Older, ageing women always want to know plenty things about sexuality — just like a teenager who is yet to enter the game.
Here are some of the questions ageing women want answers for!
Why am I no longer in the mood like I used to be?
One thing that’s important to understand, especially for women, is that desire and arousal are two different things. Desire is the wanting, being excited for sex. And arousal is what follows—our breath quickens, our genitals engorge, that whole process.
This notion that it’s gonna strike us over the head and we’re just gonna wanna rip our partner’s clothes off doesn’t really exist for many people beyond the early, honeymoon phase of a relationship.
If you’re not in the mood like you used to be, that just means you need to understand who you are right now and what will get you in the mood
A lot of us walk around feeling broken because we’re not struck over the head with a desire to have sex. But you’re not broken; there’s nothing wrong with you.
The real work we have to do is to understand our own process of what turns us on. Women, typically, have something called responsive desire; we respond to certain cues in our environment.
Maybe it’s foreplay, or our partner helping with housework, or having a really exciting conversation. If you’re not in the mood like you used to be, that just means you need to understand who you are right now and what will get you in the mood.
First, consider what’s going on with your health and wellness. Are you taking certain medications that can impact your ability to be aroused? Are you moving your body? Exercise and blood flow are a big part of our arousal.
Self-acceptance is another pillar of sexual health. How confident and comfortable are you in your body at this stage of life
How is your relationship with your partner? Collaboration is a big part of sex, too. Do you communicate about your sex life? Have you let him or her know what turns you on?
Self-acceptance is another pillar of sexual health. How confident and comfortable are you in your body at this stage of life?
Self-knowledge is another. Do you know your desires and turn-ons? Think about when you were in the mood in the past. Were you on vacation? Had you just gone for a great workout?
This is reverse engineering our arousal and understanding that we’re responsible for turning ourselves on; we’re responsible for our orgasms.
How does orgasm change as we get older?
Everything changes as we age. We may not like the same foods, exercise, movies, or music. Our orgasms change, too. Sometimes we notice that they’re not as strong as we get older.
There is also an orgasm gap: Men are more likely to have them in every sexual situation, and women are not. Hormones are often the culprit because our hormone production changes and slows as we age, and it can be more difficult to achieve orgasm.
explore your body and figure out what you require to achieve orgasm
A lot of times, it’s related to the diminishing strength of our pelvic floor muscles. This doesn’t have to mean that the orgasms aren’t as satisfying. They’re just different. And it means you have to find new ways to orgasm, because we can still have them, and we deserve to.
This is where we get to explore our bodies and figure out what we require to achieve orgasm. It could be lubricants, more oral sex, more foreplay, more touch, more patience, more time.
It’s also about always using lube, finding the right kind of hormone replacement, and not beating yourself up about your body not being where it was 20 years ago.
Toys can be a great source of pleasure for women. Our bodies are covered in nerve endings, especially our genital areas, our erogenous zones, and our secondary erogenous zones. Vibrations allow us to explore them in a much deeper way. A toy will access all those nerve endings.
Do other women have pain issues?
I’m 60, and it’s frustrating that sex is so painful.
We definitely have more pain issues as we get older. This is due to hormone changes, the loss of estrogen. The vaginal tissues become less elastic, more fragile, more susceptible to bleeding and tearing and pain. And due to vaginal atrophy, the vaginal walls become thinner and more dry, and the vaginal canal actually becomes shortened and tight, which means there’s more inflammation, and it can cause more urinary tract infections.
So, penetrative sex can be very, very painful. As a result, I think it’s really important to always use a lubricant—like every time you have sex.
I highly recommend vaginal estrogen for every woman experiencing pain who is over the age of 40
Also, there’s a lot of great hormone replacement therapy now that’s safe for most women, even if they have a history of breast cancer. My friends and I are all taking estrogen in different ways—the patch, the pellets, the ring, vaginal suppositories. And my mom, who’s 80, has been doing it for 30 years.
I highly recommend vaginal estrogen for every single woman experiencing pain who is over the age of 40. That really, really helps to heal the tissues. It helps with the tearing, can help strengthen your vaginal wall again, and also helps with night sweats and perimenopause symptoms. Talk to your gynecologist about your options.
As a woman, if not having sex for a long time (15+ years) will make it difficult to resume an active sex life in my mid-60s.
It can be really scary getting back in the game. I don’t want you to do that without having a connection with your own body first. You can use estrogen for your vagina, but the truth is, so much of our sex life has to do with our brain.
Get comfortable with your body again; start a self-love or masturbation practice. Start reading books about sex, listening to podcasts, following more sex-positive voices. Move your body; it’s all about blood flow. Take a dance class, get active, go hiking. Your entire wellness routine will impact your sex life.
Source: Oprah Magazine
