How Sex Changes In Midlife

I’m continuing to answer questions sent in by my readers. This week, I’m tackling one that comes up quite a lot: Why does sex change so much for women in midlife, and what can they do about it? First off, it’s worth acknowledging that everyone, regardless of gender, moves through different life stages that affect sexual function, connection, and desire in all kinds of ways, including in midlife. Some of the most powerful shifts involve hormone changes, and midlife is a time when hormones typically change a lot. To keep it simple(ish!) I’ll narrow my answer to the hormone changes experienced by cisgender women.

Estrogen drops substantially in midlife, and that drop has a wide range of effects on the body. Here’s a rundown of the most common effects:

• Vaginal dryness
• Lower sexual desire
• Weaker orgasms
• Decreased muscle tone and flexibility including in the pelvic floor muscles

If you want to learn more about how midlife affects sexuality, the Femani Wellness website is an excellent resource; you can start here.

It’s definitely possible to mitigate some of these shifts with lifestyle choices and specific interventions:

• If your orgasms are weaker than they were before, it may be the result of changes in your pelvic floor muscles. Just like any other muscle, you can strengthen your pelvic floor with exercises. You might consider contacting a pelvic floor physical therapist to start; your primary care MD can give you a referral, or you can contact a PT directly.
• If you’re not experiencing as much desire for sex, many people find that exercise helps; it increases free testosterone in the body, which often boosts desire.
• A mindfulness practice, with a focus on perceiving and experiencing subtle physical sensations, can help a LOT with both desire and the experience of orgasm.
• One possible effect of lower estrogen levels is vaginal atrophy, in which the skin of the vaginal walls becomes less padded and thinner, leading to pain with penetration. Thankfully, there’s an awesome treatment for that: the Vaginal Renewal Program, a non-pharmacological program that works through a combination of moisturizing, vibration, and massage. It can make a huge difference for people experiencing vaginal atrophy. Refer to the FeMani Wellness website for more information.
• My #1 recommendation for sexual health, improved sexual function, as well as overall health, is reducing inflammation in the body. Eating an anti-inflammatory diet, doing strength training, and ensuring that you’re sweating through 30 minutes of cardio every day can make a huge difference. You could end up feeling better than ever before, and enjoying sex more too.
• Use it or lose it. The more sexual pleasure you enjoy, the more you will have the physiological structures and neural connections to enjoy sexual pleasure. Have some orgasms, alone or with a partner. Enjoy genital massage with or without orgasm. Get the blood flowing, and learn to enter a pleasure-focused state of relaxation.

I want to emphasize one point: It is 100% possible to have awesome sex, no matter what age you are or what bodily shifts you are experiencing. The strategies I’ve mentioned above can be a huge help, but the truth is, there’s only one indispensable skill you need in order to have an awesome sexual connection over the course of a lifespan: flexibility.

By flexibility, I mean the ability to roll with the punches, respond to what’s happening in the moment, and not get dragged down by negative assumptions or meaning-making when things don’t go as planned. It’s totally fine if you’re not there yet; flexibility is something you can cultivate, and the best time to start is now!

The changes many cisgender women experience in midlife can disrupt their settled patterns of sexual connection. That can be quite distressing and scary, particularly if you haven’t yet had a lot of practice cultivating flexibility in your sexual interactions. But if you can get past that distress, and embrace flexibility, it’s also a fantastic opportunity to learn a lot more about yourself and about your partner, and possibly discover some new and exciting ways to explore intimacy together. Many people have the best sex of their lives past midlife, for exactly this reason.

Here are a few mindsets you might choose to experiment with, which are designed to help you cultivate flexibility:

• It’s completely normal and expectable for things not to go as planned when you’re having sex. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you or with your partner.
• There are infinite ways to connect intimately, from self-pleasuring together, to sharing fantasies, to pleasuring one another with toys. If one particular activity isn’t pleasurable or possible today, this is your chance to explore some others!
• You and your partner are teammates; your goal is to create as much pleasure and connection as you can together. Keep your eye on that goal, and let go of any sense you “should” engage in any specific activity.