Ducky DooLittle on Intimacy After Hysterectomy - How Can You Have Good Sex After Major Surgery? What Makes Colonoscopy Prep Easier? What Are Signs of Uterine Cancer? Why is the Right Partner in Midlife Crucial?

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​Martha: Welcome to the My Aloof Vagina 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. In this episode. I have a pro guest, a professional! My friend Ducky Doolittle. You will love her. Ducky is a certified sex educator, former sexual assault and violence intervention counselor, author of "Sex with the Lights on: 200 Illuminating Sex Questions Answered." And actually one of the first sexuality books I ever bought. Also she's the owner of the intimate boutique Enchantasys, which she opened in 2022 in Conway, Arkansas, near Little Rock. We explore important health issues. Why is it particularly essential to reassess your partner in midlife? What menstrual change could indicate uterine cancer and is a reason to get in, to see your doctor? How can you return to a satisfying sex life after a total hysterectomy? And what pro-tip does Ducky have for making colonoscopy prep less agonizing? Hint, it's using a common sex accessory that you may already have in a drawer in your bedroom. Get answers to these questions and more in this episode. As always, I link to the tools we talk about in the show notes that you can find right there in your app. So relax and enjoy the conversation. come back later to check or visit MyAloofVagina.Com to easily find anything mentioned, or find ways to connect more with Ducky. During this conversation. Ducky is watching for tornadoes and the sky looks a little green, which is not a good sign. So you may hear some background noise. Duckies approach to health and sexuality was totally new to me in my thirties. And it shifted my perspective forever, in more ways than I can count. She's one of my favorite people. So I was delighted to reconnect with her. And share her with you as soon as I could.

Ducky: 2:13

one of the things that excited me when I saw it, that you were doing this podcast on this topic, I was like, oh, this is so beautiful. Because, we're a more balls out generation, right? We tell it how it is and we talk about it, and we shine light on it, and then the darkness can't fester. And I think that there's been a lot of festering and darkness around the biology. Woman's body from birth really, you know, always trying to hide and cover and, not talk about these things, especially when we were younger. And so we've been part of this movement where we talk about our bodies. so, I was excited, but my experience with menopause, is not uncommon, but it's also not talked about enough, and that is, I had abrupt surgical menopause due to cancer treatment, so I had uterine cancer. I lost my, my cervix, my uterus, my ovaries all in one swoop, but when they said they were gonna take everything out, and then I have. A genetic predisposition to cancer, cancer all over my body, from my brain to, my urinary tract to like in my skin. Like the potential of cancer coming back is really strong. So even hormone replacement therapy was just not an option. it's not allowed. So, there I was 47. I knew perimenopause a bit, you know, cause you started in your late thirties. and then I had to face the fact that, okay, in a few weeks I'm gonna be a hundred percent menopausal. I'm gonna walk into the hospital one day and be me and walk out, you know, the next day and be in menopause and. Terrifying. And I have a sister she's a genius. She's a really, really intelligent woman, and she lives, a thousand some miles away. And she wanted to help me so bad, as I was going through treatment. And she said, what can I do? And I said, research menopause for me. I wanna know what my options are, what is available like a herbal. Like what can I do? Terrified. Also, you know, I have a husband who's 10 years younger than me. our sex life is amazing. he's really, really important to me. You know, a lot of people lose their partners during cancer treatment. A lot of women lose their partners. 3% of men, I think 20% of women. Lose their partners during cancer treatment because if the relationship isn't strong to begin with, that's just too, too heavy. it breaks the back, right. So I, you know, there I am, I'm thinking about all these things naturally. Even though my husband's amazing, I mean, physically carry me. He will do anything for me, but I still wanna make sure that his life is. Despite my cancer. so, uh, I go in into surgery, I come out of surgery. I'm literally laying on the table. My sister had given me a list of things, some herbal stuff and whatnot. And, I'm coming out of, uh, what do you call that? Anesthesia. And I'm on the table and the doctor steps up as she does with all her patients to check on them after surgery and say, how you feeling? You know, that kind of thing. uh, and my words to her were literally black. Can I take black cold? I, I, I'm looking, coming outta anesthesia and, and asking like, what can I do to stay vibrant? What can I do to not be forced into this fucking thing that people have Terri told me is terrifying. It's terrifying and not to deny the fact that it is for some people, but you know, what ended up happening for me was about nine months of hot flash. One time I my, my phone at the guy at the Apple store for talking to me like I was a child. Beyond that, that's all that happened. Beyond that, I am, I am still the same. my body's not quite as wet as it was, but beyond that, nothing changed. And I was like, I was so terrified cuz I'm listening to all these stories of 10 years of hot flashes know, and I got nine months of symptoms and then I'm like, well, I'm.

Martha: 5:45

Yeah. Yeah.

Ducky: 5:47

a bad, you know, so it just kind of, that's why I like to talk about it. It's so relative to the individual to how healthy you are. How good you feel in your skin before you face menopause, how healthy your relationship is before you face me menopause. So, you know, I think my message today would be, if you have a partner who wouldn't be there with you through cancer treatment, get rid of them. Duck em Get rid of. em

Martha: 6:11

Well, that is the life lesson, right? Because I mean, not to get too, to go off on a tangent. That is what I'm observing for myself and then for other people, the ways in which we make excuses for them. We are super compassionate. We give them be benefit of doubt. We lower our standards, lower our expectations for support and partnership and companionship because we think we're unreasonable or whatever. We do all these things to normalize

Ducky: 6:39

Because we don't wanna be lonely.

Martha: 6:40

right. We don't wanna be alone and we don't wanna be lonely. We don't wanna lose them,

Ducky: 6:42

it's not a character

Martha: 6:44

we love. them Yeah Right W And then e do all of that rather than see that someone's just not really a life partner or is not someone who is gonna be in your corner as we age, we're gonna need it more. So it's even more important that your partner be someone who is contributing and giving and can give as much as they take right? Or as much as they receive.

Ducky: 7:05

Yeah. And carries their portion, so it doesn't have to be the same things that they give,

Martha: 7:09

No.

Ducky: 7:10

but they, but they give in proportion so that you have balance. I mean, that's, that was the blessing I had was my, my marriage honestly, in that process because, you know, he, he had to go through the cancer treatment with me. And then I think about as I, as I, now, I do classes on intimacy after cancer, and for years I've been saying, you know, sometimes we partner with the wrong people and, if but the, the impact it has on our health conditions is also real, because if you're lucky to live long enough, we will all become disabled.

Martha: 7:38

Right.

Ducky: 7:39

Eventually your body changes. It's your knees or your back or your brain, so I think more than anything today, I'm like, don't sacrifice, be alone and love yourself rather than sacrifice, to a human who's not gonna be a hundred percent there for you. you know, your relationships become that much more important, the quality of them.

Martha: 7:56

Yeah.

Ducky: 7:57

Mm-hmm.

Martha: 7:58

it's still hilarious that, the first thing on your mind was your black cohosh. that your sister had done this research and you, you were like, can I, I found the thing I can take are, give me permission to take it. Oh, it was No. Oh, no.

Ducky: 8:12

She said no, there was nothing. There's nothing I can take, there's nothing that affects hormones that I can take that it'll just bring more cancer for my body because my, that cancer is, especially like I've been, I've been free from, that cancer for some time. But, the potential for it to come back is so grand if you have a genetic thing like I do, you know, I think one in 276 people have the same thing I have. Most people just don't know it.

Martha: 8:39

Oh, wow. So there's no indicator

Ducky: 8:41

Mm-hmm.

Martha: 8:42

So you had uterine cancer and it tipped you off enough to get that testing, but there are people who maybe haven't had their cancer yet and don't know that they have this genetic

Ducky: 8:51

Well, here's the, here's the thing. it was that I had cancer first, and then I had genetic testing. Um, but based on my age and the cancer that I had, she was not willing to, give me hormone replacement therapy. Now, This is essential. The only sign I had that I had uterine cancer, I would menstruate, and the end of my menstruation was, almost watery. And if that's your experience, you may wanna talk to your gynecologist. It's a very strange thing. But for probably a year, year and a half prior. To going in and getting tested. I had, and it was a change, but it wasn't, it was like, move, that's kind of weird, but I'm perimenopausal. So, but that is a sign of uterine cancer for many people. It's the end of your menstruation is sort of watery.

Martha: 9:35

Is it watery? Like it's like bloody but watery? Or is it watery? It's Pink Okay. Okay, so pink water at the end of your period.

Ducky: 9:44

Mm-hmm. Now my sister, genetic cancer, my sister also has the same genetic situation I did. She then had that same symptom, went in and found out she had cancer. So, It gives me credit for saving her life, which I plan to hold against her at another time in our existence.

Martha: 10:02

Yeah.

Ducky: 10:03

but then after she went through cancer treatment, got genetic testing and reaffirmed my testing because you know that it's in our bloodline. but yeah, a lot of people don't know. It's, it, the first signs of this, it's called MS H six. It's a ver variant of MS H six. That's the chromosome. Colon cancer and uterine cancer are the two things that come up. usually if you have a, a uterus, it's uterine cancer. If you don't, it's colon cancer. so I'm so lucky I get to have colonoscopies every year.

Martha: 10:31

You're like so I that you're not feeling afterwards. You're just so light because everything's been emptied out. Yeah.

Ducky: 10:38

I'm like, fuck this,

Martha: 10:39

my gosh.

Ducky: 10:41

and I'm a horrible patient. Those poor people that have to suffer through me, whatever.

Martha: 10:45

Uh, I mean, I've had one, right, and everyone should get theirs as they get to the age. It's really, really important and, my experience is that. You know, people complain about drinking the prep. Like I've been drinking so many terrible supplements for so many years, right? In the interest of weight loss or health or you know, whatever, extending my telomeres, whatever the thing is, whatever year it is that the crazy things I'm drinking, that drinking the prep was not so terrible. I just drank it. So I just want people to know that about colonoscopies. It's not as bad as we all make it out to be, but we do that to each other, which really isn't helpful because people need to have them now. To have it every year would be a totally different experience. Ducky,

Ducky: 11:26

Well, what if I had like six of them now?

Martha: 11:29

gosh.

Ducky: 11:29

And here's the thing though, you can do the same prep every year and have a different reaction to it every year. sometimes the prep's no big deal. and I have a practice now, like I slow down my eating cuz I'm just getting really good at it. So like three days before I'm like, mm, I'm just gonna be a little hungry because it's gonna make the, the whole process easier. so I really cut back my eating the last time and then I did the prep there wasn't much in my body. So instead I just spent most of the time in the shower projectile vomiting. So

Martha: 11:58

no. So that's strategy. I was about to say Ducky's teaching us a Oh, no.

Ducky: 12:05

well. The year before worked great. So I think it's just like menopause, like it's gonna be different for everybody and every time you do it, it's gonna be a little different and fucking life sucks. Whatever.

Martha: 12:15

Yeah. I definitely by design was not addressing the other side of it after you've drank the prep, because that part is, there's nothing pleasant about it

Ducky: 12:25

Oh, you want a tip for that? If we're gonna, it's, we're, we're gonna be here being Aloof about our bodily functions, right? Um, silicone lube on your butt hole.

Martha: 12:36

Okay. You cut out. Did you

Ducky: 12:38

I, I said silicone. I'm saying it like it's a secret. Silicone lube, like Uber, lube or Pure, some, one of those really good silicone lubes on your butt hole before you start prep. Boom, none of the pain, none of the discomfort. And then it stuff just like doesn't touch your skin. It doesn't touch your skin.

Martha: 12:57

Oh no. I have a friend who's having this colonoscopy today. I wish had known this a couple days ago cuz he asked me for tips. my tips were just, you know, don't worry about drinking it, just do it, do it, do it. But my other tip was, get some kind of treatment for your butt hole. And he said, what do you mean? I'm like, Google it, because I didn't know what to tell him, but, oh, if I'd only know

Ducky: 13:16

Go to. Go to my website.com, put in Wicked Silicone, and you'll get the. Silicone lubricant. I mean, we've got a lot of 'em. Also, Swiss Navy, silicone lube, Uber, lube Pier, P J U R. the silicone is quality skincare. Anyway, but I was like, well, it pays to be a sex educator. The first time I was like, Ooh, this is horrendous. I know how to protect my skin. I'm not doing this again, you

Martha: 13:42

Yeah. Oh, that's so smart. I'll put that in the show notes for your next colonoscopy. Um, I mean, I'll order it anyway just because it is great lubin

Ducky: 13:54

It's good for sex with yourself or another, it's mm-hmm.

Martha: 13:58

thigh rubbing. You can put it on your thighs when it's hot outside.

Ducky: 14:03

Mm-hmm. And if you've got dry elbows or knees or feet, you can put it on it. Well be careful with your feet. You might

Martha: 14:09

Yeah.

Ducky: 14:09

but

Martha: 14:10

right. right.

Ducky: 14:11

before bed.

Martha: 14:12

That's a, lesson hard learned. yeah, like when people say, oh, it's great for shower sex. Yes. If you're really careful, don't throw it all over the shower,

Ducky: 14:23

Or if you're, if you're have the same height, I mean, I'm four 11, my husband's six one. That's just never gonna happen for us.

Martha: 14:31

So in that situation, somebody is definitely standing outside the stream and getting cold.

Ducky: 14:37

I'm trying to climb a tree over here. Like there's something I can step on.

Martha: 14:44

Yeah, we You need a little,

Ducky: 14:47

I would be, yeah.

Martha: 14:48

my gosh. Like greasy, it'd be like greasy the pole. You know how they had the, those contests we used to, they would grease the flag pole and people would try to climb it. That's you and Silicone lube with your husband in the shower,

Ducky: 15:00

I do better than your average, but I still would not make it to the top.

Martha: 15:04

right? Experience? well, yeah. Silicone lube for that. That's amazing. I can't, I need to

Ducky: 15:13

here tot I, you know that

Martha: 15:15

Oh my gosh, yes. Well, listen, I don't know if I've ever spoken to someone who's had six colonoscopies in a row, so that's another claim to fame.

Ducky: 15:25

I'm not proud of that one.

Martha: 15:26

No. Uh,

Ducky: 15:28

not gonna not talk about it because having a body's hard. It's hard to have a body,

Martha: 15:32

yes. Yes. And I think there are lots of reasons where, people have to have certain tests more frequently and. sometimes people can feel shame around it or whatever led to it. right? And it's this thing where it's just part of owning the body. It's where you are.

Ducky: 15:47

When it comes to cancer screenings, like for me, okay, so I have this right? So I could have colon cancer, brain cancer, skin cancer, bladder cancer, kidney, like, there's all these things that I have like a 30 to 60% hierarchy chance of getting. But if I, submit and do my screenings, I will live an average life. So my life is more expensive because all of these procedures are expensive. It's more complicated. But if I submit, then I get all the same days. sometimes people sit in fear and they don't go get their screenings because they are afraid of what the results may be. But the sooner you get those results, the higher chance it is that you're gonna, be able to treat that and survive that. So if you don't go, what you're actually doing is worse for your body, even though in the moment it, it feels better in the long run, you're better off just going and getting. So for me, they keep finding pre-cancerous stuff in my colon. Now, if I wasn't doing my colonoscopies, I would be dead by. Right. And I like my life, so I'm just gonna keep submitting and keep, you know, letting these pros do what they do best, which is, care for me. if you're a person sitting there and going, well, I haven't had a pap smear in five years, or I, I haven't had, a colonoscopy and I'm 57. Like, Just trust me. Just go, just make the appointment. You're gonna be okay.

Martha: 16:58

Yeah. I recently, in fact, the most recent episode that was published, talking to my friend Sally, and she'd done a bunch of research and was aghast at the way that hysterectomies were being recommended. Just, you know, oh, you're heavy bleeding, get rid of it, you're not having babies. And Or when they, they thought she was gonna have to have one. she was concerned because she had read stuff about having your uterus removed can inhibit or ruin your sex life or ruin your sexual response. And I thought, well, that It can't be the whole story because I know friends who've had hysterectomies and who do have good sex lives and are still having sex but I, I don't know that I would ever be in a situation where I could ask them Right. I wouldn't wanna ask. And then if it did cause an issue, bring it out cuz it's so personal. I can ask you and then if you don't wanna talk about it, I can take it out and we don't have to talk about it.

Ducky: 17:47

Uh, no, I'm, I'm happy to talk about it. I've met too many people in my lifetime as a sex educator who, had hysterectomies and couldn't tell me exactly why. And that has always been very disturbing to me. So to understand why, they're offering a hysterectomy or suggesting a hysterectomy is really important. Do some research. the information is available to you if you seek it out. Somebody else has already invented this wheel. And so start researching and figuring out like, what are my alternatives? I think medical care today, is just horribly barbaric. It's, I, I, I think having a hysterectomy, is a hard, it, it, it's hard to go through. uh, cancer treatment's hard to go through colonoscopy. It's, it's, it's barbaric, you know, it's like one step away from leeches as far as I'm concerned. Like, I really wanna understand what they're doing before I submit to this stuff. but yeah. Uh, I don't know if I answered your,

Martha: 18:40

Well that, well, I'm just curious about, hope for people.

Ducky: 18:44

sex life.

Martha: 18:45

Yes. Yeah.

Ducky: 18:47

life. Okay, so here's the thing. like for me and my hysterectomy, like I said, I was terrified, but then I also, when you do have a hysterectomy, you have. Um, wounds. So I had five wounds, four in my abdomen. I had a robotic surgery. And then one the cuff, the back of the, where your cervix was, they create a false back. They like stitch it up, they call it a cuff. Um, so you have all of that to heal from first before you could even figure out what your body's gonna be willing to do. But penetrative sex is one kind of sex to. Right. Sex is a ver I make lists with people like, what is sex to you? And those, those lists are vast. It's affection, it's flirting, it's sexting, it's fingers, it's toys, it's mouth. So the kinds of sex you can have, penetrative sex is just one of them. Now, it can be very important if you have a partner with a penis that you wanna go there and do that. and it feels good for a lot of people, but it's only one kind of sex, so sex will always be available to you. the real question here, I think is that, is that thread that runs inside you, will, I have the urge? Will I have the desire again, some of it is like, what kind of libido did you have before? Right? How important was it to you before you had surgery? For some people, sex is like their, it is a pivot point for their entire life. For other people, it's just this sort of sidecar, you know, and that's okay too. There's no right or wrong way for that to be, you know, my experience is that my desire did not change at all. Um, my libido did not change at all. I've, I've always been kind of, uh, hyper. I, I like, I've always loved sex and it's still a hundred percent there. I had had to wait quite a while. I'm gonna get really personal here. I hope you don't mind. I was really scared of my body. like, I don't know what I'm gonna experience when I go there. Like really worried. Um, my husband is a Marine. He is fearless. He will kick in the door, he'll be the first and the last out, all that, all that. He embodies all that. but he's also like the. empathetic astoundingly Uh, kind, soft to me as any human has ever been. So he knew that I love sex. He knew I was scared, and he was like, so let's just do this, right? So I don't know how, how lo how much time passed, but he was like, let's just do this. And we went really slow and we used lube and you know, I was on top so I could control the situation, how deep we, we did or didn't wanna go. And it was a little bit scary. And then I had done it right. And so it's just. It's like anything that you have fear around, you just take one step and one step and one step, and hopefully you have that person with you who's gonna be willing to take those steps with you. Now, the other thing I did, because I am a certified sex educator, feel like my body is a place for me to learn. And when I get a good learning lesson, I, I share my experience. I'm a storyteller. Through this process, I felt an obligation to understand Hello Lights. I don't know what's happening there. like, nothing change. I don't know what happened there, if you're watching the video, my light changed is all.

Martha: 21:52

was almost like, like heavenly opening, like it was like a beam of light. So maybe what what you're about to say is very important.

Ducky: 21:59

Yeah, hopefully. I experiment with my own body when it's appropriate for me. And so I had a set of vaginal dilators, which are tools you use if you have vaginismus But your muscles aren't cooperating with you. You can use vaginal dilators to sort of open your body up a bit.

Martha: 22:14

And what's Vaginismus in case someone doesn't know what that is?

Ducky: 22:18

It can be nerve or muscles not allowing penetration vaginal penetration. So you used dilators to work with your nerves and your muscles in, in your brain. so I had a set and before I went into surgery, I took the dilators and I used them to measure my body in terms of like comfortable. With in depth. And so I had a really good understanding of what, cuz I wanna know what the change would be inside my body. So then once I had healed eight weeks or, or something like that, I used the same set of dilators and, they were painful and in part because of the cuff and the loss of length in my body. And, so it also told me that I did need to do a little bit of tissue stretching and stuff like that. but then I went on to create a set of, for people who no longer have a cervix, so they're called, uh, wellness by blush. So there's a set of dilators that I created specifically for people who have had hysterectomies so that you could regain ability to have penetration in the way that's comfortable for you. So, but again, penetration is one kind of sex. You handle lots of kinds of sex, so,

Martha: 23:17

like, are you still able to have orgasms.

Ducky: 23:19

Oh, okay. So I have always been a, um, I'm good at orgasming, I'll say that, right. But I've also, um, squirted. You know, throughout the process, and that was kind of a thing, like, that's an, I love undeniable sexual expressions. All right? I love sounds, I love, you know, orgasms. I love when somebody has uncontrollable tears after. I love all the uncontrolled, I like drooling. I like all the uncontrollable expressions that come with sex. And so that, expression I really loved because it was completely beyond my realm of control. and I was worried about losing that. even though that comes from the G-spot, which is at the front, right? The cervix is at the back. most people Experienced much of their pleasure from the cervix. So losing the cervix does have an impact, but a lot pleasures at the G-spot, which is the naval, the belly button side of your vaginal opening, the first, inch and a quarter inside there. and then the rest of the vaginal canal. Only 14% of people say they feel anything in those other areas. So you really have these two pressure points. Squirting happens at the G-spot. My G-spot wasn't touched, but I was worried about the wetness and the granular and the hormones and what that would do. So when we first started having sex again after surgery, um, it was careful sex. It was slow sex. It was, you know, not with the same kind of, Rambunctiousness as it had been historically. but then it, seven months in, boom, started up again. I was like, damn, I'm back. It's a, it's all me now. It's all me.

Martha: 24:51

He went from Gentle Marine to regular Marine. Right. And you're,

Ducky: 24:55

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Martha: 24:59

Oh, so that's good news. I mean, I, Ducky, there's no one else in my life I could ask that. and it's helpful because I think it's important for people to know, because people do read those things and they're afraid of what's gonna happen after and what impact it's gonna have, and the techniques and the, this is basically advice like you can, if you want to, you can find the wellness by blush, dilators, and check yourself ahead of time so that you know what you're working with, and then use that in your recovery. if that's what you wanna do, it's amazing that that exists and that you've contributed that,

Ducky: 25:32

Wow, thank you Well, and I, it's even as an, a sex educator, I, I see this probably as vocal as I've been about my experience in my body through cancer and the impact it's had on my relationship and my, and my sex life. Uh, you know, it's, it, I, it's not, not always easy to talk about, but I talk about it because I know I'm not alone and I know there are other people having to experience these things and I also, you know, shine that light.

Martha: 25:56

Yeah. Well, thank you because I'm glad that you, that you talked about it here. I'm, I'm honored and it makes me happy the whole point of this is talking about the things that a lot of us are experiencing, but where else would you hear about it? Where else would you talk about it? And helping people know they're not alone. And also providing, you know, this is not a medical podcast really, and it's not even an advice podcast, but it's an experience sharing podcast.

Ducky: 26:21

on that same note, the other thing is that the doctors will not talk to you about your. Sexuality, even even oncologists going through hysterectomy, going through all this stuff, they may have a pamphlet, and the will have a couple of paragraphs that are like bubbly, bubbly, bubbly, and then at the end they'll say, and speak to your provider. Your provider will say, you'll know when it's right. You know, it's when it's the right time,

Martha: 26:42

I mean,

Ducky: 26:42

know.

Martha: 26:42

discomfort with sex is just not helpful. Otherwise, you could be in this circle and the doctor says, well,

Ducky: 26:47

Back to the brochure, back to the provider.

Martha: 26:49

go, yeah. Oh. I have so many thoughts about the system. And you mentioned it being barbaric, like that part of it, and it's a shame, part of the challenge around the care in this, in this season for us, it's just the same old. Fear of talking about sex, like menopause is too close to sex for doctors to deal with it properly. they don't wanna talk about it. When you're a teenager, they don't wanna talk. You know, it's such a taboo subject and addressing the reality of our bodies is such a thing that they just aren't equipped for and, It's costing them their lives. It's costing them their health. It's leading to people having terrible experiences because they can't just matter of factly talk about it because it's so related to our vaginas and so related to sex our sexual experience and our essence, and it's, kind of crazy.

Ducky: 27:39

Well, and some of it is, I mean, I don't like to deny the, animal within right It is a big change when you are no longer fertile, when sex is no longer about procreation. When we attach, you know, sex to those things. But women become scary and dangerous as we age. it's because we do have, and I'm, painting with a broad brush here. I mean, you meet plenty of horrifying old women as well, but you know, like who are not, who are not finding progress in them within themselves. But, um, you know, that's, that's horrifying to me. But, you know, I think we. Uh, more beautiful and beautiful in different ways as we age. And as we opened up this podcast, we were talking about, you know, whether to use the ring light or not, whether to use a filter or not. Whether to let the lines in our faces show does it diminish our beauty? Know only if you decide it does. And I, like I said, I've made lots of lists about what six is with, with people over the. in front of workshops and things like that, I also make lists of what sexy is and what makes a person sexy is confidence. That's the number one thing at the top of the list. Every single time I make the list with a group of people, confidence is the number, the first thing that comes outta people's mouths. You can look at like people in Hollywood and who they're, who they're attracted to, and it's the confident people, you know, they may have a character face. I certainly do. um, so I, I say just grab it and own it and love your lines, and love your menopause, and love your body and just take it.

Martha: 29:09

I wanna be grateful that I get to be 50, And grateful that I get to have the next season. It's just about navigating it in a way that allows me to continue to be a confident person, And continue to be someone who is open to the world and having experiences and enjoying myself. and that's really, that's the whole point of all of this. So, yay. Thank you so much. I'm so excited. I, I'm coming to Little Rock. I'm gonna come there and we're gonna do fun stuff. Yeah. I can't wait to see your

Ducky: 29:38

See my big, my big sex shop. It's, there's some magic happening there

Martha: 29:42

Oh, I love it.

Ducky: 29:43

it's really fun cuz people, they know me as being a, you know, a New Yorker for most of my life and, you know, doing lots of TV and television and stuff. They're like, Arkansas. And I'm like, I love a challenge. Like, why wouldn't Arkansas deserve it as much as anybody else? I'm gonna come and I'm gonna get a butt plug for every hole here. I'm, I'm here for it. Arkansas, it's a new day.

Martha: 30:03

Well, yeah. Why Open One in New York City? Why open one in la? Why Open one where they already have them go and bring the butt plugs to the masses, to the people who are waiting?

Ducky: 30:11

I love it. And they're so different. They show up in like PJ Bottoms and Crocs, and they have all the swagger any New Yorker ever had, and I'm like, bring it. They're buying the most beautiful lingerie. they wear it at home.

Martha: 30:23

Yeah. Right. You're right. It's not for the outside.

Ducky: 30:26

The outside gets the PJ bottoms and the Crocs

Martha: 30:28

Exactly.

Ducky: 30:29

bring the glamor home. I, I really love them.

Martha: 30:33

Oh, that's so awesome. I'm so excited. I cannot wait to come. I've never been. And it'll be a reason to a pilgrimage. It was so great to have you and to connect.

Ducky: 30:41

Well, I love you, Martha, even though we don't see each other much. I'm glad you're out there kicking ass.

Martha: 30:46

I'm trying. I'm doing my best. I learned from the best. Thank you for listening. Until next time. Take care of yourself and take care of your vagina.