March 3, 2025 • 62 mins
In this episode of Yellow Glitter podcast, we're joined by Dr. Varuna Srinivasan. Dr. Varuna Srinivasan is a queer physician and public health expert from Johns Hopkins who's revolutionizing healthcare access for underserved communities. Her work includes developing Planned Parenthood's first Asian American abortion toolkit, serving as Allure's sex columnist, and being the CEO of sexual wellness platform Fluid Health. You can learn more about Fluid Health at myfluidhealth.com
In this episode, we chat about:
- How systemic and societal neglect create healthcare barriers for women, queer, and minority patients.
- Using the biopsychosocial approach as a holistic model that integrates mind, body, and environment.
- How Fluid Health improves care by connecting women and sexual minorities with specialized sex therapists.
- The importance of better sex education, labor rights, and healthcare access.
- How Intersectionality in healthcare should prioritize collective care, joy, and systemic reform.
You can find our guest at:
- Instagram: @drvarunasrinivasan
- LinkedIn: @varunasrinivasan
You can follow me at:
- Instagram: @stevenwakabayashi
- YouTube: @stevenwakabayashi
- Subscribe to my weekly newsletter: yellowglitterpodcast.substack.com
- Visit our website yellowglitterpodcast.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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#57 Varuna Srinivasan ( Audio )
Varuna (00:07):
[00:00:00] A woman in pain is a lonely woman. I'll tell you that much. Like, a woman who is sick, a woman who is struggling, especially a queer woman, it's a lonely journey, right? It feels like you have to make a lot of the proactive effort to reach out, to establish. You're doing a lot of labor in addition to being sick, in addition to being in pain.
So, um, It feels cathartic to talk about how exhausting it is and just sitting with that emotion because a lot of the times we want to be, we're not going to girl boss ourselves through this because it sucks, you know, it is hard. We live in this capitalistic society where insurance companies are leeching off of you and accessing basic care feels like a difficult task.
So, like, I think it's okay for us to sit and wallow in that it is a lonely journey and that it is hard for a lot of us to access care the ways that we need to feel supported.
Steven (00:10):
Hello,[00:01:00]
everyone. My name is Steven Wakabayashi, and you're listening to Yellow Glitter, perspectives from queer Asian creatives, changemakers, and entrepreneurs making an impact. This episode, we're joined by an extra special guest, Dr. Varuna Srinivasan. Dr. Varuna Srinivasan, pronounced she, they, is a physician and public health expert from Johns Hopkins who's revolutionizing healthcare access for underserved communities.
As CEO of Fluid Health, she's breaking new ground in treating chronic pelvic pain through specialized therapy. Her groundbreaking work includes developing Planned Parenthood's first Asian American abortion toolkit, and she's been recognized by Serena Williams, I love, as a woman of [00:02:00] courage. A regular contributor to major publications like the Washington Post and Vogue India, Dr. Srinivasan serves as Allure's sex columnist and sits on Parents Magazine's expert board. She's earned multiple accolades for her advocacy in LGBTQ rights and reproductive health care, consistently pushing for more inclusive health systems. Based in New York City where she lives with her husband and dog, this Buddhist physician turned entrepreneur combines her medical expertise with a passion for social justice to transform healthcare access for women and sexual minorities.
Welcome to our podcast.
Varuna (00:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Steven (00:15):
Yes. We were connected from a mutual friend who spoke so highly about your work and when we were digging further into it and doing some research, it's quite interesting, this thing that you're working [00:03:00] on. And I just want to first start off and ask what inspired you?
Why is this so important?
Varuna (00:17):
You know, I think a lot of it, and I think through your podcast, you would have led this as well. So much of it comes from our own lived experiences, right? And so we're solving a problem that we are facing and coming from healthcare, I feel like every single person is accessing healthcare, is living in this body that's highly politicized.
In a world that tends to restrict how you can access health care and what is the right way to access health care, it's such a gendered experience, it's such a racialized experience, and I'll say, you know, in short, that a lot of it has to do with some of my own experiences, and I think that that's what drives a lot of the work that I do.
Steven (00:19):
Yeah. Was there a particular experience, [00:04:00] something that had happened in your life that gave you this realization to pivot, to focus on this?
Varuna (00:20):
So I finished my med school in India and I was pretty young. I had gone, in India, you go into med school right at 18 and you graduate, uh, while your frontal lobe is still developing.
So you're not, you know, you're like, I graduated med school before I was 25. I got my first job working with Doctors Without Borders and a lot of it, a lot of my life happened before 25 and you know, you're taking a, you're making a lot of big decisions then. But something that was consistently coming up I think was how much, I think it does, we often attribute a lot of health issues to individuals and not so much to the system.
And so even I, during that period when I was working and doing all of that, taking on massive amounts of stress, I [00:05:00] was diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease when I was, I think, I want to say 26. So about a year after, and just recently this year, I was also diagnosed with my second autoimmune disease.
And so living in my body, living with the fatigue, living with this amount of pain and trying to access care felt really difficult. You know, it felt really hard to be able to build this life where there is ease and where there is a lot of joy. For some reason that didn't happen so naturally to me and I was blaming myself a lot of the times that, you know, I wasn't doing it perfectly and that a lot of the mistakes that I kept looking at all of these issues through the lens of my own individual choices, which to an extent, yes, we can attribute, you know, some of the health issues that we have to individual choices, but It really pushed me to [00:06:00] take a hard look at the system, you know, and that's also one of the reasons I had pivoted from working in such a high intensity field like medicine, um, to working in public health and actually working in more of like a systems oriented approach and understanding what are the barriers to care?
Why are particular populations more affected than others? And I think, you know, just living in my body. And trying to build a life that affirms me has honestly also taught me so much about this process.
Steven (00:25):
Yeah, and so much of this individualized focus, I feel like, while on one hand you want to give autonomy, you want to give freedom, you want to give people independence to make the decision, but also sometimes A lot of medicine, to your point, it starts to blame the individual for their actions.
Varuna (00:26):
Yeah.
Steven (00:27):
Versus looking at the macro, right? Especially even when it comes to food, [00:07:00] there's certain food decisions that we have no jurisdiction over. That is above us, even above FDA and the way the farms and the food and the agriculture system, right?
But then it comes to us and they're like, but you're eating so unhealthy.
But even when it comes to autoimmune, it's all interlinked. Behaviorally, also with so much of the work culture in the States.
Varuna (00:30):
Oh my god.
Steven (00:31):
Right? Exasperating us. Yeah. It's, I resonated with so much. Where we're in this system that is so broken, and I think the sooner we can recognize it, the sooner we can make some change happen.
Varuna (00:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I agree.
Steven (00:33):
And I'm just curious, even from your transition from India up until America, was there any things that surprised you, especially when it came to what you saw happening in America?
Varuna (00:34):
I, I love the healthcare system in India, if I'm being really honest, I [00:08:00] think that it's much more rooted in community care and communal care.
I'll give you an example, I think just talking about dental care, which I think every single one of us has gotten a teeth cleaning, has gotten some, you know, has gone to their dentist at least once a year. Yeah. So, While I've been in the US for the past couple of years, I've seen a dentist and I've only seen them for teeth cleaning.
They kind of just look at my teeth overall. And I've been mentioning that I have jaw pain, like I have a lot of jaw pain and that one of them just like offhandedly mentioned that I should get Botox. And so I wasn't really sure where to go get that. And so then I went to a plastic surgeon, I got the Botox and I went back to the dentist and I was like, the pain is still there.
They're like, yeah, just get a nightguard. And I'm like, how much does it cost? And they said, 800. And I was like, that's freaking crazy. I'm not going to pay 800 for some nightguard.
Steven (00:38):
For some plastic tray. I know.
Varuna (00:39):
Yeah. And they, they, they seem so resistant to me just buying it from CVS too. They were like, no, we need to model it to your [00:09:00] teeth.
So I went to India recently and I decided, I texted my friend and I said, Hey, do you know a good dentist in Mumbai? I really want to go and see a really good dentist. She's like, yeah, my friend has like a family clinic. Uh, you can go and check them out. And so from the moment I stepped in, It felt like a completely different like healthcare experience where I felt like we were talking, I mean, yes we were friends, but also I, I found this across the board where there was no anxiety kind of going in.
I felt very comfortable kind of talking to them, having conversations about my lifestyle and talking about what I needed. And it was really interesting 'cause I was like, I need a nightguard. And from talking to me, they were like, you don't need a nightguard. You seem to have pain that's radiating to this point, this point, this point, that point.
And I'm like, how did you know that? And they were like, well, you have like the temporal mandibular joint dysfunction. And I was like, how is it possible that I'm paying dental insurance and I'm paying thousands of dollars [00:10:00] and they just like misdiagnosed me for that long in the U. S. And I come to India.
And the whole experience of like getting, they mentioned that I don't need a night guard, but an occlusive splint. And I know this sounds like a really boring story, but I think that for me, that I could see the difference night and day when being able to communicate with my, my doctor in India, being able to actually like talk through some of my anxieties and what I'm feeling.
I was able to share parts of my job, what contributes to my stress. Turns out because of the anxiety and stress I've been experiencing, I clenched my muscles so much that the nightguard wasn't going to do anything for me. But none of the dentists in the U. S. asked me those questions. I think that's the difference, right, is like That's why I'm so obsessed with this, with this word like biopsychosocial framework or approach, which is really looking at like, what is a person's lifestyle?
Like, who are they? And then looking at the [00:11:00] disease through that lens, right? And helping them achieve a solution. I, I unfortunately think that the US is very litigious. It's a very litigious society. And so, They're really afraid to connect with their patients to provide emotional care and support because providers here are really burnt out and aren't able to afford that to their patients. Versus in India, I see like there's this approach that's a lot more communal and they, they feel more emotionally connected. Yeah. And it feels more collaborative. I feel in my experience.
Steven (00:46):
Yeah. I feel the same. Um, also in Japan, Taiwan, where my families are. Socialized medicine across the board, and these doctors aren't so niche specific to only service this need, but work in community, work in tandem with each other, and because it's more socialized, not afraid to hand patients off, work together, [00:12:00] and it is a whole nother matrix, and I'm just curious around this.
Thank you. Biopsychosocial. Uh, could you expand a little bit more about that? What, you know, where did you learn about this? What is it exactly? And why is it important as a part?
Varuna (00:48):
So, I will, I will tell you what I know, but a biopsychosocial model is pretty much in the name. It is an important part of health care where It combines the biological, psychological, and social factors an individual is experiencing and uses that to treat whatever it is that they're going through.
So it doesn't just look at like, oh, you're, you have these like physical symptoms, here is a treatment, which is, which a lot of medicine is prescriptive. Instead, what it does is it says, okay, you are, Like, let's take your race, for example. Let's take, [00:13:00] what is your living situation? You know, what is your job like?
What's your diet? Where do you live? I feel like it takes more of like a holistic approach towards treating the condition. And I feel like this is something that my, shout out to my rheumatologist, he is a Greek man, I love him so much, he, he is into functional medicine and his approach to helping me treat my rheumatoid arthritis has been so through biopsychosocial model where he not only did the blood tests, he not only looked at the symptoms, he also said, Girl, when did you move to the US?
How long have you been here? Your gut bacteria has completely changed. Like, how many hours are you sleeping a night? Let's refer you to a sleep study specialist. What is your actual diet? Like, let's go over every single thing that you're eating right now. What is your relationship like? Do you have a good relationship with your parents?
Like, are you married? Are you divorced? Like, what are some stressful events going on in your life? Are you going to [00:14:00] therapy? Are you on any psychiatric meds? And so it's very, very thorough. But I think that in the long run, employing such a model, I think can go such a long way in improving health outcomes versus saying, You have a headache, here is your medication.
Or you have stomach pain, here's some Pepto Bismol. Yeah. Or you have allergies, here is some Benadryl. Which is, I think, what, because we live in such a phalla heavy culture, or we live in a culture that, again, is litigious, like I mentioned, it seems to be very, like, very prescriptive and one dimensional versus a biopsychosocial model is not.
Steven (00:54):
Yeah, beautiful definition. And I'd love to talk more how you're applying that into Fluid Health and the work that you're doing. So where is everything? Where is your organization at right now?
Varuna (00:55):
Yeah, we are relatively new. We're about a year in [00:15:00] and I left Planned Parenthood last year and I've. Work my fair share in non profits and academic institutions, wanting to really build something new.
I'm really, really, again, I draw a lot of inspiration from community care models in India, from ASHA workers, from social workers. I think that supporting members of the community in a way and helping them access care is again, something I'm interested in. And so Fluid was born to revolutionize and sort of radicalize health service delivery.
A lot of women, especially those who are queer, struggle to access care because, you know, a multitude of reasons, but one's mainly being the fact that it's tough to talk about sensitive and intimate issues in, to your, to your Provider, and especially if you're going through something as difficult as [00:16:00] pain from a lot of the user research and market research that we did, we found that pain is an incredibly gendered experience.
And if you are queer, if you are a woman, you are less likely to be believed for your pain. Some people wait up to seven years before receiving a diagnosis. And so they're just expediencing. pain, you know, that's affecting a big part of their lives. Um, it's affecting their relationships. It's making them take time off work.
It's making them spend tens of thousands of dollars so that they can diagnose it. And unfortunately, the thing with something like chronic pelvic pain or even sexual pain is sometimes it doesn't have a diagnosis, you know, and you have to go and see multiple specialists. And so thinking about all of this, we wanted to build a care system, you know, a care model, that made people feel affirmed from the time that they walked in to the time that they left.
And so based on this, we built our first [00:17:00] MBP and we're pilot testing right now. And we connect women and sexual minorities who have issues related to chronic pelvic pain, any chronic pelvic pain syndromes, which can include endometriosis, Genitourinary dysfunction, any sexual dysfunction with sex therapists.
And this is a critical gap in care that we have found. And so our app is a simple scheduler app that directly connects patients with specialized sex therapists. And so the sex therapists are, they have a deep understanding of the queer experience. They have a deep understanding of sexual dysfunction. And through this, we are trying to test if the multidisciplinary approach that we are trying to build out here, which not only include medical treatment, because sex therapy is not again, a replacement, but is more of like a supplement and an adjuvant because a lot of the clients that we're working with right now already have [00:18:00] OBGYNs or primary healthcare doctors.
What we're trying to say is that sex therapy is an underutilized but crucial component treatment. And we're trying to provide that psychosexual support. So we are trying to combine the psychosocial support with whatever other like prescriptive sort of medical care that they're already going through, ultimately providing that support that they need.
So we're in the pilot phase right now. It's very exciting. A lot of lessons learned. And the goal is to build out more of a comprehensive clinical model in the future that again, employs a lot of these different multidisciplinary care for people who have pain.
Steven (01:04):
Yeah. And I love how. Even in you sharing a little bit about the business model right now and what you're going after as a part of the first iteration of your product, already seeing this notion of communal care, right, and this notion [00:19:00] of bringing in other advisors as a part of people's healthcare journey and I've also run into health issues myself and I can't tell you when I really expanded my mindset away from a singular doctor that makes maybe all the decisions at that point.
To having a plethora, and at one point I had a nutritionist, also with a holistic, acupuncturist wellness, eastern philosophy based medicine, plus with the western doctors, um, they really were able to figure out and diagnose what was happening with my health. But what I learned was each different segment of different therapists, different wellness folks, and even Western versus Eastern philosophies of medicine, there's so many things that we can learn, but limitations to it too, um, and then especially in [00:20:00] the Western context at least.
What was failing me at the time was we're so good at collecting numbers and we're so good at collecting all these diagnoses and reports and we put a tube in there and camera, we record everything, right? But sometimes if there isn't a number associated or if there isn't anything more holistic that we're thinking about, we don't even have a solution to it.
You know, and that's why, especially with more, uh, less researched diseases, rare diseases, I think are often misdiagnosed, but even to your point, right, with especially pelvic pain, sexual, uh, pain and sexual trauma, especially for minority communities that are largely under researched, underserved. I can't help but to imagine, of course it is the way it is and we're not meeting where people are at.[00:21:00]
Because this is exactly, right, where the numbers dictate, or the lack thereof, right?
Varuna (01:09):
Yeah. And it's, it's clear, like, even from the first client that we connected with, the sex therapist, that the feedback that we received was that they felt incredibly supported. And they said that it felt like the momentum helped them to keep going.
And it's almost like, A friend who's holding your hand and telling you like, this, this sucks, like, let's figure it out together. I think that's kind of the premise of it, right? It isn't that you just go online and you make an appointment. It's like, what's going on in your life right now? And how can we make an appointment that gets you to a place in your health where you want to be?
And how can we fit that in with everything else that's going on? And I think especially women and sexual minorities, They lack this kind of social support. They lack a space that affirms everything [00:22:00] it is that they need, right? Because it's so easy to put it in the back of our mind. Like, I think all of us, especially, you know, as minorities, we're so used to saying, it's okay, I'll do it later.
Um, I'm going to continue to push my body. I think it's fine. I, I can think about this later. I don't have time for it. Like even just thinking about my mom, for example, I think this is another example that just keeps coming up. She would often say, I can't fall sick right now. I can't afford to fall sick. I have to take care of you guys or it's always something.
And it's like, I really wish. That someone had said, I'll babysit the kids for you. Go to the doctor right now, or like, let's help you figure it out. But we are in this culture where women are alone, we're misunderstood. And if you add on the layers of being queer of, you know, the racial experience, it's even more isolating where accessing care feels selfish or being in pain becomes normal.
And it just is taking that toll. And [00:23:00] sex is supposed to be something that's supposed to be fun. You know, it is supposed to be fun. It is something that you want to use to connect with your partner. But what ends up happening is when you don't get that support, when you don't find models of care, That affirm who you are, A, and provide whatever support you need for where you are in your life right now.
That self isolation or that isolation becomes stronger. And then ultimately it just contributes to a like a lower quality of life overall. And I think that's what, I feel so passionately about this and what we're building through Fluid is, More than just like helping you schedule an appointment, it's really hoping to be a friend or hoping to be a family member because I feel like supported care goes such a long way in helping you get to where you need to go.
Steven (01:16):
Yeah. Why do you think we put ourselves on the back burner when it comes to this care?
Varuna (01:17):
I mean, so much of it, again, [00:24:00] is like why I think we need to examine systems so critically, right? Where Again, a lot of the research is done in male bodies and is extrapolated to, to women and other developmentally diverse folks where you're kind of going in and they sometimes don't really have a clue, if I'm being honest, right?
They're not able to pinpoint a lot of what's going on. How is the pain related? What makes the pain worse? And I'm using pain as an example, because I think that is such a good. Like it is again, racialized experience, right? Where we've seen that when you women go in for pain, they're more likely to wait longer.
So these are actual statistics that you wait 30 minutes longer in the EDA for pain medication, or you're less likely to receive pain medication, or you're asked to prove your pain. And so then it kind of becomes this big hurdle. Like, why would I go in and try to ask for [00:25:00] help when I'm A, not believed? And so I think a lot of it again has to do with the system and the fact that there's only a one dimensional way of approaching healthcare and that's through the lens of white cis male bodies, right?
And so it doesn't leave a lot of room to understand diverse experiences. I think another good example is the fact that a lot of women don't often see their emotions or their emotional reactions as something bad. Versus anxiety is actually a real symptom. Like, you know, if you have anxiety is actually a symptom of a heart attack in a woman, for example, or for someone who is, is queer, and a lot of the anxiety, again, could be, uh, translated to whatever they just recently went through with their family, right?
Like maybe that's also exacerbating the pain. It's making it worse. Like you just had a [00:26:00] fight with your dad or your dad's really not accepting who you love. You're like struggling in the closet. Like a lot of that can sort of play into the existing symptoms. And that's something that a lot of providers can't really recognize or aren't able to see because they only learn the typical presentation of a lot of symptoms.
And so when they see these like diverse presentations, they're just like, I don't know, it's too overwhelming or let me throw some pills at you or let me refer you out. And don't even get me started on insurance and finding good providers. But, but I feel like it's just a really difficult situation where you're kind of already struggling.
It's hard to kind of access the right care because it's a broken system, you know?
Steven (01:24):
Yeah. And it's easier for us to take ourselves out.
Varuna (01:25):
Yeah.
Steven (01:26):
Because we're, we're like, what's the point?
Varuna (01:27):
What's the point?
Steven (01:28):
Why even bother?
Varuna (01:29):
Yeah. I mean, so many of us have experienced discrimination. We hide [00:27:00] the fact that we're queer.
We don't want to talk about it in the provider's office. That was something that was also coming up a lot for us when we were doing our initial user research was, yeah, you just tick bisexual. Like I would just tick bisexual and the intake form. And then it would never come up again, ever, you know, or there are like stereotypes, or if you're like gay, then they automatically make real assumptions about your sex life, or if you're bisexual, they make assumptions that you're like sleeping with a lot of different people.
And I think it's kind of exhausting, right? You're kind of just like, what is the point of me having to go in and do this? Or you're kind of also put in that position of educating the provider. So then you have to do a lot of the labor where you're like, actually, this is the difference between bisexual and pansexual.
And your biases aren't really helping me out. And there are real statistics that [00:28:00] show how much queer trans people. Avoid care or avoid like bisexual women, for example, it shows us statistically at the least likely to get preventative health screenings. So like mammograms, HPV. And so as a result, we are more likely to develop cervical cancer, but also more likely to develop autoimmune diseases, which like makes sense because like I'm part of that statistic.
And so I think it's all interrelated that way.
Steven (01:34):
Yeah, what comes up for me is I think the example that probably a lot of listeners and a lot of folks have seen trending on social media, right? Where you have those little, little sensory pulse things that these men put on, right? To imitate.
Varuna (01:35):
Oh, the PMS ones? Yeah, I just saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Steven (01:37):
And, and they're basically using these devices to initialize what would be, I hate these. similar sensation [00:29:00] as a contraction or the feelings, uh, that most often femme bodies would have during periods and cramps and menstrual cramps. And even the lightest setting, these men are flinching.
And then what they'll do is they'll, you know, put the exact same diodes on these femme folks and they're like, It's fine. What's the point, you know? And it just shows the stark difference of pain and the receptivity of pain. And how we've built such a tolerance to it. And I think for myself, it was, um, I had chronic lifelong digestive issues that at one point in my life, it was just majorly exasperated to a point where I had to go into the hospital.
But when I started to really, so basically I went on this diet which was just bone broth for like almost a month. It was awful, but it reset so [00:30:00] many digestive issues to a point where even some of the things that I was noticing that I had lived my whole life with started to go away. That was kind of a shocking moment for me and I can't imagine pain being any different from that where Maybe you have lived your whole life assuming this is normal, this is the way things are.
Yeah. And it really takes a village to help shed some light on Actually, no, you don't have to feel like that.
Varuna (01:41):
No.
Steven (01:42):
You don't have to live life like that. No. But that's hard. That's really hard to, yeah, to even experience or have the privilege of experiencing this country. Yeah.
Varuna (01:43):
Yeah. You know, I also have chronic pain and
Steven (01:44):
Yeah.
Varuna (01:45):
I have seen how I've started to notice that the pain that I have in my joints and from my muscles comes more from being anxious and stressed and, and, you know, women and especially queer [00:31:00] folks, I feel specifically talking to, to, to women. You know, for us, it's a lot of the mind body connection is very real.
And, you know, if you're feeling any type of way mentally or emotionally, it really shows up in the body. And we do have the tendency to catastrophize our pain and to feel the pain a lot more deeply. And I started noticing that any time I was stressed out, I would clench my jaw. And so I would get very bad jaw pain.
I would clench my, my muscles in my hip. And so then I would have a lot of hip pain. And then I, I felt like my shoulder was really hurting. And it was really interesting. My husband is a physician. He'd just be like, did you take your naproxen today? And I was like, I will. It doesn't help. But What I really need right now is to sit in a dark room in some warm water and I need to listen to some [00:32:00] soothing music and I just, if anyone's giving me drama today, delete, block, I can't talk to you right now.
And that's the energy kind of going into 2025 because I've started to realize You know, women are so in tune to stress. I mean, chronic stress is something that like affects us so much more easily because biologically different people are wired to experience stress. And I feel like, especially if you're queer, minority stress is a real thing.
And then you also have like racial stress from whatever, however you're living in this country. And then on top of that, you're like dealing with all other types of stress. And it's just like, It's just a lot on the body, you know, and like regular, not regular, but any type of like pain that you're experiencing can feel 10 times worse because of all of those like added intersectional layers.
And I feel like the ways in which I have experienced pain has completely changed [00:33:00] how I live my life and how I want to live my life. And it's hard because a lot of the work I've been doing myself and I'll be honest, a big thing that I noticed is how lonely this journey is. You know, like I have a loving family and I have a loving husband and I have a, I have a really loving community, but A woman in pain is a lonely woman, I'll tell you that much, like a woman who is sick, a woman who is struggling, especially a queer woman, it's a lonely journey, right?
It feels like you have to make a lot of the proactive effort to reach out, to establish. You're doing a lot of labor in addition to being sick, in addition to being in pain. So. It feels cathartic to talk about how exhausting it is and just sitting with that emotion because a lot of the times we want to be, we're not going to girl boss ourselves through this because it sucks, you know, it is hard.
We live in this capitalistic society [00:34:00] where insurance companies are leeching off of you and accessing basic care feels like, a difficult task. So like, I think it's okay for us to sit and wallow in that it is a lonely journey and that it is hard for a lot of us to access care, the ways that we need to feel supported.
Steven (01:53):
I feel that getting goosebumps. I, I think, especially in the work that you're doing on the writing side, writing as Allure's sex columnist, people are feeling heard. But for those. Not familiar with it. What does a Allure sex columnist write about?
Varuna (01:54):
I actually write about a lot of different things. So it depends month to month.
My editor comes up with a list of topics that are well read and I also kind of like crowdsource for my community as well because I'm pretty active on Instagram. And it [00:35:00] kind of ranges so it can range. So they're all related to sexual health. And so there was a topic that I wrote on vaginismus, and so people experiencing vaginismus, which again is like pain, sexual pain, to I interviewed, uh, sex workers and intimacy labor, to really writing about fun things like swingers cruises, where, uh, there are now cruises for everything, and if you want to swing, you can go on that cruise.
And so there's like a real variety of, and then I interviewed like a dominatrix once. And so it's very interesting. I can, through each of these articles, I interview a lot of different people to get their take on how they venture into some of these fields or sort of getting the human experience of what it's like to live.
Again, I think like vaginismus just comes up because I just, I wrote that article a couple of months ago, but. to experiencing vaginismus and what they do to like wanting to open up your relationship [00:36:00] to being a threesome or like going to a sex club and so it's very diverse it's very much about like it's very sex positive it's very very much about Yeah, centric to human experience and sex.
Steven (01:58):
Yes, a. k. a. you're the queer brown Carrie Bradshaw.
Varuna (01:59):
Yeah, yeah, and I know we were joking about this the last time, but there's no way homegirl was living in Manhattan Brownstone. All alone, writing a column. It's not, it's not possible. It's not possible.
Steven (02:00):
Uh, do you know how many columns you have to be busted out?
Varuna (02:01):
I know. I honestly, no wonder she married Rich.
Steven (02:02):
She had AI.
Varuna (02:03):
Yeah, she had AI.
Steven (02:04):
Uh, and I'm just curious. Was there a story or something you've written previously? That had a big impact on you. [00:37:00]
Varuna (02:05):
I think the, the recent story I wrote on sex workers I explored the concept of intimacy labor. Which I think a lot of people don't understand.
And intimacy labor is one of the many types of labor that women do. Even if you think about this, like a lot of like erotic labor and intimacy labor is a very gendered job where it's usually taken on by women. And so it's the act of establishing human connections. So think massage parlors, pedicures, manicures, waxing, for example, is a type of like intimate labor.
And so even in thinking about erotic and other types is, you know, dressing up and trying to look sexy for your partner. So like wearing lingerie, initiating date night, initiating sex, uh, making sure that the sexual spark stays alive. And erotic labor specifically [00:38:00] is women who sell sex, you know, who do cam work, who do, you know, full service sex work, who are strippers, who do erotic dancing.
It serves an industry, right? But it was really interesting when I was talking to a lot of the sex workers, how much the work that they do, that there is such a big market for it. Like there are men out there, there are people out there that are patronizing these services, how little right they have in terms of like legal protections and, you know, they don't get health insurance or, you know, they don't get a lot of like legal assistance.
There's no sort of childcare.
Steven (02:10):
Have access to small business services.
Varuna (02:11):
Small business services, because that's exactly what I wrote about in my article what I said. None of you would last running an OnlyFans account or running, you know, a sex work business because that's a business, but we in this, in the society have deemed certain [00:39:00] types of labor as better than other types of labor, but it's interesting.
And so I brought in more of a historical aspect where I talked about how during the Civil War. The economy did really, really well because of sex workers, because all of these, yeah, all of these men came from small towns to these big cities. And so then they went, so then sex workers went to those big cities, set up brothels, which then led to like these more areas where they were just brothels.
And I think now it's called red light districts, which maybe isn't so related, but. Urbanized spaces, like urbanized brothels became a thing and economies started doing well because of how much these brothels were servicing these men. But we don't want to talk about that, right? We want to only stigmatize it and continue to stigmatize it.
So I would say that that really had an impact on me in [00:40:00] rethinking the labor and how it kind of like plays in. The people who are truly, like, contributing to this economy are the ones that are often the most marginalized.
Steven (02:15):
Yeah, and we sometimes forget to realize how important it is. Even in the space of tech, I was reading this article about Google search.
History is just broken down and always top 10 porn will be some of the biggest searches and it contributes so much to innovation and video tech all across the board.
Varuna (02:17):
All across the board. I mean, even now AI is like with these, with these deep fakes and it's very interesting. Yeah, I, I do think it's. They don't realize how much of like, erotic and intimate labor that women and other like, queer folks put in towards, you know, keeping this going.
Steven (02:18):
Yeah. Wow. I'm definitely gonna earmark that as a [00:41:00] part of just good inside. Yep. America is America because of the sex workers.
Varuna (02:19):
Yes it is.
Steven (02:20):
Yes. And I want to touch on a topic that I, I, I find so fascinating. Also, this intersectionality of your identity, your South Asian background.
Varuna (02:21):
Yeah.
Steven (02:22):
Also with some of the work that you're doing, and I can't help but to think immediately, even for myself, if I was writing a column, uh, about sexual intimacy and sex.
I think my mom would, I don't even know what she would say to me.
Varuna (02:24):
Yeah.
Steven (02:25):
But she definitely wins at that. But I'm just so curious, like your family and all your communities, especially your South Asian community, especially in Asia, you know, where we stigmatize sex, we stigmatize intimacy. How have they responded [00:42:00] with your work?
Varuna (02:26):
I think my parents aren't completely, I don't think they know the nitty gritties of the sex column, only that I am like, do a lot of like educational work.
They're still very old fashioned in that.
Steven (02:28):
They're like, Allure, amazing.
Varuna (02:29):
They're like, yeah, that's so great. That's amazing. What does your husband think about that?
And I'm like, I don't care what he thinks about that. Um, so great. It's like. It's funny, but it's also frustrating because I think it's also, again, like one of those things where you're breaking a lot of the generational trauma yourself, you know, where you're, I know that I'm putting in the work to, to, to be more sex positive because I grew up in a really sex negative culture and I was just talking to another friend about this, but even this time going back home to India, I It's like there's so much of like hypervigilance and body surveillance around existing as a woman and how much like even being in India, like I was, you know, [00:43:00] making out with girls and hooking up with girls, you know, at parties, but in public, I was dating men and there was constantly this fear of existing, of being open about it.
And I think things are changing now, of course, but it's also that I just feel like I've come such a long way in that. And it's, it's touching when I'm able, when others reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm South Asian. And you've actually like changed the way that I think about some of these issues. Right. Or like, Oh, you're a brown girl talking about sex.
And it's like, well, we're a plan. We're like a country of a billion people. How do you think a lot of us got here? But also, yes, like let's rewrite the script because we didn't get the sex talk that we needed growing up. Our parents were always just trying to protect us from creepy men and so we never got these spaces to like exist openly and proudly.
Steven (02:33):
Purity culture.
Varuna (02:34):
Purity culture is so [00:44:00] real, rape culture is so real and so I think that it's kind of a double edged sword in that you. My parents are definitely very much like a little like in the dark about what I do, like even when they don't about, they found out that I was bisexual through the Vogue article and they asked my brother and they were like, she's bisexual.
And my brother was like, yes. And they were like, okay, as long as it's okay with her husband. And I was like, okay, thank you. That's so unhelpful. But also, I'm in Vogue, and I'm talking about being bisexual, so it's kind of like a double edged sword, you know?
Steven (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, he did not help me get this column.
Varuna (02:37):
No, not at all. No way. I mean, no way. No.
Steven (02:38):
Yeah, it's, it's, it's tough, but I mean, to put in a perspective, right, like most Asian countries still don't have queer rights, queer liberation. This is really, we're at [00:45:00] the precipice of Asian countries starting to legalize same sex relationship, marriages. But even when it comes to sex, I think Japan's a really interesting use case, right?
Where they stigmatize it so much to a point where the population is steadily decreasing and now they do these weird Campaigns to encourage people to have sex.
Varuna (02:40):
Interesting. Oh, I have to look at that.
Steven (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have these campaigns to encourage more, uh, rituals around sex and sexy time and are trying to push it.
But I think, I think you're at this point now where the country, I feel like the older generation recognizes it. Uh, I was just in Japan a month ago and I was just talking to my friend who lives there and she was just like, they put these like infomercials on to encourage people, like sex is important, [00:46:00] but they don't do the education piece with it, right?
Or they don't do the normalizing. of it within other social spheres. And so you still have this conservative purity based culture that's in most parts, right? And like how you shop in like social spaces, uh, friend gathering, family gathering. And then you have these PSAs running saying, please go have sex.
It's your duty.
Varuna (02:45):
I mean, yeah, it's, there's a lot of countries again, see sex as something that's like procreative and not recreational, which,
Steven (02:46):
yeah. How do we move away from that?
Varuna (02:47):
You know, a lot of it is, like, sex education, which is where I got a lot of my community built around, is Really emphasizing the need for safe spaces where you can just have a conversation about sex.
What most people don't realize is they think sex education is, Oh, you're teaching my kid to have sex and you're teaching my, you're telling them to be gay. And it's like, no, they are [00:47:00] going to try to have sex and they are going to like eventually like explore their sexuality. I think what sex education does is it provides a safe space to do that.
It's kind of like harm reduction where. Uh, we help you prevent STIs and pregnancy and explore what is natural and human to you in a really like supportive way. And I'm a big proponent of that. I feel, you know, thinking about it, thinking about my future as a mother and thinking about the kids that I want to have, like, it's, it's uncomfortable.
And many parents don't want to talk about that, but you need to be able to teach your child. everything that they need to know about their bodies, right? Like what is an appropriate touch? What's an inappropriate touch? But also the fact that a lot of people don't realize that sexual oppression starts so early and even like gender roles start really early, right?
And that being like, even educating yourself as an adult now is understanding that, Oh, when I was growing up, my [00:48:00] dad painted my room pink and he only asked me to wear dresses. And so there was no sort of like rule for diverse experiences. in what my gender could be. And so a lot of it is that like, it isn't just like sex education in school.
It's also creating spaces at home where your child can feel comfortable dancing the way they want to, wearing what they want to, playing with the toys they want to, choosing that life for themselves. Right. I think a lot of it has unfortunately been misconstrued right now. And you know, I don't know what's going to happen with the new presidency.
It's probably going to get a lot worse where there's going to be a lot of attacks on queer and trans kids. But, You know, I think that we as community members should come together and, and a lot of it is creating those safe spaces for, for ourselves to be seen. Because I feel like that's what I got, you know, when I moved here from India, At like 27, I came out and I kept thinking that was so late, but it really took like a couple of [00:49:00] queer friends who just created that space for me to feel, to sit with that, you know, to sit with those feelings, to sit with the idea that, you know, I came with this idea that, oh, I can only be, I can't be bisexual because I'm married to a man, or I am definitely a girl, or like my pronouns are definitely she, her.
But like really thinking about that safe exploration, I think is what everybody deserves.
Steven (02:55):
Yeah. Two things come up for me, one, I think recognizing the privilege that we have to even talk about this. I think sometimes we forget that there are places in the world where this is not even only stigmatized, but criminalized, right?
Varuna (02:56):
Yeah.
Steven (02:57):
And so sometimes. In sitting with gratitude, I find that I want to actively do more work towards creating space and talking about it because you also, you know, with, uh, [00:50:00] with what's coming up in just our politics, who knows what's going to happen, right? Um, and then the other part is There's this adage, I, I learned a while back where, uh, they talk about there is really no parts of this world that's un gendered, right.
Where gender roles do not truly exist.
Varuna (02:59):
Yeah.
Steven (03:00):
And so their point being we have to actively create spaces against what is norm, what is normalized. And so while it might look like, well, gender's not a thing, I don't see gender and I'm not gonna talk about or do anything about it that we actually have to actively create ungendered spaces, or we had to actively create unstigmatized spaces for sexual identities. Otherwise, normal is actually uplifting what exists in society around us and is typically gendered, is hyper sexualized in a very [00:51:00] heteronormative fashion, right? And is also racialized, uplifting white identities and experiences, right?
Varuna (03:01):
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, all of that. And I love what you said that we have to actively create ungendered experiences. And that's what a lot of people don't realize is that there is like this middle ground where, you know, right off the bat, I mean, even with kids or with anybody else is like, even with yourself is like, Don't take it to either extreme, it's just like, create a space that, you know, where you kind of set the rules.
Like it can be what you want it to be, as long as that affirms who you are.
Steven (03:03):
Yeah, yeah. And as a part of just like your vision for the future and where you hope we go, what does that look like for you?
Varuna (03:04):
So a lot of what I envision for the future, and you know, based on how things have been going so far, I think a lot of us need a big break.
[00:52:00] It's just that I'm literally thinking, I think that we have been in a collective trauma response since the pandemic. And a lot of us just need time to process and to heal. And I feel like, especially for me, I, a lot of what I'm thinking about is how much I want to realize much more on my community. And I think a lot of like, you know, moving forward, I hope people are able to do that.
You know, we are all kind of like collectively struggling to exist in, you know, this trauma after trauma after trauma happening. And I think 2024 has kind of highlighted the need for us to break out of what was, and you know, one dimensional ways of living and approaching solutions, approaching problems and you know, coming up with solutions to them.
But I hope that moving forward, a lot of us are able to rely on community. Are able to reach out and be vulnerable. I feel [00:53:00] even for me, I tell myself that so much that. I am very obsessed with the queer experience, you know, finding chosen family, relying on community care, relying on, you know, creating your own support systems.
I feel like a lot of us could learn from that, you know, in the general public. I've noticed how individualistic the U. S. is and in going back to India, I find myself deeply craving that community and struggling to kind of establish that. And it, it might feel difficult to kind of embrace that, but I feel like in embracing a lot of my Indianness or embracing my queerness, I feel like it makes me feel more vulnerable in a society that makes you feel like being individualistic and being alone and figuring out yourself as a strength. That's not a strength. That's, that's a cry for help, you know? And so I hope that we are able to be more vulnerable with each other and seek out help and accept help. [00:54:00] Because I know that's hard too.
Steven (03:09):
I feel that.
Varuna (03:10):
So that's, that's really truly what I wish for, for everybody.
Steven (03:11):
Oh, I feel that. I feel that.
Varuna (03:12):
Right.
Steven (03:13):
Especially in our Asian communities. I feel like asking and receiving and being open to help.
Varuna (03:14):
It's hard.
Steven (03:15):
That's a tough one.
Varuna (03:16):
It's a tough one. Yeah. A lot of us don't feel ready for that yet. Or we, we see it as a sign of a weakness, you know.
We see like asking for, for help, asking for money, asking for support. And I feel like that's kind of my, my new agenda for the next 10 years is asking and giving, you know, and it's opening up your heart. And also like, aside from that is also like resting. I feel like the resting is, it's just become such a big part of my, my life now.
Centering rest, centering relaxation, leisure and pleasure, which doesn't always [00:55:00] feel accessible to us, right? Because our bodies, again, are highly politicized and it's a very difficult experience. So, that's also another thing that I hope that we can center.
Steven (03:19):
Yeah, I was, uh, it was like a quote or it was like a one of those Reels with just like text on it and a video background, but it was talking about how animals know the beauty of pleasure and it's not in this selfish way, right, where it's like, I want all the money, but it's joys, the pleasures, enjoying life, enjoying rest.
And if this is so programmed as a part of nature, as a part of our pets, our creatures all around us. Why is it not so important for us to make sure we center that too?
Varuna (03:21):
Yeah, you know, like flowers and trees and as well, they all have seasons. And
Steven (03:22):
yeah,
Varuna (03:23):
I hope for a lot of us that we can [00:56:00] realize that we have seasons too.
I mean, it's hard because you're like in this high output culture where you're like, I have to keep producing. I have to keep producing. And one of the things I've learned to embrace this year. Which, sad to say that only came as a result of my, my autoimmune disease was realizing that I need to cut back on a lot of things.
It's also actually realizing that other people ideas and thoughts of me are A, not my business, but also that I deserve to like, rest and not create right now. And it's okay if people forget about me for some time. Like. I can go out of the public eye and I can rest and I can move as slow as I want to. I think that one has been a really hard one for me, you know, and that I can actually, like when I was kind of going through some, a tough time, I created this group chat and I wrote Varuna Support Group and I added my cousins and my friends and my husband to it.
And I said, [00:57:00] I need you to send me memes and I need support. You know, like, it just, it had to happen because sometimes there are periods where it's just not your season, you know, to shine and that's okay.
Steven (03:27):
I love that. I'm definitely gonna be inspired by that analogy. It is a season of rest. Go home.
Varuna (03:28):
It's a season of rest, yeah.
No one disturb me right now. I'm busy. I'm busy resting.
Steven (03:30):
Yeah. So we're nearing the end of our episode and I have a few questions for you. Uh, one, what's inspiring you lately?
Varuna (03:31):
I, a lot of global instrumental music. The other day I just sat down and I listened to music without looking at anything. I just sat down and I listened to it.
So I found that to be really like inspiring to me. I also [00:58:00] really like people watching. I feel like being in spaces where I can watch people kind of living. And I think New York is such an excellent place for this where
Steven (03:33):
Oh, it's amazing.
Varuna (03:34):
It's amazing. You know, like, I always watch those Instagram videos that says romanticize your life and I never understood it.
I was just walking down the street in Bed Stuy, after I watched a movie with my friend, and I felt like I was in a rom com because I was just like walking, it was misting.
Steven (03:36):
So Carrie Bradshaw.
Varuna (03:37):
I was so Carrie Bradshaw and I was just like, wow, life is amazing. And so like, I'm learning to be more present. So I definitely think like taking in my surroundings and walking more and not listening to music or doing anything else.
I think that's definitely bringing me a lot of joy and inspiration.
Steven (03:39):
I love that. What is something you want our listeners to take away with?
Varuna (03:40):
I think there are a couple of [00:59:00] things that I'd like them to take away. I think one is to center yourself and rethink your models of care going into 2025. Who is supporting you?
Are your current routines serving you? Are your providers the ones that you are helping you get to where you need to get to? I hope you can find advocates in your lives, even if it's not through Fluid Health, either through yourself or through someone else. And also to just support Fluid Health if you know someone that is going through pelvic pain or sexual pain that can be connected with specialized care, you can email me, I will have Steven sort of share my email address with everybody. Uh, hopefully it'll be there in the caption or more so on the description of the podcast. Yeah, I love that. Also just to say hi, I think that I [01:00:00] really like connecting with people and hearing stories. If there's any part of this episode that spoke to you, I'd love to, I'd love to hear about it.
Steven (03:42):
Yes, will do. And how can people best find you and follow your work?
Varuna (03:43):
That is, that is the most important information. Uh, yeah. So in addition to my email address, which Steven will add to the podcast description, you can find me on Instagram at d r v a r u n a s r i n i v a s a n. That's at Dr. Varuna Srinivasan.
And I don't have like a live website right now because I'm still working on it, or you can go to MyFluidHealth. com.
Steven (03:45):
Awesome. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode, you can also give us your thoughts in a reading and review. We're so blessed to have amazing folks come onto this podcast to talk about beautiful topics, especially in [01:01:00] this instance around pelvic health and the importance of communal care. And then also you can follow us on social at yellowglitterpd on socials everywhere. And feel free to visit our website at yellowglitterpodcast. com to view the full show notes, the transcript, and to give us any of your additional thoughts. We're here for it. And then we're just really appreciative for you for showing up today and for sharing a little bit about your story, your life, and, uh, all your little Carrie Bradshaw moments.
Varuna (03:46):
Well, thank you so much for having me. This was amazing.
Steven (03:47):
Awesome. And with that, listeners, hope you took a lot from our episode. And we hope your day can be a bit more mindful, a bit more communal, and center yourself as a part of your day. We'll talk to you later. Bye [01:02:00] now.
(00:01):
Varuna (00:07):
[00:00:00] A woman in pain is a lonely woman. I'll tell you that much. Like, a woman who is sick, a woman who is struggling, especially a queer woman, it's a lonely journey, right? It feels like you have to make a lot of the proactive effort to reach out, to establish. You're doing a lot of labor in addition to being sick, in addition to being in pain.
So, um, It feels cathartic to talk about how exhausting it is and just sitting with that emotion because a lot of the times we want to be, we're not going to girl boss ourselves through this because it sucks, you know, it is hard. We live in this capitalistic society where insurance companies are leeching off of you and accessing basic care feels like a difficult task.
So, like, I think it's okay for us to sit and wallow in that it is a lonely journey and that it is hard for a lot of us to access care the ways that we need to feel supported.
Steven (00:10):
Hello,[00:01:00]
everyone. My name is Steven Wakabayashi, and you're listening to Yellow Glitter, perspectives from queer Asian creatives, changemakers, and entrepreneurs making an impact. This episode, we're joined by an extra special guest, Dr. Varuna Srinivasan. Dr. Varuna Srinivasan, pronounced she, they, is a physician and public health expert from Johns Hopkins who's revolutionizing healthcare access for underserved communities.
As CEO of Fluid Health, she's breaking new ground in treating chronic pelvic pain through specialized therapy. Her groundbreaking work includes developing Planned Parenthood's first Asian American abortion toolkit, and she's been recognized by Serena Williams, I love, as a woman of [00:02:00] courage. A regular contributor to major publications like the Washington Post and Vogue India, Dr. Srinivasan serves as Allure's sex columnist and sits on Parents Magazine's expert board. She's earned multiple accolades for her advocacy in LGBTQ rights and reproductive health care, consistently pushing for more inclusive health systems. Based in New York City where she lives with her husband and dog, this Buddhist physician turned entrepreneur combines her medical expertise with a passion for social justice to transform healthcare access for women and sexual minorities.
Welcome to our podcast.
Varuna (00:14):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Steven (00:15):
Yes. We were connected from a mutual friend who spoke so highly about your work and when we were digging further into it and doing some research, it's quite interesting, this thing that you're working [00:03:00] on. And I just want to first start off and ask what inspired you?
Why is this so important?
Varuna (00:17):
You know, I think a lot of it, and I think through your podcast, you would have led this as well. So much of it comes from our own lived experiences, right? And so we're solving a problem that we are facing and coming from healthcare, I feel like every single person is accessing healthcare, is living in this body that's highly politicized.
In a world that tends to restrict how you can access health care and what is the right way to access health care, it's such a gendered experience, it's such a racialized experience, and I'll say, you know, in short, that a lot of it has to do with some of my own experiences, and I think that that's what drives a lot of the work that I do.
Steven (00:19):
Yeah. Was there a particular experience, [00:04:00] something that had happened in your life that gave you this realization to pivot, to focus on this?
Varuna (00:20):
So I finished my med school in India and I was pretty young. I had gone, in India, you go into med school right at 18 and you graduate, uh, while your frontal lobe is still developing.
So you're not, you know, you're like, I graduated med school before I was 25. I got my first job working with Doctors Without Borders and a lot of it, a lot of my life happened before 25 and you know, you're taking a, you're making a lot of big decisions then. But something that was consistently coming up I think was how much, I think it does, we often attribute a lot of health issues to individuals and not so much to the system.
And so even I, during that period when I was working and doing all of that, taking on massive amounts of stress, I [00:05:00] was diagnosed with my first autoimmune disease when I was, I think, I want to say 26. So about a year after, and just recently this year, I was also diagnosed with my second autoimmune disease.
And so living in my body, living with the fatigue, living with this amount of pain and trying to access care felt really difficult. You know, it felt really hard to be able to build this life where there is ease and where there is a lot of joy. For some reason that didn't happen so naturally to me and I was blaming myself a lot of the times that, you know, I wasn't doing it perfectly and that a lot of the mistakes that I kept looking at all of these issues through the lens of my own individual choices, which to an extent, yes, we can attribute, you know, some of the health issues that we have to individual choices, but It really pushed me to [00:06:00] take a hard look at the system, you know, and that's also one of the reasons I had pivoted from working in such a high intensity field like medicine, um, to working in public health and actually working in more of like a systems oriented approach and understanding what are the barriers to care?
Why are particular populations more affected than others? And I think, you know, just living in my body. And trying to build a life that affirms me has honestly also taught me so much about this process.
Steven (00:25):
Yeah, and so much of this individualized focus, I feel like, while on one hand you want to give autonomy, you want to give freedom, you want to give people independence to make the decision, but also sometimes A lot of medicine, to your point, it starts to blame the individual for their actions.
Varuna (00:26):
Yeah.
Steven (00:27):
Versus looking at the macro, right? Especially even when it comes to food, [00:07:00] there's certain food decisions that we have no jurisdiction over. That is above us, even above FDA and the way the farms and the food and the agriculture system, right?
But then it comes to us and they're like, but you're eating so unhealthy.
But even when it comes to autoimmune, it's all interlinked. Behaviorally, also with so much of the work culture in the States.
Varuna (00:30):
Oh my god.
Steven (00:31):
Right? Exasperating us. Yeah. It's, I resonated with so much. Where we're in this system that is so broken, and I think the sooner we can recognize it, the sooner we can make some change happen.
Varuna (00:32):
Yeah, absolutely. I agree.
Steven (00:33):
And I'm just curious, even from your transition from India up until America, was there any things that surprised you, especially when it came to what you saw happening in America?
Varuna (00:34):
I, I love the healthcare system in India, if I'm being really honest, I [00:08:00] think that it's much more rooted in community care and communal care.
I'll give you an example, I think just talking about dental care, which I think every single one of us has gotten a teeth cleaning, has gotten some, you know, has gone to their dentist at least once a year. Yeah. So, While I've been in the US for the past couple of years, I've seen a dentist and I've only seen them for teeth cleaning.
They kind of just look at my teeth overall. And I've been mentioning that I have jaw pain, like I have a lot of jaw pain and that one of them just like offhandedly mentioned that I should get Botox. And so I wasn't really sure where to go get that. And so then I went to a plastic surgeon, I got the Botox and I went back to the dentist and I was like, the pain is still there.
They're like, yeah, just get a nightguard. And I'm like, how much does it cost? And they said, 800. And I was like, that's freaking crazy. I'm not going to pay 800 for some nightguard.
Steven (00:38):
For some plastic tray. I know.
Varuna (00:39):
Yeah. And they, they, they seem so resistant to me just buying it from CVS too. They were like, no, we need to model it to your [00:09:00] teeth.
So I went to India recently and I decided, I texted my friend and I said, Hey, do you know a good dentist in Mumbai? I really want to go and see a really good dentist. She's like, yeah, my friend has like a family clinic. Uh, you can go and check them out. And so from the moment I stepped in, It felt like a completely different like healthcare experience where I felt like we were talking, I mean, yes we were friends, but also I, I found this across the board where there was no anxiety kind of going in.
I felt very comfortable kind of talking to them, having conversations about my lifestyle and talking about what I needed. And it was really interesting 'cause I was like, I need a nightguard. And from talking to me, they were like, you don't need a nightguard. You seem to have pain that's radiating to this point, this point, this point, that point.
And I'm like, how did you know that? And they were like, well, you have like the temporal mandibular joint dysfunction. And I was like, how is it possible that I'm paying dental insurance and I'm paying thousands of dollars [00:10:00] and they just like misdiagnosed me for that long in the U. S. And I come to India.
And the whole experience of like getting, they mentioned that I don't need a night guard, but an occlusive splint. And I know this sounds like a really boring story, but I think that for me, that I could see the difference night and day when being able to communicate with my, my doctor in India, being able to actually like talk through some of my anxieties and what I'm feeling.
I was able to share parts of my job, what contributes to my stress. Turns out because of the anxiety and stress I've been experiencing, I clenched my muscles so much that the nightguard wasn't going to do anything for me. But none of the dentists in the U. S. asked me those questions. I think that's the difference, right, is like That's why I'm so obsessed with this, with this word like biopsychosocial framework or approach, which is really looking at like, what is a person's lifestyle?
Like, who are they? And then looking at the [00:11:00] disease through that lens, right? And helping them achieve a solution. I, I unfortunately think that the US is very litigious. It's a very litigious society. And so, They're really afraid to connect with their patients to provide emotional care and support because providers here are really burnt out and aren't able to afford that to their patients. Versus in India, I see like there's this approach that's a lot more communal and they, they feel more emotionally connected. Yeah. And it feels more collaborative. I feel in my experience.
Steven (00:46):
Yeah. I feel the same. Um, also in Japan, Taiwan, where my families are. Socialized medicine across the board, and these doctors aren't so niche specific to only service this need, but work in community, work in tandem with each other, and because it's more socialized, not afraid to hand patients off, work together, [00:12:00] and it is a whole nother matrix, and I'm just curious around this.
Thank you. Biopsychosocial. Uh, could you expand a little bit more about that? What, you know, where did you learn about this? What is it exactly? And why is it important as a part?
Varuna (00:48):
So, I will, I will tell you what I know, but a biopsychosocial model is pretty much in the name. It is an important part of health care where It combines the biological, psychological, and social factors an individual is experiencing and uses that to treat whatever it is that they're going through.
So it doesn't just look at like, oh, you're, you have these like physical symptoms, here is a treatment, which is, which a lot of medicine is prescriptive. Instead, what it does is it says, okay, you are, Like, let's take your race, for example. Let's take, [00:13:00] what is your living situation? You know, what is your job like?
What's your diet? Where do you live? I feel like it takes more of like a holistic approach towards treating the condition. And I feel like this is something that my, shout out to my rheumatologist, he is a Greek man, I love him so much, he, he is into functional medicine and his approach to helping me treat my rheumatoid arthritis has been so through biopsychosocial model where he not only did the blood tests, he not only looked at the symptoms, he also said, Girl, when did you move to the US?
How long have you been here? Your gut bacteria has completely changed. Like, how many hours are you sleeping a night? Let's refer you to a sleep study specialist. What is your actual diet? Like, let's go over every single thing that you're eating right now. What is your relationship like? Do you have a good relationship with your parents?
Like, are you married? Are you divorced? Like, what are some stressful events going on in your life? Are you going to [00:14:00] therapy? Are you on any psychiatric meds? And so it's very, very thorough. But I think that in the long run, employing such a model, I think can go such a long way in improving health outcomes versus saying, You have a headache, here is your medication.
Or you have stomach pain, here's some Pepto Bismol. Yeah. Or you have allergies, here is some Benadryl. Which is, I think, what, because we live in such a phalla heavy culture, or we live in a culture that, again, is litigious, like I mentioned, it seems to be very, like, very prescriptive and one dimensional versus a biopsychosocial model is not.
Steven (00:54):
Yeah, beautiful definition. And I'd love to talk more how you're applying that into Fluid Health and the work that you're doing. So where is everything? Where is your organization at right now?
Varuna (00:55):
Yeah, we are relatively new. We're about a year in [00:15:00] and I left Planned Parenthood last year and I've. Work my fair share in non profits and academic institutions, wanting to really build something new.
I'm really, really, again, I draw a lot of inspiration from community care models in India, from ASHA workers, from social workers. I think that supporting members of the community in a way and helping them access care is again, something I'm interested in. And so Fluid was born to revolutionize and sort of radicalize health service delivery.
A lot of women, especially those who are queer, struggle to access care because, you know, a multitude of reasons, but one's mainly being the fact that it's tough to talk about sensitive and intimate issues in, to your, to your Provider, and especially if you're going through something as difficult as [00:16:00] pain from a lot of the user research and market research that we did, we found that pain is an incredibly gendered experience.
And if you are queer, if you are a woman, you are less likely to be believed for your pain. Some people wait up to seven years before receiving a diagnosis. And so they're just expediencing. pain, you know, that's affecting a big part of their lives. Um, it's affecting their relationships. It's making them take time off work.
It's making them spend tens of thousands of dollars so that they can diagnose it. And unfortunately, the thing with something like chronic pelvic pain or even sexual pain is sometimes it doesn't have a diagnosis, you know, and you have to go and see multiple specialists. And so thinking about all of this, we wanted to build a care system, you know, a care model, that made people feel affirmed from the time that they walked in to the time that they left.
And so based on this, we built our first [00:17:00] MBP and we're pilot testing right now. And we connect women and sexual minorities who have issues related to chronic pelvic pain, any chronic pelvic pain syndromes, which can include endometriosis, Genitourinary dysfunction, any sexual dysfunction with sex therapists.
And this is a critical gap in care that we have found. And so our app is a simple scheduler app that directly connects patients with specialized sex therapists. And so the sex therapists are, they have a deep understanding of the queer experience. They have a deep understanding of sexual dysfunction. And through this, we are trying to test if the multidisciplinary approach that we are trying to build out here, which not only include medical treatment, because sex therapy is not again, a replacement, but is more of like a supplement and an adjuvant because a lot of the clients that we're working with right now already have [00:18:00] OBGYNs or primary healthcare doctors.
What we're trying to say is that sex therapy is an underutilized but crucial component treatment. And we're trying to provide that psychosexual support. So we are trying to combine the psychosocial support with whatever other like prescriptive sort of medical care that they're already going through, ultimately providing that support that they need.
So we're in the pilot phase right now. It's very exciting. A lot of lessons learned. And the goal is to build out more of a comprehensive clinical model in the future that again, employs a lot of these different multidisciplinary care for people who have pain.
Steven (01:04):
Yeah. And I love how. Even in you sharing a little bit about the business model right now and what you're going after as a part of the first iteration of your product, already seeing this notion of communal care, right, and this notion [00:19:00] of bringing in other advisors as a part of people's healthcare journey and I've also run into health issues myself and I can't tell you when I really expanded my mindset away from a singular doctor that makes maybe all the decisions at that point.
To having a plethora, and at one point I had a nutritionist, also with a holistic, acupuncturist wellness, eastern philosophy based medicine, plus with the western doctors, um, they really were able to figure out and diagnose what was happening with my health. But what I learned was each different segment of different therapists, different wellness folks, and even Western versus Eastern philosophies of medicine, there's so many things that we can learn, but limitations to it too, um, and then especially in [00:20:00] the Western context at least.
What was failing me at the time was we're so good at collecting numbers and we're so good at collecting all these diagnoses and reports and we put a tube in there and camera, we record everything, right? But sometimes if there isn't a number associated or if there isn't anything more holistic that we're thinking about, we don't even have a solution to it.
You know, and that's why, especially with more, uh, less researched diseases, rare diseases, I think are often misdiagnosed, but even to your point, right, with especially pelvic pain, sexual, uh, pain and sexual trauma, especially for minority communities that are largely under researched, underserved. I can't help but to imagine, of course it is the way it is and we're not meeting where people are at.[00:21:00]
Because this is exactly, right, where the numbers dictate, or the lack thereof, right?
Varuna (01:09):
Yeah. And it's, it's clear, like, even from the first client that we connected with, the sex therapist, that the feedback that we received was that they felt incredibly supported. And they said that it felt like the momentum helped them to keep going.
And it's almost like, A friend who's holding your hand and telling you like, this, this sucks, like, let's figure it out together. I think that's kind of the premise of it, right? It isn't that you just go online and you make an appointment. It's like, what's going on in your life right now? And how can we make an appointment that gets you to a place in your health where you want to be?
And how can we fit that in with everything else that's going on? And I think especially women and sexual minorities, They lack this kind of social support. They lack a space that affirms everything [00:22:00] it is that they need, right? Because it's so easy to put it in the back of our mind. Like, I think all of us, especially, you know, as minorities, we're so used to saying, it's okay, I'll do it later.
Um, I'm going to continue to push my body. I think it's fine. I, I can think about this later. I don't have time for it. Like even just thinking about my mom, for example, I think this is another example that just keeps coming up. She would often say, I can't fall sick right now. I can't afford to fall sick. I have to take care of you guys or it's always something.
And it's like, I really wish. That someone had said, I'll babysit the kids for you. Go to the doctor right now, or like, let's help you figure it out. But we are in this culture where women are alone, we're misunderstood. And if you add on the layers of being queer of, you know, the racial experience, it's even more isolating where accessing care feels selfish or being in pain becomes normal.
And it just is taking that toll. And [00:23:00] sex is supposed to be something that's supposed to be fun. You know, it is supposed to be fun. It is something that you want to use to connect with your partner. But what ends up happening is when you don't get that support, when you don't find models of care, That affirm who you are, A, and provide whatever support you need for where you are in your life right now.
That self isolation or that isolation becomes stronger. And then ultimately it just contributes to a like a lower quality of life overall. And I think that's what, I feel so passionately about this and what we're building through Fluid is, More than just like helping you schedule an appointment, it's really hoping to be a friend or hoping to be a family member because I feel like supported care goes such a long way in helping you get to where you need to go.
Steven (01:16):
Yeah. Why do you think we put ourselves on the back burner when it comes to this care?
Varuna (01:17):
I mean, so much of it, again, [00:24:00] is like why I think we need to examine systems so critically, right? Where Again, a lot of the research is done in male bodies and is extrapolated to, to women and other developmentally diverse folks where you're kind of going in and they sometimes don't really have a clue, if I'm being honest, right?
They're not able to pinpoint a lot of what's going on. How is the pain related? What makes the pain worse? And I'm using pain as an example, because I think that is such a good. Like it is again, racialized experience, right? Where we've seen that when you women go in for pain, they're more likely to wait longer.
So these are actual statistics that you wait 30 minutes longer in the EDA for pain medication, or you're less likely to receive pain medication, or you're asked to prove your pain. And so then it kind of becomes this big hurdle. Like, why would I go in and try to ask for [00:25:00] help when I'm A, not believed? And so I think a lot of it again has to do with the system and the fact that there's only a one dimensional way of approaching healthcare and that's through the lens of white cis male bodies, right?
And so it doesn't leave a lot of room to understand diverse experiences. I think another good example is the fact that a lot of women don't often see their emotions or their emotional reactions as something bad. Versus anxiety is actually a real symptom. Like, you know, if you have anxiety is actually a symptom of a heart attack in a woman, for example, or for someone who is, is queer, and a lot of the anxiety, again, could be, uh, translated to whatever they just recently went through with their family, right?
Like maybe that's also exacerbating the pain. It's making it worse. Like you just had a [00:26:00] fight with your dad or your dad's really not accepting who you love. You're like struggling in the closet. Like a lot of that can sort of play into the existing symptoms. And that's something that a lot of providers can't really recognize or aren't able to see because they only learn the typical presentation of a lot of symptoms.
And so when they see these like diverse presentations, they're just like, I don't know, it's too overwhelming or let me throw some pills at you or let me refer you out. And don't even get me started on insurance and finding good providers. But, but I feel like it's just a really difficult situation where you're kind of already struggling.
It's hard to kind of access the right care because it's a broken system, you know?
Steven (01:24):
Yeah. And it's easier for us to take ourselves out.
Varuna (01:25):
Yeah.
Steven (01:26):
Because we're, we're like, what's the point?
Varuna (01:27):
What's the point?
Steven (01:28):
Why even bother?
Varuna (01:29):
Yeah. I mean, so many of us have experienced discrimination. We hide [00:27:00] the fact that we're queer.
We don't want to talk about it in the provider's office. That was something that was also coming up a lot for us when we were doing our initial user research was, yeah, you just tick bisexual. Like I would just tick bisexual and the intake form. And then it would never come up again, ever, you know, or there are like stereotypes, or if you're like gay, then they automatically make real assumptions about your sex life, or if you're bisexual, they make assumptions that you're like sleeping with a lot of different people.
And I think it's kind of exhausting, right? You're kind of just like, what is the point of me having to go in and do this? Or you're kind of also put in that position of educating the provider. So then you have to do a lot of the labor where you're like, actually, this is the difference between bisexual and pansexual.
And your biases aren't really helping me out. And there are real statistics that [00:28:00] show how much queer trans people. Avoid care or avoid like bisexual women, for example, it shows us statistically at the least likely to get preventative health screenings. So like mammograms, HPV. And so as a result, we are more likely to develop cervical cancer, but also more likely to develop autoimmune diseases, which like makes sense because like I'm part of that statistic.
And so I think it's all interrelated that way.
Steven (01:34):
Yeah, what comes up for me is I think the example that probably a lot of listeners and a lot of folks have seen trending on social media, right? Where you have those little, little sensory pulse things that these men put on, right? To imitate.
Varuna (01:35):
Oh, the PMS ones? Yeah, I just saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
Steven (01:37):
And, and they're basically using these devices to initialize what would be, I hate these. similar sensation [00:29:00] as a contraction or the feelings, uh, that most often femme bodies would have during periods and cramps and menstrual cramps. And even the lightest setting, these men are flinching.
And then what they'll do is they'll, you know, put the exact same diodes on these femme folks and they're like, It's fine. What's the point, you know? And it just shows the stark difference of pain and the receptivity of pain. And how we've built such a tolerance to it. And I think for myself, it was, um, I had chronic lifelong digestive issues that at one point in my life, it was just majorly exasperated to a point where I had to go into the hospital.
But when I started to really, so basically I went on this diet which was just bone broth for like almost a month. It was awful, but it reset so [00:30:00] many digestive issues to a point where even some of the things that I was noticing that I had lived my whole life with started to go away. That was kind of a shocking moment for me and I can't imagine pain being any different from that where Maybe you have lived your whole life assuming this is normal, this is the way things are.
Yeah. And it really takes a village to help shed some light on Actually, no, you don't have to feel like that.
Varuna (01:41):
No.
Steven (01:42):
You don't have to live life like that. No. But that's hard. That's really hard to, yeah, to even experience or have the privilege of experiencing this country. Yeah.
Varuna (01:43):
Yeah. You know, I also have chronic pain and
Steven (01:44):
Yeah.
Varuna (01:45):
I have seen how I've started to notice that the pain that I have in my joints and from my muscles comes more from being anxious and stressed and, and, you know, women and especially queer [00:31:00] folks, I feel specifically talking to, to, to women. You know, for us, it's a lot of the mind body connection is very real.
And, you know, if you're feeling any type of way mentally or emotionally, it really shows up in the body. And we do have the tendency to catastrophize our pain and to feel the pain a lot more deeply. And I started noticing that any time I was stressed out, I would clench my jaw. And so I would get very bad jaw pain.
I would clench my, my muscles in my hip. And so then I would have a lot of hip pain. And then I, I felt like my shoulder was really hurting. And it was really interesting. My husband is a physician. He'd just be like, did you take your naproxen today? And I was like, I will. It doesn't help. But What I really need right now is to sit in a dark room in some warm water and I need to listen to some [00:32:00] soothing music and I just, if anyone's giving me drama today, delete, block, I can't talk to you right now.
And that's the energy kind of going into 2025 because I've started to realize You know, women are so in tune to stress. I mean, chronic stress is something that like affects us so much more easily because biologically different people are wired to experience stress. And I feel like, especially if you're queer, minority stress is a real thing.
And then you also have like racial stress from whatever, however you're living in this country. And then on top of that, you're like dealing with all other types of stress. And it's just like, It's just a lot on the body, you know, and like regular, not regular, but any type of like pain that you're experiencing can feel 10 times worse because of all of those like added intersectional layers.
And I feel like the ways in which I have experienced pain has completely changed [00:33:00] how I live my life and how I want to live my life. And it's hard because a lot of the work I've been doing myself and I'll be honest, a big thing that I noticed is how lonely this journey is. You know, like I have a loving family and I have a loving husband and I have a, I have a really loving community, but A woman in pain is a lonely woman, I'll tell you that much, like a woman who is sick, a woman who is struggling, especially a queer woman, it's a lonely journey, right?
It feels like you have to make a lot of the proactive effort to reach out, to establish. You're doing a lot of labor in addition to being sick, in addition to being in pain. So. It feels cathartic to talk about how exhausting it is and just sitting with that emotion because a lot of the times we want to be, we're not going to girl boss ourselves through this because it sucks, you know, it is hard.
We live in this capitalistic society [00:34:00] where insurance companies are leeching off of you and accessing basic care feels like, a difficult task. So like, I think it's okay for us to sit and wallow in that it is a lonely journey and that it is hard for a lot of us to access care, the ways that we need to feel supported.
Steven (01:53):
I feel that getting goosebumps. I, I think, especially in the work that you're doing on the writing side, writing as Allure's sex columnist, people are feeling heard. But for those. Not familiar with it. What does a Allure sex columnist write about?
Varuna (01:54):
I actually write about a lot of different things. So it depends month to month.
My editor comes up with a list of topics that are well read and I also kind of like crowdsource for my community as well because I'm pretty active on Instagram. And it [00:35:00] kind of ranges so it can range. So they're all related to sexual health. And so there was a topic that I wrote on vaginismus, and so people experiencing vaginismus, which again is like pain, sexual pain, to I interviewed, uh, sex workers and intimacy labor, to really writing about fun things like swingers cruises, where, uh, there are now cruises for everything, and if you want to swing, you can go on that cruise.
And so there's like a real variety of, and then I interviewed like a dominatrix once. And so it's very interesting. I can, through each of these articles, I interview a lot of different people to get their take on how they venture into some of these fields or sort of getting the human experience of what it's like to live.
Again, I think like vaginismus just comes up because I just, I wrote that article a couple of months ago, but. to experiencing vaginismus and what they do to like wanting to open up your relationship [00:36:00] to being a threesome or like going to a sex club and so it's very diverse it's very much about like it's very sex positive it's very very much about Yeah, centric to human experience and sex.
Steven (01:58):
Yes, a. k. a. you're the queer brown Carrie Bradshaw.
Varuna (01:59):
Yeah, yeah, and I know we were joking about this the last time, but there's no way homegirl was living in Manhattan Brownstone. All alone, writing a column. It's not, it's not possible. It's not possible.
Steven (02:00):
Uh, do you know how many columns you have to be busted out?
Varuna (02:01):
I know. I honestly, no wonder she married Rich.
Steven (02:02):
She had AI.
Varuna (02:03):
Yeah, she had AI.
Steven (02:04):
Uh, and I'm just curious. Was there a story or something you've written previously? That had a big impact on you. [00:37:00]
Varuna (02:05):
I think the, the recent story I wrote on sex workers I explored the concept of intimacy labor. Which I think a lot of people don't understand.
And intimacy labor is one of the many types of labor that women do. Even if you think about this, like a lot of like erotic labor and intimacy labor is a very gendered job where it's usually taken on by women. And so it's the act of establishing human connections. So think massage parlors, pedicures, manicures, waxing, for example, is a type of like intimate labor.
And so even in thinking about erotic and other types is, you know, dressing up and trying to look sexy for your partner. So like wearing lingerie, initiating date night, initiating sex, uh, making sure that the sexual spark stays alive. And erotic labor specifically [00:38:00] is women who sell sex, you know, who do cam work, who do, you know, full service sex work, who are strippers, who do erotic dancing.
It serves an industry, right? But it was really interesting when I was talking to a lot of the sex workers, how much the work that they do, that there is such a big market for it. Like there are men out there, there are people out there that are patronizing these services, how little right they have in terms of like legal protections and, you know, they don't get health insurance or, you know, they don't get a lot of like legal assistance.
There's no sort of childcare.
Steven (02:10):
Have access to small business services.
Varuna (02:11):
Small business services, because that's exactly what I wrote about in my article what I said. None of you would last running an OnlyFans account or running, you know, a sex work business because that's a business, but we in this, in the society have deemed certain [00:39:00] types of labor as better than other types of labor, but it's interesting.
And so I brought in more of a historical aspect where I talked about how during the Civil War. The economy did really, really well because of sex workers, because all of these, yeah, all of these men came from small towns to these big cities. And so then they went, so then sex workers went to those big cities, set up brothels, which then led to like these more areas where they were just brothels.
And I think now it's called red light districts, which maybe isn't so related, but. Urbanized spaces, like urbanized brothels became a thing and economies started doing well because of how much these brothels were servicing these men. But we don't want to talk about that, right? We want to only stigmatize it and continue to stigmatize it.
So I would say that that really had an impact on me in [00:40:00] rethinking the labor and how it kind of like plays in. The people who are truly, like, contributing to this economy are the ones that are often the most marginalized.
Steven (02:15):
Yeah, and we sometimes forget to realize how important it is. Even in the space of tech, I was reading this article about Google search.
History is just broken down and always top 10 porn will be some of the biggest searches and it contributes so much to innovation and video tech all across the board.
Varuna (02:17):
All across the board. I mean, even now AI is like with these, with these deep fakes and it's very interesting. Yeah, I, I do think it's. They don't realize how much of like, erotic and intimate labor that women and other like, queer folks put in towards, you know, keeping this going.
Steven (02:18):
Yeah. Wow. I'm definitely gonna earmark that as a [00:41:00] part of just good inside. Yep. America is America because of the sex workers.
Varuna (02:19):
Yes it is.
Steven (02:20):
Yes. And I want to touch on a topic that I, I, I find so fascinating. Also, this intersectionality of your identity, your South Asian background.
Varuna (02:21):
Yeah.
Steven (02:22):
Also with some of the work that you're doing, and I can't help but to think immediately, even for myself, if I was writing a column, uh, about sexual intimacy and sex.
I think my mom would, I don't even know what she would say to me.
Varuna (02:24):
Yeah.
Steven (02:25):
But she definitely wins at that. But I'm just so curious, like your family and all your communities, especially your South Asian community, especially in Asia, you know, where we stigmatize sex, we stigmatize intimacy. How have they responded [00:42:00] with your work?
Varuna (02:26):
I think my parents aren't completely, I don't think they know the nitty gritties of the sex column, only that I am like, do a lot of like educational work.
They're still very old fashioned in that.
Steven (02:28):
They're like, Allure, amazing.
Varuna (02:29):
They're like, yeah, that's so great. That's amazing. What does your husband think about that?
And I'm like, I don't care what he thinks about that. Um, so great. It's like. It's funny, but it's also frustrating because I think it's also, again, like one of those things where you're breaking a lot of the generational trauma yourself, you know, where you're, I know that I'm putting in the work to, to, to be more sex positive because I grew up in a really sex negative culture and I was just talking to another friend about this, but even this time going back home to India, I It's like there's so much of like hypervigilance and body surveillance around existing as a woman and how much like even being in India, like I was, you know, [00:43:00] making out with girls and hooking up with girls, you know, at parties, but in public, I was dating men and there was constantly this fear of existing, of being open about it.
And I think things are changing now, of course, but it's also that I just feel like I've come such a long way in that. And it's, it's touching when I'm able, when others reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm South Asian. And you've actually like changed the way that I think about some of these issues. Right. Or like, Oh, you're a brown girl talking about sex.
And it's like, well, we're a plan. We're like a country of a billion people. How do you think a lot of us got here? But also, yes, like let's rewrite the script because we didn't get the sex talk that we needed growing up. Our parents were always just trying to protect us from creepy men and so we never got these spaces to like exist openly and proudly.
Steven (02:33):
Purity culture.
Varuna (02:34):
Purity culture is so [00:44:00] real, rape culture is so real and so I think that it's kind of a double edged sword in that you. My parents are definitely very much like a little like in the dark about what I do, like even when they don't about, they found out that I was bisexual through the Vogue article and they asked my brother and they were like, she's bisexual.
And my brother was like, yes. And they were like, okay, as long as it's okay with her husband. And I was like, okay, thank you. That's so unhelpful. But also, I'm in Vogue, and I'm talking about being bisexual, so it's kind of like a double edged sword, you know?
Steven (02:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, he did not help me get this column.
Varuna (02:37):
No, not at all. No way. I mean, no way. No.
Steven (02:38):
Yeah, it's, it's, it's tough, but I mean, to put in a perspective, right, like most Asian countries still don't have queer rights, queer liberation. This is really, we're at [00:45:00] the precipice of Asian countries starting to legalize same sex relationship, marriages. But even when it comes to sex, I think Japan's a really interesting use case, right?
Where they stigmatize it so much to a point where the population is steadily decreasing and now they do these weird Campaigns to encourage people to have sex.
Varuna (02:40):
Interesting. Oh, I have to look at that.
Steven (02:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have these campaigns to encourage more, uh, rituals around sex and sexy time and are trying to push it.
But I think, I think you're at this point now where the country, I feel like the older generation recognizes it. Uh, I was just in Japan a month ago and I was just talking to my friend who lives there and she was just like, they put these like infomercials on to encourage people, like sex is important, [00:46:00] but they don't do the education piece with it, right?
Or they don't do the normalizing. of it within other social spheres. And so you still have this conservative purity based culture that's in most parts, right? And like how you shop in like social spaces, uh, friend gathering, family gathering. And then you have these PSAs running saying, please go have sex.
It's your duty.
Varuna (02:45):
I mean, yeah, it's, there's a lot of countries again, see sex as something that's like procreative and not recreational, which,
Steven (02:46):
yeah. How do we move away from that?
Varuna (02:47):
You know, a lot of it is, like, sex education, which is where I got a lot of my community built around, is Really emphasizing the need for safe spaces where you can just have a conversation about sex.
What most people don't realize is they think sex education is, Oh, you're teaching my kid to have sex and you're teaching my, you're telling them to be gay. And it's like, no, they are [00:47:00] going to try to have sex and they are going to like eventually like explore their sexuality. I think what sex education does is it provides a safe space to do that.
It's kind of like harm reduction where. Uh, we help you prevent STIs and pregnancy and explore what is natural and human to you in a really like supportive way. And I'm a big proponent of that. I feel, you know, thinking about it, thinking about my future as a mother and thinking about the kids that I want to have, like, it's, it's uncomfortable.
And many parents don't want to talk about that, but you need to be able to teach your child. everything that they need to know about their bodies, right? Like what is an appropriate touch? What's an inappropriate touch? But also the fact that a lot of people don't realize that sexual oppression starts so early and even like gender roles start really early, right?
And that being like, even educating yourself as an adult now is understanding that, Oh, when I was growing up, my [00:48:00] dad painted my room pink and he only asked me to wear dresses. And so there was no sort of like rule for diverse experiences. in what my gender could be. And so a lot of it is that like, it isn't just like sex education in school.
It's also creating spaces at home where your child can feel comfortable dancing the way they want to, wearing what they want to, playing with the toys they want to, choosing that life for themselves. Right. I think a lot of it has unfortunately been misconstrued right now. And you know, I don't know what's going to happen with the new presidency.
It's probably going to get a lot worse where there's going to be a lot of attacks on queer and trans kids. But, You know, I think that we as community members should come together and, and a lot of it is creating those safe spaces for, for ourselves to be seen. Because I feel like that's what I got, you know, when I moved here from India, At like 27, I came out and I kept thinking that was so late, but it really took like a couple of [00:49:00] queer friends who just created that space for me to feel, to sit with that, you know, to sit with those feelings, to sit with the idea that, you know, I came with this idea that, oh, I can only be, I can't be bisexual because I'm married to a man, or I am definitely a girl, or like my pronouns are definitely she, her.
But like really thinking about that safe exploration, I think is what everybody deserves.
Steven (02:55):
Yeah. Two things come up for me, one, I think recognizing the privilege that we have to even talk about this. I think sometimes we forget that there are places in the world where this is not even only stigmatized, but criminalized, right?
Varuna (02:56):
Yeah.
Steven (02:57):
And so sometimes. In sitting with gratitude, I find that I want to actively do more work towards creating space and talking about it because you also, you know, with, uh, [00:50:00] with what's coming up in just our politics, who knows what's going to happen, right? Um, and then the other part is There's this adage, I, I learned a while back where, uh, they talk about there is really no parts of this world that's un gendered, right.
Where gender roles do not truly exist.
Varuna (02:59):
Yeah.
Steven (03:00):
And so their point being we have to actively create spaces against what is norm, what is normalized. And so while it might look like, well, gender's not a thing, I don't see gender and I'm not gonna talk about or do anything about it that we actually have to actively create ungendered spaces, or we had to actively create unstigmatized spaces for sexual identities. Otherwise, normal is actually uplifting what exists in society around us and is typically gendered, is hyper sexualized in a very [00:51:00] heteronormative fashion, right? And is also racialized, uplifting white identities and experiences, right?
Varuna (03:01):
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, all of that. And I love what you said that we have to actively create ungendered experiences. And that's what a lot of people don't realize is that there is like this middle ground where, you know, right off the bat, I mean, even with kids or with anybody else is like, even with yourself is like, Don't take it to either extreme, it's just like, create a space that, you know, where you kind of set the rules.
Like it can be what you want it to be, as long as that affirms who you are.
Steven (03:03):
Yeah, yeah. And as a part of just like your vision for the future and where you hope we go, what does that look like for you?
Varuna (03:04):
So a lot of what I envision for the future, and you know, based on how things have been going so far, I think a lot of us need a big break.
[00:52:00] It's just that I'm literally thinking, I think that we have been in a collective trauma response since the pandemic. And a lot of us just need time to process and to heal. And I feel like, especially for me, I, a lot of what I'm thinking about is how much I want to realize much more on my community. And I think a lot of like, you know, moving forward, I hope people are able to do that.
You know, we are all kind of like collectively struggling to exist in, you know, this trauma after trauma after trauma happening. And I think 2024 has kind of highlighted the need for us to break out of what was, and you know, one dimensional ways of living and approaching solutions, approaching problems and you know, coming up with solutions to them.
But I hope that moving forward, a lot of us are able to rely on community. Are able to reach out and be vulnerable. I feel [00:53:00] even for me, I tell myself that so much that. I am very obsessed with the queer experience, you know, finding chosen family, relying on community care, relying on, you know, creating your own support systems.
I feel like a lot of us could learn from that, you know, in the general public. I've noticed how individualistic the U. S. is and in going back to India, I find myself deeply craving that community and struggling to kind of establish that. And it, it might feel difficult to kind of embrace that, but I feel like in embracing a lot of my Indianness or embracing my queerness, I feel like it makes me feel more vulnerable in a society that makes you feel like being individualistic and being alone and figuring out yourself as a strength. That's not a strength. That's, that's a cry for help, you know? And so I hope that we are able to be more vulnerable with each other and seek out help and accept help. [00:54:00] Because I know that's hard too.
Steven (03:09):
I feel that.
Varuna (03:10):
So that's, that's really truly what I wish for, for everybody.
Steven (03:11):
Oh, I feel that. I feel that.
Varuna (03:12):
Right.
Steven (03:13):
Especially in our Asian communities. I feel like asking and receiving and being open to help.
Varuna (03:14):
It's hard.
Steven (03:15):
That's a tough one.
Varuna (03:16):
It's a tough one. Yeah. A lot of us don't feel ready for that yet. Or we, we see it as a sign of a weakness, you know.
We see like asking for, for help, asking for money, asking for support. And I feel like that's kind of my, my new agenda for the next 10 years is asking and giving, you know, and it's opening up your heart. And also like, aside from that is also like resting. I feel like the resting is, it's just become such a big part of my, my life now.
Centering rest, centering relaxation, leisure and pleasure, which doesn't always [00:55:00] feel accessible to us, right? Because our bodies, again, are highly politicized and it's a very difficult experience. So, that's also another thing that I hope that we can center.
Steven (03:19):
Yeah, I was, uh, it was like a quote or it was like a one of those Reels with just like text on it and a video background, but it was talking about how animals know the beauty of pleasure and it's not in this selfish way, right, where it's like, I want all the money, but it's joys, the pleasures, enjoying life, enjoying rest.
And if this is so programmed as a part of nature, as a part of our pets, our creatures all around us. Why is it not so important for us to make sure we center that too?
Varuna (03:21):
Yeah, you know, like flowers and trees and as well, they all have seasons. And
Steven (03:22):
yeah,
Varuna (03:23):
I hope for a lot of us that we can [00:56:00] realize that we have seasons too.
I mean, it's hard because you're like in this high output culture where you're like, I have to keep producing. I have to keep producing. And one of the things I've learned to embrace this year. Which, sad to say that only came as a result of my, my autoimmune disease was realizing that I need to cut back on a lot of things.
It's also actually realizing that other people ideas and thoughts of me are A, not my business, but also that I deserve to like, rest and not create right now. And it's okay if people forget about me for some time. Like. I can go out of the public eye and I can rest and I can move as slow as I want to. I think that one has been a really hard one for me, you know, and that I can actually, like when I was kind of going through some, a tough time, I created this group chat and I wrote Varuna Support Group and I added my cousins and my friends and my husband to it.
And I said, [00:57:00] I need you to send me memes and I need support. You know, like, it just, it had to happen because sometimes there are periods where it's just not your season, you know, to shine and that's okay.
Steven (03:27):
I love that. I'm definitely gonna be inspired by that analogy. It is a season of rest. Go home.
Varuna (03:28):
It's a season of rest, yeah.
No one disturb me right now. I'm busy. I'm busy resting.
Steven (03:30):
Yeah. So we're nearing the end of our episode and I have a few questions for you. Uh, one, what's inspiring you lately?
Varuna (03:31):
I, a lot of global instrumental music. The other day I just sat down and I listened to music without looking at anything. I just sat down and I listened to it.
So I found that to be really like inspiring to me. I also [00:58:00] really like people watching. I feel like being in spaces where I can watch people kind of living. And I think New York is such an excellent place for this where
Steven (03:33):
Oh, it's amazing.
Varuna (03:34):
It's amazing. You know, like, I always watch those Instagram videos that says romanticize your life and I never understood it.
I was just walking down the street in Bed Stuy, after I watched a movie with my friend, and I felt like I was in a rom com because I was just like walking, it was misting.
Steven (03:36):
So Carrie Bradshaw.
Varuna (03:37):
I was so Carrie Bradshaw and I was just like, wow, life is amazing. And so like, I'm learning to be more present. So I definitely think like taking in my surroundings and walking more and not listening to music or doing anything else.
I think that's definitely bringing me a lot of joy and inspiration.
Steven (03:39):
I love that. What is something you want our listeners to take away with?
Varuna (03:40):
I think there are a couple of [00:59:00] things that I'd like them to take away. I think one is to center yourself and rethink your models of care going into 2025. Who is supporting you?
Are your current routines serving you? Are your providers the ones that you are helping you get to where you need to get to? I hope you can find advocates in your lives, even if it's not through Fluid Health, either through yourself or through someone else. And also to just support Fluid Health if you know someone that is going through pelvic pain or sexual pain that can be connected with specialized care, you can email me, I will have Steven sort of share my email address with everybody. Uh, hopefully it'll be there in the caption or more so on the description of the podcast. Yeah, I love that. Also just to say hi, I think that I [01:00:00] really like connecting with people and hearing stories. If there's any part of this episode that spoke to you, I'd love to, I'd love to hear about it.
Steven (03:42):
Yes, will do. And how can people best find you and follow your work?
Varuna (03:43):
That is, that is the most important information. Uh, yeah. So in addition to my email address, which Steven will add to the podcast description, you can find me on Instagram at d r v a r u n a s r i n i v a s a n. That's at Dr. Varuna Srinivasan.
And I don't have like a live website right now because I'm still working on it, or you can go to MyFluidHealth. com.
Steven (03:45):
Awesome. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode, you can also give us your thoughts in a reading and review. We're so blessed to have amazing folks come onto this podcast to talk about beautiful topics, especially in [01:01:00] this instance around pelvic health and the importance of communal care. And then also you can follow us on social at yellowglitterpd on socials everywhere. And feel free to visit our website at yellowglitterpodcast. com to view the full show notes, the transcript, and to give us any of your additional thoughts. We're here for it. And then we're just really appreciative for you for showing up today and for sharing a little bit about your story, your life, and, uh, all your little Carrie Bradshaw moments.
Varuna (03:46):
Well, thank you so much for having me. This was amazing.
Steven (03:47):
Awesome. And with that, listeners, hope you took a lot from our episode. And we hope your day can be a bit more mindful, a bit more communal, and center yourself as a part of your day. We'll talk to you later. Bye [01:02:00] now.
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