Pauras Mhatre & Dr Tanaya Narendra
For using social media to execute a pan-India study on the prevalence of sex toy use in adults
When Pauras Mhatre, 21, a third year MBBS student at Mumbai’s Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College (GSMC) and the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital, came up with the idea of working on a study on sexual health based on sex toys at the end of 2021, he put an open call for fellow researchers to sign up.
“There isn’t any research about sexual health. Even some of my peers and faculty members are still ignorant. There is no published literature about the prevalence and experiences in India regarding the use of sex toys,” says Pauras.
Helpful study
The team working on the study includes students Pratham Agrawal, Priyanka Kataria, and Antara Agrawal from Government Medical College, Nagpur, and Dr Pragati Rathod and Dr Sarita Wadhva from the faculty of Department of Community Medicine.
“Previous research has shown that sex toys play an important role in better sexual health, helping those struggling with issues such as an inability to gain pleasure from the act,” says Pauras. Dr Tanaya Narendra, aka Dr Cuterus, an expert in the field of sexual health on and off Instagram who is spreading word about the study via social media asking people to fill the Google form for it, says, “Sex toys can help people explore their own likes and dislikes in the comfort of their own homes, without the need of a partner (and no risk of STIs). They can also help people suffering from erectile dysfunction or vaginismus get over the psychosomatic angle of their sexual dysfunction or performance anxiety. And they’re also helpful for people with disabilities in achieving orgasms.”
Shun the taboo
The team has received great responses across the 13 languages in which the Google form is available—English, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Urdu, Kannada, Odia, Malayalam, Punjabi and Assamese.
As a society, we’re still at a stage where you can’t talk openly about sex and more so, sex toys, says Pauras. “There is a significant amount of taboo. But things have been changing over the years with people like Dr Tanaya/Dr Cuterus and Leeza Mangaldas. Still, some senior doctors said they didn’t fill the form as they got ‘creeped out’.”
Dr Tanaya adds, “Sex toys continue to be taboo world over, not just in India. It will take a fair amount of time until we reach widespread acceptance.”
“SEX TOYS CAN HELP PEOPLE EXPLORE THEIR OWN LIKES AND DISLIKES IN THE COMFORT OF THEIR OWN HOMES, WITHOUT THE NEED OF A PARTNER (AND NO RISK OF STIS)” —DR TANAYA NARENDRA /DR CUTERUS
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