At Smile Makers, we believe that sex is a natural part of life, and that sexual pleasure for women should be no taboo. It is part of our body physiological functioning, it has proven health benefits and it is an important part of our couple life. So, we believe it is important to create safe spaces of conversation for women and men to find information, ask questions, and discuss about sexuality.
That is why we work with NGOs to develop better sexual wellness awareness. And our enthusiastic brand managers, Fan and Jacqueline, hit the road to make it happen!
Promoting sexual education in Malaysia!
First stop: Borneo! Smile Makers was invited by the Sabah Family Planning Association in Kota Kinabalu to train their charge nurses. Sabah is a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, with tropical sceneries and mountain ranges. Islam is the state religion but other religions are practiced as well.
Founded in 1967, the Sabah Family Planning Association has been advocating for and offering education on family development for 50 years. The Association believes that the knowledge of family planning is a basic human right and essential element of responsible parenthood, and stable family life. Services offered include gynaecological treatment, cervical and breast cancer screening, contraceptive services, and counselling regarding infertility, menopause, HIV/AIDS, premarital and marital problems, and sexual reproductive health.
Fan (middle) introduces herself to the Association’s President Liew King Hee (right) and State Manager Cecilia Chong (left)
Vibrators and lubes in family planning clinics!
So last month, Fan and Jacqueline, packed their bags and flew to Borneo for the Association’s annual in-service training. The session was focused on female sexual well-being and how our products, vibrators and lubricants, can be used in their clinics.
Jacqueline presents on how to use the Frenchman vibrator.
Fan discussing the use of lubricants with the nurses.
Coming from all five clinics within the state of Sabah, the nurses were educated on the various myths and subsequent truths surrounding orgasm and dryness related issues and were excited to bring the information and products back to their clinics to discuss with their patients.
Playdoh, vulva, sexual pleasure and health.
Next stop, Kuala Lumpur, where we were invited by the leading voluntary family planning, sexual and reproductive health organization in Malaysia. They provide a range of services, including sexuality and relationship counselling, STI/HIV testing, prenatal care, pelvic and breast examinations, and contraception provision. The audience included doctors, nurses, students and community members, Rohingya educators and disaster relief volunteers.
The objective of the session was to share the learnings we had gathered from our Malaysian Women Sexual Health and Well-being Survey, but also to present our our pleasure-based sex-education training program.
Female-focused, our sex ed program aims at providing a solid understanding of female sexual anatomy, and making pleasure part of the standard sexual health curriculum. To deliver on this promise, we engaged our audience with a hands-on activity inspired from Sexplain UK: making a vulva with playdoh! All the participants, coming from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, were guided to create their own playdoh model of the vulva, thus getting a better understanding of the female external genitalia and which areas provide pleasure.
Judging from the comments of those who attended, they all agreed that it was very interesting and feel there needs to be more information on female sexual pleasure!
Malaysia is just the first stop on our education roadmap. The objective of our sex education program is to provide broaden access to a pleasure-positive understanding and knowledge on female sexuality, and to ultimately make sexual pleasure a social right for all women.
