"Tabu" and "Tabú" are the Portuguese and Spanish word for "taboo." By doubling up on a word that signals prohibition, we wanted to remind people (ourselves included!) that words and concepts carry only the meaning we give them. If we choose to make a topic less heavy or less forbidden, we can.Why Portuguese and Spanish? Our work began in Latin America. There we saw first-hand how silence around sex and sexuality, and the lack of sexuality education that comes with it, shapes people's lives. Read the full story on our About page.

No! Some taboos are positive and can, for the most part*, even protect people. For example, cannibalism, which is the act of eating the flesh of one’s own species (i.e. eating human flesh), is regarded as a taboo in most cultures. Upholding this taboo keeps people safe, as it labels this act as negative, and so people are less likely to even consider it. Having said that, *the fact that cannibalism is a taboo can make people who do practice it do so in secret, which can make it more dangerous. Some taboos are even upheld by law, as is the case with pedophilia, which is the practice of or interest in sexual activity involving minors. To our knowledge, pedophilia is illegal in all countries. (Note, however, that all countries define their own age of consent, and as such, the age that differentiates a child from an adult in terms of sexual activity. This means that in legal terms, pedophilia is defined by each country individually.) Most people would agree that it is not acceptable to engage in sexual activity with children, and there are laws to enforce this boundary. People who live in the same society, or share the same culture, do not always agree on what is taboo. This is because every person has their own lenses through which they see the world - their age, their race, their gender identity, the sex they were assigned at birth, their level of education, their economic and social status, etc. all shape their experiences and their opinions. People’s perspectives are entirely unique, and it is normal to not to always agree on what is right and wrong... so long as we continue to respect each other. At TabuTabu, we tackle the taboos we consider negative. We highlight here that “we” is the collective we: our team explores the taboos that cause self-judgment, shame, isolation and even violence in the communities that we work in, with the communities that we work with. That includes you, as part of our international community! Together, we pin-point which taboos are harming us and people in our communities: If upholding them does more harm than good to all people, they need to be dismantled. And then we get to work.

By definition, taboos are upheld by silence. As such, if you want to address a particularly unhealthy taboo in your circles, you can do so by breaking the silence and start conversations rather than avoid them. In our experience, often the hardest part to dismantling a taboo is the very beginning: initiating the first conversation can be really challenging, because it involves standing up to years, and often generations of silence, shame... and ultimately, fear. But in our experience it can also be very liberating to break that silence, and it can be less lonely than one might expect. This is why much of our work is focused on providing tools for people to TabuTabu - to start conversations about the topics that have been so unhealthily silenced for so long. Conversations can be had amongst two or more people, and they can also be had internally, with oneself. Our products aim to shift people’s perspectives: they can serve as reminders and reflection prompts for oneself or for others. They don’t necessarily require people to begin by talking to each other, although ultimately, that is what we are working towards: normalizing healthy conversations about sex and sexuality.