Born in Japan and matured in seven countries, I had been exposed to multitudes of societal norms. Still, I realised one common thing across cultures and industries: stigma around sex. Despite always being surrounded by sexual content, women’s pleasure has been constantly removed from the conversation. Even when it came up, it has been portrayed as immoral and obscene or otherwise framed as a target of exploitation as if women had no autonomy. Censoring of the ads, a constant gender-based double standard, harassment by business partners, and a lack of female investors… Many factors stood as a barrier to the democratisation of sex for willing entrepreneurs and restricted access to sexual wellness products and services to those in need.
Why is it so hard for many people to assign new meanings to sex when we accept and adapt to many other changes surrounding us? As I moved around the world, I started noticing that the values and perceptions that I used to have and for so long had carried with me came to be rewritten over and over again. The idea of sexual wellness was one of those things. We review our existing values, say goodbye to those that do not suit us, incorporate those that do, and create new values of our own. It was an extremely liberating realisation for me and one that I wanted to forward to others.
This led me to launch my career as an inaugural member of a women’s health startup, where I helped lay the groundwork for developing Japan’s so-called Femtech market. In an effort to further normalise and increase access to pleasure, I published the world’s first comprehensive, open-access market report on the SexTech industry and served as an advisor to a couple of startups in sexual wellness startups. Out of aspirations to accelerate the implementation of academic findings, particularly in increasing accessibility to female sexual dysfunction treatments, I also explored their neural underpinnings through my graduate research in sexual neuroscience.
And it doesn’t stop here. We live in a time to reexamine and redefine the shared beliefs and culture that have never been questioned as to their truth or validity. Many other topics beyond sexual wellness that could bring benefits to desperate underserved populations are still deemed as taboo. I am excited to (consensually) keep crossing the borders and help us construct a new social reality for many more topics.