What women (and their partners) need to hear — but rarely do
Not unlike adolescence, midlife is a time of profound and multi-faceted change. The hormones that once evenly distributing in our bodies without us thinking about it have now begun to shift. We may be discovering our desire plummeting, and even if we have the desire; how our body responds to intimacy might change.
For most women, perimenopause comes with noticeable changes that affect memory, sleep, mood, metabolism, energy, joint mobility, and of course, sexual desire and arousal. These changes can often bring feelings that seem unfamiliar and sometimes discouraging. This leaves many of us not only struggling with how to navigate what feels like a new nervous system, but also how our sexuality fits into this new era, and with it, pleasure.
Your Body, Your Pleasure
Shining a light on the changes you're going through opens up the opportunity to get creative about ways of connecting with pleasure. Vaginal and vulvar dryness and lack of lubrication can make sex painful, now making lubricants a need and not just a choice. Arousal might take longer or require trying new devices, methods or techniques to get there. These options might look different, but different is not worse. It's just different, and different can be navigated – with a willingness to let go of old beliefs about what intimacy is supposed to look like. Viewing intimacy and sex on more of a spectrum and not one fixed point might be helpful and will expand the possibilities of your "turn on" in ways that might even surprise you. For instance, if self-pleasure has always been accomplished the same way or used as a means to an end.
Perhaps, during this phase of life, exploring your arousal through self-pleasure will lead you to a new understanding of how your turn on is changing. Some folks might seek new avenues for masturbation in order to explore what their arousal may be turning toward if the old ways aren't working anymore. Aiding in the journey are products like clitoral vibes, clitoral arousal topicals, and dual stimulation vibes to name a few. But where to begin? Harder, softer, faster, slower, sensation, friction, tensing, relaxing, all might be explored to see where your turn on is residing.
Experiencing desire fluctuations can also be a challenge. Lack of desire is confusing and often leads us to blame ourselves, especially when it comes to the impact on our partner.
We worry about how to stoke it again or if it is gone forever. My advice? Give yourself grace. Your body has carried you through decades of life. It may feel like it, but the changes happening now are not betrayals. They are transitions. Abstain when you need to. Modify movement instead of abandoning it. Use a vibrator. Even planning for intimacy the same way you plan for other things that matter is surprisingly effective.
Get Curious
How do we cohesively register where our sexual feelings are going and any differences we’re noticing in order to affect change anyway? Get curious. What don’t you feel like doing anymore? What would you like more of? How has your arousal changed, and how has this affected your relationship with your own self-pleasure practice and the pleasure in your relationship? What, if anything, are you interested in exploring?
Q&A
Your doctor can be a good source of information about physical changes. Questions about comfort during sex, lubrication, pelvic floor health, and hormone replacement therapy are all under their purview. One piece of advice? Advocate for yourself and come armed with questions you bring into the appointment. Doctors don’t know what you’re experiencing and may omit important information unless they know your symptoms and concerns. A pelvic floor physical therapist is another professional you might seek the advice of. Their specialized knowledge can help in pinpointing and mitigating pain during sex, muscle strengthening (if needed), vaginismus and a lot more that a regular gynecologist doesn’t usually cover.
Communication
Midlife can be a natural reset point for intimacy. It might take some time and patience before you feel and understand your desire again. The effect on our partners can also be confusing and frustrating for both of you. While we circumnavigate this new terrain, communication is your best friend. Talking about sex with our partner is often placed on the back-burner and not given the priority that it deserves. But, having honest, open, sometimes uncomfortable conversations with your partner about these changes is crucial to avoid misinterpretation, personalization, and assumptions. Conveying your own struggles, discoveries, and disappointments about your libido is a vulnerable act and one that can draw people closer and strengthen connection. Your libido and arousal are dynamic and in a state of flux. Keep the lines of communication open and exploratory.
Set up these kinds of conversations to be an ongoing dialogue. Maybe a monthly "State of the Union” is in order?
It’s essential to keep your connection and intimacy growing. In a time of exploration, couples who keep the dialogue open and ongoing begin to realize that their sex life isn’t destined to disappear; it’s just going through an adjustment period while it evolves.
Going Forward
This is a unique time. A new road to pleasure, intimacy, and connection is being built as you walk it. Hopefully, by continuing to expand the exploration and conversation as you go, you’ll both come to realize that these changes do not mean the end of intimacy, but that it's an invitation to understand it, and ourselves – more deeply than you would’ve imagined. In fact, when we approach pleasure with more intention and less performance pressure, our relationship with just about everything becomes richer and deeper. The couples who come out the other side of the menopausal years closer and more connected are the ones who chose to talk about it – awkwardly, imperfectly, and honestly. Start there. The rest tends to follow.
Elle Chase abs, csc, clc - Certified Life Coach & Sexologist
