Press Release   January 2015
Sh!, London’s pioneering sex shop announces, in partnership with My Body Back Project, a new monthly support group for female survivors of rape and sexual assault. “We Won’t Be Shushed!” aims to help women reclaim their pleasurable sexuality.
The group, led by the attendees themselves, will discuss issues such as flashbacks or triggers during sex, orgasm, masturbation and alternatives to penetration. The focus is to help survivors make sex about them again, even after sex has been about violence.
This is first support group of its kind in the UK and the first session will take place at Sh! 57 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB on Saturday 14^th March 2015 at 10.30am. Survivors of all ages (18+), backgrounds and sexual orientations are welcomed.
The My Body Back Project was created in April 2014 by Pavan Amara. A rape survivor herself, she was given a lot of help with emotional recovery but none to help her with the new relationship she had to build with her body and sex. Pavan decided to do something about it. She set up her website (www.mybodyback-survivors.blogspot.co.uk) and invited women to anonymously share their feelings and experience of sex and their bodies, post sexual violence. Within a month, Pavan had received almost 100 responses. Many shared the same stories, yet most felt alone and unique. With 1 in 5 women experiencing some form of sexual violence, (Government Stats Jan ’13) it’s essential that women are given more help in their recovery of the corporeal effects of rape.
For Pavan, a visit to Sh! was an important step on the road to her own recovery. ‘When I found Sh! it felt like a safe place to explore sex again.It is the fact that is female focused that makes it so special for any woman, but especially women who have experienced any sexual violence’ – Pavan Amara
My Body Back Project, please visit the website:  www.mybodyback-survivors.blogspot.co.uk For press information, please contact Nina on nina@mediabitch.com or on 07956 841 359