The Love Factory Wants Mumbai To Have A More Honest Conversation About Sex & Pleasure

Sex, pleasure and sex work are still subjects that tend to get discussed through a fairly narrow set of assumptions, especially when the conversation is about people who sell sexual services. The Love Factory, a series of conversations, stories and workshops on intimacy, consent and connection, is bringing these subjects into the open with an afternoon dedicated to sex work and pleasure. Organised by Aili Seghetti's The Intimacy Curator in partnership with Apne Aap Women's Collective, the event will look at how sex workers experience pleasure, negotiate boundaries and understand enjoyment within their work. The Intimacy Curator works across dating, relationships and sexual wellbeing, offering coaching, workshops and community events that create space for conversations around desire, kink, non-monogamy and consent. Founded by Seghetti, who trained in the Somatica method of intimacy coaching and has worked with clients in India for years, the organisation also runs educational sessions on relationships, communication and sexual exploration.

The afternoon begins with a panel titled Whose Pleasure Counts?, featuring three speakers working across sexuality, psychology and women's rights. Tanisha Rao, a queer essayist, sexuality educator and Chief of Social Voice at Sangya Project, has spent years collecting and sharing Indian sex stories through the pleasure brand's educational work. Their book, You're Somebody's Kink: Notes on Pleasure, Play, and Intimacy, looks at how ideas of acceptable sex are shaped by shame, social expectations and cultural attitudes, drawing on conversations with couples and people from kink and BDSM communities. They'll be joined by Snigdha Sahal, a psychology-trained leadership coach and founder of AccelerateWise, whose work draws on more than two decades of experience across banking, development and leadership, and Abhilasha Rawat, CEO of Apne Aap Women's Collective, which works directly with women and girls in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai's red-light districts, alongside an anonymous dominatrix.

Founded in 1998, Apne Aap Women's Collective is an anti-trafficking organisation that has spent over 25 years supporting women and children in communities around Falkland Road, Kamathipura and Turbhe. Its Umeed programme works with adult women through healthcare, mental health support, education, financial independence and skill development, while Udaan focuses on education, healthcare and safe housing for girls aged 5 to 18. The organisation also runs support for younger children through its community initiatives. Having Rawat in this conversation brings the perspective of an organisation working closely with women in these communities, while the panel itself will examine the assumptions that often shape public conversations about sex work and the experiences of the people doing it.

There will also be readings from Aili's new book, Buying Love in India: Sugar Daddies, Intimacy and Relationships, which draws on real-life cases from her work as an intimacy and sex coach to explore dating, paid encounters, masculinity, emotional connection and changing ideas of relationships in India. The evening wraps up with a workshop titled How to Pleasure a Woman, covering arousal, anticipation, erogenous zones and the role of the five senses, alongside communication, trust and touch. The Love Factory takes place on November 15 at 3 Art House in Khar, Mumbai. It is part of a larger 23-city tour running from October 2026 to March 2027, taking The Love Factory across India for a series of panel discussions, readings and workshops in collaboration with mission-driven organisations working on intimacy, relationships and women's rights.

Follow THC here and Apne Aap Women's Collective here.

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