Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 45: Pallavi Barnwal

Episode Date: October 18, 2021

Pallavi Barnwal is a sex coach and she lives in Delhi with her eight year old son. I first heard about Pallavi when I read about her in an article on the BBC news website. I then watched her Ted Talk and thought her story and perspective on life was fascinating. She was born and raised in a traditional Indian family, and didn’t become a coach until she found herself a single mum and a divorcee, the other side of an arranged marriage. Her experiences led her to be more open with her friends and they started coming to her for advice. She could see there was an opportunity to help more people talk safely and freely about sex. Now she aids lots of women - and men - find their way to being happier and more knowledgable in their intimate lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello my lovely podcast listener. How are you today you find me upstairs in mickey's room which is also my wardrobe room i did manage to get this place quite organized for a while but now it's looking like it needs to be a tlc i've been working quite a lot recently and actually this is my first weekend off in

eight weekends i think nine weekends lots of festivals lots of gigs so it's been really nice just not going out and just taking some time with the family and just yeah not living out of a bag for a weekend the festivals have been amazing I've had some awesome gigs but I am quite happy just to be sat at home um and not doing so much and that's probably why I sound quite so lethargic I think I'm actually fairly knackered it's been a lot of seven day weeks going on around here and I think also we're kind of heading towards half terms that the kids are a bit knackered too and in fact my youngest Mickey is not very well today which is a shame there's so many bugs going around aren't there now that we're all out and about and meet each other again all those other things that were being repressed are now out and about um and yeah I've got quite a busy week ahead but I've done the majority of my stuff for the book now the promotion of that so that's out in the world and thank you

so much for the response that I've been having if you're one of the people that has got in touch about the book then honestly it meant a lot to me it's it's been a slightly well what's the right word I suppose it just it's made me feel a bit more vulnerable than the usual release when you put an album out into the world albums are laced with lots of stuff they're incredibly collaborative and even though there might be lots of your own emotions in there that are completely authentic to what you're living through you can mask it in amongst other things and other characters whereas in the book if it's an autobiography there's not really those layers you know a bit weird if I um I wrote a

whole chapter where I was talking about how I felt about something but I did it as if I was a witch uh living in a house on top of the hill like love is a camera for example i don't know if that reference quite made sense to you but i knew what i meant um and this week uh your lovely guest for the podcast is someone that i first read about the bbc website and there was an article about this lady and i just thought whoa what a different life she's been living so her name is is Pallavi. She lives in Delhi with her little boy who is eight years old. She went through, grew up in a very traditional Indian family, although there were kind of, I don't know, sort of whispers and talking in hushed tones around her family because the fact emerged that her mother had had an affair

so that was the sort of backdrop to her upbringing where she'd be asked questions there was a lot of intrigue about her mum and about this adventure she'd had with another man and Pallavi herself went into an arranged marriage and was not very happy with it there wasn't really any love there and came out the other side and had a lot of her own experiences as a single woman dating people I mean she did have a little boy by then but she was you know leading quite an active dating life and would talk to her friends about all the men she was meeting and the dynamic of those relationships and sexual encounters and people started to come to her for advice because actually it's a very she found it was a very repressed society and generally speaking people weren't being very open about sex now here in the

uk growing up in the uk i'd say by and large we're not as repressed as all that insofar as you know you don't have to look very far to uh you know if you started a conversation with a friend about sex life that's not an unusual thing that you could chat to someone about, if you started a conversation with a friend about sex life, that's not an unusual thing that you could chat to someone about that if you wanted to. However, in my own life, I'm not sure that I am quite that open, really. So even though Pallavi has led a very different life growing up in India, and now primarily speaking to other Indian men and women about how to help them be their full 360 sexual selves. I'm not sure that I feel like I'm a million miles away from that insofar as I think I've,

I was always quite prudish really, and I'm getting better articulating those things as I've got older. So it came to me through adulthood really, rather than the culture I was growing up in. Anyway, there's lots of things that will make you think about how she speaks and the work she's been doing and also the turnaround in her life. So over to Pallavi and our chat, which we did remotely because she was, yeah, it was night time in Delhi when we spoke. And I will see you on the other side.

Thank you very much for giving me your time today. I first read about you on the BBC website. And I thought your story really stood out because, well, firstly, I think, you know, being a sex therapist is something, and a um therapist is something that is is you know not everybody end up in that line of work but I think it's such a valuable and important part of our culture that people can talk about these things and know where to go for advice because otherwise all these things get so pushed down but also because you were talking about growing up in a culture where traditionally women particularly their sexuality and sexual needs and desires are incredibly

repressed um so when you you're because you have a little boy is that right yes yeah so is he about eight is that uh he's nine he's nine okay. I've got a nine-year-old as well. So were you in this line of work when you had your baby? No. So I'm a sexuality coach. I'm not a therapist. Okay. And yeah, I mean, when he was born, I was like the typical conservative woman with the limited understanding of life like okay I mean I would say have a family growth was something that never crossed my mind for me

growth was something that I just counted in the money like okay how much raise I'm going to have each year is that is how I measured my growth not as a person not as a woman you know it was never about my individuality so I mean to talk about my journey how I became a sex educator or a coach it was I think it is definitely a mix of life experiences as I came from a dysfunctional family and both my parents had affairs okay but my mother's affair was something that did not go well because she was the dependent she was financially dependent so even though both the people had their own share of mistakes it was my mother who ended up paying it for more because she was a dependent woman in a patriarchal society at the same time as a kid I was sensitized to relationships which did not just follow the norm

like you know the conventional heterosexual monogamous marriage but I also saw other relationships at a very tender age and that also kind of helped me open up and be sensitive to and not be judgmental because I also saw this happening in my very own family but then I was like very determined that you know I'm not going to repeat this in my life my family would be something I will be having a stable family that was I was so so determined about it but at the same time what I now understand is that it's not just you and your husband it's also the culture around you that shapes the family yeah so the culture around me was very restrictive uh be it sexually restrictive like you know right from the day one

like i was in a relationship before i got married which was also i was sexually active in that relationship it was a committed relationship so i would not go into the judgment that had it been casual would it be still okay but let's say that the social norm is that you need to be sexual with someone you are committed. So I was committed in every sense. But the relationship could not work well. The boy broke up. And even though I had all the right reasons to say that I did not do anything wrong because I was committed and I was looking for a life together. I was looking to get married by the social standpoint yet my parents said that okay now that we are going to arrange a

marriage for you you need to be quiet about it that you know you had a relationship and it was sexual relationship because in India and this is I'm saying in India in the context of arranged marriages which is marriages arranged by families you cannot actually say that you are sexually experienced or you're sexually active you need to pretend that if you are not you need to pretend that you are a virgin this is for majority of like maybe there could be some rare cases we are not i'm not talking about outliers i'm talking about predominant uh you know the behavior so i was also said told that okay i need to be uh i need to pretend that i'm a virgin i pretended to be a virgin um on the eve of wedding night it was again uh i thought like and I still get these stories from women even now when they say,

Ma'am, what will happen if our husbands would get to know that we are not virgin? And I tell them that, you know, there is no way he can figure that out. Yes, stage one, they can't figure it out figure that out yes stage one they can't figure it out true but also I suppose there's that trepidation and that way that it made you feel and I and also forgive my clumsiness with my language so you've called yourself a coach rather than a therapist what what is the difference because I've that I'm obviously a bit daft there what is the difference because I've obviously a bit daft there what's the differentiation the differentiation between coach and a therapist yes so uh I'm not a medical professional as in I cannot prescribe medicine that's one okay the second is my scope of work is more around education okay it is more about in our society there is a lack of like basic sex education that they don't

know about their bodies they don't know about communication there is so much of challenge and block talking to each other yeah so it's more on the education side i'm i can say it's an education i'm an educationist okay so do you actually work in within schools no I don't work with schools it's mostly uh the adults uh and I'm certified as an educator and a NLP practitioner and couple of other certifications that I have so I I work as a coach like coaching people like you know I would say like from a wellness point of view it's not something is wrong with you but it is something that you want to enhance and you want to have a coach got it so sometimes with this education presumably it's also teaching people how to what information they pass on to their kids and to the next generation because presumably that's still a big part of of how you're helping people you know make the next

generation feel a lot more comfortable and empowered. Yeah. Yeah. And are you seeing things change with things you think? I mean, I suppose it's, you know, we're talking about a big culture here where, as you say, you've got a patriarchal, you know, this is not something that can be moved on overnight. But being somewhere like Delhi where it's, you know, is it progressing? See, it is changing. I would definitely not say it is progressing because, again, there is this new wave of sexual liberation that has kind of, you know, that has kind of engulfed our country all over, like right from the LGBTQIA plus movement where people are coming out and people are talking about

bisexuality and same-sex relationships you know that's actually has grown up over the years and extramarital relationships divorces all of this is happening in my country but at the same time if I talk about the young people there is this thing there is there is this, I would say, fad. It's like a fad, which is like a trend of hookups and casual sex, which is, it is also somewhere to look cool. Because I've seen, I remember I was, there was a time when I was like, I was not a sex educator, five, six years down the line before I became a sex educator and I was talking to a friend and he said okay I have slept with 65 women or I have slept with 100 women or I

have slept with 35 so it's like keeping the score I've actually seen a lot of people still they talk about the number of sexual partners and I say hey you being your sexual progress doesn't depend on number of people you sleep with yeah yeah that's very true and actually I think that's something that's maybe um still evolving with how people think of themselves actually you know because I think especially when you're young it's all about the idea of you know I mean what notches on a bedpost you know that's where that kind of idea comes from that yeah the more people you've you've had you know sex with or been with intimately the the more you're progressing yeah yes I mean it was like there was actually a pressure because uh because you know I've been through these circles

also like my journey is not just is not just formed by the books i read or the courses i attended but it's actually through my life i have met people at different stages there was a time when i absolutely was against marriage like you know i mean if i go back and read my three or four years post i was so so uh i was actually rebelling because I had been through a failed marriage and I've seen extra metal affairs and I was like questioning the sanctity of marriage. And I said, okay, there is no marriage. And then I came in touch with a group of people who said that, okay, you know, you, you can have five or six partners and you can have individual relationship with those partners.

And for me, I said okay that's that's good because at least it will not get me to do the deeper work you know I can be superficially connected to five or six people and it's keeping this in a limitation like okay it's more of a sexual and acquaintance kind of a relationship but not really I felt that one-to-one is too much of a hard work and it's like I'm incapable of that and somewhere I started believing so it was you know it was not just my own belief but also an external influence which is what I am really worried about when I see this new culture unfolding is that because we don't have sex set because when we don't have conversations empowered informed conversations around sex, we end up relying a lot on our peer group,

who is as uninformed, who is just as influenced. And we think that, okay, this is something if my peer group is like having hookups and casual sex or this, let me just go with the flow. Of course. Yeah. And absolutely. And I suppose it's peer groups and also the internet, because is it still the case that india is one of the this is like one of the main places for things like porn hub and for people watching that is that right is that still still the case yes we are the world's third i think the last report i saw it was a third third rank country in the terms of viewership and on porn hub yeah because i guess is and how is what's such education like now in India is it

is it starting to be something that's coming in or I can tell you uh thanks to social platforms where uh Instagram especially you know a lot of people have come up not a lot of people see we are a country of one billion population I can actually count on my fingers the number of educators we have uh with the sexologist we did have sexologists but it's more of a medical view of you know the okay there is vaginismus or but but the talk about pleasure is so intimidating yeah pleasure can i can i i can still talk about health i can still talk about menstruation I can still talk about safe sex but can I talk about fantasies or can I talk about how I love to masturbate or what is the way I masturbate like you know masturbation is something where you don't go on a level of personalization like okay individual can have like I was I once posted. And sometimes I know I'm revealing a lot

about my personal life, because I feel we need to have role models where people know that masturbation doesn't mean that, you know, the kind of images that seem fun, they think that masturbation is vigorous shaking of the penis, like, it's like vigorous, like, you know, you actually something is kind of, and that's, and I say, say okay masturbation could be just touching yourself while you're reading a book okay you're reading a book and you felt like just touching which is you're just keeping your hand on your external labia and just might be just flicking your fingers around like just like fingertips just touching the labia with your fingertips and you're reading the book you might be on a call and I wrote this that you might be on a call and you might be touching

and then they say that okay this is very very I would say disrespecting to the other person on the call and I said I didn't go there I mean I can touch my body and it might not have to do with the other person so they actually felt that I'm trying to get some sense stimulation. But it can go so way via my my my idea was to you can masturbate even while you do things like, you know, you're just thinking about something or you're just in stress. So just to normalize masturbation. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, I mean, listening to you speak, I was thinking that actually being able to be open about that thing you said, pleasure, and pleasure when it comes to your sexual self,

is something that a lot of adults don't necessarily get to that. It's not sort of regarded as part of our development, if you know what I mean, that that's an important, you know, we're encouraged, but to actually speak about it. And even in my own upbringing and talk at school and all of that, I don't think, I don't think that was massively part of my generation's emphasis when it came to sex either. In fact, I think a lot of it was about, about how the other person would feel when you were having sex. And if you were seeming like you knew what you were doing and if you were experienced and all this kind of thing.

So there's sort of almost three sort of sides to it really. I suppose from your first experiences with your arranged marriage and being encouraged to keep very quiet about the world, you know, the life you'd led before it. And then feeling empowered enough and mature enough to be able to acknowledge how you're actually feeling what was important but then making it part of how you actually you know spend your days and your your job that's something that's you know you kind of amazed really in a way

that that's now something that you're if you look back on how you were then it's now because it's still quite recent I guess if your little boy's only nine you know it's not it's still quite relatively recent history isn't it yes yes yeah exactly and how long have you been a sex educator now I started in 2017 and I would literally say I came out in 2018. What do you mean? So I was this anonymous blogger. I created a page where I didn't even put my surname because I was in a job and I didn't want people to find me and I was just pouring my heart out. So it was all it was only my first name followed by the abbreviated surname like Pallavi B. So I used the B so that no one can actually find out. Yeah. And it took me one year

because i knew that if my office is going to discover that you know i'm talking about sexuality and i was in a day job either there would be a lot of gossip mongering behind my back you know and which i was not ready to i was not comfortable uh me being the fodder of gossip which i was very sure that there will be gossiping or either i will be fired. So I knew that there would be very, but then over a period of time, I gained courage that okay, now I think I will be able to stand on my feet, I will I have enough savings. And then I decided to came out like I it was my coming out journey. So when you how did you do that? You actually sort of decided to set up a website with your name attached or, or set up a business? what was the coming out how did that manifest so I was anyways thinking of

leaving the job but I got fired so it was actually pre-poned uh six months before and then I said okay now that I'm fired I'm not going to go back and do that job I'm going to give some time to really see if I can work it out and I think I just created a page on Facebook because it's like four years back Instagram was not that popular so I created a page on Facebook and I started writing vigorously so I know that I had a lot of material from my own personal life which feel like and I had a got a lot of stock of stories so I said okay let me first start and then I started getting stories of people like they started talking about me as if I'm a therapist or I'm a doctor and I say okay why

they're reaching out I can't help them I'm just a writer yeah but they reached out to me because they knew they always say that you know you are thank you there is someone who can who we can confide and who will not judge us exactly because they thought I'm talking about my sex life so I will not judge their sex life so yeah and that made me think that okay this is some way more than I've imagined the problem is way more the issues are way more and there is no one and I had all the inspiration to really think of it as a career yeah well like they they probably think yeah not only because you're very honest so you you can they can talk to you because as you say

won't be judgmental but also you have you've been on both sides of the tracks as well you know you've been that person that felt like that side of yourself was just not even acknowledged and in fact quite shameful, actually. So the fact that you've experienced all of that. So I think sometimes we think of people who work in that field as being people who've always been incredibly confident about talking openly about those things and maybe grew up in a household where it was quite comfortable with that. So actually, to the fact you've been through all the spectrum

is quite amazing have you had some good conversations with your family since since this I tell you that's again uh so thankfully my family was not uh resistant in the sense they did not kind of uh threaten me that okay because there are so many families a lot of people have those families yeah but i would not say they are supportive we follow a don't ask don't tell policy yeah so you know they won't ask any questions i won't give any answers but now it's somewhere because of these features uh global features or national features i've started sending them links uh and they read it and they feel okay their daughter is somewhere featured with me see she's doing something which is like you know right even

though she talks about sex and I actually you know I'm I am assumed amused when my mother so just yesterday she was talking to someone and the other person asked what does your daughter do and she said she is a sex educator and that I saw my mother utter this word like sex it's such a big thing for me so that was only yesterday yes wow yeah but I guess things like you know the fact that it reached me all the way here on the on the BBC website and I know you've also given a TED Talk. And I think these things are, you know, that's like a real stamp of credibility in a proper platform. What was the significance for you of doing the TED Talk, do you think? I think when I was approached for a TED Talk, I had like ideas like what do I present?

And I knew that since this is a public platform and there will be people who will be seeing me I wanted to come out very raw like like as you said that you know I've seen that entire spectrum so I said okay I'm going to talk about my knowledge and wisdom but I'm also going to talk about how I acquired it what was the journey behind it yeah so I remember you know there's this line where I actually said that I gave oral sex to my partners S in plural but I never received one from them like that was my story about my own inhibitions about receiving oral sex as a guilty pleasure yeah like it is something I feel guilty about it because the other person is doing me a favor though when I do it to him it's he is he is he deserves it but

I don't deserve it I mean that inhibition was there in my mind for such a long period of time so I talked about this on stage and I was like oh my god I'm talking about my story of oral sex on a public stage and I thought okay people is good people are going to throw stones at me after I come out I was like ready for a backlash but they were so supportive like they I think everyone said that this is very unique and unconventional and I know and I know what I'm doing is something I am not encouraging people to you know talk about their sex lives on a public platform at the same time I know it's absolutely crucial for few of us to do so that millions could have their sex life sorted in the bedroom it is absolutely a need of

the art for at least some people to come up and talk about you know what a real sex life is what is a negotiation you can mug up as much theory as possible but when you are in bedroom with that man or a woman the the concept of real negotiation and you know you your theory is just going to be there out of the door unless you have not practiced it yeah no I think I think you really hit the nail on the head as well where you said you know the fact that you're doing that will actually help millions of people because that's how it trickles through and just normalizing even even the idea of you know oh I always felt like they were doing me a favor you know it's like

I think that probably these are things that are so entrenched in a lot of us, particularly when you're on the female side of things in a straight relationship. Because when you're young, I think it's still evolving that women are allowed to be seen as equal in terms of setting the tone of what's happening, the parameters of what feels okay you know we've got so many conversations going on all the time haven't we about consent and we're looking left and right we're looking at our young boys um and talking to them about that side of

things and how we can help them actually understand i think i saw something on your instagram where you said um saying yes or no that that we have that as the bar of what is the acceptance of consent, such a low bar. I thought that was such a brilliant perception. Because yes, there's lots of ways to have a conversation where you can sense that, you know, someone's not comfortable, even if they haven't actually said no. I think in a way, I mean, that's probably like, we're still getting the no thing established, aren't we? But all this stuff, it's still getting out there. And I suppose so much of it is just so recent you know we're not here we're not that far away from you know Victorian England where it was very

a very different level of expectation and uh and and and and depravity because it was also so pushed behind doors really. So you're upbringing, where did you grow up, Pallavi? So I grew up in a small city. And again, it was a patriarchal in the sense not, thankfully, you know, my parents are always forthcoming about education, but they had this clear role defined that you need to get married and you need to have your own home and sexuality was no no like you can't talk about sex and even while I was married I think I also internalized that okay sex is something which is not for me you know maybe it is something which is more for him yeah yeah and um are you part of a big family

yeah yes I have a joint family and where are you in the pecking order where are you in the in the lineup you know the bottom or near the top with your siblings so uh like uh we are a ton of siblings and I would like to mention here that you know my extended family doesn't talk to me they don't talk to me because again I've chosen this line of work they don't let their kids talk to me because they think I will be a bad influence and some of their kids do talk to me I was gonna say but they want to talk to you yeah and that doesn't surprise me at all yeah and the kids kids do come and kids do talk to me and one of the kids bisexual and uh you know that the person uh he found support and he said okay i'm glad that there is someone in my family but you know it's such a discreet thing that i can't reveal the gender i

can't reveal of course but uh again that's like the when the topic of sex comes in like you know there is this uh i was outcasted from my own family. My parents are there with me. My parents talk to me, but none of my extended relatives, none of them talk to me. That's the level of judgment. Yeah, judgment.

And I think as well, there's this weird, I think, isn't it? That if conversations are had, it's going to sort of introduce ideas to people that they didn't have. That it's something, you know, it's going to unleash this side of them whereas actually all you're really doing is allowing people to not feel ashamed of that side of themselves and lead a happier more fulfilled life but I think there's lots of ways that fear can show itself um particularly when it comes to

you know particularly if you if you're part of a generation that wasn't given that and you end up thinking, well, I've lived my life without prioritising that and everything's been fine for me. And the idea that someone else might have an experience that's somehow a little more open, a little more relaxed, that also throws into sharp relief your own choices you've made. Because actually there's a lot of bravery in going from, you know that traditional upbringing to where you are now yes I would like to mention this incident and this is not this is just maybe I would say uh maybe a handful of instance like

I was doing this talk with uh so chandra das who is a she's a lesbian and she has married her female partner and she was talking about something which is called as corrective rape and I was like what is that corrective rape and she said that if a girl is lesbian so what some families they think that if they if they anyhow they get her to have sex with a man she will get a taste of what intercourse is and she can then she might turn into a heterosexual so not everyone of course a lot of families do support so I'm not saying this is a generalization but even if it is happening with even with one girl in the country yeah I mean imagine the atrocity and most of these people who commit corrective rape are from own, her own uncles or maybe cousin brothers. Oh my goodness.

Yes. Oh, that's horrific. That's horrific. And corrective rape is just the most horrendous terminology as well. Yes. Yeah, I mean, there's been all sorts of atrocities done over the years for sort of trying to, you know, make someone who is gay, lesbian, turn somewhere else. It's just a horrendous idea.

And I hadn't heard of that before. That's just, that's deeply traumatic as an idea. Yes, yes, yes. I had like goosebumps because even I hadn't heard, like even being in India, this was something she was telling it to me. And I was like, I was horrified. I said, okay, even if it is one girl or three girl, it's still something that really needs to be corrected, like needs to be addressed.

No matter if it is just a handful of girls, we don't, they don't deserve this. But it's all about the ignorance and the stigma around sex, okay sex yeah I know when you talked about the stigma around sex I mean how much do you think I suppose it sounds like the seeds were sown very early on about this sort of the way people would speak about your parents marriage all throughout your childhood this mystery around your mother's sort of secret life is that right because I think when I was reading the article it said that she had had an affair very early on in her relationship with your dad but then it just been sort of this mystery and people would sometimes ask you questions

yes about it when you were little yes yeah that must have been very I mean I suppose that set the scene didn't it for like what what is the mystery here what is behind that door yeah I mean um you know I have I have even known uh on some level I know that every person do have these desires and fantasies for themselves there is no person who would say I'm desexualized but when it it comes to on a social level, on a cultural level, we like to show ourselves as desexualized beings. We like to disown our sexuality on a social level. So I tell you, when I was 18 and my brother was newly married,

it was like just three months in marriage and I went to visit his home. He was my cousin brother. And my sister-in-law, she was this newly married and very young and beautiful and she said okay let's sleep together and we will just look through the family album of the wedding album so we had this wedding album and we would just look and scroll through the pictures like we'll

and then my brother elder brother he was like no she can't sleep with you in your room i want her in her room which is now i understand that he wanted to have sex with her that night he was utterly impatient though even i was there just for a day i left the next day so that in in essence means that okay you as much like sex as i do the only difference is i'm talking about it how is it any how it makes such a big difference between you and me when I just chose to talk about it whereas you are equally sexual you are you are equally liking sex with your wife so much that you couldn't let her go for a day with me so you know we all have we are our culture is obsessed with sex on some level. Yeah. At level. And we are as much repulsed by it. It's a very strange conflict that we are as much repulsed by it,

as much we are obsessed about it. Yeah. Yeah. But actually, when you're repulsed by something, but also, as you say, obsessed by it, that also is internalized about yourself, about how you feel about your own what what brings you pleasure that becomes repulsive to you as well and that's a that's a really hard way to live your life if

it's also something that's a big part of a big part of your life um i suppose you must have heard as well some incredible stories from people that come to see you who maybe are only you know decades and decades into their their adulthood and they're still they're only just now thinking actually I really want to I want to find that happiness yes I get a lot of stories on sexless marriages and I feel that okay I understand how it feels to be like there's this man who is 39 and he is the senior vice president of a very unicorn e-commerce organization. And he says, Pallavi, I'm fit. I'm good looking.

I've really worked out on myself. I am successful. But this is for what? Like this is for buying groceries. I don't have a sexual relationship with my wife. What I'm doing, I'm just managing the chores. But what is more than that so definitely sex is something which is taking your life from ordinary to extraordinary at some level and then you are

denied that extraordinaryness and you feel like life is all about a set of chores yeah and sex is a space where you feel alive you feel rejuvenated you feel pleasure and all of this is taken away from you as a as a human being you are a sexual being we are all sexual beings like of course i understand asexuals like say but not everyone is an asexual but we are sexual beings but we are denied our sexuality and then we have to live with that because if i go out and i talk about that my wife is not giving sex to me, my character will be murdered. My character will be tarnished. I will be a debacle.

Yeah. Yeah. And so when I'm just trying to get the chronology a little bit. So you obviously had a moment where what was the job that you were doing before all this started? Was it nothing to do with what you're doing now, I imagine? was the job that you were doing before all this started was it nothing to do with what you're doing now I imagine so I was uh I was a product manager so I was into product development of IT startup okay and this is what you were doing after you've had your baby yes till the time I quit that job okay so do you think when you look back because I know that I read that you

when you were 32 you found yourself the other side of your marriage and a single mum um and do you do you think sometimes some of that sort of empowered you do you think that becoming a mother was played a part in you helping you sort of you know come out of that that repressed side of of your life I think certainly um see this will not be true for every woman so I would not say motherhood helped me out but as a mother you know I have experienced a very different shade of my sexuality which is responsible sexuality which is very emotional sexuality very sensitive sexuality because I already had that part of me because I had a baby so you know to say that if I might be a single woman it would have been very different for me than when I was a mother also yeah and also that the sexuality of a mother is quite interesting like as a mother um you know where

you have to tend to your baby in the day and you can be ferocious at the night and this is just a different shade of you you know as a person so which was very novel for me to discover that there could be two different shades one could be just so you know homely and so uh affectionate and something where i can be um really asserting my own individuality as a woman because you know a lot of times when we get into that role of a mother then it's so difficult to see the woman inside you yeah yeah no I think you put that so well you're very very good at articulating these emotions that happen and actually as you say that sort of spectrum of yourself where you've got the side of you that is the mother.

And I totally agree with you, by the way, that motherhood doesn't always play the part. You know, it doesn't always empower. It doesn't always change your life in that way. And I've spoken to a lot of people now where that's why it's a curious subject to me, really, because it's such a broad range of ways it can change your life. Sometimes huge. Some people, actually, people actually they just continue on the same trajectory they're already on and the baby just kind of strap on their back and keep going but for other people it's it is a

big life change and I think particularly when it comes to as you say your sexual side the idea of this sensitive nurturing thing by by day and then still have the other side of you and acknowledging both and allowing yourself both I think I know some women hugely struggle even in pregnancy that the idea that they can be a sexual person and pregnant is something that they really find you know just not not that instinctive I guess maybe that's another I don't know if taboo is quite the word but it's definitely something that's not not really spoken about that much really about how that makes you feel and how you feel about your body it's such a complicated relationship maybe as well it's quite hard to to work it out sometimes when when you're in the middle of it right yeah and now that you have your

your little boy um I suppose I'm the mother of sons so I have I have five sons and my middle boy is the same age as yours and it's really made me think as well about how I raise them to be sensitive responsible sexual adults one day um because I'm not actually squeamish about the idea of them when they're older having a sex life. That doesn't freak me out. I actually want them to find happiness, but how you kind of navigate the waters, especially in this landscape of consent and all these kind of things.

I mean, is that something you've had to deal with very much? I mean, you don't need to say anything private about your son, but more just sort of broadly about how it should be be approached I guess how do we talk to our kids about things like that yeah so I do get queries from parents like there was this parent who had a 20 year old son and he said I discovered a packet of condom in my son's bag should I be concerned that was his question and I said that you should not be because he's a sexually he's at an age he's a he's a major he is already 20 and first of all that kind of because you know as parents we are used to see our kids as kids yeah we never see them as growing adults

yeah so so firstly kind of reassuring him that his son is an adult, technically, legally, he's an adult. So he can make decisions and this is very obvious. So he was like, oh my God. Yeah, that is something which is normal. It's normal to see that. And secondly, I say that, you know, you should be happy that he's practicing safe sex. He knows that he's not, he's going to be sexually safe and healthy. So also showing that condom is not necessarily as something which

is a red flag but it's showing that he's responsible towards sexual activities keeping himself safe because you know it's so intimidating for especially in a relationship like parent and kid because they think okay uh because we are raised by a generation our parents never talked about it with us and we have no framework of how we can talk about it yeah but at the same time we did not have internet and smartphones and our kids have internet and smartphones so we need to talk about it yeah well how do you navigate that what's the what's the i mean if i let's imagine um if my 12 year old saw something online well how do i how should I talk to him about that so first

thing I always tell them that you know normalize bodies including private parts of the body or the private body you know from me I make sure that my son knows the correct name of all his body parts including the penis like my for my mother it was so difficult because whenever she was dressing him up she would say pv or you know chichu i don't know what what euphemism they use for and i said no it's penis and she was totally shocked that okay how can i say this word even as parents like we create that difference that something between your legs it is you know it is invisible that the thing between your legs even i see people saying that that thing or this they always address it by that i know that thing is something so i say it's not this or that it's either sex penis or vulva so just to normalize these words as any other words now of course i'm also talking about boundaries i'm not saying that

okay you go ahead and you talk about it there there are boundaries but your kids should be aware about the body parts first of all secondly kids really react incredibly like respond in incredibly to their parents stories as parents we had our own journeys of you know crushes. We had been through puberty. I had my own breast development or menstruation or crushes. I mean, even my father had back in his age where he went through a puberty or he might have seen cinema,

especially today's parents. So why not talk about or why not share those stories as how it was for you growing up, the confusion you had, the questions you had the questions you had but you couldn't ask your kid very well will be having same questions anyway more than that yeah so talk about your own stories with your kids so that they know that you are a human

being you are not on a pedestal like you know a lot of times we put parents on the pedestal as they are these higher beings and they are supposed to know it all and are all sorted and all perfect i mean parents are as imperfect parents are also learning every day for me my struggle as a single mother is which is every day and sometimes i do tell my son like he he asked me that okay you know why you and dad are not living together and i said that sometimes we we go on our own ways and it's fine for people to go on their own ways but it doesn't make them any less of a person to normalize this because you know sometimes we just paint this idealistic picture of relationship

in front of the kids which they find it so hard to live in themselves because we are ourselves like I get stories from couple I was counseling this couple today and he said, we don't want our kids to know what is happening between us. And I said, your kids will anyway come to know about it. It's better that, you know, you don't see, keep it, I'm not saying that you need to fight like cats and dogs, but make that imperfection is not necessarily a flaw or a failure. It's something as just human. So be relatable relatable be approachable for me when i was a kid i would always look my parents as somewhere which is a higher authority now for me my kid knows that he's an equal in the family he knows an equal i'm not pretending to be

someone you know who has done it all and i i tried to be fair, like he was just, he was touching himself. Like, you know, say now I don't call it as a masturbation. It's like being curious. Kids are curious about their bodies. Now, I know parents who yell at their kids and who say, what are you doing? Like, you know, like really scream, what are you doing? If they found their kids touching their genitalia so you are actually creating that fear in the kid's mind and you are also creating a curiosity because he's going to do or she's going to do what you're stopping him to do you cannot stop him you cannot say you can't do it you need to make them aware that okay there are boundaries so i tell okay

you go and you you have this room and you want to touch yourself you go but it's not wrong if i say you can't do it he has all the more reasons to be intrigued about it and he will go on internet or he will go to his friends so to not create that embargo around sexuality know that your kid is growing up in a world which is filled with images sexually explicit images we are showing kids we are taking our kids to movies where the the you know the actor and the actress are kissing they are they like you know it's a lip lock yeah and then we we assume or we expect our kids not to think about it how it is possible yeah no it's so true it's so true and i think that's a brilliant idea

of giving it the boundaries and i totally agree with you about no shame and making them very familiar with their body, but also aware that there's things that they, if they want to do that, give them the space to do it, but also maybe introducing the idea that it's a private thing. because actually doing it gently like that means that they'll never have that awkwardness. And as you say, they're still going to do it, but they'll just maybe find it a bit shameful or not want to talk to you about it. Plus, I guess there's a whole, as they get older, we're only the parents, you know. You want them to feel like they can find the right person in their life that will give them the advice, even if it's not us. You know, we don't have to be the people they go to for everything. the advice, even if it's not us, you know, we don't have to be the people they go to for everything.

But I suppose I do, I do, so I'm quite, I do get a bit worried about the online stuff sometimes, because I don't think kids are looking for it. But I think when they're little, if they come into contact with something and see something that's quite confusing, and then unusual, I remember years ago, my, my 12-old, when he was probably, he was probably about eight or nine, and he had searched up with a friend, I think he searched something silly like hot girl boobs, and just seen loads and loads of pictures of women's boobs, women's breasts. And I had to do this really delicate chat about how just because you could look it up didn't mean you were allowed to see everybody's and that not every woman that he knew would have would have somewhere a picture of their breasts on the internet and it was like you know it's

probably a lot of information for him but you know it's a it's a hard one isn't it I mean I know I've spoken a lot about consent it's probably just because as the mother of sons, I feel like it's something that's such a, I feel quite a lot of responsibility in making sure that the right side of the tracks were there. So I get the impression from what you're doing that you're really quite ambitious. And actually, if you've only been doing what you do out,

as you say, since 2018, you've already achieved so much. What are your hopes for the future? Do you have a kind of idea of what you want to do yeah so certainly I am uh I'm also running you know it as an organization so I don't I really want this legacy I feel that there is this legacy I'm trying to create and I want it to be there and have more and more people join this and be like, you know, like sex education as a profession is still not something that youngsters are looking up to. So I want to really encourage and motivate more and more young people to become sexuality educators because there is a dire need. So that

is one thing is I really want people to be inspired and understand the necessity and you know importance of this profession and also i'm launching courses on intimacy where there will be courses on self-pleasuring or the courses on you know how to get over a sexless marriage or fantasies how to fantasize this is the this is the course i'm actually working on you know in recent days so i'm very optimistic about these courses as these would be like scientifically accurate. At the same time, this is more personalized and keeping that fine balance between, you know, sensuality, like really being sensual, but not being obscene. Obviously for you, you'll be thinking a lot about India, the place where you grew up and the culture you grew up in and how much room that has to grow. India, the place where you grew up and the culture you grew up in and how much room that has to go.

But do you think when you look around, do you feel like everywhere's got got room to to evolve when it comes to the way they talk about sex? Yes, I tell you so I can actually. So I was in touch with this. She's a tantra coach. So tantra is also a discipline of sexuality, Eastern discipline where there's a lot of mergence between tantra and sexuality so she's a tantra coach and she's a european and she's from netherlands and she's a single mother and her kids are like 15 and 16 so we were talking we were collaborating for a talk which was basically uh you know masturbation it was it was basically a facilitated masturbation experiences camera off so that was a very you know uh i would say uh way ahead of its times kind of a workshop that we did so you were actually doing

a workshop with people masturbating with the camera off yes so that was uh so that was her brainchild and she got me as a facilitator where i would guide them in with the music and instructions and you know creating that mood so so it was like there was no nudity because for them the cameras was off I was clothed yeah yeah and during the preparation of her talk I just asked her that how is it in your country you know you are from Europe so she said Pallavi it's better than India but I'm a I'm a sexuality coach or an educator and when my kids went to school, so their peers, the students said that,

you know, your mother is a prostitute. Oh, okay. That's helpful. Wow. That's funny because you think about somewhere like the Netherlands as being really, I mean, the perception from where I'm sitting is that they'd be really quite relaxed, actually,

about all the nuances within that world, but obviously not. But I suppose as well for kids, it's an easy way to, you know, using wrong terminology is a very easy way to get a rise out of people as well. And, yeah, I suppose there's just a lot of discomfort. And a lot of people it's what what you go home to how your parents have raised you how they talk about sex these all factor into you know if you've if you've been encouraged to feel shameful about it at home you might want to push that that shame out there too um because it's quite threatening maybe when your

your peers actually are pretty relaxed and they grow up in a home where it's more relaxed may be when your your peers actually are pretty relaxed and they grow up in a home where it's more relaxed I don't know but that's really I would I was quite surprising that I mean is it something that your your son I know that my nine-year-old is quite he's sort of semi-interested in what I get up to for a living not massively is it something you've that your son talks to you about okay my son so um yes because you know he has he has heard this word so many times like sexuality or sex so he definitely uh he he did ask me and sometimes he even used this word like you know okay i know you you must be talking something about sex and i was like very jolted like what are you saying but then i realized okay if I'm trying to normalize the word I should be prepared I should not be intimidated when I'm hearing it from my own son

because it was a curiosity so uh right now he's not really asked me the question but you know I do talk about uh like when it comes to touching the body so I say it's a body education like if he really because as I said it's age appropriate and you can choose to be you you can choose your words in a way that these are not ambiguous or these are not bogus like saying that you know what you're doing your mother is a body educator you know she helps people understand their body so that's something i have thought of uh in fact you know even i found him watching some pictures pictures that just popped up on his screen when he was surfing YouTube and his friends told me that you know that he was watching something wedding picture so they said it's a wedding picture with a man and a woman and that's their interpretation

so I told him that see this is not for your age this you know you know you understand driving you can't drive I he said yeah I can't drive because you know, you know, you understand driving. You can't drive. He said, yeah, I can't drive because you don't have a license. You need to be 18. So similarly, in the similar fashion, there are many things

that is not, this is not for this age, but this is for adults. So, you know, finding the right way to speak, like tomorrow, if he asked me that, okay, mom, what do you do?

So if he's like right now, he's nine and say 10 and 11. So he will say sexuality is something that you know it's two adults connect with each other on a personal private intimate level you know that's the kind of language I will create without feeling ashamed or embarrassed yeah now that sounds like a really sensible way to deal with it and I like the idea of them of saying some things are meant for adults because actually sometimes when we we have all the context for what they're seeing but they don't they just know they've walked into you know it's like walking into the wrong room isn't it like oh I'm not supposed to be in here shut that door and then if they do have anything that confuses them or you know they're curious about they can always ask you. But sometimes we kind of, we fill in a lot of gaps that maybe they're not actually thinking about right now.

And I suppose when you sort of look back at your, you know, everything that's happened, do you feel like really, I don't know, impressed with how your sort of bravery and your strength of how you've managed to move your life on? That is such a profound question. I'm so glad that, you know, in this moment itself, I just reflected back onto my journey. So I really feel that I was God's chosen child, like, you know, to really come onto this because there have been so many sexless marriages. And

what happened with me was not something I would say were very unique to me. But I think, you know, I was just destined, I believe in the universal energy, I don't believe in the, you know, the symbolic figures of, you know, the gods and the goddesses. But I do believe in that goodness and energy and the universe, the universal principles. So I feel that, okay, I was just destined to do and I'm very glad that I was chosen for this and I chose to do this I'm very glad because and every day I tell you even with certain setbacks like this you know Instagram blog or something when people reach out to me and they say that you know they really take value and my posts are blessing for them or I we learn so much from your post I think that's the kind of validation for my work is it's so important yeah yeah yeah and I can really get a sense of that

I mean I think that that's that's an amazing feeling actually to kind of be be able to feel that you could be the voice for all the people who aren't feeling comfortable about speaking out yeah that's and that's that means that it never feels like work it's more like a you're quite sort of driven. It gives you a daily momentum for setting up your stall and thinking, you know, I want to reach everybody and make sure they feel they can explore all that and have those conversations. Do you sometimes have it as well with your friends where they kind of come to you and say, like, you've actually really helped me?

I bet you do. Yeah, yes, yes, it does happen when they say like even my sessions when they say that you know it has really helped me and I mean it's I always tell them that you know it's not just about fixing a problem but it's also about enhancing the quality of your relationship so see from that perspective and thankfully now people are thinking from that direction that you know seeking out couple coaching or even say for a from a therapist couple therapist it's not a matter of shame or to say that something is wrong but it's about you know I have this luxury relationship like I always give this analogy that you know if you have a luxury car if you have a Mercedes so you would not try

to fix it yourself you will go to an expert to fix the mercedes so your marriage is your mercedes you need to go to an expert yeah yeah well i guess also when you've spoken a lot about um you know the about your mind and your body and how you say your body you know you're helping people educate about their body i think sometimes we still can divorce our our mindset from our bodies you know and there's a lot of times where your body is just the thing getting your your head where it needs to be and your your head and how you're feeling is not connected to how you're feeling about you know in in your skin so I think that whole that holistic approach of of just actually seeing the full spectrum of yourself is that is is so important for leading a more fulfilled open happy life and

supporting other people do the same yes yes good for that all right thank you so much for your time I'm gonna let you get off to your are you doing anything nice this evening what's happening in Delhi tonight or are you staying in oh I will just go for a walk and I will see what my kid is doing in the other room you know it seems like I've just locked the door so I said told him that okay don't come for an hour okay well tell him thank you from me thank you for letting me have his mom for a while it's been so nice to talk to you I'll be pointing your new people in your direction your new shiny new Instagram thank you thank you so much lots of love so do you see what i mean there with the themes and about how significant it is to have a little pause and think if you're really being very true to yourself in terms of your your ability to articulate your emotional and physical

needs desires thoughts and if they're being heard and if you're happy and I know it's a work in progress but I suppose the most important thing is a willingness to to sort of give that space and room and make sure that you've actually, you're actually checking in with yourself about those things and you know where to turn and who to talk to if you need to. It's such an important thing. You don't win any prizes for, for pretending you're into stuff you're not, you know, as if you needed telling. I'm sure you don't need telling that. But I thought it was really lovely to speak to Pallavi and I'm so impressed with her I think it's an exceptionally type you know exceptional type of bravery to grow up with one set of values and then be able to articulate that you don't actually

you want to push through taboos sorry I am really woolly in the head today you can probably tell I'm struggling to articulate myself I've been up most of the night with a very hot two-year-old. He was not feeling very well. And that is on top of not really sleeping very well all week. So that's been great. Although we did manage, once the kids were in bed, we watched Candyman last night. Have you seen it?

It's good, actually. I do like horror. I mean, it's a bit spoofy in parts. But I did quite enjoy it. Although it's weird. I love horror films I love being scared but then when the anticipation are building I most likely put my fingers in my ears and sort of hide 90% of what I can actually see on the screen so I sort of like them the most in

retrospect I don't know what that says about me but if you go through my top 10 films I think probably 70% of them are scary films um this week what have I got coming up oh so I've recorded another few podcasts for you and I've got a couple of lovely ones that I'm about to release and publish I think you'll really enjoy and next week's one is pretty zhuzhi actually um I love that word I never know how to spell it but I like saying it and I'm also recording a couple this week of really amazing people too. So lots of treats in store. Would you believe I'm approaching my 50th guest? That's actually pretty loopy. That's a lot of conversations. That's a lot of chats. And that's a lot of people being completely brilliant guests and talking

about lots of things. Just to me, how nice and then I can share it with you. But I hope you're going to have a lovely week. I'm off to Ireland tomorrow, actually, for a bit of work. And then in and around. It's quite a nice week this week. I've got lots of different things on the go. Lots of different areas of my work that are being stimulated this week. Areas of my work are being stimulated,

which is probably taking on from, I don't know, Pallavi and the conversation she has about what's being stimulated. There's a thread there somewhere. But quite frankly, I don't really want to go into detail about what my brain was trying to do with that. I don't think it quite worked. That's annoying. Anyway, I'm going to go back and see if Mickey's feeling any better. I think it's probably time for me to go and have a really large coffee just to try and kickstart the cogs in my brain because I feel like you can hear them turning very, very slowly. It's not a good way to be, particularly if you're trying to talk to someone and record yourself speaking to someone and you're hoping that they enjoy what you're saying. So to someone and record yourself speaking to someone and you're hoping that they enjoy what you're saying so on that wonderful note I'm going to bid you adieu have

a lovely week and I'll see you next time and thank you as ever for lending me your ears and I hope all is good with you lots and lots of love see you soon Thank you. you