[00:00:00] Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of the Vagina Rehab Doctor podcast. I am so excited to be back. I have actually been gone for over three weeks and I actually am now.
back home after being in Kenya and Zanzibar for three weeks with my family. It was an amazing experience because I got to do that during black history month. So obviously as a black American knowing my roots and. That essentially I come from Africa, not really sure on which country, but I do know that that's where I originate from.
And so it was a beautiful experience to spend that much time with my mom, my dad, my brother, exploring East Africa. And I'm excited about today's episode. So today we're going to be talking about Black History Month. Pelvic health and pleasure justice and the reason why I'm talking about black history month is because many of us Don't know why [00:01:00] we have it, So here in America, we know the history with slavery we know the history of racism in this country all of that and one of the ways and this is my opinion one of the ways that racism is sort of appeased or You know, the, you know, to get our, our, our backs patted, right? Pat someone on the back is to sort of, to me, it's a form of pacifization.
Like this, this month of celebration of black history, it's really not enough, but it is something right. And people can't say that it's not black history month. And so what I've done this month is talked more openly about race. About black history and how that relates to health, how that relates to black women's sexual health and pelvic health, and really how pleasure is a privilege, the ability to access immense sexual pleasure and overall pleasure.
Is [00:02:00] a privilege and we're going to talk more about that. but I do want to say, you know, happy black history month to everyone here listening who calls themselves black. Like, Hey, if you a black sister, if you a black brother, if you call yourself black, happy black history month to you. And so what I want to do is first talk about.
What it means in terms of pelvic pain and all of that to be black so pelvic pain is nothing to play with Whether you're black, yellow, red, white, it doesn't matter. However, the time to be diagnosed is significantly longer if you're black, So, the time of diagnosis just being white is severely too long, It gets way worse though if your skin is brown. If you are a black woman in America, The chances of you being taken seriously diminishes significantly because of your race. There is implicit bias that happens, [00:03:00] meaning even if you are not trying to intentionally treat someone poorly, just based on how they look, that impact of racism Touches everyone and so people will look at you differently based on how you look that is just the truth It's the same thing for people who are big or people who are fat the world looks at those people Differently we look at people who are bigger differently and people will say oh, no, I'm body positive and all of that.
But if we were to do some research we would find that big people are treated differently in this country. So then Imagine a black fat gay woman in health care, So if we're talking about race what happens is not only does it diminish the time for you to get Diagnosed for pain conditions and just overall health care conditions because one we're not listening to two We're not taking seriously and three the referral patterns are also [00:04:00] different meaning your doctor is less likely to refer you to a specialist When you let them know the problems that you're having this is a fact you can google it research you do whatever you want to see those statistics But this is this is what's happening.
The other thing is that Doctors have been shown to have different ideas about pain and blackness. Doctors have been shown through research, literally asking doctors, they have admitted to believing that black women handle pain better than white. There was a study done in 2017 that questioned doctors, doctors who just graduated from medical school, doctors who have been doctors for, you know, 10 plus years or more.
And what they found was a good percentage of doctors believed that the skin of black people is actually thicker. than, than whites. So they're able to handle pain better, that we process pain differently simply because we're black. [00:05:00] What this does is then, is it, then contributes to their thought processes of, oh, she can handle this or, oh, uh, she's just over exaggerating.
Oh, she's just trying to get drugs. These are racist thought patterns that circulate in the minds of people and doctors are not excluded from that. And so I wanted to take that time to explain and to put that out there because this is an issue. This is a very huge issue. we know the issue with being diagnosed as a black person.
We know the issue with Being taken seriously if you report pain whether you are going into birth whether it is severe and debilitating pelvic pain Whether whether it is period pain You just have some odds stacked against you if your skin is brown All And so now I want to talk briefly about how Sexual health is also in the conversation because you know, listen, I'm a pelvic floor physical therapist and right now I specialize in sexual pain and [00:06:00] vaginismus.
Pain is obviously a barrier to pleasure. If someone is in an excruciating amount of pain, then they're going to have a more difficult time enjoying themselves. With their partner enjoying themselves with sex enjoying themselves with pleasure and they're gonna have a strained Relationship with pleasure as well And I love I love that I get to specialize because I get to hear more from people who experience pain I get to obviously get more experience treating it than if I were treating prolapse and incontinence and and foot pain and and and postpartum this and Diastasis recti it's so much easier to really You know, hone in and, and really sharpen skills when you're only treating one issue.
But what I have also found is that the relationship between sexual abuse also needs to be acknowledged. And what I would really like to see is us as healthcare [00:07:00] providers, pelvic floor physical therapists, gynecologists, nurse practitioners, doulas, even yoga, instructors. Anyone who was dealing with people, and especially women.
Regarding their pelvis, regarding pleasure, regarding their sexual health, is that we have to start acknowledging race and ethnicity more. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable and say, Hey, I acknowledge that this problem exists. What you're doing is you're not just acknowledging a problem, you're acknowledging people.
You're acknowledging your client. You're acknowledging your patient and you're saying, I see not just your skin color, Which is not a sin to see skin color, by the way, but I see your experience and how your experience is different from someone else. And so when we're talking about sexual health, we want to establish and understand that one in four black women by the age of 18 would have been sexually assaulted.
And the same thing goes for rape. Black women are [00:08:00] disproportionately the victims of sexual abuse, including rape, by a very young age. And what happens is that when you experience Sexual abuse, you are much more likely to now have PTSD, to have sexual anxiety, to have vaginismus, to have sexual pain, to have difficulties overall showing up as a sexual being because you were abused sexually.
And so black women are much more likely to be the victim of sexual assault and sexual abuse. And so we have to show up with the knowledge of this because now we can be more trauma informed. We can assume, that likely this person has experienced some level of sexual assault. We need to be screening our clients for this.
Even if they say no, we still need to be treating. Wisely, Making sure that we're [00:09:00] not using language that could trigger them. Making sure that we're aware of different things that we may do that might trigger them. We need to be communicating every single thing that we're doing and why. We need to be checking in on them.
Hey, how are you feeling? Are you okay? Do you need a break? All of these things because it is real and it is happening. And so, That's how being black can literally impact your pleasure. That's how someone who is a black woman may have a harder time getting through those doors that allow them to enter the territory of sexual pleasure, because now there's sexual assault that's more than likely involved.
That's 25 percent of black women. That's a really high number. That's millions and millions and millions, maybe even billions of women. of black women, But I'm gonna stick with millions right now. So that's gonna impact it. And then also we're talking about how long it takes to get diagnosed. So imagine that if you have [00:10:00] endometriosis.
Imagine if you have vulvodynia which is like a burning or painful sensation on the outside of your female genitalia. So it could be the vaginal opening or the clitoris, This is the structure, this is the territory where sexual pleasure happens. So, imagine having stinging, aching, itching, burning there when you're trying to have sex.
That's a barrier, And if you are a black woman, the chances of your doctor on the first time taking you serious, taking your pain serious, and looking for ways to treat the problem. It's just not very high according to research. So we have that stacked up against us. So it's going to be harder to access pleasure if our doctors are not listening to us.
It's going to be harder to access pleasure if we have this history of sexual assault. And obviously everyone can be sexually assaulted. But I'm pointing out the disproportionate rate at which black women are sexually abused. inequality in the [00:11:00] workplace. We're not getting paid what we're worth.
We're getting paid 67 cents for every dollar that a white man is paid. And we are paid 20 percent lower than white women for doing the same job. So when you are under page, Stress levels are impacted. Your home environment may be impacted. And if you don't think money and getting paid good and getting paid what you're worth is a form of pleasure, listen, I need you to re evaluate that thing because pleasure allows you the opportunity to access more things that bring you pleasure, whether that be getting a mental health therapist, whether that be getting a massage, whether that be getting a home that you enjoy and that's safe and all of that.
Having enough money is a form of pleasure. And so when we're talking about, this is, this is my thing here. When we're talking about pelvic health and sexual health, we have to stop leaving race out of the conversation
because we're missing a [00:12:00] lot. We're missing so much. We're disregarding people and we're disregarding problems that are contributing greatly to the problem at hand. So, listen, there's, I mean, this, this could be a four part series. This could be a four part series, but I, but I wanted to talk about that, right?
I just wanted to talk about things that can impact our access to even reaching pleasure, It's gonna be harder for someone to orgasm if they're struggling with a pelvic pain condition that is not being diagnosed. They're going to be, they're going to be struggling to enjoy themselves sexually if they have this history of sexual assault.
They're going to be struggling to enjoy themselves sexually if on the job there's a lot of discrimination, mainly based on their skin color. Right, so these things are going to impact the way we show up as sexual beings. The other thing, that I wanted to talk about is we can actually start reclaiming our pleasure.
And I want to Emphasize the [00:13:00] importance of using our voices more, more conversations, more self advocacy. And it does not stop with self advocacy because that makes it seem like it is the problem of the victim. It's the responsibility of the victim to fix the problem of the oppressor, To fix the systems that are discriminatory and racist.
And I want to acknowledge that if you are someone who is experiencing racial discrimination, It is not the responsibility of the oppressor, but I want to say this, they cannot silence us. They cannot diminish our voices. They will not mute us. So I want us to continue speaking on this, to start talking about it more.
just start showing up in your home conversations in your social networks publicly on social media all of that I know that in 2020 there was just a big uproar talking about social justice But y'all this conversation should continue and it should continue beyond February as [00:14:00] well February has inspired me to begin Talking about it this month after going fairly quiet about racial injustice, about social justice, about pleasure access for black women and women of color.
Because two to three years ago, actually in the month of February, I decided, and this is how my account grew to the place that it is now. Before I left my job several years ago, I left my job, actually I left my job, uh, in 2020. Two. Okay, so we're in 2024. I left my job in 2022, and in 2021 in February, I talked about black women's health for the whole month, every single day I committed to teaching something about black women's health.
This is back when I had like under 1000 followers. And right now I have about 235, 000 followers. So it's grown significantly, but just give you a picture of what happened. So at this point, I had less than a thousand followers on Instagram. I was talking about, you know, the pelvic floor, [00:15:00] pelvic floor therapy, vaginal health.
And then in February, I was like, I want to talk about black women and how racism is impacting our health for the whole month. And it was at that time that my account started to grow, like, hi faster than what I thought. But during that month when my account was growing and that can be exciting there were so many people commenting about how I was discriminating because I chose to talk about Racism I was discriminating because I was talking about tips that can help black women There are people saying that this is stupid.
It can help all women Why only focus on black women and my response to that is always do you go up to people during? Breast Cancer Awareness Month and when women are talking about their experiences with breast cancer Do you tell them that there are also women that have brain cancer and because other women have brain cancer That they can't talk about their experiences with breast cancer and the answer is no No one does that because it's insensitive [00:16:00] It's insensitive and it's irrelevant.
People with breast cancer are not saying that there aren't other people that have different struggles. They're saying this is our problem, breast cancer, and we're going to use our voices to talk about what we're experiencing and what we demand, what we would like to see happen for the community that has breast cancer.
And it's the same thing for racism and being black. Talking about your experience as a black woman, but I got so much pushback from mostly white women who were complaining that I was Discriminating that I was racist and it got tiring. Honestly, it was exhausting constantly trying to defend Constantly trying to say that I wasn't against them or diminishing their own struggle I was choosing to talk about black women's health and Racism and the the fatigue I got from that That really led me to just diminish my, intention and my regularity was talking about racism.
So it's not that I completely avoided the topic, but I sort of lowered my volume on those [00:17:00] things. And now, things are much different. Obviously my account is larger. I'm no longer working for someone else. I work for myself. There's a lot of things different. But as a woman. Who is trying to grow in every area of her life.
I don't want to change who I am to avoid Challenge, I don't want I don't want to diminish my voice to run away from Difficulty, right? It may be challenging and difficult to get those comments from people, but I don't want to Change who I am and the things that I am passionate about Just because someone else doesn't understand where I am coming from and so that's what I did this month And we're just trying to create more awareness For black women's health racism and how it impacts our access to pleasure because really to me Pleasure is a justice issue.
We all deserve access to an equal opportunity to feeling good in our bodies [00:18:00] Everyone deserves that Everyone deserves that opportunity to feel good in your color, your skin color should not be a barrier to you actually achieving that and feeling good and feeling pleasure and feeling joy in your body.
So thank you for being willing to listen to this episode. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being here and supporting me on this podcast. I am so thankful for all of you. I want to ask you to go ahead and subscribe to this podcast, the Vagina Rehab Doctor podcast, and also leave me a five star raving review.
If you are enjoying yourself, if you enjoyed this podcast, you can also let me know what you want to hear on future episodes by leaving me a review. So y'all, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I cannot wait to talk to you again next Monday. Bye y'all.