Too Taboo: You Can('t) Talk About Sex
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Good day, good people. Happy Valentine's Day or happy day after Valentine's Day. Or maybe it's just Thursday or Friday, whatever day it is that you're listening to this pod. Like, I hope you're having a good one full of peace, joy, happiness,

all the things that you want right now. And if you're new here, hey, I am Lauren. I appreciate you for tuning in to Imperfectly Phenomenal Woman. And each week I chat with different women about limiting beliefs that hold us back from living fully and authentically because I want you to truly live the life that you want to live, like the truest essence of yourself that she wants to live. And so there's a few limiting beliefs that we got to go ahead and get out of the way.

And we do that through different episodes. So this week, the living belief that we're talking about is that you can't talk about sex. Sometimes it's a pretty taboo topic. And so we're going to dive into that in this one. And I'm talking to Sadia Khan. And the girl is insightful and vulnerable. And I appreciate her for joining.

But before we get into that, since it's Valentine's Day, I want to spread a little bit of love because maybe two days ago or so, I went looking on Apple podcast app and sometimes I just so happen to scroll down. I was searching for a particular episode, but then I noticed that some people left some comments, some reviews, and you want to know what happened? I fucking cried, y'all.

So I just wanted to give a shout out to Mays.E. She listened to the Clarity Series, which were the four episodes in January, all about the living beliefs that I don't know what I want and I'm not sure what my path is, basically. And Mays.E. said, thank you for the Clarity Series. Insightful and inspiring with a heart.

Locks Oh Lovely. I hadn't seen yours from January 18th. Thanks to these amazing women doing this podcast. I enjoyed the one Kelsey was on for people pleasing. It rocked my mind to know I am not alone.

on this one. I will remember it and pass it on. Thanks y'all. Thank you Loxa Lovely and thank you Maze.E. Loxa Lovely out here saying y'all but I just want to also tell y'all I'm a one-man band out here and I be like tired. So there's that too but

Reviews like this, y'all have no clue how much it means to me because when I say that I really do all of this stuff by myself and being a podcaster, you can't see anybody. Like as I'm recording this right now, I am sitting in a grocery store parking lot.

because the audio is a good quality. There's no one around me. Like I see the numbers in Libsyn, which is where you can host your podcast or whatever. I see my numbers in there, but it's like, are they real? And so when people actually leave comments or go into my DMs and things like that, it really does mean a lot. And so happy Valentine's Day to Loxa Lovely and maize.e and anyone else listening to this pod. I love y'all for joining.

And we can go ahead and get into the episode. So my first question to guests is always asking them what brings them joy. And I ask them that as a way for you to get to know their spirit. So this is Sadia and this is what brings her joy. Oh my gosh, Lauren, that's such a good question. For me, it's my family, my husband, kids, my parents, but most importantly, my siblings.

They are my sounding board. They are my biggest critics and loudest cheerleaders. And whenever I'm feeling happy or sad, depressed or confused, I reach out to both of them.

And I instantly get into my happy place with my siblings. Yeah. And additionally, my podcast, I have met so many incredible people through my podcast and having those difficult, messy, introspective, honest conversations.

unadulterated conversations brings me so much joy and I feel kindred spirit for so many of them. So right now, my family and my work both, which is a great combo. I know. Oh, I love that so much because usually when I ask that question and people say family, of course, it's their children, it's their husband, but no one says siblings. Yeah.

So I'm surprised. I know. I love, love, love, love, love my brother so much. He is one of the best human beings on the planet. So I just love that you said that. And shout out to my brother, too. Yes.

So thank you, Sadia. Thank you. All right, cool. Well, I feel like people got to know you a bit better. So we can jump to the actual topic. Yes, let's do it. Each week, I talk to different women about limiting beliefs that hold us back from living fully and authentically.

I do this as a way for us to shift our mindset around some of the things that hold us back from really like living the lives that we want to live. And so this week, we're talking about the limiting belief that you can't talk about sex. And so I know you're interested in talking about taboo topics sometimes. What got you interested in talking about the taboo?

So the way I see sex, and before I get into that, full disclosure, I'm not a sex educator. I am not an expert. Whatever I say is observational and through my lived experiences. So I just wanted to put that out there. But going back to why sex. Now, the way I see conversations around sex, I feel in most societies they are constricted.

more so in Eastern societies than Western societies. But even in societies where we hear conversations or if they are permissible, they happen in the traditional binary of sensationalism or procreation. And I truly, truly believe that complexities of sex exist beyond those extremes and

And I want us to delve into human stories around sex and what it means and sexual pleasure and sexual liberation, which are often sidelined. And I also want to

push boundaries of what makes me comfortable. Even now, when you and I are speaking, I am a bit uncomfortable talking about this topic and how this conversation will pan out. But I'm really excited that I'm here sharing this space with you and talking about something that makes me uncomfortable, but is such an important part of our existence. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I agree that it's really those two things that we talk about sex with the most procreation and then sensationalism. I think that's really interesting. So we will explore other areas in this episode. Absolutely. And so one question I had for you, when I speak with guests, I often like to look back to childhood first or, you know, just earlier life.

What were some of the things that you learned about sex growing up, like when you were growing up and who were the people who actually taught you about sex if there was anyone? What was your form of sex ed?

Oh, Lauren, there was no sex ed when I was growing up. There were no conversations around sex. Nobody ever mentioned the word. Now, I must say, I'm pretty sure my foray into sex or sexual experience must have happened before.

at some point in my childhood or during my teenage years, maybe in an unconscious way. But it was never an explicit conversation because I grew up in Pakistan. It's more culturally conservative country and sex is almost taboo.

And every time it's talked about, first, it's not talked about much or at all. But even if it is, it's mostly in the context of after marriage and procreation. So, yeah, those are my earliest memories of no sex and no sexual conversation. I think it's interesting that you said you might have stumbled into sex like unconsciously.

What does that mean? What do you think? So I feel sex is such an intrinsic part of our existence. And as humans, we have a relationship with our bodies and our sexual being, we as sexual beings and our sexual side. So I think

truly believe something must have happened. I must have experienced something whether you call it self-pleasure or masturbation. But I have either blocked it from my memory or I feel uncomfortable talking about it. And the reason why I say this is I was having this conversation with my therapist and she asked me if I ever masturbated as a teenager. And

I feel I have this strong feeling that I perhaps I did, but I have blocked that side of my, you know, brain or memory. And that's why I said maybe at a subconscious level, I'm pretty sure, but

As somebody who grew up in a more conservative society, I must have blamed myself or it must have felt bad instead of good. You know what's so interesting about that particular thing? I definitely discovered the sensations in my clit before my teens.

and didn't know what I was doing. So I guess that too was at an unconscious level. I just knew it felt good. I remember, I think I discovered it on a chair, like when I was a kid. And,

was just like, whoa, what's this? What is this feeling? And I saw a post on social media. A woman was interviewing people about some of the first times they masturbated.

And a lot of them started at crazy young ages and no one realizes that we discover this so young. We like discover the sensation of the clit so young, but we don't lean into it with like conversations and things. Yeah, because we think it's something wrong or it's something it's prohibited and it's bad and it's tabooed.

And it almost becomes a reflection on who we are and we start judging ourselves and our morality through it. Yep. And that's a very dark and sad place to be in. That is so true. Well, so I know you've noticed some difference between the U.S. and Pakistan with how sex is discussed and just the conversations around it. What do you think are some of the differences that you've noticed?

- Ah, great question. So as I said, in Pakistan, conversations are constricted, almost non-existent, at least in the public sphere.

But when I think about U.S. and when I was in Pakistan, I thought U.S. was more sexually progressive. But when I came here, I realized that, sure, there are open discussions around sexual experiences and the body is not as hidden.

But at the same time, whatever sexual empowerment we discuss, we discuss it through the male gaze. And there is no such a thing as self-pleasure, sexual liberation, one's relationship with one's own body. There's always, it is contextualized in form of...

your partner or your relationship with somebody else. And I found that, I shouldn't say I found that, now I find that so wrong.

and so counterproductive to how we see our bodies, how we see our sexual liberation, our agency. And that's why sometimes I feel like US is still pretty puritanical when it comes to its relationship with sex. - Yeah, I definitely agree. I think it is through the male gaze.

and it holds us back from knowing about our bodies just in general. Like,

I don't know why I keep going back to social media right now. I think it's because like sex keeps popping up on my social accounts at the moment. But I saw another thing where they were like, name this part of the female anatomy. And there were some parts that I couldn't name either. You know, like we know so much about male anatomy and how to pleasure men and all of this stuff. But then when it comes to ourselves, there's so much that we don't know.

You bring up such an important point because although on paper sex ed exists and it's more formalized in US school system and curriculum, it's more anatomical, right? There's segregated anatomy. But there isn't

more conversation or explicit conversation about how to view each other, how to respect each other as well, how to have agency within that space. And going back to your point about it being anatomical, I think the problem with that is that we start to view sex as a function to be performed rather than

something that we do to discover ourselves and to make ourselves happy yeah yeah i think your point on not having conversations about how to treat each other or pleasure each other right so so huge what would you say your relationship to your body's like now especially with like self-pleasure

Oh my gosh, it has evolved. It has changed. It has gotten a lot better. And a huge shout out to my therapist. Shout out to the therapists. Yeah. And I feel like she's really helped me rediscover my sexuality and my relationship with my body and self.

And this is something that a lot of women, at least those who identify as women, it happens to them in their 30s and 40s. And it is unfortunate that a lot of women don't experience this in their 20s because the focus is so much on pleasing somebody else. But at the end of the day, sex is about give and take. And it is also about your agency and how you view your body and how you make yourself happy.

And to where I was in my 20s, where the entire focus was on my partner. Now the focus has shifted a lot on myself, which is so important and it is so liberating. I'm totally there with you. My entire 20s was not about me.

In my 30s, I just jumped into and I've been telling my boyfriend this like it's me now. Like I'm just starting to explore myself and what I want. Like you could be part of that. But just know I ain't just focusing on you, my friend. I love it. Yeah. Like we are just discovering ourselves, which leads me to dating, too.

Were you about to say something? You can go ahead. Oh, yeah. Although it is sad that women don't experience it early on. And that speaks to lack of education when it comes to sex positivity, sexual health, mental health, which...

can be greatly impacted by how we view sex and sexuality in our lives. And I hope that we can deploy a new narrative and start early on for those who identify as female rather than waiting into our 30s and 40s for us to experience that. It's unfair. It really is. And when to say no, and it's okay to say no, and it's not your fault.

and you have agency over your body, all of those things are so important and yet sidelined. - Yeah, so important. I like to jump into the middle of episodes these days because I like to share some thoughts that I've had while editing. Both Saadia and I had that experience where the 20s weren't for us,

It wasn't until our 30s that we realized like, oh, we have our own sexual self too. And regardless of your age right now, I just want to point out that like, we don't have to please other people. We too deserve pleasure. We too deserve to truly know our bodies better than anyone else and to get to know our bodies. And so I just want to take this moment to just encourage you to

to reflect on if your sexual self is only trying to please others or if you truly have taken the time to also put the spotlight on yourself, to know who you are, to truly feel in your body, to be present during sexual experiences. But your body is yours. Get to know her, love her, care for her,

One affirmation that I've been saying to myself recently is I take care of my body. But you have to get to know your body and you have to listen to your body to truly take care of it. And you can't expect anyone else to take care of her more than you take care of her yourself. So yeah, just wanted to share that. So let's get back to the episode.

I know you had a story with dating for yourself where you didn't realize you were dating someone until they proposed. And when I read that, I was like, what? And so I'm curious as to dating as well. What has that been like for you? Because I will tweak that a bit. What I meant was that

My husband and I, my current husband, my only husband, he and I met in college. And again, in Pakistan, dating is still not as normalized and it wasn't certainly normalized 20 years ago. So when we met, I instantly fell in love with him, which is crazy. It happens when you are in your early 20s, to be honest. And that's what happened to me.

And I just enjoyed his company so much. But being in Pakistan, I wasn't able to really articulate my thoughts as openly. And he and I started hanging out as friends. Now, I never wanted him to be just my friend.

but then our relationship progressed and we got to know each other better and I think at some point there was this implicit understanding that both of us love each other and we will eventually marry and that eventually happened but until that happened and until he proposed to me it was all about oh we are just friends yeah and that has a lot to do with

society that we were living in and operating within rather than our own understanding of our relationship we just didn't want to call it dating and in Pakistan dating is very different from the way people view dating in the US there are very few people who have live-in relationships or I may even know I think again live-in relationships are non-existent mm-hmm

I mean, I used to live in Pakistan 20 years ago. So if it has changed my apologies, but I feel like it is almost non-existent and you can't really tell your parents or your family that you're dating. It's more like, oh, I like this person and I want to marry them. And until you get to that point, it's, I think it's more strategic not to call it dating.

Interesting. Yeah. And I think that's what we were doing. But in all fairness, it all of this may sound weird to some people living in the US. It didn't sound weird or difficult or uncomfortable in Pakistan. That's the way society is structured. It's very family oriented. It's a collectivist society. There is a lot of focus on marriage and sex after marriage and

So for me, all of that was given and I do appreciate those values even though I've lived in the US for 20 years. So I didn't have a problem with it but it's a very difficult or not difficult but a different space to navigate when it comes to dating. I'm sure it's been 20 years so Pakistan has moved on in some ways and

dating is probably more normalized than it was 20 years ago but my experience was obviously two decades ago so i can only speak to that i remember there was something that you wrote where it was like don't judge something that you don't fully understand um yeah i love that statement yeah yeah and and and that's why going back to what i said

I think every culture has its unique set of ideals and norms and values. And it's always good to understand or contextualize those values rather than judge them. And that's how I see societies rather than saying, oh, this works or this doesn't. And to be fair to Pakistani society, those values,

rules or those Conditionalities applied to both men and women they are not specific to women only okay Both men and women are expected to get married and have sex after marriage and not date and

So it's not as if men are allowed and women aren't, at least theoretically no, but practically both do. They don't discuss it as much. Yeah, that's so interesting. And speaking of things that aren't usually discussed, so I wanted to go through this list of taboo topics with you. I think I sent you the wrong link. So this is going to be a surprise if you looked at the other link.

I know, I looked at that link, Lauren, and I was like, what am I supposed to look here? It's okay. Wrong link. It's all right. So now it's going to just be a surprise. Here we go. Yes.

All right. So I've never done this with a guest, like one of those lightning rounds. Just share your thoughts, the first thoughts that come into your mind when I say these particular things. We may go through all of them. We may not. But let's just try. We'll see what pops in your mind. First thing, oral sex. Great. Wonderful. Should be permissible. If it isn't.

All right, cool. I'm cool with that. Fetishes. These are, this is just a list of a bunch of taboo topics. I mean, a lot of people have fetishes and there's nothing wrong with it because it's, again, exploring your sexuality and what makes you happy. So let's go for it. I love the word exploring.

Because like we both talked about, our 20s was not about us. So there's that time period that comes up where it's just like, okay, who am I? What do I like? What do I dislike? How do I say no? What are my boundaries? Like exploring. We're all for it. All right. Vibrators. I don't know. Again, something that I haven't...

tried so i can't really speak to it but it probably works magic for a lot of people so again it's i would say it's a personal choice yeah um i have one little teeny vibrator and it's mainly for the clit so shout out to some clit action then casual sex casual sex or one night stands

Look, I'm married. I've been married for 20 years. So it's tricky for me, but if it works for you, go for it. Porn. I have so many thoughts, Lauren. First, let's

Remember that porn is not an educational institution. It's entertainment industry. Whatever you watch, whenever you watch, just remember it. And reality is a lot more complex, beautiful, messy. So if you are into it, just remember it's more...

like fantasy than reality. I think the way you put that was so perfect. It's not education. It's entertainment, fantasy, not reality, but feel free to enjoy it if you want to watch it, friends. Online sex. Online sex. Again, guys, I'm married. There's so much that I am unaware of or I haven't experienced yet.

I would still say there are people who enjoy it and I know people who enjoy it, but it's not for me. Even if I weren't married, it's not for me. I am more...

I guess physical versus virtual kind of person. Yes, yes. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I think two more. Sex for hire. That's a tricky one because when I think of that, I think of sex workers and whether they have an agency or not and what does it mean for them and do they have rights or not and I am a rights activist so for me it

a tricky one because my mind goes straight to sex workers and whether or not it's does it give them agency so yeah so I guess for me it's more like I'm looking at it from rights perspective so it's difficult to answer yeah I think that was a good answer though like looking at it from a rights perspective last one is masturbation absolutely why not mm-hmm

Beautiful. That was the lightning round. Well done. Great. And this is funny because whatever you sent me, I was reading through it. And I was like, okay, this is about one night's dad. Am I supposed to do a commentary on this and whether I think it's a good thing or not? So I was a bit confused. And I was like, okay, I'll ask Lauren. Okay.

But I'm glad we did this and I'm glad that it was spontaneous and I didn't know what you were going to ask because whatever popped up in my mind was what came out of my mouth. Yeah. And that was perfect because I think it's like a true demonstration of what randomly pops in the mind when those words come up. So you mentioned like agency. Yeah.

And that does give me another question that I had written for you. So you had written, people still struggle to understand their bodies as vessels for sexual emancipation. And like, what does that mean for you? For me, there are a number of things that come to mind when I said that. A,

how we view ourselves and our body, how much we know about our own anatomy and what makes us happy. A lot of time pleasure and sexual liberation is looked at through somebody else. So, oh, my partner is going to please me or I am going to please my partner, but we have to

flip the script and use our bodies, our own bodies to understand what makes us happy before we can make somebody else happy. It's a balancing act. And a lot of times we forget that because we are so focused and so concentrated on

on our relationship with somebody else when it comes to sex and sexual pleasure. - Especially if you're a people pleaser, just by nature. - Right, right. - Like me. - And beyond that, Lauren, this is social societal conditioning because at the end of the day, as I said, whether it's Pakistan or US,

It's mostly about procreation. Why do you think masturbation is frowned upon? Because it serves an individual and does not lead to procreation. And hence, it's frowned upon in certain societies and certain cultures. So there's a lot of focus on that and we need to shift our focus from procreation to

to self-pleasure and sexual emancipation, which happens when you know yourself more than anybody else knows you. What was your process of getting to know yourself? That's such a great question.

it's been an evolution. Now some people think there's always this epiphany or a trigger or a moment of introspection and all of a sudden your life changes. I don't think it happens that way, right? You go through life and you experience things and you realize that

that there are certain aspects of your life or your existence that you haven't tapped into because of societal conditioning or because what you were taught or how people viewed you. And then there comes a time when you're like, okay, I need to take a pause, sit with myself and see what I'm lacking, what

Am I lacking in my life and how do I make up for it? What are the things that I need to do to understand myself more? And that's what I did. And as I said in the beginning, I will say it again. Sometimes you do need some direction or guidelines. And my therapist has been instrumental in giving me that, which a lot of people don't.

Again, a lot of people don't believe in therapy and that's fine and that's their journey and their path. But for me, that has also been integral to where I am and how I view myself, sexuality, my agency, what's important and something that I really, really hope people understand. If you're not happy yourself and if you don't understand yourself,

it's almost impossible to make somebody else happy. It's a give and take, it's a balancing act and I would rather that people made themselves sexually happy or happier first before they started thinking about others. Yes, I love that. I have another question since you brought up therapy, like what things has she made you realize about yourself?

Oh my gosh. I feel like I'm having another therapy session here right now. Always. That's also what podcasts are, just uncertified therapy. I feel the first conversation around sex or at least centered around sex for me is

was when my therapist started exploring the idea of masturbation and how I feel about masturbation and I was so guarded and so annoyed by her question because I felt why the hell I have a partner why would she ask me that and why is it important

And she was like, do you have any childhood memories? And that's when I thought, yes, probably it happened early on. It happened in teenage years. And then I started thinking a lot more about it. And I was like, why the hell not? Right. So that was one of the moments where I let myself, I gave myself permission to explore my past, my past.

unconscious self and allow myself to accept things that were deemed tabooed or wrong by society. And since then, there's been no looking back.

We have an unconscious sexual self. Absolutely. What she's in there doing, I don't know. We got to discover and explore what her thoughts are. Yeah. And there are, believe it or not, there are a lot of thoughts, a lot of untapped thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Our unconscious sexual self. There's that.

Well, so at the end of each episode, we always reframe the limiting beliefs to fit more within our desired reality. And so an example of a reframe, I give this for every episode. If I were to say that if I'm not married by 30, then I'm a failure. I might reframe that limiting belief to say, I don't have to get married. I can start a partnership at a time that's right for me. The societal timeline isn't real. I got options out here. So in this case, if the limiting belief is I can't talk about sex anymore,

How would you reframe that to fit more within our desired reality? I would say I allow myself to talk about sex as an intrinsic part of my existence. Something that has no age limit, no preconceived ideas of right or wrong.

I love it. That was good. An intrinsic part. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. And I appreciate you for joining me. Where can people find you if they want to connect? They can find me on Twitter at S-W-K-H-A-N. There are two Ks. I am also on Instagram. I'll give you my podcast's Instagram at ImmigrantlyPod.com.

And I host Immigrantly Podcast. So you can listen to our conversations there and it's available on every single streaming platform. Love it. Perfect. And you'll already know you can find me. I am at IP Woman Podcast on Insta, on Twitter. I've been exploring my like personal profile lately. So feel free to go over there too. It feels weird saying this because I feel like I've like hidden myself.

in my you know business socials ish whatever but lauren.e yeah lauren.e.will feel free to go check that one out too and i appreciate you for joining me thank you lauren this was so good and listeners i will chat with you next week farewell