What Are the Dangers of Midlife Celibacy? What Happens to MY Clitoris If I Don't Have Sex? And What If I Want to Avoid Botox?

Welcome to the My Aloof Vagina Podcast, where we explore the distress and surprise of our midlife transitions. We take menopause seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. We believe that learning what to expect in perimenopause can be entertaining. It's inevitable, so we may as well equip ourselves and have a good time. I'm your host, Martha. And if you are listening to this episode, that means you've dug into the back catalog. You've gone back to the very beginning. And I love that. I want to let you know. This episode has been revised and edited. You may have noticed that it's much shorter than the rest of the episodes and the reason. Is. I had to come back. And cut out. My guest. This episode was a completely unrehearsed and spontaneous conversation between me and a longtime friend. And as the podcast became more popular. She had a change of heart. But there was so much in this episode, that really is about why My Aloof Vagina even exists. Why there's a podcast? Why any of it happened? That I couldn't bring myself to replace it completely. So instead. I just cut out all her stories. So you may hear her laughing in the background. She may hear her. Uh, commenting sometimes in passing, but at no point in this episode, will I introduce her? So in some ways it's kind of just a collection. Of my stories. And I kept them because they're essential to understanding what an aloof vagina really even is and why I'm talking about it. So there are plenty of other episodes for you to listen to after this. But I think this will give you a little bit of a taste of what to expect. As well as setting the foundation for what we're gonna be talking about in future episodes in season one. I am going to do my best for the rest of season one to make sure all the stories get covered. So, if you later feel like you're hearing me repeat something in a different episode. Just know that's because of my effort to make sure nothing got lost. Also since this was an early recording. are a lot of sight gags and goofiness that I just don't do as much anymore because not everyone has video, but if you want to see what's going on, the video is on. My YouTube. and you can find the link to my channel and the show notes. Early on in the episode, I start talking about something. And I refer to these and what these is are frownies. And I go on to explain exactly what frownies are. And the video I show you what frownies are. I love doing this show and I hope to continue to do it for a long, long time and have season after season available to you. I've been having so much fun. In this episode, you get to hear the conversation or at least my side of the conversation. When things kicked off. By the way as always anything we talk about during the show is referenced in the show notes for each episode links, more details photos, those kinds of things. You can find them any time right there in your podcast app or at myaloofvagina.com You know, we both committed to bangs instead of Botox. I'm terrible with maintenance which is why these Frownies are hilarious I got these because the elevens were making me crazy. we got the bangs as part of the whole My Aloof Vagina and then I saw this thing on Instagram and I started following them. By the way, the only times I've ever had Botox were with you. I mean, the two times we did it, my thirties. Thirties! And we're like, oh, Botox. And I only got it because I trusted your girl and I never trusted anyone else. Because one of my friends, one time, she was on camera. She got Botox and they said, "Oh! We can do it so it kind of lifts makes your eyes look more awake." And one of her eyebrows was Like Spock! so burned on my brain that I just don't trust anybody. But I may have found a solution and part of my MAV experimentation, I don't know if I really have, so... This came in the mail yesterday. These are things called Frownies. So I'm just opening it. Frownies facial patches. So basically what they do in theory...h er grandmother invented them, like in the twenties or something crazy. They've been around all this time and you take them and you plaster them before you go to sleep Like this! Which I can do because I'm single and alone and will die alone but you do this. And then you do that every night, over time, like after a month, you've basically immobilized the muscles and so it relaxes and, they stop because it's muscle memory and now you don't have to do it every night. You can do it like every few nights. So I don't know, they came, I'll try them. I don't know if they'll actually work, report back on this. This is part of the experimentation. again, something I can do that maybe you can't do because there's no one here to see it. Like for instance, right now I smell vaguely vaginal.

Don't

you know why! my Perricone. I love it! But if I 'm going to be around people, I don't wear it because I don't want to smell. I sniff it on myself, I think about ... there's a line in Gone Girl, when she goes to the house. I think it's Neil, Patrick Harris in the movie, the guy who's going to keep her captive, but not, he doesn't really keep her captive. his mom- it's either in the book or in the movie, she says she smells, "vaguely vaginal." And I'm like, I know exactly what you mean - HORRIFYING! And that's what I worry about with that lotion, Because it has DMAE in it, I guess. I think maybe that's what it's called. Something that's made from fish. It really is from fish. I think my neck looks better. And my chest. I definitely think it works. it's good stuff, but not so much that I'm going to wear it around other people and It's another reason why it's good to be me, that I can just put on my Frownies And smell like vadge. Use my, vFit. I'm like, "Ooh, I might slug my feet!" I'm just imagining like me, like this[mimes sticking Frownies on forehead] and like Vaseline on my feet and socks. Like how sexy? Yeah. So apparently slugging is where Millennials and Gen Z. do all their skincare and then coat their face with Vaseline. I'm sure in a different episode, the My Aloof Vagina birth Story will be shared. It was you and I on a phone call when the whole thing happened. Where it was like, well, she's just so unimpressed." scratchy voice] Oh! That's right! I forget the clitoral atrophy. I mean, actually, you know what C.A. My discovery of C.A. is the reason any of this exists. It's the reason I did all those things in the last year. It's the reason I'm seeing a hormone doctor. It's the reason that...it's NOT the reason I'm buying things like Frownies, but it's the reason for everything! was the C.A. Because it's so alarming. clitoral, atrophy. it's a real thing. I think I already knew use it lose it, but I just somehow lost sight of it. So a little background, I've had of celibacy in my life. Oh, clitoral atrophy. atrophy can happen for hormonal reasons, but it also happens because it's circulation, like your clitoris is just a tiny little penis in the sense that it needs to get engorged and all that spongy tissue and all that erectile tissue. And if you're not using it, then it just, you know, your body doesn't waste its energy I had gone several years without sex because I had been in a relatively sexless relationship. And, then afterwards felt guilty was not masturbating I wasn't doing anything. kind of turned it off. I wasn't dating. I wasn't doing anything. And then, cult leader from my past showed up in my life in the middle of the night. That's not true. We had talked probably 10 hours over the three days prior, like after we reconnected and that day we'd been on the phone for like five hours. And texting and stuff, but it was a little sudden. Let me just put it this way, I had to jump in the shower and shave when he said he was coming. He had a two-hour drive. I had to jump in the shower and shave. And it was a lot! It was like one of those shaving things where you're like, "Oh, this is...I really should be using something other than a razor... There's a lot of removal going on." Because I'd been, you know, pandemic, like whatever. So but I wasn't going to NOT do it. Like part of me was, like,"Well, I should just NOT shave. Like, I don't think we're going to have sex when he gets here, and..." NO! So anyway, he shows up, we have a great time. We have an excellent time. I do actually, climax Right? of, that entanglement continued, it was a lot of driving two hours. One of us being so excited to see each other, tearing each other's clothes off like we're 16 or 17, or actually that's inappropriate some people didn't do that. Like we were young. Young adults. Young legal adults. and at the time I didn't, I mean, this is a spoiler alert. probably my, inability to have orgasms during the intercourse part, penile-vaginal sex had less to do with my poor vagina being aloof and my clitoral atrophy, although that was a factor that got rectified. And more to do with there was no buildup and no time, like it was just so quickly, naked. Like instantly naked. Sorry yeah. Sounds. Yeah. How was that? But it led me on this search. So we had this conversation about C.A. Because when I didn't feel as responsive as normal or what I thought was normal. And then when I actually I mean because I immediately called my friends. responsiveness wasn't there. And then there was a little bit of, you know, some of my friends who have been married a long time were like, "Really? Like, what do you expect?" Like, I was getting different messages from people about, lowering your standards and like, like, do you really even want to have sex anymore? Like that kind of stuff. I was about 50 when this happened. when I reflected, I realized I hadn't, had, the sex that I remembered. For almost a decade at that point, because, I had a sexual relationship with this one guy that I was dating and it was a kind of weird situation. There was kind of a string of it wasn't what I'd remembered. And so I was going back to my, to my thirties. And then I thought, oh my gosh, all this time I wasted because I had had a period of celibacy, and then and that guy was with for awhile, and that was just not a very sexual relationship. Basically I had like gone to sleep at 38 and woken up at 50. I think I was afraid like, "Oh my God! Did I miss my window? Now I'm 50? And I'm going to be like, I have wasted...like Rip Vadge Winkle!" Right? I wasted and lost my whole decade of sex. And now that I to had access to someone I was having fun sex with. And by the way, we were also both very goal-oriented people. So I think we made it a bit worse because we were very focused on[low-pitch] "This is going to work!" Right? And it to work!" when it wouldn't, then it was kind of like we're both saying, "It's okay. It's okay." I felt like a guy with erectile dysfunction. You weren't waking up like[yawwwn] so what's been going on What was established (and I still went on an entire research, journey, and I'm glad lots of awesome things happened), but ultimately it was determined it was the pressure. It was the pressure of us driving two hours to each other to "do it." Or to go on a date and then "doing it" right away, because we hadn't seen each other in a few weeks. And then all of that pressure, like got to fit it in. Whereas, if we weren't doing that, maybe sometimes we'd go on a date and we wouldn't have had sex. Imagine! Or we might hang out or not worry about it it was a lot of mental. And then the mental part of being achievement-oriented people who had memories of what it's supposed to be like. And then there was C.A. It was absolutely a thing that needed to be addressed. And that's why this whole thing exists, because I wish I had known, and I learned so many things trying to solve the problem. Like Karen telling me at your birthday last year, "You need to be lifting weights because it'll boost your testosterone." That was the first time I'd thought about testosterone in all of this A nd then went on a little bit of a search for hormonal treatments and things. there's just so much to learn. And so much of it was just mind numbingly boring or distressing. And I thought there's gotta be a way to talk about this that's fun. comfortable. And shows that we're all going through the same things in different ways. You know I love to say people get a case of "the fuckies" when they get divorced, because someone said it to me a few years ago and I didn't know it I'd lived a very, a single life, right? I was divorced very young. Maybe I did have a case of"the frownies but I was 21. So that was just the standard for all of us. But, , I think when people are married, my experience has been, 1) they think every single person's out there just swinging from the chandeliers and having sex all the time with a wide variety of lovers that they can choose at any time. And "Boy, it's so exciting." And then 2) think a lot of the shame and a lot of the dysfunction comes from thinking everyone else is having better sex than you. Everyone else has it figured out. Or that they don't care about that very much. So then what's wrong with you that you still care about that? I got that message from some friends who are like, " So why are you taking this again?" I said, well, because, you know, I want to have better responsiveness for sex."You still want sex?!" then there was a moment I thought, "Oh my God! What's wrong with me?" And then I'm like, "Wait a second. It's OKAY to still want sex in your fifties!" If I had been married for 25 years be in a very different stage of life. That's part of the purpose of it why it spurs, oxytocin, and all those things, because you need that to lubricate the relationship because otherwise there's so much opportunity for conflict and friction, as a single person, I sometimes if you've found your guy, you're married and you live in the same house that somehow they're better at communicating. And I think every disconnect and every time I don't like the way he thinks, or I feel neglected or whatever that I think, "This is something wrong.""Maybe there's something wrong with this relationship. I don't think I want to speak to him any more." Right? I can spin out when, in reality, being married to ANY man if they're masculine enough that I'd be attracted, Is being in a situation where they're just going to be... Totally different. Um, That makes me think about yesterday and hormones We've known that our whole lives we've been dealing with it. And we get upset if someone says, this is your period, like we're mad about it, up until six months ago, maybe less, my period had been so regular that when I would have that feeling could look at my calendar and be like, oh my gosh, it's day 27. Oh, it's starting tomorrow or whatever. now my cycle is not regular. everything can be falling apart. And then SURPRISE my period came on Day 21! And this week I was using something that you had suggested; I'd made an album of all the cute videos. that when I was feeling like, "Ooh, I hate him. I think he hates me. I don't know what I'm doing. Why am I wasting my time. He doesn't deserve me!"

it was all true!] I called the album "In case of hormone emergency." it's all these sweet videos where he's like kissing the camera and being so sweet and saying nice things, talking about kismet and all those kinds of things. so I was like, argh feeling this yesterday. And so I watched it and what I realized is when I'm in my hormones, I don't think he's as cute. I went to watch the videos that I put in there to be like, oh you, cute... But with my hormone glasses I analyzing his stuff. I was like, oh, ewww...This is really about him. I think that would help rational, reasonable times when I have a dip. I think it's a good idea. Like if I were mad at him for something practical or real. But, I wasn't mad, I was just, overthinking and having anxiety. And then when I watched, I was like, You have not aged well in the last year and a half! Oh, look at you. Gross [scoffs] to think, I thought that was cute." Like that's in my hormones. So I'm like, " that's interesting. These cute videos don't even fix it when the hormones are going." it's real, so I know you gotta go. So now if we're doing it this way and , it sounds okay. I can actually sit on my damn couch.

seconds of goofiness and physical vagina humor]. Look alive![clapping] Aren't you

But yeah, super fun. Thank you for listening until next time. Take care of yourself and take care of your vagina. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. You think would enjoy it too.