Let's talk about SEX, ladies... Meet the 'embarrassing' mum on a one-woman ... trends now
Fans of Laura Dowling – aka the Fabulous Pharmacist – will know this is a woman who doesn't shy away from difficult topics.
The 44-year-old mother-of-three is on a one-woman mission to destigmatise health issues, especially women-centric ones.
As such, Laura, a pharmacist, scientist and founder of supplement brand Fabu Wellness, has shed light in a fun, non-judgemental way on issues that would make many healthcare professionals blush.
Sharing having a pelvic scan to 100,000-plus followers? Tick. A video tutorial on how to correctly complete an at-home STD test? Been there, done that.
In fact, there's not much Laura won't do to draw attention to things we need to talk about.
Laura Dowling, pictured right, has skiied backwards down an icy mountain in a Wonder Woman bikini (and made snow angels in a custom-made sequin vulva dress) to highlight the next big date for her hugely popular women's health evening Viva La Vulva — which has already had sold out dates in Ireland and is looking set to fill Dublin's NCH on May 5. Her sister Rachel Mulvany is pictured wearing the vulva dress
She's skiied backwards down an icy mountain in a Wonder Woman bikini (and made snow angels in a custom-made sequin vulva dress) to highlight the next big date for her hugely popular women's health evening Viva La Vulva — which has already had sold out dates in Ireland and is looking set to fill Dublin's NCH on May 5.
But even her very supportive husband, chartered accountant Frank, with whom she has three sons, couldn't quite believe his eyes when she produced the aforementioned clothing on a recent family ski trip.
'He's well used to me and he was like "what are you doing now?" laughs Laura, adding that her sons are also a little mortified of their mother's frankness and madcap antics.
'The poor fellas are embarrassed enough as it is with my talking about vulvas and vaginas all day,' she laughs, adding that there's a lot of testosterone in her house (incuding her dog Carlos).
'The eldest one said to me recently: "I can't believe you went down a ski slope in your bikini, you're so embarrassing".'
Laura, from Dublin, explains how she brought husband Frank back to his ancestral home of Kerry with the Viva La Vulva tour in January.
The pharmacist, scientist and founder of supplement brand Fabu Wellness, has shed light in a fun, non-judgmental way on issues that would make many healthcare professionals blush
'I don't think he quite knew that was going to happen,' she says of her show, which was in danger of being too provocative for the community (local media refused to speak to Laura about it). The women of Tralee, however, had other ideas – it was a sellout.
'The women just absolutely loved it, it was insane,' she recalls of its success.
'Galway and Cork were the same, and I got to speak a little bit more about it in local media there,' she says on the stigma that still exists when it comes to women's intimate health.
But this is the whole reason that Laura started this campaign on shedding light and destigmatising women's health concerns.
Obviously, it's not going to be like any healthcare evening you've experienced before, complete with a dancing vulva and confession boxes — not that we'd expect anything less from Laura, who manages to combine education and openness with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek entertainment.
'I didn't just want to just call it menopause as there's lots of shows like that and that sounds boring and old,' she says, explaining how 20 years of being a community pharmacist helped her recognise a need for open and frank conversations.
'So I got some interesting people together like comedian Kyla Cobbler, women's pelvic health expert Aoife Harvey, sex educator Grace Alice O'Shea; the Skin Nerd Jennifer Rock, and we have a panel discussion where we answer questions that are written by women in confession boxes during the show,' she says. 'And honestly, women stand up and cry and say: 'I can't believe I've been living with this for so long.'
'I saw that women couldn't talk about their vaginal and intimate health,' she continues.
Mrs Dowling says 20 years of being a community pharmacist helped her recognise a need for open and frank conversations
'They were coming to me after years of suffering, not wanting to go to the doctor, too embarrassed to even say the word vagina. So when I was doing corporate talks, I started to tentatively talk about orgasms and sexual dysfunction and I could hear a pin drop.
'And I spoke about incontinence, and then afterwards women would be coming up to me in droves talking about the fact they had been leaking for years and were too embarrassed to get treated, or struggling with recurrent thrush infections which weren't actually infections, they just needed a little vaginal oestrogen, that kind of thing.'
So many stories are shared on these nights, says Laura, from the 'angry' young woman who plummeted into menopause in her 30s after having cancer and wasn't offered HRT, to women who were sexually abused as young girls and were 'totally disassociated' from their bodies, resulting in them not ever even having a smear for reasons of shame.
'The night gave
