Interestingly both words include the physical and non-physical aspects within their definitions and this is particularly important to note because many people mix up the terms sex and sexual often, using them interchangeably when the definition of the word “sex” only includes the physical act of it whilst the word sexual is both the physical and non-physical aspects!

So now comes Edwin’s definition of sexual wellbeing:

Sexual Wellbeing = The physical, emotional and mental states of health related to sex.

This is just my own interpretation of what it means and if you have any comments or questions feel free to leave a message and I will try my best to answer you!

Now that I have defined what sexual wellbeing is you can really see how this relates to what we are trying to achieve here at Fk. and LUUNA. Both of our organisations are geared towards how we can help people be healthier and happier with themselves – physically and mentally!

You may be now asking yourself “Why sexual wellness and not just wellness overall?” and our answer to that is because wellness as a whole is such a broad topic (it’s huge!) we would prefer to be specific in our quest for knowledge and sharing. “Why sexual then?” and our answer to that is because sex is such a primal instinct of ours and sexual identity is a core part of self-identity we wanted to tackle these things first because it will form the foundations of self, identity and in turn happiness.

Now that we understand the why we are doing what we do, let’s have a look at the biggest problem I can see with tackling sexual health problems. If we reflect back on ourselves and our own journey of understanding all things related to sex it is clear to see that there is a lack of open education regarding the act itself – most of the time these topics are superficially talked about in classrooms. With this lack of education it leads to a lack of understanding as to what is needed for even the minimum requirements of physical sexual health. If society can’t even appreciate the physical aspects of sexual health, the mental and emotional sides of sexual health will be severely neglected because if there is no healthy body there will not reside a healthy mind.

Now this issue will compound itself because being unable to find this knowledge openly we look for this kind of understanding and knowledge from informal channels which often lead to learning from unreliable and unsafe sources such as cultural norms, hearsay and old wives tales. It’s no wonder everyone has a different understanding and the messages are all so confusing.

So how do we tackle this issue? You’re likely thinking “hey let’s get everyone educated!” which I agree on however the main problem is how do we do that? Because getting sexual wellness into a formal educational curriculum is extremely difficult and contentious to any conservative societies such as Asia. And even in western societies where they have adopted some form of sexual wellness education into their curriculum, we have seen that it does not deal with this topic in enough detail that will be of any practical use. You can also argue that maybe that learning it in a place like a school isn’t the right place to be doing so because every person’s journey is at their own pace and a very private experience. Growing up whenever we have been curious about anything sex related, we have had to deal with some kind of internal guilt, shame and embarrassment – so what would the solution to this be? A solution that is both private and open, something that is easily accessible and discreet. Luckily for us in the 21st century we have the internet! What we need would be a safe (predator free) high profile place on the internet where people can find the information they need and be able to chat to others about their curious questions. Places like this already exist but are not well known enough for everyone to find easily, so the best way to go about this is for us all to find a good sexual wellness resource and share and promote it the best we can together to each other! This is really important if we want to all be healthier and happier together.

So to answer your final question “What does this all mean?” It means if you are able to discover what it takes for you to be physically, emotionally and mentally healthy – you will be able to look after yourself better and find out who you really are deep down inside.