What I often hear from most people is that the spaces I created, are the first time they’ve had to learn about sexual health in a comfortable, comprehensive, non-shameful way. And I think that if this makes me feel happy, it also makes me feel sad, that a lot of women have not had empathy and compassion and information that empowers them to think and learn about their bodies.
Hymen does not equal virginity. Contrary to the narrative that has been stressed through our lives, being a virgin means that a woman has not had sex with a man, yet. The bleed-test is not accurate for many reasons. First of all, many women don’t bleed the first time they have sex because their hymens could have torn earlier in their lives during exercise or bike accidents without them even knowing.
What motivated me is knowing that there are many myths about sex and these myths need to be dismantled. I also know there are many toxic negative beliefs about sex within the Muslim community and these beliefs actually go against the nature of Islam so this motivated me to put things right.
