The Sabah-born speaker and sex positivity advocate realised the need for a safe space to share stories and have meaningful discussions about sexual health and relationships in Malaysia
Growing up, Jasmine King heard numerous stories of teen pregnancies in her hometown in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. At that point, any conversations about sexual relationships were limited to school classes on reproductive health or dark warnings from adults about the dangers of not staying 'pure'.
“I remember having a lot of questions about sex, about my body or about relationships,” she says. “I would ask my mum or my teachers who would typically respond with ‘Don’t talk about these things’ or ‘You shouldn’t be in a relationship’. I just couldn’t understand why it was such a taboo topic, especially when, if you turned on the TV—MTV, for instance—you’d see all these over-sexualised images. But when we talk about sex in person, people tended to be very tight-lipped.”
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Turning to the internet for more information, Jasmine stumbled upon resources and videos by prominent sex educators from the US and the UK. “While I learnt so much from these educators on YouTube, I realised they were all Westerners and it wasn’t easy to find someone who could break down these conversations and issues from an Asian cultural standpoint,” she adds.
Now based in Kuala Lumpur, Jasmine runs a platform called Jas Explains on Instagram, a space for Malaysian adults to share their stories and have open conversations about under-discussed topics that include consent, sexual boundaries, safety and more. The community grew and even evolved to outside of the digital sphere through talks, panel discussions and other in-person events.
“I wanted Jas Explains to be a community platform, not just about sexual empowerment but also about awareness and balancing our cultural identities as Southeast Asians and our most basic need of sexuality and pleasure,” says Jasmine. “Ultimately, it was about gaining a better understanding of all of this while staying true to our cultural identity.”
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Tatler chats with Jasmine about the common misconceptions she hears about sex positivity and the value of listening to a different perspective in controversial conversations.
