The Truth About Sex After Menopause | The Huffington Post LIFE

When I started my blog in May 2014, I had been single again for a year and a half after a long marital relationship. I chained the relationships at a frantic pace and felt at the top of my form, intellectually, sexually, I had the impression, quite simply, of having power as a woman in this world. My experience proved that the idea that the fairer sex is less and less desirable with the passage of years was wrong. So I decided to pass on the message: after the fifties, a woman's sexuality can be a moment of abundance as long as she doesn't let herself be convinced that she has gone over to the camp of the old goats.

But reading an article on HuffPost last month, written by a 60-year-old woman who talked about a decline in her libido and changes in her physiology that made sex just plain painful, I began to wonder if I hadn't become some sort of lustful Pollyanna. Although my body has undergone some slight changes due to perimenopause, I have never experienced any noticeable problems in terms of lubrication and vaginal atrophy, and if I were really to report a change, it would be an increase in arrow of my sexual desire.

Apparently not all readers find my experience believable. Here is the comment of a certain John:

I was a bit disconcerted to hear that my personal stories seemed so unbelievable that they could only be fantasy. Still, his remark got me thinking, what will happen after I go through menopause? Will my vaginal walls shrink so much that I can't tolerate sex anymore? Will my natural fluids evaporate so much that I'll need lube before I even think about penetrating? Do these changes happen to all postmenopausal women, or just a few? Are there particular factors that cause some women to lose their sexual desire while others keep it?

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— Induspack Wed Jul 05 07:56:15 +0000 2017

That's how I decided to collect data on the sexuality of fifty-somethings and invited postmenopausal women or their partners to speak to me in all sincerity about their experience. Of the 28 emails I've received so far, the responses are evenly split: 50% consider their sex life much worse, while the other 50% consider it different but still positive, or even better than their pre-menopausal sex life.

I will reveal all their answers in future blog posts, but some emails sent to me contained so much information and descriptions that they deserved their own post. This one, from a 51-year-old woman named Grace, tells the glorious story of her libido returning after menopause sapped her sexual pleasure.

This article, originally published on the American HuffPost, was translated from English by Matthieu Carlier.

The health benefits of sex

Erica Jagger

Blogger, A Sexy Woman of A Certain Age