Ana Autoestima (Brazil)

Ana Autoestima

Ana Autoestima is the a pleasure-focused sexuality education messaging service for adult women in Brazil. The initiative was co-created with women from Favelinha, a favela (shantytown) community in the northern periphery of Rio de Janeiro, who believe that understanding and practicing one’s pleasure is key in developing self-esteem. It was tested in 2022 with support from The Pleasure Project, and in 2023 is being scaled to 3 more communities with support from DTK International through the Phil Harvey SRHR Innovation Award.

Context

Ana Autoestima’s objective is to include all people who identify as women, although she promotes her services in favela communities across Rio, so as to reach those women who are furthest removed from sources of comprehensive sexuality education.

Ana’s friends (service users) face multiple barriers to access both information and services, and often report being subjected to judgement and biased information if/when they seek out sexual health services.

Here is how Ana talks differently to them:

Program Summary

Ana Autoestima breaks the narratives of disease and unwanted pregnancy prevention by normalizing pleasure as a key motivator to consensual sexual encounters. She takes into consideration that her friends (service users) have varying levels of understanding of their bodies, their pleasure, and their sexual health. Ana therefore talks about:

Sexual and non-sexual pleasure, erogenous zones, desire vs. arousal
What bodies with vulvas can be like - anatomy and physiology
Masturbation as a means of self-discovery and self-pleasure
Orgasms - the changes bodies can go through during sexual activity to (maybe) reach different types of orgasms, and reframing orgasms from being the only goal to sex
The ins and outs of how sex works, and expanding the concept of sexual intercourse from penis-in-vagina sex to include non- and other penetrative encounters, activity between people of the same sex assigned at birth, etc.
Pleasure and contraceptives - how contraceptives can be sexy!
Pleasure in partnered sex, the importance of knowing what feels feels pleasurable so one can communicate about it, how to get to know one’s partner’s/partners’ body/bodies, and (sexy) consent.

Sample of Ana’s content on WhatsApp Status

“The sex-positive and pleasure-positive information Ana [shares] is not about how others feel about us, but about how we perceive ourselves, and how we feel about ourselves.”

Evelyn, Project Ideator & Service User

Impact Model

Laura Ramos Tomás

Project Ideator & Project Lead &

Content Creator (sexuality educator lens)

Learn more

Evelyn Nunes dos Santos

Project Ideator and Advisor & Pleasure Promoter

OUR

Our team is made of up amazing women that bring Ana Autoestima to life with a range of experiences and identities that aim to make her content instructive, relevant and inclusive of all of Ana’s (potential) friends.