Breaking Down Gender Stereotypes
An interview with Citra Benazir
Meet Citra Benzair, founder of Pleasure Girls and Tis The Lyfe, and activist for women’s rights, pleasure, education and literacy. Citra is also a facilitator at the My Sex Bio Studio!
MSB: I’d love for you to introduce yourself to our readers if you could. And say a bit about the projects you’re working on; Tis the Lyfe, Pleasure Girls, etc.
CB: I’m Citra Benazir, mostly known as my Instagram handle @thearticbenazir. I am 24 years old and am from Jakarta, Indonesia. My background is in diplomacy and international relations and I’m active in the world of activism. I started as an activist for women’s rights, education and literacy. Then as I slowly started to learn more about my body and being happy and confident in it, I started becoming a pleasure activist.
I have a book called Pleasure Girls, which is essentially a collection of short writings and poems about my life from 2013 to 2018. I consider that period the most challenging phase so far. In the book, I talk deeply about issues that aren’t considered mainstream or are likely to be avoided topics — especially in most Indonesian households, although, thankfully, I was brought up differently — such as bullying, depression, mental health, suicide, sexual violation and harassment. Currently, I am in the process of writing a few books, one of them being the continuation of the Pleasure Girls series, in which I will talk much more about my sexual experiences, what I have done, what it has taught me, and how it all transpired into helping young girls and women in my everyday life struggling with violent partners, sexual empowerment and overall taking back power and control over their body and what pleases them.
I am also the founder of a new and tight-knit community of volunteers called “Tis The Lyfe,” which actually started as a protest of our concerns about a lack of safe spaces for volunteers. Volunteers, because they are not employees, are often the victims of injustice and dismissal.
I, myself, was sexually harassed by a volunteer coordinator during one of my duties. We serve all different volunteers, no matter age, race, belief, social background. We empower volunteers with not only soft skills they might need for their duties but also build confidence and overall goodness back in their hearts in that doing good is always great. We also advocate for volunteers’ rights to the larger public.
MSB: It seems like you’ve got a lot going on, not to mention all the work you’ve been doing with us here at My Sex Bio! What is your greatest motivator? What keeps you focused and persevering?
CB: I do! (Help!) People always ask me, “How are you not tired or burnt out?” to which I respond “I am.” I might not be the richest in wealth, so all I have is my time. I can never stand wasting time away. I have always wanted to do something with my time, maybe because I know that I could be triggered right back into not being alive so easily. I have always wanted to make sure everyone I met, everyone I interacted with, were all well taken care of.
Besides myself, my biggest motivator is my partner. I just want to acknowledge and confirm how much of an impact having someone, albeit just one person can have; a person who drives you, pushes you forward, lifts you up, and believes in you at all times even when you don’t believe in yourself. How it all matters. My parents also have a large impact on me is how I am today, raising me tough and differently than the usual girls in my society. It has tremendously affected how I am able to always keep pushing and stay in my hustle.
MSB: How do you take time to practice self-care? It seems that would be the key to juggling all that you do.
CB: With a busy schedule of helping others, it is so easy to lose yourself and forget about your own well-being. I am still struggling to do this. I do live with my partner, so he keeps me in check whenever I don’t take the time for myself. My kind of self-care at the moment is rest; I rarely sleep, but when I do I feel so much better and can give more productively in my work. I consider myself lucky that I have the power to say no to things I am not interested in doing or things I don’t want to do. This way, basically everything I do I do for myself. I know I love it, so self-care could also be a stance or principle.
MSB: Do you have your own sexual self-care / sexual wellness rituals? What do they look like?
CB: Masturbate. People have this stigma that couples should not be masturbating because they have each other to do the task, but girl! Let me tell you, the times I spend with my body are the golden hours of the week. With porn or without, with toys or without, simply my imagination can take over the work. I definitely don’t take those times for granted; I cherish those moments because you just feel really good afterward. People also might scrutinize my partner for being not “good enough” or whatever, but that’s not even it. He does the trick, or else I won’t be living with him. But what people don’t understand is that it’s simply completely different things, the arousal, and climax you have with yourself, who has been doing it longer, who knows your body so well. Everything is pure goodness, but it is different. I suggest everybody explore both pleasures with yourself and pleasure with others. My masturbating schedule fluctuates, but probably around three to four times a week.
MSB: How do you see gender bias and sexuality connecting?
CB: Unfortunately, I see it well being where I am. The gender bias and stereotypes in Indonesian culture and interpretation of our belief is so strong and twisted it construes sexuality in such a big way. Being happy and confident is not found in many women, being happy and confident is a luxury. It plays a huge role in schools, shaping our young generation with restrictions and social scrutiny that no one is able to express, explore and enjoy their identity.
MSB: In what ways do you think these biases have affected your own sexuality and sexual biography?
CB: Raised as an only child, grandchild and niece of my whole family, I would say I was raised in much more a stronger discipline. My father is a feminist. He raised me to be powerful and independent, so I would never need anything from anyone. In my household, there were no biases, no stereotypes. I was the football-playing, hip-hop loving daughter. Outside, in schools, I was a tortured, bullied, violated, non-girl who played football, listened to hip-hop, wore hoodies and Air Jordan sneakers, who beat up boys in running tournaments.
Biases came crashing into my and my identity starting from mid-middle school until I graduated from high school, which was exactly the time I got back to Indonesia after spending a childhood in Kyiv, Ukraine. I realized that I was doing the opposite of the girls in my class. How they dressed, how they behaved but also how they were spoken to, how they were approached, how they were dismissed. I didn’t want that. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t break down barriers or rise from the ashes that quickly; it actually broke me, blurred my identity, tormented my whole way of life and belief system. I was weak, I was stripped down.
In 2013, when I graduated high school, I decided to leave for college in the states by myself. I zoomed out and took a good view of myself and I didn’t like what I saw. So, I zoomed in within myself and started over, put back forth the lessons my dad taught me, all the positivity before biases and stereotypes were forced onto me.
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