00:00I find that we've never, at my age, I've never really talked about sexuality, I mean we mentioned
00:08it when I was at school, but all the developing years, no one's ever talked about how your
00:13body changes, how your needs change, how anything changes in your life and how you need to look
00:18after your own sexuality and your own body and your health and care for yourself in particular
00:24before you can start caring for other people.
00:26It empowers me to ask questions, it empowers me to look after my own body, it empowers me
00:33and I feel it should empower all women to know more knowledge about yourselves before you
00:38actually, as you develop, it really is important because I see growing, as you age, you're actually
00:43developing, it's actually a growth kind of thing, so empowerment is very important and
00:49that's actually one of the things I have learnt from this workshop, even for this morning,
00:53actually, there's a lot of things I've actually learnt already and we've only been going
00:58for a little while, but I think the biggest message is empowerment, that I have the right
01:02to be able to stand up for my own rights, to be able to go and ask questions if I'm
01:06concerned
01:07about myself and my health and actually what's happening in my relationships that might be
01:13a concern, actually going and seeking help from the right people and choosing the right
01:18people and sharing with other people as well, other adults, other women actually, and I don't
01:24think women get together to talk enough about sexuality and how things are changing in their life.
01:30Forums like this are so important, firstly because we know that the sex education out
01:35there that we're getting in high school is by no means adequate enough. The next thing we know is
01:40that our health practitioners, the majority of them, don't feel comfortable or feel like they have the
01:45education to provide good sexual health information to the patients. So it's so important that women
01:51are taught not only about their own body, anatomy and their hormones throughout life stages, but also
01:56how all of those things impact their sexuality. So one thing that I've learnt already today and one
02:02thing I want to impart onto women is that pelvic floor is so important. We know that two in three
02:09women
02:09are going to experience leaking at some point in their life and we're never taught how to activate our
02:13pelvic floor or what we can do to treat it. We're also never taught that the pelvic floor is the
02:18most
02:18important muscle when it comes to female pleasure. So know that there are treatments and options
02:23available. You should never be putting up with a pelvic floor that is weak. Just learning all different
02:29ways of... I think you get lost when you get a bit older with your sexuality and forget what it's
02:37all
02:37about really. It just becomes non-existent when you're in menopause and post-menopause. So I found, yeah,
02:44it's very important to still be up to date what's going on in the world. And Terri, tell me something
02:51interesting that you've learned today. Touching base on women's health and the nutrition side and how it does
02:59affect our hormones basically what we eat. And also trying to remember to put yourself first so that you
03:07can be there for other people. Well, I've realised I was born in Serbia and came to Australia when I
03:15was four.
03:16So culturally, sexuality wasn't talked about. It was a no-no. And I realised just recently I didn't know my
03:28own
03:28body parts in Serbian. And I can still speak Serbian. I've only ever heard female body parts
03:36expressed by men as swear words. And when I heard about this talk today, I thought this is an opportunity
03:46by health professionals to hear the real story about sexuality and my own body.
03:56I've been, I guess, a high achiever in my life. And if things weren't working, I often blamed myself
04:08and saw it as I was failing and not working hard enough. And today what I'm learning is that there
04:17are physical reasons why our bodies function the way they do for survival. And I don't have to keep
04:26blaming myself anymore and putting shame on myself for not being good enough.
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