Menopause and Sex

"We are all born sexual beings, from the moment we are born till the day we die. Whether or not we are in a sexual relationship with another person, we can feel good in our bodies, appreciate sensual pleasures, and learn what excites us sexually. Our sexuality has the potential to be a powerful and positive force in our lives, filling us with energy and deepening our most intimate connections."

- Our Bodies, Ourselves: A New Edition for a New Era

There are million and one ways to find pleasure as a menopausal or peri-menopausal woman. Even if you think there is nothing left of your libido, don't give up on yourself. Sex is one of the few pleasures that doesn't make you fat or raise your cholesterol, so you'd think more women would indulge.

Part of low libido could be from fatigue, from overwork, from not wanting to give into one more demand on our fragile ecosystem. I think women are used to 'putting out' as they call it, instead of being able to receive.

One day on Oprah 2 years ago, I heard Dr. Christiane Nortrhup talk about how we can revisualize our whole bodies as an erogenous zone, not just the genitalia. It takes some imagination, some dream time, but you can use whatever props or visual aids you need to help you feel excited again about sex. Sometimes, what a woman needs is some self-loving, and for some of us, an extra aid to achieve that goal.

If you are also interested in the environment, here is a website with some eco-friendly sex toys:www.ecosex.ca . which I found on the redtent sisters website.www.redtentsisters.com

Let's hear it for menopause

This excerpt is from the Power of Aging an article about 80 year old activist Betty Krawczyk.

"Grandmothers have long played an important role in sustaining life and nurturing their families and the community at large, Betty says.
"The human female is the only animal to live so long after the reproductive organs shut down," she says, adding that according to anthropologists, the role of providing food for the clan often fell to older women when the traditional male 'hunter' could not find enough.
"Menopause allowed older women to give back to the community by allowing them to focus not on reproducing, but nurturing," Betty says. In fact, when looking at human evolution, menopause was the gift "nature gave to the human species that enabled our species to multiply and spread out over the globe."
It is this "ancient connection between old and young" and the tradition of elder leadership that Betty says more older people need to embrace. "Elders and grandmothers in particular are way too meek and mild," she says, adding that to harness the power born of experience, more older people need to insist on an important leadership role.

Betty Krawczyk is the author of Clallyoquot: The Sound of my Heart and Lock Me Up or Let Me Go.

Excerpt from an interview with Betty:

Elders and grandmothers in particular are way too meek and mild. We are a huge population and we should go straight for the sources of power, not to become co-managers of a monstrous unmanageable environmental and economic mess, but to strike out for new territory in refusing to accept the corporate culture as an ideal way to live.
Practically speaking, running for office, getting behind progressive moves that promises to make children a priority, that promises to actually bring forth measures to preserve the environment before every last tree is cut, every last fish caught, every bit of farm land developed, etc., grandmothers know what needs to be done if our life support systems are to be preserved and we should be busy about doing them.

Read the whole article at:
http://50plus.com/Lifestyle/BrowseAllArticles/index.cfm?t_offset=2&documentID=21635