How does a South Delhi girl, who’s spent nearly three decades of her 32 years living within a 15-km radius, and whose homemaker mother and businessman father had all the usual expectations from her, get into the women-focused sex toys business? Luckily, for consumers of That Sassy Thing, in one word, patriarchy, and her lived experience of it.
In a country where misinformation and ignorance thrive in the bedroom, usually at the cost of female pleasure, the nearly three-year-old sex-ed first, intimate wellness brand that Sachee Malhotra co-founded with her husband Himanshu, whom she met in Gurgaon on the outskirts of her contained life, is a frontrunner among a handful of companies and individuals creating a body of free, accessible online sex education. According to a 2023 survey by Allo Health, 66% of Indians rely on social media platforms to learn about sex, sexual health and pleasure.
Malhotra’s company tied up with sex educators and trauma-informed sex therapists to provide reliable, useful information to women and built its community with plain speak: shame is lame, porn isn’t real sex, and flavoured products can give you a yeast infection.
