Menopause and Sexuality
by Linda Savage, Ph.D. of goddesstherapy.com
Maiden. Mother. Crone. Ancient terms, all three of them, and
yet they hold much wisdom and experience for women today. The
Maiden learns who she is; the Mother, teaches compassion and creativity.
When a woman reaches the mature Crone stage, she knows
who she is, what she wants,
and what her gifts and blessings are to give to the world. That is
the perfect scenario. Life sometimes falls far short.
Dr. Linda Savage, author, psychologist and sex therapist, takes
us down the trails of
what
we do
wrong and guides us toward the correct path so that
the true gifts of the stages of a woman's life are hers and hers alone. Below
is an excerpt from her book Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality: The Power
of the Feminine Way.
Menopause and Sexuality
Let's examine the role of menopause in the psychology of female desire.
A study done of a group of London women that listed the following
problems reportedly
starting during perimenopause: loss of interest in sex, aversive
reactions to any sexual
touching, vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, loss of clitoral
sensation, decrease in orgasm, and thinning of the skin leading
to irritation.
Yet, slightly over
one-third of the women in the study reported loss of sexual interest,
and even fewer women reported the other symptoms. This leaves us
wondering about the
experience of the other two-thirds. Since the focus was on the
pathological problems of
menopause, the positive side was not examined.
Rebirth of Sexual Possibilities
The onset of Crone years may be seen as a psychological fork in
the road, one path leading to relinquishing feminine sexuality
altogether,
and
the other
leading to a rebirth of sexual possibilities. Currently, there
is a new recognition of
older women's desire for sex. Fortunately, there are increasing
numbers of older women defying conventional stereotypes. They
may even have
younger male sexual
partners.
Crone women with strong self-esteem, who have internalized a
sense of permission to be sexual, survive the physical and emotional
changes of
menopause by
continuing to access their life-afffirming sexual desire. At
first,
they may be surprised
by the fact that they are not sexually responding in familiar
ways. Once such women realize that perimenopause is not fleeting,
they
utilize the
sexual body
wisdom they have gained, in order to function well under the
new circumstances.
Sexuality and Aging
The current panic over medical solutions to menopause derives
from a profound fear of growing old, and especially looking
old, has reached
paranoid
proportions in our times. Our culture is so aversive to aging
that the new wave of chemical
solutions to menopause seem like a response to the scare
tactics from our childhood: "The
bogeyman will get you." The message is: If you don't
take this or that pill, you will have serious bone loss,
heart disease, and you will look old. In contemporary
society, old is synonymous with sexually unattractive.
What is even more alarming is that women sometimes choose
to overdose by taking four times the recommended amount.
Perhaps
they think
that if estrogen
will
keep them looking young and feeling sexy, more is even better.
If you have considered
all types of estrogen and have discussed the possible alternatives
assertively with your physician, you have made an informed
choice.
Since initially, the crisis of aging sets off a panic in
most women, they must resist the immediate reaction to deal
with
the fear by
blindly taking
the latest
and greatest chemicals. These may be desperate measures.
Such women are going to need to directly confront their psychological
issues
with aging.
The Aging Crisis
At the Crone Stage of life, our body-image issues
of the Maiden years resurface. Yet even women who were confident
in their Maiden
body
image and
managed to survive
the Mother years with a continued sense of beauty are vulnerable
to an emotional crisis. They become alarmed by the loss
of elasticity and the
pull of gravity
that will eventually defy the most rigorous beauty regimens.
If a woman
has been a slave to society's concepts of beauty, she may
avoid sexual activity,
unable
to tolerate the painful thought of a lover's rejection.
For some beautiful women, the only choice is to become a recluse,
as did
Greta Garbo.
Since our feelings about our attractiveness influence our
sexual desire, the more we dwell on negative feelings about
how we
look, the worse
the effect on sexual desire and responsiveness. Some women
never realize that they can
feel
sexy at any age. There is at least one psychological crisis
to be found lurking around the 50th birthday. The moment
of realization
that: "Oh my God, I
don't look young anymore." You become aware that the
image in the mirror is older and more wrinkled. Yet many
women tell me that they still feel 19 inside
their 50-year-old bodies, and it comes as a surprise to
see an older woman in the mirror.
A woman's crisis of aging is the loss of her illusions
about her once-youthful attractiveness. Even with the
miracles of plastic surgery, she cannot
ignore her aging. Sadly, some women can never accept
the loss or
find a way to
expand their sense of beauty beyond the norms of our
culture. They may remain eternal
princesses, always chasing after the next expensive treatment.
Their style is a copy of youthful fashion, and at times,
these aging princesses
look
downright silly. Some women go through a period of yearning
to return to their youthful
look, but grow to accept a new, unique sense of self.
About Dr. Linda Savage
Linda E. Savage, Ph.D., is a Licensed Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist in California. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sexology, an AASECT certified Sex Educator and is a member of the Institute of Marital and Sexual Therapy. She is the author of Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality: The Power of the Feminine Way which presents a view of women’s sexuality that blends the ancient wisdom of the Goddess cultures with current clinical knowledge.
