09 July,2021 08:10 AM IST | Mumbai | Gayathri Chandran
Such video features help create awareness. Pics/@leezamangaldas
In the last year or so, there has been an uptake in the willingness and interest to have these conversations. There are some features on Instagram's platform that allow for new creators to reach more people. Instagram's Reels shook up the scene and allowed for content creators to get out there, and provided a platform for organic voices that were new to Instagram. Also, certain things have happened over the last five years that have made people understand the value of important conversations. When events like the US legalising gay marriage and the #MeToo movement occurred, I felt there was a tendency to believe that we are regressive in India, and things are better elsewhere. That's untrue. Many are steeped in sexual shame in other parts too. I don't think sex education has reached everywhere yet.
I realised that by putting out a couple of posts on Instagram I was able to reach more people than I would have through a workshop. Now, of course, the depth of a workshop is quite different but I felt this was a great medium to communicate with people about subjects I was passionate about. I do talk about certain things that are shrouded in taboo, like polyamory for instance, or things relating to queer communities, drag culture, etc. People feel a lot more comfortable online and reach out with very real issues, and in the past few months, I've noticed a shift, where people have become more comfortable engaging with content publicly, especially in the comments. I think this is because influencers also make similar content now, and topics like decriminalisation of queer communities also help. These conversations are becoming more normalised now. I also feel like a lot more cishet (cisgendered and heterosexual) men show up in these online spaces than offlines ones. Many are curious and willing in this space to ask questions. The degree of anonymity helps.
Honestly, the digital medium (Instagram) has helped me become a better doctor too. As a second-generation doctor, there are many things that I assumed people would know because I knew what an ovary looked like when I was just five years old. When I interacted with more people I realised that there's a lot of foundational knowledge that many don't know. There's a two-way conversation happening in this regard with messages and emails where I can figure out what people want to know, and that helped me understand what kind of content people needed.
After graduating from Brown University, I took up a teaching job in New York and was working with middle-schoolers, where I taught science. I moved back to India when the pandemic struck, and around the same time, I wanted to shift gears from traditional teaching to more sex education content. I noticed that many people were taking to social media to talk about this because there wasn't much awareness even among older people on the topic. That's why I chose this path. My Instagram page is only eight months old, and I have over 35,000 followers. That could be due to a big need for this content, and secondly because I like to be approachable in different ways with Direct Messages and questions. I started the Myth or Fact series with Scarleteen, one of the oldest sex education websites in the US, who I also volunteer with, for the reason that young people might think they have information on something and many myths in this area are very common. My idea is to challenge that with evidence because many do not know the nuances that exist in these topics.
