Postpartum Depression and Sex Ed for Arab Women with Nour Emam | Transcript
CW: We talk about postpartum depression, suicidal ideation, traumatic birth, and rape throughout this episode.
Find the episode shownotes here!
Hannah Witton
Hi everyone. Welcome back to Doing It, the sex and relationships podcast where sex has never been so nerdy, with me, your host Hannah Witton. This week I'm joined by the incredible Nour Emam. Nour is the founder and CEO of Motherbeing a platform championing Arab women's sexual health and sexuality. Nour is a sexual health educator and birth worker in Egypt, who works at the intersection of women's health, education, and technology to provide tangible and transparent reproductive and sexual health solutions, services, and products that are widely accessible, culture-centric, and evidence based for Arab women living across the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) and beyond. Motherbeing leads educational workshops for women around sex and relationships and has over 2.5 million followers across social media. And under Motherbeing Nour also launched the company Beam, which creates locally made sexual products for women such as lube.
I really wanted to get Nour on the podcast because she is an absolute leading voice and changemaker around Arab women's experiences of their bodies and sex and I wanted to talk with her all about sex education for Arab women. We started off talking about Nour's own journey from being a DJ to becoming a doula and then a sex educator. Nour shared the extremely personal reasons that led her to her work from experiencing a traumatic birth and severe postnatal depression. She talks about how her work as a doula then led to her working as a sex educator, which has been truly impactful due to the total lack of sex education in Egypt. Nour talked about the attitudes around sex and women in Egypt, especially how harmful attitudes around virginity are. Nour talked about how she's already seeing a shift over the last few years due to her work and she told us about her course, Bridal Bootcamp, which is a workshop for women about to get married to educate them around their bodies, sex, contraception, and consent. And Nour gave some really helpful advice for other people in conservative countries wanting to work in disciplines around sex and the importance of going slowly and safely, aka Bridal Bootcamp. But it's not just for brides, folks. I was so impressed with Nour and hearing how hard and brave she has been in her work to create a platform and provide Egyptian and Arab women with such important information around their bodies and sex.
Please do note that we talk about postpartum depression, suicidal ideation, and traumatic birth, and rape in this episode, so please do look after yourself before listening.
As usual, you can find more info and links to everything that we talked about in this episode in the shownotes over at doingitpodcast.co.uk, which is also where you can find transcripts. And please let us know what you think over on our Instagram which is @doingitpodcast. And if you liked this episode, please give us a rating and review over on iTunes and Spotify. It is really, really appreciated. And there is a bonus episode over on our Patreon, recorded right after this one finished, with me and our producer Mia chatting about the episode, what we took away from it, and giving you a bit of a behind the scenes look into the making of the podcast. And you can find it at patreon.com/hannahwitton. And without further ado, here is my chat with Nour.
Nour, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here. How are you?
Nour Emam
I'm good. How are you?
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I'm good. I'm so excited to chat with you about all of like the different work that you do. You kind of just like - a spread across so many different things. And I'm just curious, like, how first of all, did you go from being a DJ to a doula to a sex educator and now like femtech entrepreneur, like, give us a little bit of like, kind of your story. And yeah, how you kind of like are doing all of these different things/
Nour Emam
Yeah, so you've dug deep into my past. Yeah, so I was a music producer and a DJ for a few years, until I got pregnant with my daughter in 2018. I had her end of the year, had horrible postpartum depression, had an extremely traumatic birth, and decided to get care once I had reached a point of suicidal ideations. And I realised there were little to no resources in Arabic that were culturally relevant. And kind of my healing process was sort of like diving into becoming a student again, and deciding, like, I want to help women during pregnancy and birth so that they don't have to go through what I went through. Very heroic. But then, once I had completed my training as a birth doula, COVID hit, and hospital restrictions were at an all time high.
Hannah Witton
Right.
Nour Emam
And so I had to think fast, like, how am I going to make a living? And that's kind of where it came to me like, okay, so I'm trained as a fertility, birth, and postpartum doula. I can start teaching courses online about cycle education and birth preparation. And I just started talking on social media because I realised like when I was pregnant, I couldn't find any doulas online that I could hire within Cairo. And there was very little information that was available in Arabic. I'm lucky to be able to read and understand and speak different languages, but the majority of people living in Egypt and the MENA region don't. And so it kind of started really organically for me to just like create content, people somehow liked me for some reason, so the following grew organically. And then I was like, okay, so next logical step is for me to go into sex education. Because that's like a no go. Like, we don't even have sex education in schools. Teachers, like, skim past it. And sometimes even forego the entire session altogether. So sex is very hush hush. There's a lot of shaming surrounding women's bodies. And we all grow up with that really embedded into us. And so I actually did my accreditation through Acet UK as a relationship and sex educator.
Hannah Witton
Oh yeah, I did mine through them as well.
Nour Emam
Oh really? Yeah. So although it was like totally different, and it was mostly based - like, whatever - what we learned was through in the UK, I was able to transfer a lot of that knowledge to launch a pleasure focused sex ed class for women, and that kind of like boomed and I was like, wow, did I hit the jackpot? Like, is it sex that we want to talk about, and not birth? And we have a lot of issues in the region, but it seemed like sexual health and wellness was a really big pain point that I kind of like really put my finger on. And it kind of took off quite organically. Like, we have around 2.5 million users across our social media platforms, especially Tiktok and Instagram, I'm most active there. It's all been organic, never had to pay or push for marketing. But I always wanted to go into a more sustainable model other than content creation.
So that was when I started dabbling with the concept of like entrepreneurship and like, it was kind of a business already because I was making money, and it was tech enabled. And I was like, okay, so what can we add to really bring this into like the femtech ecosystem, and like start talking the big talks, and raising rounds of investment and all that stuff. I kind of like got pushed into - willingly, but it all happened very quickly, very naturally. And now we're like, a company of 14 people on the team and it's not just me.
Hannah Witton
Amazing.
Nour Emam
We've raised $500,000, from local VCs and investors, which is all amazing to see that there's - people are starting to understand that there really is a need to create solutions that cater to women's health needs, because they're really underserved, especially in the region. Globally, women are underserved. But especially in the region, it's almost non-existent, having access to high quality healthcare and health education, which is part of healthcare. All of that stuff is really missing and we're kind of trying to like grab all the missing pieces and put them together into like this one platform to offer women something that's cohesive and holistic in a sense.
Hannah Witton
Oh my goodness, I just have so many follow up questions. So I'm just like I wanna chat about all these things. I guess I wanted to start with kind of like your experience of postpartum depression because that's not something that I don't think we've really covered on this podcast before. It really isn't talked about all that much. Like, I kind of see in the UK it kind of being talked about and, you know, like, there's definitely a push towards it being normalised a lot more to kind of like help people experiencing it. Um, what was that like for you? And kind of like, when you finally went to get help in Egypt, what was there for you in order - in terms of like support that you could access?
Nour Emam
So my experience with postpartum depression was - I'd hate to say that I was I was destined to get postpartum depression just because I - I'm genetically predisposed to depression. Mental health problems run in my family. And so it's something I worried about, but it hit really differently once you were in it. And it took me a really long time to realise that, oh, shit, this is postpartum depression, like, this is what they talk about. Although I wasn't aware of it, my husband was aware of the existence of postpartum depression, we just - we just didn't know how to identify it once we were living with it.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nour Emam
And it took me a really, really long time, like, maybe seven months of struggling, feeling like I had to do everything by myself, although I really didn't. We live in a very communal culture where I live next door to my mom and my grandma lives like down the road, and my in-laws live like 30 minutes away. So this is - it's really part of the culture where we all come together as families. So it's not individualistic. But still, for some reason, I think there was a burden that was - that I placed onto myself of having to do it all on my own. And I think a big part of that was - goes back to my birth story. And that was kind of what triggered the postpartum depression. So it was a very unplanned C section, a completely medically unnecessary C section.
Hannah Witton
Right.
Nour Emam
I want to say it was purely convenience from the doctors and I had like this blackout during the surgery. And so like I missed the moment, my daughter was being pulled out of me. And so I woke up in a panic, and that kind of created that disassociation of what was going on. And then the next day, my - we're waiting to get discharged and the hospital just decides to keep my daughter in the NICU. So they - without a lot of explanation, without room for us as parents to make an informed decision of whether or not we wanted to take our daughter home, it was kind of like, "You can go she's going to stay here for an indefinite period of time. And until we know like - when she's better, we'll let her go." So it kind of felt like they were taking my daughter hostage. And there wasn't a lot of explanation. I wasn't allowed to touch her, wasn't allowed to breastfeed her, wasn't allowed to anything. And she wasn't sick. She - she had - I don't know what it's called in English. She had jaundice.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nour Emam
Yeah. Which is very, very common with newborns. And that created a lot of separation anxiety, because I wanted to be - naturally, instinctively, I wanted to be near my child. And I was only allowed to visit twice a day for five minutes without touching her. And just like looking through the glass.
Hannah Witton
Oh my goodness.
Nour Emam
And I had just gotten out of a C section. So I was supposed to be recovering at home. And instead, they had me come every two hours to like pump milk in the emergency room to give it to her.
Hannah WItton
Oh my goodness.
Nour Emam
So that was like a lot of - yeah, exactly. And so what ended up happening is that once she came home, I never wanted to pump, I didn't want to leave her with anyone, I wanted to exclusively breastfeed all the time, although I didn't really like breastfeeding. We were inseparable for seven months straight.
Hannah Witton
Wow.
Nour Emam
And it took me - it took me that long to realise that what had happened after the birth was what had caused this.
Hannah Witton
Mmhmm. Yeah. Oh, wow, that must have been so tough. My - I had a unplanned C section but like I felt okay about it and my son - I didn't get to see him afterwards for about like six hours because he also went to NICU. Luckily, I got to be with him like the next day, but that - I'm just like, oh my goodness, that sounds so rough. Like my heart is like aching. So you mentioned about being a doula during the pandemic. And I wanted to ask about, like, if that experience of isolation and not getting the birth that you wanted, not being able to have like the support of the people that you wanted there with you - whether that's kind of caused a lot more traumatic birth experiences or postpartum depression and what's that been like for you with different clients and stuff?
Nour Emam
Yeah, so the pandemic was actually probably the the most tricky time to endeavour in this new career path. Just because there were a lot of hospital restrictions. In most cases, support persons, including the husband, weren't allowed in during the birth. I was lucky to be working with a doctor who was very much pro having doula support present, especially with the stress of COVID. But I did have clients who had their husband stuck in a different country and the - who couldn't make it to the birth, so I was the only person there supporting them.
Hannah Witton
Oh no!
Nour Emam
Of course, COVID did lead to more C sections and more inductions, not just in Egypt but globally. Doctors wanted to create a quicker turnover in terms of like how much you stay or how long you stay inside the hospital, which led to obviously more complications, or just an overall dissatisfaction when it came to the birth experience, which then contributed partly to the postpartum depression. But definitely the lack of support. The fact that everyone was isolating, the fact that women globally couldn't have friends over, couldn't have family over, was all of a sudden, you have this new baby in the world and you were isolated at home without the village that every woman actually really needs.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nour Emam
And so yeah, absolutely. I think COVID was really tough on COVID moms and babies.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, oh, yeah, I can't, like, begin to think about like, how tough that would have been for new parents. I wanted to talk about what you were saying about like how like successful all of the sex ed work that you've you've been doing is, and clearly like it's a sign that it's very much needed. Like what are current like cultural and social attitudes towards things like sex and sexuality, especially when it comes to women, in Egypt?
Nour Emam
Yeah, that's a loaded question. Okay, so for one, we don't have sex education. It's not present in the households. Not very present in school. Most of our - most of anyone's sex ed comes from porn or friends, whose sex ed kind of came from porn. Surprisingly, although it's a conservative community, I think Egypt ranks like number two on PornHub, which is mindblowing. And that kind of leads to a lot of false ideas surrounding sex and sexuality obviously, when that's your only gateway.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nour Emam
Because it's very shush, like, virginity for women is something that's, that's very like - I don't know what the word is in English, but it's something that we - that the culture thinks very highly of and that like - so we have a lot - we have a big obsession with preserving a girl's virginity until marriage. The culture is very obsessed with the hymen being the sign of virginity, of bleeding on your first night. And so when these are the stories that women hear and girls hear as they grow up, you automatically grow up with very negative associations when it comes to sex, and you don't see it as something that is for you or something that you can enjoy because it's just so demonised up until the point where you're married now. Then the conversation shifts to "it's your duty as a wife to please your husband." And so it's very patriarchal in that sense, I would say, and misogynistic, and all the big, big bad words.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nour Emam
And where I would say in the past three years, not that I'm tooting my own horn, but there is a significant shift that happened. Especially there was - with the like MENA region, Me Too movements that happened in around April of 2020, I would say, women were heard. Sexual harassment has become a conversation that's no longer accepted. And so people discovered a platform like Motherbeing. We were discussing things that no one had ever talked about in public. People were getting information that they had never dreamed of receiving through just like someone who's relatable, and who speaks their language and dialect and understands the cultural struggles. And I think that's - I think that's the secret sauce to why it worked. It's not because there isn't access to sex ed in the world. It's just there isn't culturally sensitive and culturally relevant sexual health education and reproductive health education for the Arab world.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And I guess that's something that you're trying to do as well, like filling in that - filling in that gap?
Nour Emam
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Is there anything that you really want to talk about and like themes that you want to explore and like do courses on or make content on but you, like, you don't feel like it's the time, you don't feel ready, or that it's not safe to yet?
Nour Emam
I think I think something that in general that we're not able to really tackle is really full on tackling the concept of virginity. I think no one's really ready to, although we have talked about it in the past. But really teaching people very straight on that virginity is just a social construct and that the hymen isn't an indicator for a woman's virginity, et cetera, et cetera, is something that I feel very strongly about. And I think another thing that I would love to be able to tackle, although I don't see that happening soon, is safe sex, in particular outside of wedlock. Because it happens, and I think society refuses to acknowledge that teenagers are going to have sex, adults are going to have sex, even if they're not married. And the prevalence of STDs is there but the lack of education surrounding protection is non existent. And that's something I'm very passionate about. And I see it with pregnant women, especially with the doctors I work with who do mandatory STD screenings at the end of pregnancy. And then they discover that they have an STD. Although it was - their husbands were their first ever, you know. And then you need to kind of backtrack and be like, "Well, your husband probably had relations before and he's had an STD and like, or worse." So I think those are the two things that I would - I would love to be able to boldly discuss and, and create services for.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, so important, especially like with the virginity thing, when it's so, I guess, like, ingrained in a culture, it's just like - and seen as fact and seen as truth. And then the frustrating thing is you're actually trying to convince somebody of a completely different reality.
Nour Emam
Exactly. It's a completely different reality. It shatters so much of what they know and what they believe.
Hannah Witton
It does, yeah. Because like, once you start with virginity as well, it then - it kind of cascades. And it's connected to, like so many other things to do with our bodies and self worth, and like, what does sex mean? And like, what kinds of sex are you having? And like, whoa, big, big head explosion, basically.
Nour Emam
Exactly.
Hannah Witton
What are some of the topics and themes that you are able to like, go like, full speed ahead, just like we are, like, tackling this thing head on, that you're like, really, really proud of the way that you have approached him and the way that you've, like, changed people's lives?
Nour Emam
So we do tackle sexual health and sex ed in general, it just has to be framed within the context of marriage, or if you're like, about to get married, then it's kind of like, okay, but it's really open for anyone to learn.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, you just remove that caveat. And then it kind of can apply to anyone.
Nour Emam
Exactly. And we have that disclaimer, it's like, you don't need to be like married to take this programme or to participate. It's just kind of our safety blanket. I would say something that I'm very proud of that we were able to tackle in the past is the topic of marital rape. Because it's actually not illegal. There are no laws that protect women who are victims of abuse and rape by their husbands. And we were one of the first people to really voice it very loudly and start talking about what consent is and what rape can look like and that was - that burst a really big bubble in society, because there is a firm belief that there is no such thing as marital rape. Like, there is no such thing. You consented when you married the guy. And that's, that's what - what was said. But I'm really proud that we were able to bring this topic and shed light on it. And people unfortunately realised like how that they were in deep shit, basically, unfortunately,
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Do - is it mostly women who like take your courses and interact with your content or - do like couples, like, come to it together? And I guess, kind of connected to that, like, are there like men who engage with your content and your courses? And kind of what are some of the questions that they have when they're coming? When they're trying to find this information? What are their concerns?
Nour Emam
So men don't take our courses unless - unless it's like a birth preparation course. Or in the case of the new, like, Bridal Bootcamp thing that we - programme that we launched, women could technically share the educational content with their fiances, or their partners. Surprisingly, on TikTok, we have a 5050 balance between men and women as following, which is very interesting, Instagram is I would say around 85% women. But we do have a few, a few men here and there.
Hannah Witton
What are some of the main questions that the women have? And also, I'm really curious about this Bridal Bootcamp, like, what kinds of things - what do you learn in Bridal Bootcamp?
Nour Emam
It sounds - it sounds much better in Arabic, to be honest, and it's marketed in Arabic. This was kind of like -
Hannah Witton
Ah! What's it called in Arabic?
Nour Emam
Hatgawwez. So it just means 'I'm getting married'. It's just one word. So it's very catchy.
Hannah Witton
Okay.
Nour Emam
And it just - it sounds okay, you know. It's not something that we love, but again, it's our safety blanket, it needs to exist like that. So Bridal Bootcamp is kind of like - kind of merging health education that's prerecorded that you can watch at your one time, it's four weeks long. We start from the really basics of like anatomy, because the majority of women don't know that they have three holes down there. And so we're really like going back 100 steps and building our way all the way up to female pleasure and what the clitoris is, and like what an orgasm is, etc, and what your first time is going to be like, and we talk about bleeding and not bleeding and like what the hymen is, etc. But the cool thing about this programme is that you also have the option to get - order an at home test. So we do your entire blood work to see which birth control options are okay for you. And we connect you to our resident OBGYN, who can then prescribe the right birth control method for you at home, so everything you do is via chat. And we have our dedicated like four members of the team are also certified sex educators, so they're able to support. The current cohort has around 160 women from all over the MENA region. And we'll be kind of doing it cyclically.
Hannah Witton
Amazing. Yeah. Oh, wow. I wish I had a Bridal Bootcamp. I feel like there's I don't know if there's like an equivalent of this in the Arab world, but a lot of my friends who are Christian, like when they have gotten married, they have like a marriage course with like their pastor or priest or whoever.
Nour Emam
Oh really?
Hannah Witton
Talking about like, yeah, like talking about- it's more to do with - well, actually, maybe they do cover sex, because for some of them, it is like a no sex before marriage thing. So they're like, "Well." but I think also a lot of it is about like, the domestic life and living together because a lot of them wouldn't have lived together before getting married. And I just thought that was interesting. I was like, oh, it's basically like free couples counselling.
Nour Emam
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, everyone should get a bit of free couples counselling from their, like person of authority that they choose.
Nour Emam
Maybe - maybe not a pastor. But...
Hannah Witton
No, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like, whoever, whoever from your - your choice of person. Yeah, I guess like I was curious about - because the stuff that you make is like, by Arab women and for Arab women. And I wonder, like, what are some of the things - because there's, there's so many stereotypes held in the West about Arab women. And I wondered if you could kind of like help break some of those down for us, and like, bust some of those myths.
Nour Emam
So give me - give me an example.
Hannah Witton
Ooh, I guess kind of like - and this is not what I think, this is a stereotype that is held very much in the West.
Nour Emam
Yes.
Hannah Witton
But that - that like Arab women are sexually repressed or like, don't have any of their own freedoms, when it comes to things like sex and relationships and things.
Nour Emam
I can't say that it's untrue. It really depends on -
Hannah Witton
Oh dear.
Nour Emam
It really depends on where you're coming from, depends on your socioeconomic status. Everyone is kind of sexually active. But it's done in a very hush hush way. Where it's kind of like, you do it, but you're very - you feel very guilty having done it, and you probably do it wrong, and you don't have the education that you need to be safe. But yes, there is a lot of control over women's bodies, there is a lack of bodily autonomy, there is a lack of just basic knowledge of what consent means. And all of these things are unfortunately very prevalent. Just because we're - we're generally not a culture that supports talking about these things. If anything, we would prefer not to talk about it, which is what we're kind of trying to change, which is actually why we - why we launched like a sister company or daughter company of Motherbeing called Beam.
Hannah Witton
Oh nice.
Nour Emam
And it's actually just focused on creating wellness products for women. And our first launch was a lubricant that was - that's aloe vera based. Simply because there aren't any lubricants in the market that are speaking to women. There aren't any lubricants in the market that are targeting women or telling them why they need the lubricants in the first place. And most lubricants are sold in drugstores, or gas stations. And it's not somewhere that women will go and decide, "I want to buy lubricant from the gas station." So we kind of looked at what do Arab women want from a product like this. And we designed a bottle that was very discreet, very minimal, it could be on your nightstand, and it's not screaming sex or like red and like it's not loud. It's subtle. It's aesthetically pleasing. And it's been doing really well. We launched two products. And we're rolling out a few more by the end of the year. And it's just a way for us to serve Arab women through high quality and affordable locally produced products.
Hannah Witton
Nice. That's so interesting that like lubes are kind of like generally then targeted towards men.
Nour Emam
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
Because I feel like in the UK, we've gone like so far in this like sexual liberation and like path that like almost all sexual wellness products are targeted to like towards women. Because we're a huge buyer's market here. It's interesting. We've got a bunch of questions from folks on Instagram that I would love to ask you.
Nour Emam
Sure.
Hannah Witton
And somebody asked: what exactly is a doula/how does it differ from a midwife?
Nour Emam
That's a very nice question. So a midwife is a medically trained professional, who is trained and certified and licenced to actually deliver babies vaginally. Midwives are not trained to perform caesarean sections, but they are trained to deliver babies vaginally. A doula, however, is not a medical professional. We're part of the support team. We provide informational support, we provide physical support, and comfort measures that are non medical, as well as just emotional support overall. So we are trained to understand birth in all its shapes and forms. We're trained to understand different emergency scenarios, we're trained to understand what happens right after birth to be able to inform our clients better so that they have a better understanding of what's going on.
Hannah Witton
Is that any situations where you've like had to be the emotional support of somebody's like birth partner? Because they needed it as well, because of just like all of the emotions in the room?
Nour Emam
All the time.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, yeah. Somebody has asked: how did your family be actually wanting to pursue sex ed? And do you have any advice for doing sex ed in a conservative country? I want to be a sex therapist, but I'm Moroccan.
Nour Emam
So my parents didn't know what I was doing really, for a very long time. I think the entire family was kind of like question mark, like, "What's your job? Like, what what do you do?" Like what - and they were sceptical. Of course, they were scared for me, they were worried that it wasn't safe. And honestly, it's not. But I think when they started seeing the effect that Motherbeing had on our immediate community, and also that kind of cascading down to you're in the Metro and someone stops me for a photograph, my parents started realising like, "Whoa, this is like real, people know who she is." And she's - they see the gratitude in young girls' faces when they're, like, thanking me for the education and the knowledge and I think they kind of like got on board with it very quickly. So my parents - but my parents might not be the typical - I'd say maybe the typical Arab family, they're, they're slightly more liberal.
I would say, play - like play the long game because I made the mistake and was very gutsy at the beginning. And that got me into a lot of troubles. I was talking about topics that I shouldn't have been talking about at the beginning. That did put me at risk, that did put me risk of getting sued, and like I had the whole medical community after me, and like, so, play the long game by playing it safe, like talk about the things you know are - would never be considered taboo. Talk about everything that you want to talk about within the context of marriage because it just floats better when you're talking about a married couple.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And the people who aren't married who are looking for information, they will find it and they often they will know to look for that information within the packaging of marriage, because they know that that's where they'll find it.
Nour Emam
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And somebody has asked: can sex ed for queer folks be introduced in the Arab world, specifically Egypt? And how?
Nour Emam
So short answer is, unfortunately, no. Simply put it's - I hate to say this, but it's illegal to be to be queer and to be part of the LGBTQ community. People do go to jail, unfortunately, and the queer community has to be very discreet and subtle and live in certain areas and the big city where it's safer. I personally don't see that changing, because that's like an even more deeply rooted issue within our society. Unfortunately, I don't see it changing, simply because so much else needs to change before we get to sex ed. And, and so yeah, the short answer is no, unfortunately,
Hannah Witton
Somebody has asked: what keeps you going when work stops being rewarding?
Nour Emam
Maybe I can let you answer this. Maybe you can tell me.
Hannah Witton
Because this work is hard!
Nour Emam
This work is hard. It's hard. It is hard.
Hannah Witton
I think it's similar, though, actually, to what you said about when people do interact with you - I think because a lot of the stuff that you do is online. And so when you = every so often, when you do get that like face to face moment of someone saying, "This thing that you made, or this thing that you said or did really helped me," it's like those little moments that go okay, right, this isn't completely pointless.
Nour Emam
Absolutely.
Hannah Witton
We should keep going.
Nour Emam
1 million percent. I think, I think in my case, what keeps me going is that I'm not doing it on my own anymore. It was a very lonely space, to be doing all of this on my own. But now like, I come to the office, and there are 12 other people depending on me kind of like doing it. And we help each other. And just being able to see that I - the work that I started, it's multiplied. I was one sex educator now there are four more, and everyone's working towards that one goal. I think it's made it much easier, for sure.
Hannah Witton
I think that's a really lovely note to end it on. Thank you so much for joining me and chatting with me about all of this. Please let our listeners know where they can find you and all of your work and projects.
Nour Emam
So you can find our website at www.thisismotherbeing.com. And our Instagram handle is @thisismotherbeing and TikTok as well, but you might not understand what I'm saying because it's in Arabic.
Hannah Witton
I'm sure some of them will. Yeah, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you all for listening. Goodbye.