THE IDEA: SEX, LOVE, AND OT

My journey advocating for OT and sexuality started just like everyone else’s, the only difference being I contested rather than scapegoating institutions, professors, and cultures for not teaching me better about sexuality or Occupational Therapy earlier.

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However, from being an 8-year-old interested in being a gynecologist and pursuing Occupational Therapy at the age of 17, a lot of things changed, unlike my passion and rebellious attitude to bring about a change in the way healthcare providers and society perceives sexuality.

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Over the years, this experience taught me a few things and upon deliberation, I realized that the only thing I had to do to educate people on sexuality was to talk about it! And this is how I have started my journey to advocacy by sensitizing my family, peers, and colleagues over the last few years. However, I did not feel this was enough, which is why I created this platform in October 2019 as a blog on Instagram.

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A journey that started as a means of advocacy and promoting education for healthcare providers has now flourished into a comprehensive, integrated space for everyone- clients, community, and healthcare providers/students.

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What do I value?
I consider sexuality as an equally important area of Activity of Daily Living (ADL) consisting of a spectrum of occupations, one that is not addressed enough in practice. Because of this, there is a deprivation in the engagement of occupations that hold meaning for our clients. Also, we have now created an occupational injustice by depriving clients of the opportunity to seek engagement in these intimate occupations and enabled medical injustice by not providing holistic care.

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The idea of this platform is to bridge these communication, knowledge, and rehabilitation gaps to promote a sexually healthy society by providing tools, guidance, and support to clients and healthcare peers essential to succeed in our aim of Occupational and Medical justice.

I firmly believe that Occupational Therapists have the potential and ability to integrate both- functional and emotional aspects of sexuality and intimacy with a collaborative process.

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This space is a creation in the hope of mobilizing my ideologies, actions, and efforts towards more accessible and holistic healthcare, irrespective of age, gender, sexual expression and identity, race, culture, and/or disabilities/impairments/limitations. My goal with this platform is to advocate, educate, and empower everyone.

 

How do I make that happen?

I actively work towards:

• advocacy to make the idea of sexuality in public spaces and various other cultures to be safer, mainstream, accessible, inclusive, and normal

• enhancing awareness amongst the general and healthcare community about the role of Occupational Therapy in Sexuality

• educating and guiding healthcare professionals and students on these topics and providing them with the necessary guidance, tools, and resources

• making people aware of their human and sexual rights, understanding their bodies, and know what and how Occupational Therapists can help them achieve their sexual freedom!