Latest / Sex Advice for Seniors Podcast / Sex After Motherhood: How to Reclaim Desire and Intimacy | Caroline Hood

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Sex After Motherhood: How to Reclaim Desire and Intimacy | Caroline Hood · Sex Advice for Seniors Podcast

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  SPEAKER_00: For anyone embracing pleasure and wellness at every stage of life,
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  SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Suzanne and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I love guests where actually their expertise is in some way related
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  SPEAKER_00: to what they have gone through in their real life because they're talking from...
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us.
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  SPEAKER_00: With having a sexual life and maintaining desire.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she's written about it in her forthcoming book called Sex Begets Sex,
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  SPEAKER_00: Reclaiming Desire as an Act of Female Empowerment.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk about that messy stage of life where you're in midlife You're
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  SPEAKER_00: in a long-term relationship,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're parenting,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're caregiving,
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  SPEAKER_00: your body is changing,
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  SPEAKER_00: and everything around that just makes sex actually quite challenging
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  SPEAKER_00: for many people.
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  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Caroline, to Sex Advice for Seniors.
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  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to be here.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's get into it.
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  SPEAKER_00: So you say that Sex Begets Sex was born out of the work that you do,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also your life as a mother of three.
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  SPEAKER_00: Well done, you.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_00: I stopped after two in a long-term relationship.
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  SPEAKER_00: So how did your experience of midlife motherhood and partnership lead you
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  SPEAKER_00: into this very specific work around desire?
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think for listeners who are parents,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: you can read all of the books and you can do all of the homework and be the
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  SPEAKER_01: A student in advance,
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  SPEAKER_01: but you never really know what's going to happen in your dynamic with your partner
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  SPEAKER_01: when you become a parent.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was clear to me that this was this sort of fork in the road
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  SPEAKER_01: that you could either decide that you and your partner were going to remain lovers
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  SPEAKER_01: as well as co-workers and co-parents or you were going to let the child,
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  SPEAKER_01: the babies, the children sort of become the center of your world.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I When my partner and I became parents,
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  SPEAKER_01: it was just very intentional that we said, okay, hang on, wait a second.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like, we love being parents and we love having these children,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we need to make sure that we still love one another.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we're not going to let that fade.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we had to do that intentionally.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the key,
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  SPEAKER_01: is that it doesn't just happen because the moons and the stars align on
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  SPEAKER_01: the right time.
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  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be intentional.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I really hear what you're saying because my father was the one
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  SPEAKER_00: who actually told me,
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  SPEAKER_00: when you have babies,
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  SPEAKER_00: make sure you put your partner first and your children second
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  SPEAKER_00: because your kids will leave home and you will look at your partner
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  SPEAKER_00: and you won't know who they are because you've put all this focus.
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  SPEAKER_00: But of course,
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  SPEAKER_00: I see modern parents,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also friends of mine who really have struggled with empty nesting.
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  SPEAKER_00: And have found that incredibly challenging because they put the kids at the center.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I see modern parenting as very much around focusing on All the attention on
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  SPEAKER_00: the children and your attitude as being quite radical in some ways from what
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  SPEAKER_00: the popular view now is of parenting.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I had one friend in particular that I saw how they made their relationship
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  SPEAKER_00: the center and how their children benefited from that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because happy parents are happy kids, I think.
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  SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think we really look at it in the,
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  SPEAKER_01: what I describe and talk about in my work is that the parents are the fulcrum of
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  SPEAKER_01: the family.
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  SPEAKER_01: Everything else sort of moves around it.
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  SPEAKER_01: But if you shift that and all of a sudden you let the child become the center or you
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  SPEAKER_01: as,
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  SPEAKER_01: as a couple drift into that coworker,
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  SPEAKER_01: co-parent, roommate zone and Then the whole center shifts.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's interesting because similarly,
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  SPEAKER_01: it sounds like to your father,
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  SPEAKER_01: my mother was the one that said, hey, you're a couple before you have kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: You're going to be a couple after they leave the house.
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  SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we have really worked to embed that in our relationship.
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  SPEAKER_01: And as you said, I see these other parents, and I think mothers have It's really a setup.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're told to be selfless,
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  SPEAKER_01: to do everything for your children,
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  SPEAKER_01: but also make sure you lose the baby weight and make sure you look good,
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  SPEAKER_01: but only be sexy for other people, not actually yourself.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's not about your own desire.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just a setup to fail.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I think there is this big push toward everything goes toward your children.
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  SPEAKER_01: As you said,
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  SPEAKER_01: I actually think that does a disservice if you continue to center your own Pleasure,
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  SPEAKER_01: your own desire, your own relationship.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think that kids benefit from seeing that stable unit that they don't otherwise
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  SPEAKER_01: in different situations.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I said, I think this has become quite a radical idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious about two things.
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  SPEAKER_00: One is, you're the only person I've ever met in my life whose parents said that to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your mother, in my case, my father.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because when I have told my friends about what my father said...
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  SPEAKER_00: They thought that that was wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: That was creepy?
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  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, well,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: because my father used to joke with me when my kids were getting up
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  SPEAKER_00: into their late teens, like not long to go, not long to go.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like parenting was a penance, basically, that you had to go through.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: until you got to the other side where you could be yourself again and like,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, be back with your partner again.
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  SPEAKER_00: But he was partly joking.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like I said,
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  SPEAKER_00: when I've mentioned this to my friends,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're like, wow, that's a very radical idea.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, is it?
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  SPEAKER_00: But is it radical?
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's only because the pendulum,
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  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
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  SPEAKER_00: has swung so far in the opposite direction,
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  SPEAKER_00: so far that this idea that as a couple you should just remain a couple and
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  SPEAKER_00: that pleasure and sex should remain a priority in a relationship seems
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  SPEAKER_00: so challenging.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's really,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: maybe I'm sort of like swimming in the circles that I'm,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: preaching to the choir because I just think I often think of the work in my book
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  SPEAKER_01: and what I talk about with Sex Begets Sex and just prioritizing it in
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  SPEAKER_01: the relationship is kind of quite simple,
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  SPEAKER_01: is pretty pragmatic,
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  SPEAKER_01: that there's nothing really revolutionary about it to say,
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  SPEAKER_01: hey, this is something that's important.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I do see,
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  SPEAKER_01: as you said,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think we are also messaged to just So I must then get rid of a different identity.
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  SPEAKER_01: Usually your sexual self, your identity as lover.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it doesn't have to be zero sum.
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  SPEAKER_01: You get to widen your identity at that point and say,
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  SPEAKER_01: okay, I get to be both a parent and a parent.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing, too,
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  SPEAKER_01: about maintaining that sexual relationship,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I'm curious what you think,
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  SPEAKER_01: is I think it is a buffer to all the stresses that parents have to go through.
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  SPEAKER_01: I have three kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think maintaining that sexual relationship and dynamic with my spouse makes our life easier.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is a stress reducer.
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  SPEAKER_01: It is a buffer to all of that that I really do think does make me a better parent
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  SPEAKER_01: and does make me a better communicator and a better worker and
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  SPEAKER_01: a better all these other pieces because not only just from the sexual satisfaction,
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  SPEAKER_01: but from all the other ways it keeps us bound as a couple.
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  SPEAKER_00: Was this something that you talked with your husband about before you had kids?
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  SPEAKER_00: Or was it something that arose out of having children and realizing,
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  SPEAKER_00: like, if we don't make this intentional, if we don't focus on this, we...
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  SPEAKER_00: We could easily just drift off into the abyss.
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  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing this weekend with the kids?
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  SPEAKER_00: What's happening with the kids?
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  SPEAKER_00: Who's putting the kids to bed?
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  SPEAKER_00: Who's bathing the kids?
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  SPEAKER_01: Before we had kids, we prioritized.
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  SPEAKER_01: We were always a couple and I always brought into the relationship this idea
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  SPEAKER_01: that sexual intimacy was a critical part of a relationship.
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  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, your companions or roommates or lovely people
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  SPEAKER_01: with affection,
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  SPEAKER_01: but that that wasn't good enough.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, he was happy to hear that and happy to have that prioritized.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then as we had kids,
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  SPEAKER_01: it just became this thing that was so ingrained in our routine and again,
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  SPEAKER_01: so ingrained in And particularly when I had kids and I took on that role of mother
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  SPEAKER_01: and I didn't recognize my own body and recognize my own self and feel like me,
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  SPEAKER_01: sex was something that was still for me and part of who we are.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it was something I was drawn to in a way to keep me stable during times
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  SPEAKER_01: of feeling like, oh, my gosh, I'm unmoored.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we did talk about it.
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  SPEAKER_01: We do talk about it.
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  SPEAKER_01: We see, okay, you know, all right, we used to have nap time and now we don't have nap time.
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  SPEAKER_01: Logistics change.
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  SPEAKER_01: We go through phases.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's literally like how this is an important piece of life.
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  SPEAKER_01: It
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  SPEAKER_00: isn't easy when you've got young children either.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and another thing I notice is that,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially with my listeners who are in these very long-term relationships,
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  SPEAKER_00: is that oftentimes it's the women in those relationships
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  SPEAKER_00: that feel like their desire has disappeared.
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  SPEAKER_00: What do you think is usually wrong about what's actually changed?
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's a couple things there.
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't think the desire has disappeared.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think either two things.
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  SPEAKER_01: They never gave themselves permission to have desire in the first place,
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  SPEAKER_01: whether they didn't or religion or society or write any of these kind of messagings
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  SPEAKER_01: that we soak up that says, oh, no, no, no, you're no longer allowed to have this.
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  SPEAKER_01: This isn't for you.
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  SPEAKER_01: Or it's been pushed under the rug and put to the sideline,
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  SPEAKER_01: again, because we've let other priorities take over.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're seeing, though, that women really...
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's such a nice movement.
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  SPEAKER_01: Obviously,
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  SPEAKER_01: you see this movement in perimenopausal,
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  SPEAKER_01: postmenopausal women reclaiming desire,
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  SPEAKER_01: the romanticy, the dark romance, all of this literature, erotica.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's being consumed by women.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there is desire there,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it's living in these fantasy worlds that I think,
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  SPEAKER_01: okay, let's put them back into reality.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is doable.
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  SPEAKER_01: It exists.
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  SPEAKER_01: Libido, desire, it's alive and well.
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  SPEAKER_01: It just needs to come back.
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  SPEAKER_01: The
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  SPEAKER_00: thing about the motherhood is that I do think sometimes men struggle
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  SPEAKER_00: with this whole Madonna whore thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: That oftentimes when they see their partner sometimes literally giving birth
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  SPEAKER_00: and going through this thing, and it's a big thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes their brain turns off the idea of having sex.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I think also we've got the double problem here of women becoming this.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is hot consuming at the beginning.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I definitely struggled with this whole thing in my own marriage
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  SPEAKER_00: when my kids were younger, partly because I was exhausted, if I'm really honest.
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  SPEAKER_00: And exhaustion plays a huge part in it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Plus the fact that my husband thought as well, like,
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  SPEAKER_00: we're not going to have sex because this whole thing is so,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially the first one,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's like, oh,
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  SPEAKER_00: oh my God,
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  SPEAKER_00: I've got this little person and I've got this and I'm so tired and I'm not going
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  SPEAKER_00: to get any sleep and I just want to prioritize my sleep.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you carve out that time?
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  SPEAKER_00: How did you make that intentional?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because I think it's very hard to
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  SPEAKER_01: It is very hard.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think every woman should,
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  SPEAKER_01: if anybody's going, oh my God, you know, how do I do this and prioritize sex?
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  SPEAKER_01: None of this is shaming or that anybody's doing anything wrong,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it is, I think it's important.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are a lot of women who feel like sex is an obligation for something else.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a gift they give to the husband as opposed to A gift they give to themselves
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  SPEAKER_01: and to their relationships.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I think there is a mindset there.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think logistically, yeah, my partner and I, we don't have sex at night.
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  SPEAKER_01: Rarely, you know, dozen in time after 15 years of marriage and 18 together.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is not a thing we save till the end of the day.
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  SPEAKER_01: So there are simply some logistical considerations.
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  SPEAKER_01: Sex is a physical act.
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  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm offline by 8 p.m.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so that is just something you have to figure out.
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  SPEAKER_01: And you have to figure out the grooves of your day.
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  SPEAKER_01: I do challenge people to think about,
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  SPEAKER_01: oh, did you have 20 minutes scrolling here and 15 minutes scrolling there?
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  SPEAKER_01: Think about how you're spending your time.
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  SPEAKER_01: If this is something you prioritize, I bet you can find it.
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  SPEAKER_01: I do also think that couples should and can,
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  SPEAKER_01: particularly heterosexual couples,
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  SPEAKER_01: can really lower the stakes to sex, which is to say it can be mutual masturbation.
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  SPEAKER_01: It can be non-penetrative sex,
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  SPEAKER_01: which can be A bigger,
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  SPEAKER_01: more physical act can take longer,
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  SPEAKER_01: all of that,
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  SPEAKER_01: whereas you can still have very satisfying, pleasurable sex where it is less time.
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  SPEAKER_01: It does require less energy.
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  SPEAKER_01: That is important to get more creative, I think, in those days when you're just drowning.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, you mentioned the Madonna whore.
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  SPEAKER_01: I do think that's really fair.
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  SPEAKER_01: There can be that trope of like,
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  SPEAKER_01: the wife always has the headache and the husband's nagging for sex.
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  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's the other way around or a combo.
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  SPEAKER_01: And And you hear a little bit of that in the medical community when it comes to sex,
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  SPEAKER_01: where if you become a caretaker for a very medically ill spouse,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, chemo or treatment or something, you see them as a patient.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's hard to see them as a sexual being.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think that can happen for men when women...
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  SPEAKER_01: And I just think...
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  SPEAKER_01: We have to talk about that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Couples have to talk about that and go, okay, wow, our reality has just shifted.
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  SPEAKER_01: How do we keep the pieces we love?
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  SPEAKER_01: And how do we make sure we remember, yes,
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: even though I'm breastfeeding and these are serving a different purpose,
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  SPEAKER_01: they're still sexual and we can still have fun and we can still do these things,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we also have to talk about it.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's the fundamental part.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's been many, many years, obviously, since I breastfed anybody.
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  SPEAKER_00: But when I did breastfeed my boys, I really, really loved it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I really found it incredibly rewarding.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it has that effect.
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  SPEAKER_00: I
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  SPEAKER_00: wasn't
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  SPEAKER_00: going to give him what we call a dummy or pacifier.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't going to do that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't going to do any of those things.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of that, by the end of the day, I did not want to be touched properly.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to reclaim my body at that point.
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  SPEAKER_00: I really felt like I had given my body to this little person who needed the milk.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I felt very much like,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: do not touch me because I need to have some space without anybody touching me.
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  SPEAKER_00: So when I reflect back on this period of my life,
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  SPEAKER_00: I also contributed to not wanting to be sexual purely because during that period
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  SPEAKER_00: of time I really felt like a lot of my physical self was being handed over
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  SPEAKER_00: to this little person.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was really hard, you know.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think some of the struggle actually comes from a really good place in
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  SPEAKER_01: the sense that I think some couples experience that.
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  SPEAKER_01: And instead of communicating about it,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're really sensitive to our partner's feelings in a really beautiful way.
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  SPEAKER_01: But it can kind of have the adverse impact,
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  SPEAKER_01: which is that if you're experiencing this and you're saying,
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  SPEAKER_01: oh, I just like I'm all touched out.
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  SPEAKER_01: My body has been and I don't want to be touched,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: but I still love you and Gosh, how do we figure this out?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're in a bit of a bind here.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're in a bit of a pickle because I still love you,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: but I also actually don't want to be touched.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of having that conversation, we tend to have no conversation.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so what then people hear is or feel is rejection.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And either party feels rejected before they even begin.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Or they try a couple times and it doesn't go anywhere and so you stop trying.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this chasm can develop in these relationships where there's still so much love
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: but things aren't said because I think out of love and fear
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: of hurting someone's feelings,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: but like I said, I think it can do harm to the partnerships.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, for me,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: that whole episode was 30 years ago,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm now in my 60s,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: and I look at where so many people I know are at this age,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: which is so many people are back to being caregivers,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: are back to being grandmothers.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And looking after other people.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of,
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: if you've never had those conversations,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I suspect what's happened is, well, in my case, my relationship ended.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: In other cases, I suspect that chasm that develops because maybe...
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just didn't want to be touched in the early years when you were looking
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: after a baby develops into just forgetting how to be touched because you didn't have
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: a conversation.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then as grandmothers and caregivers,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: how do you think that all those roles tangle up again with our sexual selves?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And how can people of my age begin to untangle all of this?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a lot.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a web.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And some of it,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: it's sort of like I think about, OK,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: what is the messaging that's coming from inside and what's
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: the messaging that's coming from outside?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's usually a combination.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I think there's these roles that are put on,
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's mother or then you're in midlife or then you're a grandmother.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing sexy about the word grandmother.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing, you know, there's no...
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm wrong.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's no archetype in literature or in film where it's like the sexy grandmother.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a sexy mom.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few of those.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's sort of few and far between.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there is this just umbrella of, okay,
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: you are of a certain age and therefore this is no longer,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: it's back to that identity.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is no longer part of your identity.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is no longer something that you are allowed to seek or are worthy of seeking.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get all the confusion around hormonal and physical changes where,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: we as women need to be advocates for our health and getting on hormone replacement
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: and doing things to recognize that hormones are shifting and we still get
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: to be thriving beings.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, don't put us
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: out to pasture.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let us still live.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let us still have this pleasure.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: For so many women who get to this stage of this sort of gray divorce,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked to girlfriends of mine who are 15,
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: 20 years into marriage,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: and they're going, I don't know if I ever was attracted to anyone.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have this friend and we were young in our 20s and dated.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you were like, I remember I lived with you.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: You were bringing guys home.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: You were attracted.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you have just lost yourself in the caregiving in this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now you can't even remember it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I so I just encourage women to like crawl back to it,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: even if you're sort of like, I don't even know if I care.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Give it a shot.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Being a sexual being is just fundamental to being human.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And some people hang it up.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has self-determination and gets to choose that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I always just wonder, what are they missing?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: How are they missing this so primal universal piece of all of us?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think women were told to put it aside.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to push back on that narrative.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember you saying,
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: in addition to the mindset,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think there is the other side of it,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: which is that, you know, our bodies are changing, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we go through childbirth and things, I watched a stupid o'clock this morning.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I watched some Instagram videos.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have a video with this woman who's got a kid or two, and she's celebrating her jiggly belly.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was looking at her, and I was like, she was actually a really beautiful woman.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was watching her and her jiggly body,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, yeah,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: but your spirit is beautiful,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: but you're also just fundamentally a very attractive woman,
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: which means that you may have a better time with your jiggly body, right?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: But we've all seen those changes that go on.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: First, first, From pregnancy, then from menopause.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people and,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of women start to feel very invisible around this time of life
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: where not only are the hormones disappearing.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But also,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: they're seeing these changes in their body that are making them feel less
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: than attractive.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is difficult.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's your advice for somebody who does feel invisible or unsexy in a culture
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: that doesn't see our bodies as erotic, really?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you're right.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think invisible is the right word.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just unsexy, it's unworthy.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, I mean,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: to really put,
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: encapsulate that and put that into words and say, okay,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: at a certain age or at a certain weight or at a certain look,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: whatever, I am no longer a worthy part.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And to reflect on that and go...
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but that is according to the male gaze.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: That is according to nonsense.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all up in arms about the quote,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: wellness industry, which I just think is diet culture disguised as self-care.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's just nonsense nonsense.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just trying to take our money and put us on GLP-1s and,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know, get facelifts and all of it.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And gosh, I wish there was just a collective rising.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: at an individual level,
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: we all sort of have to look in the mirror and say, no, I won't allow that.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, these wrinkles show that I've smiled so much and I've had happy memories and
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: the roles for my children.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And those are beautiful things, but it's really hard to make those things
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thoughts louder than the external messaging.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think conversations like yours and conversations where we all say no.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think if there's more like how can the men be more on the women's side?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are a lot of heterosexual men out there who don't want the archetype
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: of the physical body that they are also told that they're supposed to want.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But they need to speak up.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: It would be great if they would say more about how much they liked bigger,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: fuller women who carry their confidence and carry their bodies
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: because they're not saying enough.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: We need them to speak up, too.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: My own personal experience of this,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: very recent,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: actually,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: like yesterday,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: in fact, is that I'm a big fan of cheap, cheesy, sexy lingerie, right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I love buying stuff that's quite revealing.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just fun, right?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I bought something.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was given some credit on Timu.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, what am I going to do with this credit?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to look for like cheap, sexy stuff, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to buy like Crotchless undies.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to buy red velvet, like fake velvet, kind of like skimpy something rather.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to buy all this kind of stuff, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it was fun.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I put on this little red I
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: looked at myself and all I could see was my imperfections.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at it and I was like, oh,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've got quite large breasts,
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: but they're a bit, you know, saggy and blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I jiggled around, made a video and sent it to somebody, right?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this person...
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: wrote back and he was like, Oh my God, you've got to wear that the next time I see you.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way your ass looks in that.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way you're, you know, like you got to do this.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like spiraling like out into like fantasy.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And for me,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: that was such a confidence booster because up until that point,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, I should have got the size up.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit too tight, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was just seeing all the things that for me were wrong.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that is because...
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a victim of social media and all the stuff that I see.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I don't look perfect.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But to somebody else that desires me, I looked great, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what a lot of men need to hear.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Frankly, give those words of appreciation.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like...
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: If your partner is a bit on the large side and you come home
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: with some skimpy something from Walmart or wherever,
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: just tell them they look great in a way that actually points out all the bits
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: of their body that you think are just gorgeous.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Which this person was like literally going point by point, like your legs look fabulous.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your breasts look like this.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want you to be like this the next time I see you, blah, blah, blah.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I was getting super turned on by this conversation.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I almost didn't send it because I thought, I don't know if I look good enough.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the reaction I got was, no, no, you look amazing, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it takes so much guts.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reaction that I think if more women did what you did, they would get.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: But women are afraid to do that because they stop at what you did,
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: which was, oh, you know, it's saggy here.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's too tight there.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's a roll or my boobs are too this, too that.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like an American beach.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the bathing suits are tiny.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't been to Brazil, but I feel like it's how people describe Brazil.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's almost nothing that the women are wearing.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the women are beautiful, but they are coming in all shapes and sizes.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I just look around and I think...
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's just they're just almost naked and and confident and jumping around
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: and their bodies are moving.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's just so refreshing to see people appearing so comfortable
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: in whatever shape they are,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: wearing very little and having the world just be open arms to them.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's so nice.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we all need to just remember that.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: The reaction I got was so much better than what I thought I was going to get.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It made me think, oh, I should do more of that, you know, because that was fun.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I really enjoyed that.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it gave me a little boost,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: but I think you're right is that often you We're so trained to just think
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: that we need to be perfect,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: that we forget that the people in our lives that desire us,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: they are the people that are the ones who are going to be giving us
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: that positive reinforcement.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So ladies,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: what I'm saying to you,
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: and guys as well,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: men, tell your ladies how much you love all the bits of them that you love.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And ladies go in and buy some sexy stuff.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it literally doesn't have to cost much.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this thing was like, I think it was under 10 bucks.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was so cheap.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think about all the time I wasted worrying about nobody cared,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: the size of my boobs and this and that and how thin I was and what the scale said.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasted brain cells and way too much emotion on it and And nobody ever cared.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was an issue for anyone, it was only an issue for me.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was never for anyone I was trying to have any sexual relationship with.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 150%.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have gone over time probably because I got too excited telling my sexy story.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you had such a positive response.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: You have to share that.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I mean,
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just think it's these real life experiences that often people are like,
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: but how do I actually do this?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, it's like go out and just put yourself out there.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: The reaction that you're getting or that you think you're going to get.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love our bodies.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: They love them in all sizes.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this whole thing about skinny women, whatever.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: To be honest, I very rarely met a man who says to me, I wish you could be like...
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a delay.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just a quick nudge.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't visited sexadviceforseniors.com yet, what are you waiting for?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the place where curiosity, experience, and a little mischief all meet.