Screen capture of the Metle Metlik platform.
This is the story of an obstetrician-gynecologist and a hypnotherapist-sexologist, who joined forces to create a secure digital space, dedicated to making information about sexuality and reproductive health accessible to women throughout the Arab world.
Last September, Lebanese-French doctors Gaël Abou Ghannam and Sandrine Atallah won the 2023 Femme Francophone Entrepreneure prize with their project Metle Metlik (Arabic for ‘Just Like You’).
The award was presented in Beirut by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie in the Middle East and the incubator Berytech, in partnership with L’Orient-Le Jour.
Four months later, the Metle Metlik platform is taking shape in Arabic and English. It features a free-access blog covering a variety of issues related to women’s sexuality and sexual health, including topics like self-esteem, pregnancy, endometriosis, vaginismus and other sexual conditions affecting women.
Cultural and religious norms predominate
Metle Metlik also offers one paid course, about vaginismus, composed of 35 videos that amount to 3 hours pre-recorded by the two doctors, along with exercises and reflection tools. It also includes live webinars, an option for individual online sessions, and for connecting with other subscribers.
The doctors, better known as Dr. Sandrine and Dr. Gaël, chose vaginismus as a starting point for the course because over their practice they came to realize that this problem was prevalent and that women were looking for answers to questions they dared not to ask.
Doctor Sandrine Atallah, Lebanon’s first hypnotherapist-sexologist, has more than three and a half million subscribers on TikTok. (Credit: Photo Mohammed Yassine)
“Vaginismus is a major sexual problem in the Middle East. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of women in the region suffer from it during sexual intercourse. It’s linked to a lack of education and the predominance of cultural and religious norms,” explained Dr. Sandrine. “We aim to inform women about their sexuality, raise awareness of their sexual and reproductive health, and dispel false beliefs. Our method is innovative, and our message is both scientific and simple,” added Dr. Gaël.
This “first softly-launched program is a test” designed to see if women will embrace the concept, they said. Some 50 women have already purchased it since last November, without any marketing or a media campaign. “Initial reactions have been positive. Some women have already reported an improvement in their sex life,” said Dr. Gaël. Subscribers were in their thirties, and half were Lebanese while the other half were Saudi, Kuwaiti, Egyptian and Syrian.
A social networking star
The two doctors are already fine-tuning publications. “To grow, we need to provide women with enough content and choices that meet their needs,” explained Abou Ghannam. Two programs were added in February: what women need to know before marriage, and sexual health through yoga. Some 30 women already purchased the courses.
Doctor Gaël Abou Ghannam, obstetrician-gynecologist and infertility specialist. (Credit: Photo Mohammed Yassine)
Another program is currently underway, about the basics of a fulfilling sex life. “This will be followed by programs on childbirth preparation and the post-partum period, with new contributors including a physiotherapist and a breastfeeding specialist. We insist on clarity and quality of message,” said Atallah.
To raise Metle Metlik’s profile, the practitioners are using their joint fame, earned over their decade-long careers. Dr. Sandrine, the first Lebanese sexologist and a feminist to boot, is a social media star and a regular on TV programs. She has some 3.7 million followers on TikTok and over half a million on Instagram, where she discusses a range of topics relating to sexuality, pleasure, women’s fantasies, homosexuality, and more. For her part, Dr. Gaël, an infertility specialist, and equally a feminist, has 43,000 followers on Instagram, where she provides information, in short videos, on topics ranging from sexuality and fertility to condom use, developing women’s capacities and contraception.
12,000 subscribers in just a few months
On the Metle Metlik platform and its social media pages, the two doctors are building a comprehensive content repertoire, tackling topics from maternity to menstruation, from menopause to cervical and breast cancers, from sexually transmitted diseases to HIV screening. Within four months, the platform’s Instagram account has gathered almost 12,000 subscribers, “hand-picked to avoid any form of harassment,” explained Dr. Gaël. In the past, Dr. Sandrine had been the victim of harassment on social media, which prompted her to take precautions.
“Our first mission is to inform, educate and advise; that’s why the data is accessible,” Dr. Gaël explained. “Women who want to find out more are invited to visit the platform and purchase the program that interests them.”
Abou Ghannam and Atallah said they were in a “hurry,” however. They would like things to move even faster and for their platform to quickly become a benchmark for Arab women the world over, but their development is somewhat slowed down by several challenges. Starting with the difficulty of creating a high-performance, secure website with a valid payment method in Lebanon, in the context of restrictions imposed by the banking sector since the financial crisis (2019). Not to mention the high cost of technological development. “We have invested the $8,000 we won with the Femme Francophone prize in the creation of the final website, due to be launched in April. We are actively seeking funding for the rest of our operations,” emphasized Dr. Gaël.
The taboo nature of sexuality also needs to be taken into consideration. Not only are women reluctant to trust an online platform, but it’s also very complicated to market and advertise on social networks for a platform that talks about sexuality. “Any explicit content is immediately censored, hence the difficulty of finding the right words,” said Dr. Sandrine. Furthermore, online courses are not common practice in the Middle East. “It’s up to us to launch this culture and guide the movement,” Atallah stressed, mentioning the possibility of inviting Arab specialists to contribute.
For both doctors, the task is immense. “To better focus on our strategy, it’s time to start delegating certain tasks,” Abou Ghannam said.
In February, the doctor duo flew to Dubai to take part in a digital start-up exhibition, where they met with potential investors and technology mentors.