SMNTY Classics: Dr. Pragati Singh

In this classic, we check back in on Dr. Pragati Singh, health professional and the founder of Indian Aces, the Indian subcontinent's first support group for asexual people.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Stanny and Samantha. I don't know come
to stuff. I never told your picture of iHeart radio
and today we are bringing back an activist around the world.
We're checking back in.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We're checking back in and y'all, she's been up to
a lot. So we're coming back to our asexual advocate,
doctor Pragati Singh, who is based out of India, and
she's been quite busy since we last talked about her
in twenty twenty one. I was like, wow, it's been
that long, and she's been traveling and speaking about the
ACE community. And one thing that we have seen is

(00:44):
her achievements in India and educating her community about asexuality.
So this is a bit from her twenty twenty three
interview with asjournal dot Com. I personally think that we've
come such a long way when it comes to ACE
awareness in this country. It is absolutely beautiful to watch,
you know, as someone who has been following this trajectory
for a while, it's been beautiful to watch how has unfolded.

(01:05):
I'm personally really proud of how far we've come. It's
not enough, it's not perfect, and it's not ideal, but
it's way better than a lot of other countries have
been able to get to. And I love that attitude.
She just really talks about how it's been a little
more opening and embraced in India, and we talked about
that originally and since then, she has actually created a
site called platanacity dot Co, which is an online version

(01:29):
of her meetups, which she's been doing since twenty seventeen.
So just in case you were wondering, it is a
personalized matchmaking for non sexual, less sexual, non romantic or
platonic connections and relationship site. So it's a wonderful site.
You should go check it out. It's apparently available for
different countries. And she was talking about why the site
was important and one of the things about how you know,

(01:51):
it is a stigma not to be married, especially in India,
so this kind of opens you up to being able
to have a relationship as an ace person and being
able to have the sensual relationship that you want. So
I think it's a wonderful thing. Love to hear about
her updates. So with that, enjoy this classic episode. Hey,

(02:15):
this is Annie and Samantha and how coome to stuff
I've never told your production of iHeartRadio and yes, welcome
for another edition of Women Around the World. Doo Doo doo.
I'm just gonna try new little theme songs every time.

(02:37):
I think, what do you think.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Any I think that that is just asking for somebody
to make a super cut of all.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Between Christina and super producer Andrew, who has moved on
to bigger and better shows, they have a lot of blackmail.
I think I'm not gonna think too much about it.
I'm hoping that it just got erased slowly.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Well that is a mistake, but I will support you
and your face misplaced face, that's true, very misplaced.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
But other than that, we are still celebrating Pride Month
and wanted to make sure we keep highlighting the people
who are doing some amazing work when it comes to
advocating for the LGBTQ plus community. And I have been
all been your business Annie for a little while now,
and yes, this has all been with permission, and make
sure yes, because I think it's really interesting that we

(03:30):
keep having this conversation of unfolding what sexuality is or
can be or can be perceived. And we've talked a
lot about what it is to be ace or a
sexual and why it's important that we continue to talk
about this and destigmatize some of the things that come
around with being asexual or realizing that you're a sexual.

(03:51):
But I wanted to give you, I think, a fairly
easy question. Yes you've said it before, but just to
kind of give us a little better When was it
that you first learned about asexuality or being ace.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
It was on this very show when I first was editing,
when I was a video editor for the Stuff We
Never Told You YouTube channel, so I probably was like
twenty two, and the host and creator, Kristen, she did
a video called the ABC's of Ace, which, yes, that's

(04:23):
what we named our episode that we did with Adoha Danzo,
but her video was much more like A is for asexual,
B is for bi romantic, and you know, much more
in the title. And I had never heard of it before,
and at the time it seemed impossible to me, not

(04:43):
that it existed, but that it was how I identified.
I've been thinking about why that is lately, and I
think it's just one of those things where if you
grow up in sort of homogeneous space where what you're
seeing is a lot of heteronormative stuff, entertainment people around you.
Then it just feels like, well, that can't be me,

(05:03):
even if I was pretty like I think I bisexual.
But that is also when I learned about how you
can be like a sexual and bi romantic, right, which
is where I think I am. But now I'm also like,
maybe I'm gray sexual or do my sexual because there's
so many avenues of identity, it's hard to put into

(05:25):
one label or one word. And so I think that
that's been really interesting for me, a learning process for
me and for all of us as we're learning, Oh,
I'm not the only one that feels this way, right,
that there are other people who are trying to figure
out how the emotional aspect works and the sexual aspect

(05:45):
works and the romantic aspect works, and how they all
work together. Are don't So I was pretty it was
pretty late in the game when I found out, and
I think it was pretty much later because a lot
of you got to hear me go through it on
this show, kind of like figuring it out that I
was like, you know, maybe this is a possibility for me,
Maybe this is correct and how.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I am yeah, right, And again I think it's a
beautiful process, and maybe it is because I have been
with you for a chunk of this process that I
really am fascinated and as well as like, I love
that you're finding yourself and when people find themselves, it's
such a whole like turning on the light moment that
you get to witness and it's just like a privilege.

(06:28):
But speaking of getting to witness, we wanted to celebrate
the queer community and activists of doctor Pragati Singh, who
is a doctor, has been a public health professional and
it's the founder of the indianaces dot com if you
need to know, which was created originally in twenty fourteen
to form the Indian subcontinence, first support group for asexual people.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
She was working in maternal, child and reproductive health when
she began her work and advocating for the Indian ace community.
Born in Delhi, she talks about how low has been
made available to support the asexual community in India and
how she feels it's long overdue. This is actually something
that's come up with me in therapy where my therapist
is like, have you booked her their asexual support groups

(07:12):
in Atlanta? And I have, and there are, but they're
pretty maybe I haven't looked deep enough, but they seems
like pretty small and not too much going on there,
but I should check I should check back in. The
support group that Sin created in twenty fourteen started out
on Facebook, though it really didn't pick up until twenty sixteen,
when someone reached out to her to find out more

(07:32):
about the group. Doctor Seeing stated she had looked for
quite a while for a group like this, and when
she couldn't find one, she decided to create one herself.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Love it. We love these stories, yes, and as in fact,
she talks about the fact that she sees herself as
gray sexual. And I actually had to ask about that
because I'm like, oh my goodness, this is a new term.
Let me look this up. Because I found that fascinating.
I was like, oh okay, And of course Annie was
able to tell me about fan fiction just I'll know.
But I was correct, Doctor Sing stated about the group,

(08:04):
quote Indian Aces was ideated when I realized there was
a lot of asexual people from India looking for a
community platform, but they just didn't have anything. I kept
looking for a really long time for such a platform,
but there wasn't any. I started with something as simple
as Facebook page with the memes and information on a sexuality.
I had never really envisioned it to become as big

(08:26):
a movement that it has now. We do a lot
of other things such as research, advocacy, awareness sessions, a
lot of campaigns, online and offline meetups, training, and academic
and non academic work.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
And the movement has created so much for the community.
Not only does she do training and meetups and awareness sessions,
but she also has been invited to do medical conferences
such as the World Association of Sexual Health, where she
was able to present her research on her sexuality studies,
and she was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine
by el Severe. She has continued to speak out about

(08:59):
why having such research and studies are important in supporting
the community and how her professional background has helped her
as well. She said, in all my academic and professional experience,
there's been little to no discourse regarding sexuality, even though
I've studied medicine and worked in reproductive health. This is
pretty much the norm here. Sexuality just isn't in the forefront.

(09:20):
Yet we still have mothers and neonates dying from sepsis, diarrhea,
and hemorrhage. Sexual health just isn't a priority. In fact,
whatever understanding I have of sexuality today is honestly in
spite of my medical education. That being said, I feel
like my qualification helps add credibility to the cases I make,
such as me saying that hormonal imbalance does have an
effect on libido or that certain medications do affect arousal

(09:43):
probably doesn't sound as far affetched to my audience as
it would if I were not a doctor.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right, And she continues on talking about the importance of
our work and overall sexual health education, saying sexuality is
a hugely taboo topic in India. This is not limited
to parsonal spaces, but even at sdemic and professional spaces. Additionally,
the many other problems of third world countries take precedence
over sexuality related issues, which are largely considered unimportant or

(10:09):
at least non critical. Never Mind the fact that we
have the world's largest youth population. Never Mind the fact
that sexual harassment and abuse is rampant in our nation.
Never Mind that marital rape is not considered rape as
such an Indian law. To top all of this, there's
no real sexual ad in our educational institutes and the
pressure to get made by age twenty five for women
in age thirty for men is huge in our culture.

(10:32):
All of this basically means that for someone who's a
sexual in India, their adolescence would be a period of
great confusion owing to the lack of awareness and agency
available right now. Their youth may probably be marred with unhealthy,
broken relationships, with multiple Feil attempts at having a quote
normal youth experience.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
And she even tried different things to help a sexuals
in Indian communities, including a matchmaking app. Though no longer operational,
it was originally intended to help match people all over
the world with a fairly elaborate form process. However, because
of the overwhelming response, she was not able to handle
it and has sense shut it down. But she did
talk about the overall fact that such apps are something

(11:10):
that should be looked into and maybe we'll they will
look at later again. And interestingly, I know we talked
about that in our sexual episode, because that is a
plot point on BoJack Horseman where Todd is a sexual
and he tries to create the app.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so she actually did it. It didn't
last very long, but she was intent in trying to
help a matchmaking scene, because, as she talks about, with
the Indian pressures to get married and oftentimes feeling like
you have to force to be there, that maybe if
you could find another asexual partner that it would make
marriage better. So being able to be a part of

(11:48):
that cultural moment, I guess in pleasing the families, maybe
finding a partner who meets that same level as you do.
So she was talking about trying to creating all of this.
Apparently she tried to do it offline as well. I'm
not really sure what that means or what that looks like,
but yeah, she had it going internationally, so she was

(12:08):
trying real hard to get it all out there, including Egypt, Spain, Canada,
and she had like two hundred more responses than she
thought she was going to have, like two hundred percent more,
and she was like, Okay, never mind, I can't do
all of this. I couldn't imagine being a medical professional, yeah,
and trying to do all of that. So, you know,
kudos for trying. But it does sound like there's a need.

(12:30):
People want that to happen, People want to see that happening,
and maybe someone can But it shouldn't be a surprise
that she has been awarded many accolades and deservedly so.
And some of those include being on the BBC one
hundred Women Award in twenty nineteen, which we've talked about
a few times. That's how we found several of our
people to talk about. She was on the Young Achiever

(12:53):
Award in twenty eighteen from the Dahi Government. She was
awarded the Orange Flower Award in twenty seventeen by the
Women's She was awarded the Best Oral Paper Presentation in
twenty seventeen and with the Nobel Laureate as well. So
very amazing things, and obviously she continues to do a
lot of amazing work for those around her community. Yeah,

(13:14):
and if you want to go check her out. She
has her own website, doctor Pragatti sing as well as
her other site, Indianasis dot com. And if you're actually
in India, I don't know if anybody listens from India,
and if you do, shout us out. Would love to
hear from you. If you can check it out and
you can get involved there as well within that growing community.
So really amazing work. Love seeing things like this and

(13:37):
I love just how everything kind of comes together. You're like,
look at this big community is so big and they're international,
is just full of love just like us.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yes, yes, it's lovely to see and as always, listeners,
we do love hearing from you. If you have any
people you would like us to talk about in this
segment or any segment, you can email us our emails
at Stepanidiamomstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
on Instagram at stephone Never Told You or on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our super

(14:11):
producer Christina, Thank you, and thanks to you for listening.
Stephane Never Told You, the production of iHeartRadio. For more
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