Young Nicole Lim is pushing the lines of the forbidden in Singapore by talking about masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases or cancer on increasingly popular podcasts.
His podcast series, titled “Something Private” (“Something Private”), responds to a need to speak more openly about health and sexual practices in the City-State and neighboring countries of Southeast Asia.
Lim proposes interviews on issues ranging from domestic violence to the love life of disabled girls or group sex.
Tens of thousands of people have downloaded their podcasts mostly in Singapore, but also in Indonesia and Malaysia where the traditional press is quite puritanical.
“I was looking for honest information on sexual health and well-being, but when you read the women’s magazines that exist in this part of the world, you talk a lot about the way of life,” this 24-year-old woman explained to AFP.
“Where is the press where you can find frank conversations or bolder topics?”
Schools in Singapore teach sex education within the official curriculum, but this has been criticized for its traditional approach that promotes abstinence before marriage.
Nicole Lim decided to launch her podcast last year after a discussion about sexual health with a friend suffering from herpes when she realized she didn’t know much about her own body.
“It is shocking. I am in my twenties and I did not know anything about this sexually transmitted disease that I could have caught too,” he said.
When he finished university he started doing the podcast and now he is devoted full time.
– A liberation –
With episodes of 30 to 40 minutes, his podcast has addressed a range of very diverse issues.
Recently, she recorded an interview with Noorindah Iskandar, a writer who lost her mother to breast cancer.
The mother of the writer, a devout Muslim woman, hid her illness for a long time out of shame, out of fear of doctors and not to upset her family. He tried to heal himself with holy water and was only diagnosed with cancer four days before his death.
During this episode, he gave advice to women on how to detect a possible tumor.
For Noorindah Iskandar, these podcasts are of vital importance in “developing knowledge on issues that are often hidden under the rug in Singapore”.
“If we open the conversation to these taboo issues, women feel less alone and understand that this is not something shameful.”
In one of her most popular podcasts, Nicole Lim recounts her masturbation experiences that have impacted her audience and her friends.
“When I was able to speak openly about my sexual experiences, I was liberated: it was an emancipation,” he said.
Compared to Westerners, “we are much more reserved about sex. We don’t talk about it,” he said.
In another episode, he interviews a gynecologist who answers frequently asked questions about sexually transmitted diseases and a woman who has genital warts.
– Traditional values -
This conversation shows the contradictions of Singapore, an ultra-modern island in many ways, but whose society has preserved traditional values.
“We are a very progressive nation, but there is also this conservative Asian side that we try to reconcile,” he said.
The young woman hopes her broadcast will give women confidence in a society that remains deeply patriarchal.
“It is seen every day, as in the jokes that are heard,” he says before specifying that sexism is a serious problem.
The light sentences with which the justice sentenced this year Singaporean students who had attacked and harassed women generated a wave of protests and showed unrest in society.
Nicole Lim hopes that she can enlighten women on these issues, such as breast cancer, that they are often hesitant to ask about.
“If fear or shame continue to surround these issues that are rarely discussed or are considered taboo, what do we do if one day they affect us?”
cla / sr / rbu / lgo / roc / af / mis
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