Ep. 1 - Let's Talk About Sex

[00:11] Opening

Brian Howie: You ready to do this?

Dr. Bawa: I was born ready.

Brian Howie: Were you?

Dr. Bawa: Oh yes.

Brian Howie: Where were you born?

Dr. Bawa: New Delhi, India.

Brian Howie: I want to hear about that.

[00:19] Born in New Delhi — and Switched at Birth

Dr. Bawa: Well, I was born on a hot summer day in New Delhi, India, and my life, which I call the Bawa Shit Show, started as one. I was switched at birth. My grandmother had a nightmare about that. And everybody made fun of her until it happened.

Brian Howie: What switched at birth means is, like, somebody took the baby and gave it to the wrong parents?

Dr. Bawa: That is correct.

Brian Howie: Introduce yourself. I'm Brian. I'm the producer of the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast, and I came in here to help her kick things off. I don't think she needs much help. So if you hear my voice from time to time, it's mostly just encouragement. But who are you?

Dr. Bawa: I am Dr. Kanwal Bawa, also known as Dr. Sex Fairy, of course.

Brian Howie: Of course.

Dr. Bawa: Of course. I'm special.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: I sprinkle magic dust.

Brian Howie: All right, so let's get back to India there. So you're born in India and switched at birth.

Dr. Bawa: That's right.

Brian Howie: Please continue. I need to hear more about that.

Dr. Bawa: Well, you know, I come from a family rooted in the military and academia, and my grandfather was a general, and that's how I was born at the Army Hospital in New Delhi. And you think that when it's the Army involved, things are more disciplined and there are fewer screw-ups. Well, not so. They switched me with the wrong child, and my mother distinctly remembered, as she woke up from the haze of a C-section back in the days when they didn't do epidurals, seeing a different baby. And when she woke up, everybody told her she was just loopy from anesthesia and this was her baby, and she said, "Oh, I don't think so." So she argued with my father, who had seen original me, and said that the baby looked nothing like the family. My father thought she'd lost her mind, that maybe the anesthesia hadn't yet worn off. And my mom insisted that he was crazy. So, of course, marriage issues began right away. You know, children do start that. And then half the family had seen original me, half the family had seen new me, and you can imagine the chaos that ensued. So the Bawa Shit Show was alive and well right from the start.

Brian Howie: So do you take any responsibility for this?

Dr. Bawa: Oh no, sir, I don't. But hey, I ended up with the right people eventually, and the rest is history, and I often wonder how life would have turned out had I not gone with my right family. What would life have been if I'd gone with the other family?

Brian Howie: You know, you have no clue who the other family is. Not a clue. There's no way to track them down.

Dr. Bawa: No way. It was a thousand years ago.

Brian Howie: Yeah, you wonder how often that happens. You know, you worked in many hospitals. Does that happen? It is a chaotic, stressful environment.

Dr. Bawa: Anything is chaos, and that's why it's a good thing to have name bands.

Brian Howie: Yeah, that's true. So tell us more about your journey. I know it's a long, a bit circuitous journey to get to Dr. Sex Fairy at this point, but how do you get from born in India, possibly switched at birth—thankfully not—to this point?

[03:13] Family, Education and the Drive to Excel

Dr. Bawa: Well, it's a complicated story. I took the scenic route to being Dr. Sex Fairy, of course. I was blessed to be born into the family I was. My paternal great-grandfather was an English professor, a college principal. My mother tells me that he would read "The Solitary Reaper" to me as I would stare at him from my crib. And I ended up getting two degrees in English literature before I went to med school. And my paternal grandfather, as I mentioned, was a serving general in the Indian Army. And my maternal grandfather was an aeronautical engineer. So if you think about it, I ended up getting lots of English degrees and then had a passion for aviation and wanted to be a fighter pilot. So nature over nurture, I guess we'll never know. What I do know is that I was born into a family that has shaped much of who I am.

Brian Howie: Which is?

Dr. Bawa: Which is Dr. Sex Fairy. No, you know, I'm in many ways a carbon copy of my dad. He raised me to be a hardworking person, a high achiever. I remember one day very clearly, I was about five years old. He told me to go study for my spelling test, and I was a brat, and I told him that I didn't need to. I was smart enough, knew my stuff. I did. But he told me to go study harder vocabulary. I thought that was ridiculous. And I said, "Dad, why would I do that?" And my father immediately put me in his car, took me to a slum in New Delhi, and showed me how the rest of the world lived.

Brian Howie: Sidebar, why are Indian children so good at spelling?

Dr. Bawa: We're just smart, what can I say?

Brian Howie: But there are a lot of smart cultures. Indians particularly dominate the spelling bee, at least the famous ones. They're almost always won by an Indian. Is it cultural? Is spelling important?

Dr. Bawa: You know, I've never asked myself that question, but it's true. We do tend to win the spelling bee. Not sure why.

Brian Howie: Yeah. Okay. Sorry, not to get off topic.

Dr. Bawa: I just think we're special.

Brian Howie: Yeah, you could be special, and obviously you're very, very smart, but spelling bee to Sex Fairy, you know?

Dr. Bawa: Yeah, I've come you know a long way. What can I say? And I do spell well, so there is that. But you know, like I was saying, um, he took me there and it was a wake-up call. He never ever forced me to become a doctor, never pressured me in any way to be a doctor, but mediocrity was never an option. He made it very clear that whatever career path I chose, I was going to be great at it. I had to excel. There was no other way. And looking back, I truly believe that had my father not been by my side, spurring me on to fly higher and higher, I would not be who I am today. You know, my paternal grandfather, my maternal grandfather, my great grandfather, my mom, a strong woman, businesswoman, teacher, all of those things, high academic expectations of me. Where would I be without these people in my life?

[05:53] When Dr. Bawa Knew She Wanted to Become a Doctor

Brian Howie: At what age did you think you're like, I'm gonna I think I want to be a doctor?

Dr. Bawa: It started early. My grandfather had cancer, and while I didn't understand the details, I knew there was something wrong with him. And everybody had told me that eating my vegetables would make me strong. So I decided that I was gonna feed him a lot of vegetables, and I knew that all my medicines were in liquid form, so my little child brain thought that that's how I was gonna help him. And I would mix in this disgusting mix I would make of vegetables and water, and I would feed it to him, and the poor man, God bless him, would eat it, slash drink it. I don't know what to call that slush I used to make. But I was trying to make him better, and my desire to heal began really that early.

Brian Howie: Healing and answering a question and in some ways solving a puzzle.

Dr. Bawa: That's right.

Brian Howie: Did you have any idea which field you wanted to go into? What kind of medicine? Do most doctors know that, or do they get assigned things and become, you know, a foot doctor? Do they grow up wanting to deal with feet, or is it just—

Dr. Bawa: That's a good question. See, I have a thing about foot fungus, so that was never going to be my field.

Brian Howie: Okay, so you crossed that off. You eliminated it.

Dr. Bawa: It was eliminated. Uh I could never be a dentist because the sound of that drill made me want to kill myself. Right. So that wouldn't have worked very well, listening to that drill every day.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: But being a doctor, well, being a medical doctor was definitely something I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician. And while I eventually found that I still loved the kids, the mothers drove me crazy. And while I'm a mother myself, I just couldn't handle the mothers. You know, when they walk in and they tell you I need amoxicillin for my kid. Right. And they don't tell you the complaint, they just want the drug first.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: Drove me nuts. Couldn't do it.

Brian Howie: They want to work from the drug backwards.

Dr. Bawa: Oh, yeah, that wasn't my way of doing things. So that would not have gone very well.

[07:36] Discovering Trauma and Emergency Medicine

Brian Howie: Huh.

Dr. Bawa: So then I was in a biology course and I took a course where I was allowed to do an internship. I could go follow a doctor for a semester and I had to write a paper at the end of it. And I went and followed a trauma surgeon. I thought that the head of biology had lost his mind when he assigned me to trauma surgery, but I was hooked. I was in love. That was my calling. I loved surgery. I loved being there. I loved the chaos of the ER. That was me.

Brian Howie: Oh, you did?

Dr. Bawa: Oh, yeah. I went from thinking I wanted to be a pediatrician to being all in, gung-ho, into emergency medicine, trauma. That was my thing.

Brian Howie: So you have chaos, you have personalities, you have screaming people, you have pain.

Dr. Bawa: And I was all in.

Brian Howie: And you were all in.

Dr. Bawa: That was my world. They were my people.

[08:30] Moving from India to the United States

Brian Howie: Huh. At what age did you come to America?

Dr. Bawa: Twenty-one.

Brian Howie: And you came to where?

Dr. Bawa: I started out in North Carolina. I attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, did my pre-medical studies there, then came to Fort Lauderdale, Nova Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Brian Howie: Had you ever visited America before you came?

Dr. Bawa: I had visited once before I moved here.

Brian Howie: And what was the biggest difference upon landing on these shores?

Dr. Bawa: I had never seen so many fat people. Can I say that?

Brian Howie: Yes, you can. I say that sometimes too. I think Americans don't understand. That is true. So many fat people.

Dr. Bawa: Oh my goodness. And I went to Vegas for a trade show. And as I saw those lines inside the buffets, I thought, "Oh my God, they have no business eating. They need to just stop." And I was told, "Don't say that, don't say that. People will get offended." I said, "Well, Americans seem to get offended with a lot of things." So I had to stop saying a lot of things that I thought were quite okay. They were very hush-hush in this country, interestingly enough. Race is one of those issues. In India, we have many religions and many races. But race is not something we have a fight about, if you think about it. We don't care if somebody's our version of the whites, our version of the blacks. We have, you know, our version of the quote-unquote Asians, even though we're Asians—you know, what you consider Asians here. We have every race in India. We just don't give a damn.

Brian Howie: I don't think so. Not as much anymore. No.

Dr. Bawa: No, I think we kill each other with religion. That's our insanity. I mean, every culture has one, right? Ours is religion, not race. We don't care about race. I still don't understand the fuss about race.

Brian Howie: Yeah, I know. I don't understand either. But in America, you looked at—you weren't like, oh, the buildings or the cars or whatever. You looked at the challenges, the health challenges. That's the first thing you noticed when you came over.

Dr. Bawa: And I thought, did you consider putting that donut down? And, you know, drinking all those big bong-looking drinks they have with the long straws—the hurricane. I was like, put it down, for the love of God.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: Consider being healthy for once.

Brian Howie: Yeah, an outsider's perspective could probably—that does change the world.

Dr. Bawa: Mm-hmm.

[10:45] Medical School and Moving to Cleveland

Brian Howie: So you go from Charlotte to where?

Dr. Bawa: Charlotte to Fort Lauderdale. Completed medical school, and then it was interesting. I hated being cold, and I always said that I would never live in a cold place. I mean New Delhi gets cold, but it never snows. I had never driven in snow, never had to do much of anything in snow. Vacationing doesn't count. And then I moved into the snow belt in Cleveland, Ohio.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: And my first winter there, I looked at my Ray-Bans and wondered when I'd last worn them. Couldn't remember. And then I just, for shits and giggles, decided to Google the temperature in Anchorage, Alaska.

Brian Howie: Uh-huh.

Dr. Bawa: Cleveland was colder, and then I officially wanted to kill myself.

Brian Howie: So what were you doing? I mean, you then dove into your career and you were busy, right?

Dr. Bawa: I was a busy girl.

Brian Howie: And what were you doing in Cleveland?

[11:32] Cleveland Clinic Training and “Dr. Firecracker”

Dr. Bawa: I was doing my residency at the Cleveland Clinic. It was very prestigious. It was a lot of work. Patients that other hospitals would ship out, we were receiving. So we were seeing the sickest of the sick. These were challenging patients. I could not have asked for better training, a better education. And then in my spare time, what little I did have—this is pre-children, of course—I would go do runs with the East Cleveland Fire Department. And that was an incredible, incredible experience and learning. I saw things that I never thought I would, including one time—I mean, talk about crazy incidents that happened during my residency—we were called to the jail once. The jail was next door, to the point that we shared a wall with the jail. So we get a call. I'm mighty excited, my first time in a jail. Hey, it doesn't take much to get me excited. So I wanted to see the inside of a jail, and off I went. We took our medical bags, and now picture this: there's a woman, probably 300 pounds, wearing a bra about 20 sizes too small. She had taken her top off, and there she was, hyperventilating on the floor, faking an asthma attack. It was pretty obvious. It didn't take rocket science to figure that out. And she's huffing and puffing, and, you know, we were her get-out-of-jail card—except unfortunately for her, she called on the wrong shift. They had an ER doctor with this crew.

Brian Howie: Uh-huh.

Dr. Bawa: So I tried to get her to answer questions. She would not stop. Finally, I yelled out and I said, "Hey!" And she looks at me, and I told her to stop her little act. And she looked at me with a death glare and started cursing me out in full sentences. Now, if you have an asthma attack, you know, last I heard you couldn't speak in full sentences. And I refused to transport her. But that incident got me the name of Dr. Firecracker in the fire department.

Brian Howie: Oh, another alter ego.

Dr. Bawa: Yeah, another alter ego. See, there are many of me. I have many personalities, what can I say? But when I was leaving Cleveland, my fire department friends, I mean, they literally became friends and brothers to me. When I was leaving, they called me to the fire department and they gave me my own East Cleveland Fire Department hoodie. And it said on the side, Lieutenant Firecracker.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: So that is something I keep with great pride in my closet and look at it from time to time and smile when I remember the lady at the prison.

Brian Howie: Now, not to fast-forward your story too much, but that's still Dr. Firecracker—a long way, I think, or maybe it's a short jump—to Dr. Sex Fairy.

Dr. Bawa: Well, you know, it's the same genre of personality. It's somebody who wants to get in the muck and wants to change things and cannot tolerate the status quo.

Brian Howie: And what did you see as the change that you thought you needed to make, and how did you first see that change? What was something you're like, you know, I think I can make a difference here?

[14:28] Hair Loss and the Beginning of Bawa Medical

Dr. Bawa: You know, interestingly enough, it started with hair loss. I suffered from hair loss. I should say I suffer from hair loss because it's something that's lifelong. You just control it; you never cure it. So, I don't know.

Brian Howie: Indian hair is valuable.

Dr. Bawa: It is, so I hear. See, I should have saved it when I had cancer. I could have made some money off my own wig. Um but you know, I decided that something had to change. And I went and got a hair transplant. I was one of the 40 percent of women who have visible hair loss by the age of 40. People don't realize that.

Brian Howie: Is that alopecia or is it something else?

Dr. Bawa: You know, different forms of hair loss. But it's pretty obvious—for 40 percent of women by the age of 40, those are alarming statistics. So instead of suffering in silence, I fixed my hair. That didn't go quite so well. It didn't really fix it; it complicated things a little. And I said, "Oh my God, this is horrible." You know, the Bawa Shit Show at play again. I could do this better. And because of my emergency medicine and surgery training, I really could do this. I went and got trained, went back to training, got trained in hair transplant surgery, got very interested also in nonsurgical hair restoration. And here was the thing: I was making people look great with their hair, but their face still looked like hell. So what do you do with your great hair if your face still looks like hell? Yeah. So I got into extensive facial rejuvenation with, you know, state-of-the-art technology, laser surgery, those kinds of things. I didn't really believe that I should have to cut people's faces. I didn't want to cut my own. I felt that enough could be done nonsurgically. And that sent me down a path of, you know, more rejuvenation. But the Sex Fairy part came because over the years, as an ER doctor, I had seen a lot of patients come in for sexual issues. You know that show, "Sex Sent Me to the ER"?

[16:20] What Sexual Emergencies Taught Dr. Bawa

Brian Howie: Right. I always assumed that was somebody sticking something in the wrong place.

Dr. Bawa: Well, there's plenty of that, I promise you.

Brian Howie: That really happens.

Dr. Bawa: Oh yes. I have seen men come in with vibrators still vibrating in their butts. I can't make that stuff up. It's real. You know, that show exists for a reason.

Brian Howie: Just wait until the batteries run out.

Dr. Bawa: Oh my God. And sometimes they do.

Brian Howie: Okay.

Dr. Bawa: And sometimes they take MiraLAX, you know, the laxative, thinking they're gonna poop it out, but that doesn't quite work.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: So yeah, you see all kinds of things. So what really irritated me was that a lot of men would come in and complain about not being able to get an erection. And I'm thinking to myself, are you an idiot? Did you miss that emergency part of emergency medicine?

Brian Howie: Well, she's right there waiting. I've got 20 minutes.

Dr. Bawa: That's the thing.

Brian Howie: Emergency and urgency. Yeah. You know.

[17:07] Why Sexual Dysfunction Was Being Undertreated

Dr. Bawa: Yeah. So I was like, what idiots. But, you know, one came, another came—or didn't come, I should say. So this happened more and more often, and I started thinking, wait a minute, if this many people are coming in, this is clearly a problem. So I would ask them, haven't you talked to your family doctor? Have you considered talking to a urologist? Or for women who were coming in with sexual issues: sisters, seriously, do you not have a gynecologist you go to every year? And, you know, I got all kinds of interesting replies to that. And it seems to me that this was a pandemic all its own. We talk about COVID, but sexual dysfunction is a pandemic all its own and very underreported. So these people were initially not even accepting themselves that they had a problem. When they would finally admit to themselves that they had a problem, they'd go to their doctor, but their doctor would blow them off. Or in some cases with the men, it was very easy to give them Viagra, Cialis. But here's the problem with that. People don't realize that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. That erection that you think makes you feel like, "I'm the man," sometimes doesn't go away. And initially you think that's painful. Well, initially they're delighted.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: Because it makes them realize, oh, I'm a stud muffin baby. And then they say, Oh shit, this isn't going away. Now that starts a cascade effect. Oh my God, now what do I do? What do I do? They panic, they stop thinking straight. Sometimes they'll call their doctor, sometimes they'll just sit there and pickle. And you know, sometimes a day might pass. And now, jokes apart, there's long-term damage.

Brian Howie: So if it goes more than four hours, I think that's on the label: call a physician.

Dr. Bawa: Because they're embarrassed. Well, they're embarrassed, they don't always think it's a problem. They think the rules don't apply to them, and they're just frankly delighted most of the time.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: You know, the lady is impressed. They think this is what's supposed to happen.

Brian Howie: Oh.

[19:03] Moving Beyond Temporary Fixes

Dr. Bawa: So yeah. So then I realized that while they were going to get help, they were getting Band-Aids. And I knew there had to be a better way. And that's where I came in. I showed them that there was a better way. There was a way to improve their sexual life, their sexual function. And not just sexual function; it's also about intimate wellness. Because women who have vaginal issues may have significant incontinence, and that may make them very embarrassed in a sexual situation. If you're thinking that you're smelling of urine, for instance, you're not going to be very happy letting a man go down on you. He's going to take it personally, and that snowballs into a whole other issue.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: So lots of issues here at play.

Brian Howie: So you went from liking the excitement of trauma and ER to getting into an area where confidence was lacking, if you want to talk about facial aesthetics and hair.

Dr. Bawa: Absolutely.

Brian Howie: Which sort of morphs into the lack of confidence to either communicate their problems or to address them. It leads you back to ER and trauma in some ways, too.

[20:22] Confidence, Sex and Quality of Life

Dr. Bawa: You know, it was like a vicious circle. I mean, one thing just kept leading to another. And it was one of those things where, you know, they didn't have confidence, so they weren't having good sex. They weren't having good sex, so they didn't have a good relationship, and now they certainly weren't going to have good sex. So it just became one of those things where I felt that if I could give them confidence back in their looks and in the bedroom, I was truly improving their quality of life. That's what it came down to, quality of life.

[20:51] Talking About Sex in Indian Culture

Brian Howie: Is sex something that is less likely to be talked about in an Indian household than an American household?

Dr. Bawa: Oh yeah.

Brian Howie: It is.

Dr. Bawa: So that's not me stereotyping and it's definitely more hush-hush, but I do think that is changing to quite an extent. Back when I was a lot younger and I was in my teens, things were different. Now things are more open. Now people are more openly living together before marriage. Those things are happening, but it's still a more traditional society.

Brian Howie: So did part of that trigger an excitement in you that, I'm gonna go into a field or an area of expertise that is not what my grandfather and great-grandfather and parents and everybody would have done? Does that add to it? Because you clearly liked the excitement at a young age, and you clearly liked some degree of chaos in a medical field, like the prison and the firehouse and the trauma room. I imagine you saw gunshots and all kinds of things. You're treading into water that has a lot of those characteristics in it when you're talking about sexual health.

Dr. Bawa: I know. Well, the thing is that while sexual health is not really discussed as much as in U.S. society, I think that my family was forward enough, educated enough, and I think evolved enough to be amused—pleasantly amused—but proud of me anyway. I don't think that even my grandfather would have been horrified in any way. My brother, actually, ironically enough, who is alive and well in today's society, is more horrified about Dr. Sex Fairy than I think my grandfather would have been.

Brian Howie: Well, you are changing lives. I have learned more from you in our brief conversations as you're going down this road of your podcast. And I think most people are. They're curious, they're fascinated, they're a little excited, they're a little embarrassed. There's so many emotions that go into just having these conversations or raising these questions that usually make people not raise these questions or have these conversations.

Dr. Bawa: That's true.

Brian Howie: And that's part of the challenge, right?

[23:01] Becoming Dr. Sex Fairy

Dr. Bawa: Yes. And in fact, I wondered myself if I really wanted to go down this road. Because as a Cleveland Clinic-trained physician, you know, I've been pretty much branded the crème de la crème in medicine. And I have a stellar reputation. And even many of my aesthetic patients are a little, you know, wary of the discussion. They look at me a little cross-eyed sometimes when they see what I do. The irony is eventually they all want to know just a little bit more. They don't want their friend to know that they're coming to me for sexual wellness. But most of them do. And so while they may look at me with trepidation initially, I make them ask themselves questions like, oh, am I really happy in my situation? Could it be better? And damn near all of them say, "I didn't realize it could be this good. I didn't realize how I had fallen into this pattern of lousy sex, a shitty relationship. I feel so much better. This is great." And that happens eventually. But, you know, it's been a struggle to me. Even the name of the podcast, Dr. Sex Fairy. People are uncomfortable with it.

Brian Howie: You need to, because you constantly have to reassure them of your credentials. And I know plastic surgeons who go through that too, and they're like, I was the top heart surgeon before I got into this, and that skill set translates to what I'm doing now.

Dr. Bawa: Exactly.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: I mean, I'm a board-certified doctor, I'm Cleveland Clinic-trained, I'm a U.S.-trained doctor. I have all the credentials. I am helping people. Yet sex, even in the U.S., makes people uncomfortable. I know that some people may not want to come on my podcast because of the name alone.

Brian Howie: Doctors need to diagnose problems and find solutions, okay? So you found a problem people were bringing to you in an unusual way. Finding out that this was a common thing through the ER is a fascinating thing.

Dr. Bawa: It's an interesting thing.

Brian Howie: I have no idea. You know, you always hear these, at the end of the year, they're like, here are the things that people came to the ER for this year and whatever. And you were seeing that firsthand and having to treat these things medically. But then you also have to think psychologically: what is it about this that is leading to the point where they're in an emergency-room situation? You kind of have to work backwards, right?

[25:22] The Problems People Are Afraid to Talk About

Dr. Bawa: Well, you're right. Because here's the thing you can joke about it and you can, you know, make fun of the guy with the vibrator in his butt. And, you know, is it funny? Well, yeah, sometimes it's hard to control my laughter.

Brian Howie: Was it good before you called the ambulance? Was it good?

Dr. Bawa: No, it's hard. You know, sometimes as an ER doctor, it's hard to keep a straight face. You don't want to be that doctor who's laughing. It's not nice, right? But, you know, it's some crazy stuff you see. But it makes you wonder what happened in that relationship that they felt the need to go down some crazy paths. I'm not judging the vibrator, don't get me wrong.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: But you know, on a on a on a more general level, there's clearly pain. There's clearly trouble. The relationship clearly needs some help. And they're crying out for that help. And if it's crazy stuff that takes them to the ER or anything else, they want help. Relationships today are suffering. And the irony is why not talk about it? People, look at the sex toy business. It's huge. It's huge. Clearly, people need those things and want those things, yet somehow it's not okay to talk about it. Somehow calling myself Dr. Sex Fairy is an issue. Why is that?

Brian Howie: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Bawa: It's so hypocritical.

Brian Howie: Well, people are hypocritical. People don't want to be judged. People always hide their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses or whatever, and they put that as somebody else's problem and not our problem. And then one of them ends up in the ER with the vibrator in their butt.

Dr. Bawa: And then they see me and I say, "Are you nuts?" And then I start realizing that there's a problem. And lo and behold, Dr. Sex Fairy.

[26:53] Choosing Sexual Medicine as a Focus

Brian Howie: So what made you do the full pivot? This is where I want to go with my practice. And I know it's not all you do, but you're like, this is gonna be a point of emphasis. I know the last year and a half for you has been chaotic at best. What made you be like, you know what, I'm gonna go down this road?

[27:08] Opening Bawa Medical, COVID and Breast Cancer

Dr. Bawa: You know, a lot changed for me in the last year and a half, two years. I opened my practice. I was still working emergency medicine because I do love emergency medicine. It is who I am in many ways. But then COVID happened and my practice, Bawa Medical, was shut down. I continued working in the ER at that time through COVID. I mean, it was a crazy time during the initial parts of COVID. But when my practice finally opened again—and this happened very early on in the game for my practice—so, opened in September of 2019, shut down in March, closed for a few months, opened again, and then bam, I get diagnosed with breast cancer. So, you know, the Bawa Shit Show. You see the theme here?

[27:54] Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Self-Advocacy

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: This is why I call it the Bawa Shit Show. Now, the irony is I didn't just, you know, find the lump then and get diagnosed at that point. I had found that lump almost three years prior. And I went to the doctor who blew me off, said, "Oh, I don't feel anything, you're fine." I said, "Well, I want a mammogram." "You don't need a mammogram, you're not even 40 yet." I said, "Who gives a damn if I'm not 40? I want a mammogram. I feel a lump, I'm concerned. Damn it, what does it take around here to get a damn mammogram? I'm not asking for the moon."

Brian Howie: And you're a doctor.

Dr. Bawa: So I'm a doctor and I can't even get a damn mammogram. So I did finally convince this guy to give me a mammogram. They saw it, and then they said, "Ooh, that doesn't look quite right. Let's get an ultrasound." Well, they look at it and say, "Oh, it's fine. Just come back in six months and get another mammogram." So I said, "Well, that sounds ridiculous. If it looks bad enough to get a mammogram in six months instead of a year, if you can convince an insurance company to pay for that in six months, clearly it's not normal. So why aren't we biopsying this damn thing?" "No, no, no, you don't need that. Stop being such a doctor," they scolded me. And I thought, maybe I am being too much of a doctor. So I come back in six months. They see it again. Now they get a second diagnostic mammogram. I said, "Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. Somebody needs to biopsy this thing." "No, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. It's benign." Okay. So, you know, I took their word for it, and then a year later I said, "This crap ends right here, right now. I need a biopsy." It was breast cancer. And now where I had had one lump initially, now I had more. So if people learn nothing else from my podcast, learn to be an advocate for yourself.

Brian Howie: Is that a thing that they say don't get a mammogram before 40?

Dr. Bawa: That's absolutely true.

Brian Howie: I thought we were moving that up.

Dr. Bawa: Well, they keep changing their minds.

Brian Howie: Do you know those doctors now? Do you have a relationship where you're like, hey, there was something? I know you don't want to get in the "I told you so" business, especially as a doctor.

Dr. Bawa: They disappear. Yeah, they're like, oh, whatever. You know, the other doctor in the practice now takes care of you because the other one can't look you in the eye anymore.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: So yeah.

Brian Howie: So that had to be scary—as a business owner, as a parent, as a woman, and as a doctor. You must be like, oh, this is not good.

Dr. Bawa: It was not good. The you know, the cancer was aggressive. I was also a single parent. Um my family was overseas. This was in the middle of a pandemic. The timing could not have been worse. My family could not travel to me. My brother was in Australia under lockdown, and my mom was in India with, you know, you know how bad Indian COVID got. She couldn't travel. So I was pretty much by myself. It was horrible.

Brian Howie: You know, one of the hidden—or maybe not so hidden—side effects of COVID is the lack of people going to get these tests and getting the mammograms and getting their screenings and all that. We haven't yet seen the manifestation of what that's going to look like in due time.

[30:49] COVID, Sexual Dysfunction and Hair Loss

Dr. Bawa: Oh, absolutely. And do you know that COVID can also cause sexual dysfunction? And hair loss. How about that?

Brian Howie: COVID—getting it, or COVID—worrying about it? Or COVID—getting stuck home with your mate? I mean, there are a lot of tentacles to COVID.

Dr. Bawa: Well, that's true. Very funny, very true. No, actually, people who have had COVID have a higher rate of sexual dysfunction and hair loss.

Brian Howie: Because of blood flow issues?

Dr. Bawa: I honestly don't think anybody really understands why this happens. But people, young people who have had COVID, come to my office with hair loss and more issues with sexual dysfunction, male and female.

[31:27] Why Hair Loss Has Many Causes

Brian Howie: What causes hair? Is there one thing that causes hair loss? Is it a vitamin?

Dr. Bawa: No, I think hair loss is like a bucket with lots of holes in it. And there are many reasons why you have that leak. And that's why I do different things in my practice because I'm trying to plug those different holes. You know, some of it is genetic. You can't help that.

Brian Howie: Is hair loss a precursor to sexual dysfunction? Are they related?

Dr. Bawa: Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But maybe confidence-wise they are.

Brian Howie: Oh, yeah. Well, that's true. Crappy hair, stressed out—it leads to all sorts of issues. Good. And so when somebody comes to you, do couples come to you with sexual issues? I mean, you're not a psychologist.

[32:14] Understanding the Person Behind Sexual Dysfunction

Dr. Bawa: I'm not a psychologist, but in many ways I function as one.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: Please, nobody sue me for this. I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychologist. But, you know, part of truly helping patients is understanding why they have the dysfunction to begin with. And that's where, you know, my quote-unquote therapist part comes in, because I can't help them if I don't understand them. Because so much of sexual dysfunction is between the ears.

Brian Howie: And how much of it is living an unhealthy lifestyle? Is that number two?

[32:46] Blood Flow, Overall Health and Sexual Function

Dr. Bawa: A lot of it is. And if you think about it, after the age of 40, more people tend to have cardiac issues, heart attacks, that sort of thing. Well, more people after that age also have sexual dysfunction because flow is flow. If you have blockages in the heart, you're more likely to have blockages in the groin. It's the same idea. The blood vessels don't know where they are.

[33:08] How Sexual Dysfunction Presents in Men and Women

Brian Howie: Half of the people you deal with are women and half are men, or is it more men? I think that's a good one.

Dr. Bawa: Men are more likely to accept that they have a problem because with them it's obvious.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: Because you can't do very much if you don't have an erection.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: Women are used to faking it to quite an extent.

Brian Howie: Right. And they don't necessarily know what they're missing.

Dr. Bawa: They don't know what they're missing. With a man, it's pretty obvious. If he's not getting hard, or if he's getting hard but not lasting, right, or there's too much downtime between erections, he's gonna notice it. He's gonna want to fix it. So much of male identity is rooted in their penis. And women, you know, I'm just being honest, right?

Brian Howie: How much of male identity is rooted in our penis? Because the women are also paying attention to the main thing.

Dr. Bawa: Oh, absolutely. It's terrible for a man, I feel, because with a man it's very hard to perform.

Brian Howie: Again, no pun.

Dr. Bawa: That's funny.

Brian Howie: Sometimes it's not.

Dr. Bawa: Sometimes it's not. But you know, it's hard for a man to perform if he can't get that erection. For a woman, she can often just lie there and pretend.

Brian Howie: I read somewhere that impotence issues, or lack of erection and all this, are starting earlier in our society, just like a lot of medical problems that are coming earlier. Guys are taking Viagra at fraternity parties now, and it screws them up.

[34:31] Erectile Dysfunction in Younger Men

Dr. Bawa: Do you know that 20% of men in their twenties suffer from erectile dysfunction?

Brian Howie: Is that more anxiety-related?

Dr. Bawa: No. No. It's a medical issue. It's blood flow. It's a medical issue. So it's a blood flow issue. It's actual biology, it's not just mental. So 20% of men in their twenties, 30% in their thirties, everybody thinks that this happens at 50.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: It doesn't. It starts a lot younger.

Brian Howie: Well, to go back to your Cialis-Viagra thing, what that did do was turn the light on for a lot of men who, you know, 40 years ago, over 70, over 80, nobody was doing anything. So it did bring a lot of people back into the bedroom—male and female.

[35:14] Sex and Sexual Function Later in Life

Dr. Bawa: Hell yeah. I have patients who are 70-ish and having sex 12 to 14 times a week. Now, to me, that's exhausting.

Brian Howie: God, with who? With who?

Dr. Bawa: Well, this is interesting. You would think that it's with somebody younger. But no, I have a gentleman who did a YouTube video with me. I have a YouTube channel, and he did a video with me. We talked about how his treatments changed his life, and he mentioned that his girlfriend is not younger; she's actually a little bit older than him. Now, she too came to me for vaginal rejuvenation. That's how they're getting their groove on, because he couldn't do a whole lot if she wasn't primed and ready to go too. I mean, that's a lot of sex.

Brian Howie: Yeah. How often do you either deal with couples or say, I need to see your partner to see what exactly the problem is?

[36:05] Treating Individuals Versus Couples

Dr. Bawa: Well, some of them don't want their partner to know that they're even there.

Brian Howie: Right.

Dr. Bawa: So that's part of it. Sometimes they come in a hush-hush, you know, covert operation. They want to pay under the table. They don't want it on a credit card that their spouse will see. Don't use this card, don't use that card, let me give you a check. You know, it's complicated sometimes. And then they find that this helps, and then they are suddenly more open to discussing it with their partner. Some come in as couples; some never involve their partner. So, all kinds.

[36:41] Penis Enlargement and Male Sexual Treatments

Brian Howie: The most common procedure you do is what or deal with is what?

Dr. Bawa: Probably penis enlargement.

Brian Howie: Penis enlargement.

Dr. Bawa: Correct.

Brian Howie: I don't want to get you—I'm sure you'll devote episodes to the process—but how long are you out of commission?

Dr. Bawa: I say give me a week or two because, you know—

Brian Howie: A week or two?

Dr. Bawa: I say please try to not have sex for a week or two after, at least.

Brian Howie: If not, you know, but you can make magic in a month.

Dr. Bawa: I make magic happen a lot earlier than a month.

Brian Howie: In a visit.

Dr. Bawa: In a visit. Like for instance, if I'm doing acoustic wave therapy, that's using sound waves to break down blockages and bring great blood flow into the penis and scrotum.

Brian Howie: Oh, that sounds like fun. And that happens for fun even if you don't need it?

Dr. Bawa: Well, I'm telling you. I should charge extra.

Brian Howie: Exactly.

[37:30] Common Sexual Concerns in Women

Brian Howie: So it's actually more pleasurable. And for the woman, what is the what is the primary treatment or issue that women come in with?

Dr. Bawa: Well, women have a lot of issues with multiple things. Hormones change after a certain age, they get dry, the tissue sometimes can bleed with sex. I'm not talking wild sex; with regular sex, it can bleed. Sometimes they get loose after childbirth. Laxity is a major problem. In fact, when the men come to me about wanting enlargement, my first question, because I have integrity, is asking them, listen, do you think you're too small or do you think your lady's gotten too big? And then they look at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look because it never occurred to them.

Brian Howie: At some point, though, you as a woman, you have to use your judgment. You're like, oh yeah, that's too small.

Dr. Bawa: Mm-hmm.

Brian Howie: Right?

[38:20] Penis Size, Confidence and Knowing When Treatment Is Appropriate

Dr. Bawa: I mean, well, sometimes men come in for acoustic wave therapy, and I might, you know, politely suggest enlargement.

Brian Howie: Or you're like, listen, that thing is plenty big.

Dr. Bawa: I've had that recently.

Brian Howie: Oh.

Dr. Bawa: I had somebody come in and he was wanting enlargement, and I said, Why?

Brian Howie: Poor thing.

Dr. Bawa: And he said, Why not? And I said, But you don't need it. He said, I do. And I said, please explain to me why.

Brian Howie: Yeah.

Dr. Bawa: And he said, "Well, it will make me more confident." And I said, "Why do you need more confidence? You're successful, you look good, you have the biggest penis I've seen in a long time. And I see more penises than the busiest hooker in Boca, I promise you. So if I'm impressed, you know, that's plenty big." But he doesn't think so.

Brian Howie: Wow. I know that is true. Again, you said earlier, like, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not your therapist, but there's no big enough for somebody like that.

Dr. Bawa: For somebody like that.

Brian Howie: A lot of women who get breast enlargement and they keep going bigger and bigger and bigger—they're never quite satisfied.

Dr. Bawa: That's why I talk to them first. We don't just get them to swipe a card and you know get going. I want to know why they're there because I want to do the right thing across the board.

Brian Howie: Right. Um and many happy patients.

Dr. Bawa: Many happy patients. They call me Dr. Sex Fairy for a reason.

[39:39] What to Expect from the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast

Brian Howie: All right. You want to get into a lot of things on this podcast as you move forward. Tell the audience what kind of things they can expect here.

Dr. Bawa: Just about anything. We are talking about relationships. We are talking about sex, of course. We are talking about male issues, we are talking about female issues, we're talking about transgender issues. If it involves sex, intimacy, parts, we're discussing it.

Brian Howie: Right. Nothing is off limits. And some things people might not even know that, oh, that's sex too. Or that can be once removed, or you don't think about it as, oh, that could affect my sex life, or that could improve my sex life.

Dr. Bawa: Absolutely. We're here to just start a bigger discussion than just sex, because sex is never just about sex.

[40:24] How to Connect with Dr. Bawa

Brian Howie: And if somebody wants to get in touch with you and work with you—or get the vibrator out of their butt?

Dr. Bawa: Oh, that's funny. Well, it's easy to get in touch with me. They can either go to bawamedical.com—that's B-A-W-A medical.com—or they can go to DrSexFairyPodcast.com. They can reach me any of those ways, and I'm on social media. Easy to find.

Dr. Bawa: Recorded Outro

Dr. Bawa: I hope you enjoyed the Dr. Sex Fairy Podcast today. I would love to continue this conversation with you. If you would like my top three secrets for amazing sex, send me an email at askme@drsexfairy.com and I will share them with you. Don't forget to follow this podcast and leave me a five-star review. Until next time.