapore instead of us always looking at a KPI a specific KPI for something let's say you want to talk about a certain service so I'm working with a certain company now talking about a service for women and for the Vaubas and how they can feel better about re-invigorating the the the intimate areas and and and they wanted to hit a KPI we need a lot of sign-ups we need a lot of people to come and buy this product but instead of that the picture for a lot of these campaigns it doesn't need to be about sex in general like it could be a chair it could be a tech product here in Singapore it should come from premise of the the full picture like you said the process so when you look at product you need to look at the brand you need to look at the story you look at what you're talking about and in terms of the government and sex we're not just looking at oh they are a bunch of STDs on the rise let's do a campaign about the STDs but why are there STDs on the rise is that because let's do some research is it because people don't know how to protect themselves and why is it because they're rushing into it and why is it because they're watching porn and like expecting it to be done unprotected and why so we keep asking ourselves why we're here to a point we really realize what's the real goal and when you realize on when myth and when the government realized that actually it's all about education which is actually the number one thing that Asia needs is education it's we can't say hey man like oh my god let me pleasure you you pleasure me we can't do things like that we have to say like the end goal is to make sure for us to lower down STDs for example all four for a higher reproduction rate let's take all these wise take all the stepbacks and then realize hey actually it all just comes down to my personal pleasure how I can personally pleasure myself and my partner and have that conversation and normalize that to to create a better understanding for that so do you think it's almost kind of like and we'll go back to you guys after this as well but it's almost like a return to traditional Asian values in a way because it's all about the end goal right it's about you must get the house you must get married you must get a university degree must go to the right school it's all about the climax right it's about getting to that point it's not about just getting through the journey to understand who you are what do you actually love what do you want to do what's your passion so is that how do you think that you know to all of you how do you think that we can actually do that if you look at the at the system right now is there any way that people here could even be starting a conversation or are there groups that they could be working with or is there a way for them to you know to even influence people like something like pink dot didn't come out of nowhere it came about because I was a group of people who wanted to change the conversation so if we wanted to do something like that what happens it's a thing about it a little bit so a lot of times when it comes to sexuality the way we we look at it is quite a masculine approach so when I say masculine I mean the approach which is very direct very straightforward task oriented goal oriented that's why are we doing this if there's no orgasm or ejaculation why are we even bothering so this is why different messages needs to come out like what Jacqueline is saying a more feminine approach which is you know a feminine approach is I know some people the moment I say feminine they think I'm talking about women no that there's a masculine and feminine qualities in both men and women I'm talking about a softer approach a more indirect approach to sexuality that you're not so goal oriented but what I found is that it doesn't matter what I say to a person with a penis they are still going to be very masculine in their approach to sex they are going to always be thinking about sex in terms of the masculine approach and so what I found is the reason why they are fixated with the masculine approach to sex is because their sexuality is very much penis centric whether it can stand whether it can shoot and so what I do is I teach them skills so once you know what you're doing and you know how to do it and you know how exactly to manage or control your sexuality in the form of sexual confidence this is when you are actually open to what else is there that's when people are I feel open to play playfulness and fun and being less goal-oriented it's only when you know what you're doing that you actually feel that you are open to more things so this is why a lot of people are still very goal-oriented whether it's men or women so the women who are coming to me who are tired and exhausted not wanting to have sex low sex drive not having orgasms when I asked them what do you think you should do every single one of them I've asked said I don't know I think I need to buy a sex toy so still their approach is very masculine which is I just need to try harder I need to be a good girl and try harder if I try harder I will come that's sad that's sad I guess for like Asian culture sex education is kind of a taboo subject right I mean like every school will have a sex education but it's mostly oriented about like reproduction but the thing is when government or like all these institution didn't want to talk sex in a positive way in a reality way a lot of people will go to porn right so to be honest like now is porn is like the default sex education for even younger younger people so there's a research like the youngest people now that watch porn it start from like 12 years old or even 11 years old which is getting quite worried and the thing is like I'm not saying that porn is bad but people just need to know like what is the what is porn actually porn is actually it's entertainment it's like a movie something that you watch it entertain yourself but it's nothing to do with documentary it's nothing to do with education because like all this porn is mostly driven by like for man's pleasure so that's why like we always have this gap where a lot of women did not have an orgasm even like when they're having sex because like for the guys mind is like oh this is how you do it right and in for women also like oh this is how you do it basically like you have to like accept whatever the guys doing to you yeah people just need to know like when this porn was I managed to like talk to a few people who are in the porn industry I was like oh wow what do you do like how do you do the porn movie so porn is actually a lot of the porn movie actually it was shot in a few scenes right so it was taken like in a few days right but but in when you watch it a lot of people always thinks like oh this is real is this guy has a like a strong stamina like it lasts for half an hour like 45 minutes right so when the normal guys only last like 10 minutes is like oh I'm not that good right so like no guys will ever say is like oh I only last five minutes but the fact is that the typical average for men is only five minutes right so you don't have to be shy about it right so but the point is always give you like a wrong expectation about like sexuality and then yeah so it's just give a wrong expectation so what I'm trying to say is that point is just an entertainment it's nothing to do with education I'll just keep it short so so we can have everybody represented as well so I think so bring pink dot up I think it's close to home and how pink dot come about came about is really you you get everybody understands that sexuality or sexual identity is something that we don't really talk about or anything about sex or about identities so if we take that lens of how pink dot came about we realized that unlike like like Mardi Gras or like like the US with like gay pride and all that which is really a extroverted way of seeing things you realize intro version is very much celebrated here so that's why like pink dot had to take on the form of intro version and education to sort of start echoing a chamber to create a bigger audience and I think there's a lot to learn from that it's as a campaign whether it's go so or not it's it's it's you realizing that when you're talking to somebody about sexual wellness and whether it's woman to woman man to man man to woman to man let's let's talk about it you have to come from we have to come from a point that is sensitive introspective educational and and package in a way that is palatable for everyone so I mean I would employ everyone and say like like talking to your girlfriends how's your how's your how's your personal wellness going like that that's a easy way to start like are you drinking out water hey I've been doing yoga classes with me that's a really good yoga teacher and by way like you know how's how's everything else are you getting enough sleep who you dating now we see what's happening and then start to open a conversation from there on what story become a lot more holistic in views so I think the to your question like like how we can start a movement we might have to package it in a way that is bigger than just sex it might have to come from a place of personal wellness it might have to be a let's talk about your health your fitness and their sex and I have a friend who's trying to do that with in fort canning so I think she's starting an event that talks about all this as a personal wellness and sex and LGBT issues will be part of that but more importantly when when we we position it well enough people will see it and people will start to echo and normalize a lot of these things that right now we are not open to talk about right now yeah so I wanted to highlight one thing about we talked about sexuality education and HPB and everything one thing that needs to be spelled out is that the HPB's policy right now is abstinence it is still the policy of HPB for schools to teach abstinence and they're not going to change that until there is a consolidated well maybe not consolidate a serious movement for them to stop it I think they're still preaching the ABCD thing I don't remember what BCD means I ABCD abstinence and then no condom cannot use condom abstinence okay I forgot okay you can check it out on on the health promotion board and the Ministry of Education's website where they talk about sexuality sex education in schools and here's more icing on the cake I have a few teachers who were Ministry of Education teachers and in order to become a sex educator sexuality education teacher in school you have to pass a test and obviously this test would ask you questions like are you married do you have children are you religious what are your beliefs about sex we don't know what the right answers are but you can only guess what the right answers are have a friend she's very she's very sex positive and she wanted to be a sex education teacher but she was rejected okay and it's usually yeah anyway so I think one thing that maybe people we can do is I mean if you have children if you have nieces nephews who go to schools in Singapore talk to to them right what was your sex education like what did they teach you in schools and maybe just write in the letters of the school and be like hey I think your sex education sucks or maybe in a nicer way I think one thing about the whole extraversion introversion thing is in activism there is a start to move away from calling out right so sometimes when people make like a racist homophobic sexist remark would be like hey you you are sexist you are bigger blah blah blah blah and people are starting to to move away from calling out to calling in right and what that means is maybe we need to start having a conversation no matter how hard and no matter how much energy would drain from you to be like hey can we have a quick chat you know just now those words that you use not that great you know you must you can try using this term or that term and and that can foster can open up conversations around a topic rather than sheltering at people which I like to do I will admit I do like to do that sometimes I get I have anger management problems yeah I want to make one last point which hopefully links everything together about shame and sexuality but also one more thing which is gender roles which we haven't really touched on there are still very prominent expectations of men and women in society in Singapore society and it's very obvious when you are working within the sex industry men well the male people that I've met tend to come with a very split expectations of women on the one hand they want women to be super sexy ccups small ways sexually like very ravenous and then on the other hand they're looking for wife somebody who would bear them many many children that can sort of carry on the the family name and so on and so forth it sounds very outdated but but it is still very common to hear these sentiments when I talk to to men who patronize sex workers and and they range from all ages right you would think that those are the men so I like in their 40s in their 50s but that's not true I've met younger men 20s 30s who also think that way and and that's why there is a demand for the sex industry in in one aspect right sex workers come to me and say like all these men they're married you know but they have all these sexual appetite that they don't dare to express to their wives or they don't expect their wives to do those crazy things that they want to do so it can be fetish work right we a lot of people go to sex workers for fetish work for BDSM work for fantasy works right and and and these are conversations that these men are not comfortable to have with their wives because they have desexualized their wives they see them as just baby-making machine so we need to be able to allow women to speak up about their sexual desires and and and that they need to have orgasms or or just other forms of pleasure right it's not be all and all orgasm yeah for me gender roles is also one thing that needs to be smashed any questions oh okay just continuing on sex and shame so especially in Asia a lot of the problem is also with families we're talking about education and talking about talking to your nieces and nephews and you know friends children and things like that but where's the conversation around here sex education in school go home and talk to your parents about that because a lot of the shame a lot of I think the overcompensation that happens outside of the house is because it's a taboo subject in the home it's a taboo subject with the people that raise you that teach you your values that teach you oh you know Asians behave like this this is our tradition you make babies follow all these values that we teach you at home so how can we extend the education to something that you know children take back children feel free and open to talk to their families and other adults who know what sex is about and not just rely on sex education or then porn right so it's either entertainment or education that is very contrived in a certain way and so it's just yeah I think that's a tricky question obviously um but so what we've done for the company is in we want to be sold only in everyday retail environment so you can spark a conversation and that conversation can start with anyone right it can involve children there has actually been there was one complaint once in a mothership article about how these products you know our vibrators on display are so close to children's toys or things like that and I don't think that's necessarily a valid complaint because even if it's with next to children's toys like you know they don't know the better like those ask what is that and that can start a conversation but then up to the adults not to have that shame as well right so I think for us to ask to educate children is difficult I mean if you have you know ways to do that but to educate the adults and make sure that they're not you know ashamed to talk about these topics ashamed of their own sexuality men and women and so that they can start a conversation with their children yeah I think it's harder to talk about the children I know from my upbringing I'm American but my parents are from Indonesia and I'm very vocal about everything and so I forced them to have that conversation but it's a very tricky thing to do but I think you just have to be you know unashamed of these topics and understanding that what we're doing also as like educators or you know marketing professionals or yeah brand owners is is trying to educate and also making sure that people whether it be you know conservative you know minorities or bodies to like liberal bodies to understand that what we're just trying to do is make sure that people have the right education and information we're not trying to you know promote unplanned pregnancies or trying to promote you know extramarital affairs just information and it's only through this information that people can make the right choices so I think that's what we're trying to do yeah I don't whether I want to say this being it sounds really this more or what but like it's really a generation kind of like consensus right like if we look at our parents and how they approached us to talk about sex or identity in general they don't talk about it what what they want to talk about is performance right how you are as a person like where's your grades is it a plus is it is it if not don't come talk to me so we we are so driven by performance we we find it shameful too it is a conversation that the next generation should take on which is how our children and and how our and our like I said nieces and nephews where they grow up in needs to be from an angle that that is where sex is normalized or the education of is normalized we're not saying that a generation before us is like ah it's screwed that's it but but we but we let's let's look at the future and how we can approach from there I think one interesting different perspectives to it so one interesting way is to actually get parents involved in the conversation of being a collaborator in sex education with teachers in education so maybe there's a way there's a way we can talk to the government there's a way we can approach to say instead of us always relying on chapter six of my biology textbook in section three and four I still remember that's that's legit by the way it's really chapter six um it I don't know why yeah I came from a boy school so chapter six was amazing apparently yeah so um yeah so so so instead of us being so precise about that like could it be like can um can we run a campaign that says like hey parents um why not tell your teachers tell your children how you they were made you know like like you know maybe ask children to to talk to your parents like mom and dad how was I made like that is a really really nice holistic way to approach a subject because you are creating life from love that came from sex but it's how we want to position and whether um the the officials in in government bodies are ready for that question when they see um um the trends and and and where conversations are going that belongs to a younger generation and see statistics from there they will understand that the communications devices that we use need to change and when we change it to become more holistic for for that target audience whether it's like like what I just said that's just an idea it's nothing it's just an ad creative trying to pitch your ideas but if there are many other ways to do it so so we should like in in our daily basis just make it normal to talk about sex you know that how's your wellness how's everything and then seeing like stuff like great beautiful sex toys in pharmacies great way let's let's find ways where we can normalize the topic wear a shirt that that that talks about that maybe has a really abstract looking vagina i'm all for that like i'm like i'm not trying to be controversial but trying to find means and ways in our own daily lives to reach out to our our friends and our families with that yeah can you just say sorry like um me and my mom we don't really talk very much um one day i found her vibrator when i was searching through the cupboards and i was like what is this you know and ever since then i can talk to her about anything i started talking to her about my relationships i started talking to her about the guys that i've been seeing and if i'm not home she knows where like well she doesn't know where i am but she knows that i'm out doing stuff but yeah so maybe you know just leave some toys laying around for people to pick up you're saying next question um i just wanted to address your question because i'm a teacher so i teach international school i teach biology and i also run the sex ed program which took me three years to sort out they finally let me do it um but one of the ways we sort of introduced this with students um so we work with kids from 14 to 18 is this idea of what they want from a relationship so you don't have to talk straight away about the sex it's really what's a healthy relationship and what they expect and then relating that to sexuality and sexual preferences um and the other thing we talk about is guilt and we don't relate that directly to sex again from the start and we talk about you know just like asian parents making you feel guilty about getting straight a's right and that's a huge thing our kids face and then you can link that again and that's the way we do it my mom doesn't know what i'm doing i mean like what's you know is that i'm just working on an app i mean my parents didn't know what i'm doing um my sister kind of know what i'm doing uh she's only says like keep going for it but we never talk about this word orgasm so yeah it's a tough it's a tough question but i i guess it's all a lot of parents will expect all this sex education from come from the school and yeah we still have a big big hope from the school to teach the education to the kids yeah so this is a girl with not a weird but a different kind of perspective so um my mom goes to church twice a day the woman's retired but she really really really really loves going to church like she's all about church which is great um but i was telling her about um i wear a lanyard for essential which is the lgbtli program um and when a couple of people saw me posting about it they immediately asked me oh are you a lesbian um the fact that i used to date girls when i was in university was it was a part of life but you know that that's what it is but it was who how my mom reacted because when i told her about this person asking me that question she's just like it doesn't make sense why people don't understand that it's just important that everyone has the same um abilities to hit success or be themselves and more importantly be happy so this is a when we when i was growing up i was always very liberal she was always very conservative and she always used to ask me about why i was interested in a more liberal lifestyle why was it that i was reading jack carowak what was it about all of these writers that was really interested in tell me about stanley cubrick everything poetry especially so we used to have these sessions and most recently a very old friend of ours um her son um who's a good friend of mine came out gay um my mom and this woman go to church together and she kicked him out of the house um and he wasn't allowed to come back in the only person that was actually able to make some sense into um this woman was my mom so she actually went and had the conversation with his mother um and said it's the most important thing in your life is to know that you've raised a child who is happy passionate and actually being able to be themselves what if he may drive the Porsche but if he's unhappy and miserable and a loveless marriage there is no point so i feel like when it comes to education it's not just a one-way thing it's not me as an adult to a younger person but sometimes i feel with the older generation we need to make an effort to actually explain to them where we're coming from because they didn't see it what they saw was you marry someone in singapore or the town that you're from or the village that you're from now it's the world is a completely different place and we have the ability to influence them to think about what the world in a different way it might be music might be movies it might be campaigns which are super interesting it might be showing them a little different part of life um whatever it might be so i mean i think back to your question the one thing it's got to do with age i think it's just about being able to have an open conversation with the people around you from here versus like what is the right thing to do which is what just seems to always be you know heading home when we look in singapore or southeast asia or anywhere for that matter right yeah that's my story anyway yes so sort of tangentially from that i'm really sort of curious and i guess personally invested in elderly sex or elders older people sex um and i was wondering what if anyone could talk about i guess what sort of campaigns there are regarding older people sex um if there's any sort of design or directed towards that um if during advocacy or as a sexologist you talk to older people like how does that differ from this focus on educating a younger generation and how do we sustain this idea of pleasure and um i guess relation relationality all the way through to our older age yeah so so i um i speak i i i mean i'm i'm very honored and i'm very grateful that i get to speak in medical conferences just came back last weekend from the malaysian international o n g conference so i i gave a presentation on sex after 50 for women and i have also given presentations of sex after menopause and uh yes there are hormonal changes which can cause vaginal dryness and also vaginal thinning but the situation does stabilize over time and there are people who report after menopause that actually sex is better because they are no longer worried about their kids and they're not no longer worried about being pregnant so i think it's just a like a transition phase but what happens with a lot of people with the lack of sex education when there's pain when there's difficulty is they stop having sex and so it's very important when you are going through that transition to actually not stop but if we don't have that knowledge we stop and also we don't have many role models of positive sexuality for women while older and actually this is also probably one of the reasons why hollywood is now showing older actors and actresses and it's very important because we get to see the modeling of positive sexuality in the media uh whereas 10 years ago um i i got out this knowledge but really there wasn't this kind of images and now there is some so it's important that if we are not getting this from our parents that we find the answers for ourselves and uh it is entirely possible to have sex regardless of what gender nationality race or sexual orientation is possible for you to have sex until the day you die there are even people who talk about orgasmic death they talk about orgasmic birth you can have an orgasmic death so you can you know masturbate to your masturbate to your death you can um i can't i don't know um but so we do also work with the older community um as well um so for instance we found just talking about first when we like did our research into again this industry we found that while condom usage decreases with age the use of vibrators and lubricants increases with age um and that's not just you know lubricants just for actual uh you know spicings up purposes but also for necessity um so in malaysia we also work with a lot of stroke or spinal cord injury patients and and we help validate sexuality and show how important it is to reintroduce intimacy into their lives and so just try and i think so i think maybe from a younger perspective it could be from our from our learnings a younger demographic will want to see sex as just for for pleasure and just like oh it's just for fun whatever but what we try to reiterate to the older generation is how important it really is and how it is a essential component of their general well-being right there are like linkages between sexual health to physical well-being to emotional health and so that's what we try to emphasize to them and so we can use the vibrators with spinal cord injury patients to you know they get more they have a lower tolerance of like lower sensitivity to these things so they have to use vibrators and stuff and even when i'm doing my workshops with nurses in in rural places i have to tell them that of course you know women who after menopause will be a bit more dry so they will need lubrication or or women who've undergone chemotherapy also require that and this is something that they're actually not aware of like they don't understand why these these patients might require such products be it vibrators or lubricants and we have the backing you know of different sexologists gynecologists to back that up but we just have to to tell them these things and show them that it is important that they take care of their sexual health so i think it's slightly the same information but just maybe talking about it in terms of their general well-being than just just pleasure period i'm pradeep i'm an entrepreneur and i'm trying to build a company and just two days back i got some idea around erectile dysfunctionality basically what happens if you are engaged with the smartphone too much you know throughout your day it builds in long in long term it leads to stress and anxiety and maybe some kind of depression and then it also impacts on the you know sexual life so and first of all i'm very happy to see such an event happening where people can talk about anything related to sex openly i mean i've tried my best to talk to people but people just you know aloof themselves so it's very sensitive topic so and this problem which i'm talking about i just wanted to know like i've done some research around this but people say that you know ten percent of people who are surveyed they check their smartphone while having sex i mean just imagine yeah that's conservative number but it's it might be high so imagine the smartphone playing the role in your life especially sexual life which is the most pleasurable thing in world so that's one question i just wanted to ask like if you have i mean if you have come across some men or you know you yourself do it i mean i just wanted a survey kind of thing one around the second question i have with the vibrator thing let's say a woman start using a vibrator what is she her minimum expectation is now raised and now men cannot actually you know i mean so this is a you know it can be a industry which can be if i'm a government agency i can just say stop using it because you know it's playing with the emotions the minimum the minimum expectations has been raised so women now expect that i can only have with the i can't respond to the first part about the smartphones i don't know i don't know but but uh when we're selling our products especially on offline like at different marketplace events right we'll have women and men oftentimes in a relation that the couples come and the mother like yeah will that replace me or you know what if or we've even heard like we should get addicted to that that's actually a query we've gotten from both men and women but i i don't think again our products but even just general sexual well-being products in general i mean they're they can be used for masturbation but it's also meant to supplement their their normal sexual relationships so it's not meant to be a replacement i don't think any of like the way pornography started right maybe i don't know when did it start but it is now being said that you don't use pornography as a standard to you know learn or play a play upon i see i mean there is one drawback it might come in maybe not now we've been 10 20 years that when women don't get pleasure through from men but they start going for vibrators and then these relationships are no i think so i'll say really quick i'll say i think that again our vibrators are meant to be as a complement and to help couples and then if they are being unsatisfied in the relationship men or women if they're being unsatisfied then it just is necessary for them to communicate what it what is the issue right it's like so you seem to be saying like also that vaginal penetration or like the penis is the most important thing but only like 10 percent of women actually are stimulated by that really like the other 80 to 90 percent of women are stimulated by other forms of pleasure so there are other ways to enhance their sexual relationship other than you know just that kind of penetration i'm just saying that again products are meant to enhance their relationships not meant to be a replacement i think really love the question i got a lot of guys friend having the same question like am i creating a product that's going to replace men especially with all the technology so my question to them is always like do you really love your wife right do you want to satisfy her because to be honest like you don't need a vibrator to satisfy a woman if you know where to stimulate it the thing is like you have to do this at least 15 minutes to 20 minutes right so to be honest that can be quite tiring i mean if you're in the beginning of your relationship half an hour is fine right but if you are after you get married like if you have to do four play 20 minutes 30 minutes that is a lot of hard work i mean like you can use your hand you can use your mouth but a lot of my friends is like yeah i couldn't do that right so i told him like the the product that we do is like it's really small it's not going to compete with what you have right that's the first thing that's why like we designed it's very small and then uh so once you're done right you just have to be aware that your wife also needs an orgasm right which is like you can use a tool just see this as a tool right so if you can do it manually that is the best right i mean all women love like oral sex right but can you do that every day 20 minutes down there so but i guess my thing is that uh vibrator is just a tool it's not to replace a man women still needs the love i mean like the connection the intimacy from from guys yeah yeah all people okay question one uh will there be dependency on sex app or porn right question one smartphone okay i get what you're trying to say we are using the phone all the time we get stressed we get anxious and how does this affect our lives um there are also people who use their phone to watch porn again the dependency on electronic devices so if you realize that you are doing it and it's not working for you or you need to be watching porn while having sex or you need to be on your phone while you're having sex then maybe your partner is not so happy about it then you can choose to do differently if your partner is okay with it then continue by all means that's not a problem it's not a problem until it's a problem so it sounds like for you it seems like a problem so what you need to be doing is stop doing it just stop so how you stop is maybe you you vary the way you are using your electronic devices i think this is the reason why people go on detox or treatment camps there are such things so that's that's but seriously actually there are other ways to be more in control of your mind such as meditation such as mindful masturbation rather than always relying on porn so i actually work with clients to you know they they feel that they are desensitized you know porn okay big tits what else let's go to the next new thing and so they start to feel that within themselves they are kind of a bit burnt out or jaded about sex so the resensitization process involves doing less doing less so there will be a time where you feel a bit displaced and disorientated like what am i doing i'm not getting what the kind of um that i used to get it's just a matter of getting used to less so question number two will that be a dependency to sex toys yes there are some women who actually use very very strong vibrators but look at what they have it's small okay so they are not going to be addicted to it okay it's not like sugar it's small so what's happening with smaller vibrators is they also tend to have weaker motos and so yeah it can be strong it can be strong but what i'm trying to say is when you use a vibrator to the point of pain that obviously is not working so you need to learn how to listen to your body so that you vary not just the the use of the vibrator and you can also try to if you feel that you are developing a dependency to the vibrator which happens to some of my clients then what you can do is you have to re-sensitize your body meaning learn how to masturbate in different ways whether you're a man or woman so same thing for men who have a dependency to porn learn how to masturbate in different ways for women who are dependent on their vibrator i would say get different vibrators and masturbate in different ways and be creative be gentle with yourself not be rough and aggressive with yourself all the time and uh no it's not true that uh when you enjoy something a lot you will keep wanting to do as we do but you you just keep doing it until we get sick of it and then maybe you want to do something else sorry can i just say something really quickly i know maybe it's not going to help but i just want to say like we are all really just carnal creatures really right and the whole reason i mean i think what you're trying to say is also is alluding to a world that's like west world you know like whether we're hey we're going to be replaced by like all these like beautiful people that we can just like like like hump and like get humped at and then then the same no sorry but really like ultimately sex the reason for it um yes reproduction but it's connection right it really is connection so i think a lot of times when it comes down to like even like um why we have extra marital affairs or stuff like that or why we're going to explore it really is because we feel ashamed to not have that connection with somebody or like or we don't want to talk about fully like what kind of relationship we're expecting with the other person and they take many ways and forms it's a complex process some monogamous polygamous with there's so many camps about sex relationships connections but what what what's most important is that at the end of the day are you able to communicate with your sexual partner or your or your partner as well as you can do to to want to give your expectations of what you want for sex i mean i can't really talk about like what you girls go through i mean yeah you know just because i'm me but like like i i won't i i'm gay i won't i won't understand like how to i've never seen one i've never seen um i've never seen an oyster if i could say but i really just want to say all of us are human so really it's how let's say if i want to say hey i want to get down and dirty you and i want to try this thing new it's whether you have that avenue to be able to talk to your person that you want to have that i think that's the bigger topic you want to say whether you could be playful and carnal and an amazing and honest and that's what we should try to allude to in our own personal relationships with the people that we are closest to actually i can actually address the first part where you're saying but there is a booming also obviously sex tech industry right and there are a lot of apps out there that realize that we are so dependent on our smartphones but these apps are trying to foster this communication especially as it relates to sexual well-being so i think that that even though people are being dependent on their sex depending on their smartphones there's also a way to link that back to their sexual health and there there is an industry and there are many companies that that are doing that um okay i i have a question for other panels um do you actually think that the lgbtq community it's actually a more honest and more open and they have more healthy conversations when it comes to like approaching sexuality and you know if if there is um could you know district community or you know the society learn something from it too yeah so i discovered i was back bisexual when i was 1819 so quite late bloomer already but i agree with you it's something i was thinking about earlier today and i realized because that there is an absolute derse of information about my sexuality right i like men i like women that like everybody um so okay the new term is pansexual now but sounds like i like pens but um i'm happy to look past gender identities and bodies and whatever um and because of the derse of information i don't see representations of myself in the media when i go to school i don't see representations of myself they keep talking about reproduction and i'm just like and then they show us horrific videos of abortion and and because there was just so little information um but yet i had uh uh well i was infatuated with a lot of women a lot of very cute women when i was growing up and i was like why do i feel this way why is nobody else talking about this am i alone in this um so i had no choice but to turn to the internet right thankfully i grew up in an era where suddenly there was um in uh computers and internet so i could research um about how i felt right so i found communities like red queen syoni um and all these uh platforms that allowed me to to find out more about my sexuality and from those platforms i also stumbled upon websites about female sexuality so i took a mirror to look up at vagina when i was very very young um maybe around 11 or 12 actually that was before it was bisexual okay timeline a bit messed up already but um i i guess i had i was very curious i started watching porn when i was 11 i went to i was actually in the school library and and i actually yeah i don't know i was messed up i'm a very perverse person sorry um yeah uh so but i i guess i'm thankful that i was quite critical about it too so i was trying to discern like good information from bad information uh and yeah i actually did my master's thesis on porn um and and just a recommendation you there is such a thing called feminist porn if you have not heard about it i suggest you google it um and it is it's not just about soft core right a lot of people hear the word feminist porn and anything it's soft core porn but actually it's not it is about representing true human sexuality about representing different bodies about different preferences experiences so on so forth uh to be as representational as possible okay the question was yeah um but yeah because of who i am and and the environment that i grew up in i was forced to look for more information and and i think to cultivate a generation of people who are critical um and have a sense of curiosity to look outside what they're taught in schools but also to be able to discern what is good information and what's bad information yeah just just quick news um okay lgbt uh wow the the actually by by and large right don't you guys read i don't know what you guys feel like do you feel like like like the whole system of how our parents are has also taught us a certain way to make things taboo so the marriage the idea of marriage the idea of like bearing kids the idea of like a man and a wife a man and a man and a wife coming together have a kid possibly have a son so that my name is like you know like like gone through your ovaries and came out and like like that i now you reproduce for me like that system has sort of given you a concept that that you feel as if you identify as hetero and fully hetero that that that has bogged down to you on the system that i need to talk about sex in the terms of reproduction and in family like i only can talk about that because that's what is expected out of me as a woman um with a with a guy or as a guy with a woman and i need to bear kids that that's that's that's the pretext of what it is but why it's so open for us lgbt members right it's because we have no system guys we don't need to bear kids we don't need to make children so in terms of that we see a finite resource of that conversation with the society by and large that that is exhaustive like there's no need for us to talk about that anymore that's out of picture we don't need to think of the next generation we just need to think about you and i and all the dirty little things that we'll do to one another for the rest of our lives and that is honestly all we we talk about that's why you're right to say because we don't have the premise of a set i need to marry a woman i need to bear kids that is down to a generation before me and before me and before me we don't have that on us we are super open to talk about sexuality we are super open to talk about experimentation i'm not saying that's what i do i'm just saying that in by and large that's what most people feel about the lgbt community they feel that sexuality is something that we it's just like let's drink tea and talk about like their business proposal and next thing i'm going to talk to you about my five sex partners like it's like almost it's like just like the next thing we talk about but honestly if if um how do we make this relevant for people who identify as heterosexuals like how is this relevant for you what is relevant is that what kind of systems you want to run by like who as i as a person that you identify as do you want to be identified by a system that was passed down to you two generations because of what you need to do to reproduce or do you want to say i own myself and individualism in by and large has created a whole new way we look at one another like in in in this sense like we are all individuals now we are no we are we have our social media accounts we have our linkedins we are more than ever like exposing ourselves to be real true identifying as one individual and no longer as a con just a community collective and someone who stands at the back and for that right that comes with more shame actually i would say like things you want people to see yourself as like i'm a progressive woman i am i am successful um yeah sex yeah yeah it's a lot i mean a lot of my friends do that they don't talk about their sexual lives because it is like you want to be seen and well respected for your profession and for what you do and things like sex is so kind of and it's so basic that you don't feel like it's something that you can talk about anymore and that this connect is is is really what we need to solve is is how we can both say that we are true professionals who own our crafts and our professions yet we we understand we're still kind of creatures and we need to to be able to talk to that with our fellow friends even if you want to use like big words instead of like hey did you today could you say huh did you like go did you did you did you explore birds and the bees and like you know if you have you done things use big words or whatever but we need to still talk about it so i think that that really is that tension point for for society by and large today really yeah yeah so yes lgbt yes we definitely talk a little more yes so i just want to add that you know we look at the glbtq as heterosexuals and we think that they are just so out there they are outrageous they have no morals but i just want to suggest that people who are promiscuous are just people who have more sex than you so when comes to why are they so out there i think it's because they they have had to fight for everything that they want in their life and the resources that are out there are for them by people who and organizations that see that there is not enough so even my clients who come to me who identify as glbtq they don't know where to go so it's not true that there's a lot out there why are they so loud why are they shouting so loud don't they have any shame it's not that actually it's not enough because we don't know what we don't know and all of us need to actually be an ally and get equipped and find out so that we can support our friends i think also you need to differentiate between maybe i mean like for the pan sexual or bi community but also the gay community but also like a lesbian community as well because i think that they are working here with like shi plus pride with mile makers and even back in my university working with mainly a queer community you found that women are even more there is even more of a dearth of information for them not necessarily right but just for queer women or lesbians so like they they believe that like through you know oral sex they can't get you know stds or stis and that's a very common thread and there's other there's other myths abound but it's again this is a lack of information for them and so i think it's a bit different between like that community and maybe just like a gay men community that might be a bit more open like i think especially here in asia since they you know they're not necessarily following in with the familiar traditions or like confusion values you know to have kids or get have a husband so they're even under a lot more pressure to to not be who they are or conform to their you know so the i guess the the only resolution to that is is trying to allow them to be a bit more open to to engage with them on these topics so they can open up and find the right information yeah so as much as i would love to have this run for longer it's almost actually run for two hours as a panel so this is actually officially our longest panel that we've ever had but thank you to everyone who's been here i think that the panelists will be available to catch up for our conversation tonight all we are actually going to be having our social and hopefully they'll be able to come as well. Vanessa is actually going to be speaking at our social event at the end of the month specifically about project x we i'm running something at the ultra super new gallery in october and she's going to be the charity of records so we're going to be donating some money to them but if you want to speak to the panelists they'll be here but more importantly please say a big round of applause to every single one of them thank you so much for everyone for coming and we really hope that you found it as interesting insightful entertaining and you know that it brings a different perspective to life as you know it right now so jacklyn has some products here if you wanted to take a quick look if you want to actually know more about smile makers that's true so if you want to know more about smile makers we'll put all of the links on our page with ultra super new their campaigns are already on our facebook page as well as they'll be issued in our next upcoming newsletter vibes as well their sites on on our event page as well as the facebook page and with martha she is a lot of proud on our event page and we've got her linked in details so just going back to what project x was talking about this was some of the coverage that they've gotten and so you'll be able to see it here and you if you do a quick google search you'll see everything but if there's anything else thank you so much for coming and we hope to see at our next panel