Know How Sangya Project Is Addressing Social Stigma & Cultural Taboos Surrounding Pleasure And Sexuality In India
We hope this can inspire you to become a successful entrepreneur too! Why is it important to hear the story of a successful entrepreneur?
Having the vision to become an entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story!
In that frame, We had the pleasure to interview Shweta Sangtani(CEO), Tanisha R.K.(CSV) & Aashish Mehrotra(COO) of Sangya Project.
1. Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Founded by a queer and poly family, Sangya Project aims to create destigmatised, trauma-informed and kink-affirmative education that continuously makes room for new stories and new perspectives.
Shweta Sangtani, CEO, Sangya Project, is a litigating lawyer. Having graduated in 2010, she’s been practicing at the Bombay High court. While studying, she worked at an HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness organization for 2 years. After having worked for over 10 years, and realising how sexual awareness is still largely taboo in this country, she decided to go back to doing what she did in college i.e. to provide tools to people to understand sexual health better, if only a little.
Tanisha R.K., CSV, Sangya Project is a budding wildlife conservationist turned social impact researcher, Tanisha is all too familiar with the importance of language and academic research in shaping social mindsets and narratives. As a queer and nonbinary survivor of violence with training in Comprehensive Sex Education, their aim is to document people’s lived experiences regularly, so that pop culture, academia, and policy may finally be more reflective of real life expressions of sex and sexuality.
Aashish Mehrotra, COO, Sangya Project, is a writer, producer, director & Erotic artist with 15 years of experience in multi-media. Having struggled with his sexuality as a bisexual man, Aashish dreamt of an India where literature & tools for discovering one’s sexuality would be more accessible. He hopes to achieve that dream through Sangya Project.
2. Please tell us something about Sangya Project. How it started and how it’s going.
Sangya began as a sex education page on Instagram during the peak of covid in the year 2020. The idea was to impart sex education to adults who can then pass it on to their children in a manner they think is informed, safe, and constructive within their own cultural contexts. We began receiving requests for guest writers soon after we started the page and it became amply clear that India in its current environment was ready to have these conversations around sex, sexuality and pleasure.
While we wished to monetise the brand that was beginning to take shape, we did not wish to put a paywall on the content and the writing as that was educational and community-driven in nature. Instead, we decided to sell pleasure products in order to provide our customers with resources that would then help them in exploring their sexuality, and proceeded to incorporate Sangya as a company selling pleasure products in the year 2021.
3. Pleasure products can be expensive. How are you making them accessible and affordable for diverse Indian audiences?
Since its very inception the idea of Sangya has been to keep it accessible to the people. Pleasure products have historically been viewed as high-end luxury products that not everyone can afford. Sangya wished to change this narrative and make its products affordable to the masses. From massagers to kink-wear, we provide a range of products at varied price points with non vibrating massagers starting at INR 1,400 and the kink-wear starting at INR 999. By being the only manufacturer of massagers in India, Sangya is able to keep the costs relatively low and accessible to the people.
4. How do you address social stigma and navigate cultural taboos surrounding pleasure and sexuality in India?
Sangya, since its inception it has been at the forefront of normalising conversations around pleasure thereby doing its part in reducing the shame attached to the subject while also leading by way of manufacturing in India. India has never been more ready to accept sexuality as a part of wellness. As conversations around the subject continue to grow, we anticipate that soon it will be seen as a regular part of the wellness industry. Intimate massagers are already now being sold on not only websites such as Amazon and Snapdeal but also on door to door grocery delivery apps.
5. What are the major regulatory challenges you face in this emerging market? How are you working to overcome them?
There is a lot of apprehension still around this industry that doesn’t exist for other industries. Since its still at a very nascent stage there isn’t much precedent that exists. We are setting that precedent as we go along. Banks and payment gateways still shy away from providing their services to those in this industry. This was one of the biggest issues Sangya had to deal with when it first began. Our account with the payment gateway was revoked even after the KYC was approved. Meta and google make it impossible to advertise these products in the traditional manner. A lot of the vendors shy away from working along side us once they understand the industry we’re working in. but having said that, all these issues are changing very rapidly. While the apprehension continues to exist, the change in the attitude is extremely prominent when compared to what the situation was 2 years ago at the time of Sangya’s inception.
6. How are you creating a safe and inclusive community around your brand for open dialogue and support?
We believe that the very basic language being used to explore anatomy, consent, safety, relationships, changing sexual desires through age, etc. is in dire need of a complete overhaul. The privileged few have defined the bodies and needs of the masses, and this may seem harmless at first but has long-term ripple effects on the way we discuss bodies in healthcare or the way we define the rights of those bodies within a courtroom. We need a language around sex that first recognises and encompasses the diversity of sex and pleasure among trans lives, disabled lives, survivors of trauma and more– one that allows us all to begin navigating sexuality on equal footing, without marginalising or neglecting the experiences of some identities.
As we continue to build these resources with the community and bring more lived experiences to the limelight, we also aim to work with artists, filmmakers, healthcare practitioners, activists and policymakers to push for changes in the way Sex Ed and the strategies around it currently exist. We have also begun The Repleasure Project, an initiative where people can send us their defunct intimate toys from any brand, and we ethically recycle or dispose of them. This allowed people to not only dispose of their private waste discreetly, but also gave them an opportunity to see just how common it was for pleasure products to exist around them. It was fascinating and liberating to see Indians with toys from all over the world, from different eras of the Sex Tech industry.
7. What are your long-term plans for sustainable growth and expansion in the Indian market?
After manufacturing India’s first intimate massager, Sangya plans to continue to add to its made in india catalogue. While the R&D for the next massager to be manufactured is currently ongoing, we intend to roll out a Dildo with a suction base in the next few months as there has been a consistent demand for it from our customers.
8. What are your strengths?
Our strength is our ability to manufacture here in India and the content we create around sexual wellness. This has enabled us to build a community of people that not only trust us with their purchases but also proactively open dialogues around sex and sexuality thereby helping us break more barriers.
9. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
Soon after Sangya began, we were clear that we wished to manufacture here in India. In that year we were proud of manufacturing country’s first locally made non-vibrating massager. This year we took it to the next level and manufactured our very first Indian made vibrating massager.
10. What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Like all things worth pursuing, this is a game of perseverance. More so than any other industry, given the pre-conceived notions and the taboo that someone starting out must face. There will be people shying away from conversations around sex and sexuality but as long as you are clear in your belief that this must still be done, the question simply becomes that of grit.
