Touch yourself with Bäcka! : Exploring the stigma of the pelvic floor

Sammanfattning: This paper explores the pelvic floor and the social stigmas around it, which risks hindering knowledge about intimate health in our society. Working from an autobiographical soma design process, expanded by using both a male and a female participant, relevant experiential qualities were identified and built upon in order create a speculative design prototype. This resulted in Bäcka, an interactive experience that aids self-exploration of the pelvic floor through intimate touch, mediated by an interactive garment and interconnected soundscape. By doing this it aims to prompt discussion about the pelvic floor between participants, playing with the boundaries of normative dichotomies that reinforces a rigidity around this stigma. Thus highlighting these boundaries and subsequently providing an opportunity for participants to question them. With this speculative method, the creation of Bäcka touches on questions for which there are no clear answers, but which tells a story of how we can work to question such social stigmas in intimate health.