Loving your body and understanding how to have a healthy and confident sex life is so important. Luckily, Australia has plenty of incredible women who are driving change in the sexual health industry, making new discoveries, and changing conversations about body image.
1). Bec Villanti, Samantha Eades, and Bec Park, Condom Entrepeneurs
A condom company founded by three Australian women from Melbourne, has developed vegan, toxic free condoms. The condoms are available via a subscription, meaning there’s no reason not to have one on you when you need it most (whoop!). And we love, love, love their tagline ‘It takes 3 to tango’. Read Broadsheet’s interview to find out more about how they’re shaking up the condom industry.
2). Victoria Cullen, co-creator of the world’s first sex toy design course
Victoria Cullen co-founded ‘Future Sex Design Studio’, the first ever sex-related problem solving design studio in a university setting. Based at RMIT University in Melbourne it included the world’s first sex toy design course. Alongside this, she completed a PhD on sexual rehab after cancer treatment and now works as a sexual recovery specialist. Basically, she’s a huge advocate for solving society’s sex-related hangups. Now that’s something we can get behind.
3). Helen O’Connell, Urologist
In 1998 Australia’s first ever female urologist Helen O’Connell discovered the true size and form of the clitoris. When she published her findings in the Journal of Urology in 1998, she was widely credited with restoring the clitoris to its rightful place on the body’s map. A well earned place in the history books.
4). Celeste Barber, comedian
This might seem a little left field, but hang with us a sec. More than 5 million people follow Celeste Barber on Instagram, where she recreates images from models and celebrities in her own unique way. Although the parody account never meant to be about body positivity – she just wanted to make people laugh – that’s exactly what it’s turned into. Through her hilarious images we see that the body images often shown in the media are unattainable and unrealistic. Fancy a laugh? Follow her on Instagram here.
5). Ailie Banks, femme artist
Aussie illustrator Ailie Banks, from the Blue Mountains near Sydney, uses her art to celebrate women in their many forms. Her art also inspires conversations about subjects such as consent, body image, and femininity. She was even commissioned in a recent advertising campaign Join the Queendom which aims to rewrite the rules that dictates how a woman ought to look and feel in her underwear.
Which Australian women do you think are changing the way we think about sex and body image for the better? Let us know on Facebook or Instagram.
