Asked Monday about the potential impact of menopause on a couple's sex life, sex therapist Catherine Blanc recalls that some women may experience a drop in their libido, whether due to a complicated relationship with their own body and as it ages, than vaginal lubrication more difficult.
Hot flashes, insomnia, weight gain or joint pain: the potential manifestations of menopause are well known and can affect all women, in whom it generally occurs between 48 and 52 years. In some, this natural physiological phenomenon will also lead to a drop in libido. On Monday, in
Sans rendez-vous
, the sex therapist Catherine Blanc returned to this last aspect, which will naturally affect the couple's sex life and which can take time before being overcome.
The question
What is the impact of menopause, and the potential drop in libido, on the couple's sex life?
Catherine Blanc's response
Menopause is a new episode for women, which obviously requires an acceptance of this new stage, without experiencing it as a failure but as a new possibility.
It is a moment that will be lived happily by some, because they no longer have their period.
But for the majority of the others, it is rather the bereavement to make of a fertility and also a new contact with his body.
All this is enough destabilizing that communication with the partner is sometimes not that simple.
How to explain the drop in libido?
Besides the small unpleasant symptoms, there is a thinner vaginal wall, which makes lubrication much more difficult.
So for some, the fact that it is a little less comfortable makes it difficult to go easily towards sexuality, since it can be uncomfortable, even painful.
For some women, the apprehension to go towards sexuality will be caused by the fact that lubrication is less easy.
Others, before feeling that the lubrication is less, will feel like a stop, like a silence in their body, in their sex.
There is no more momentum and the body does not seem to react to male solicitations.
In addition, menopause can be a painful encounter with your body.
However, to make love, it is not enough to have the loving gaze of the other, you must also love yourself.
Can we fix it?
There are loads of possibilities.
First of all take care of yourself.
There is also what hormone replacement treatments offer that restore libido and will improve lubrication considerably.
There are also laser treatments, to plump the genital wall which allows this lubrication.
But let's not reduce female desire to lubrication.
We can have the lubrication repaired by medical means, without the desire finding its way.