Menopause , Masturbation

In the absence of an acceptable partner, masturbation is a reasonable and appropriate source of sexual enjoyment as well as a method of releasing sexual tension. At midlife and thereafter, women may choose this form of sexual release as the shortage of available men gives way to the general shortage of men in an aging population. Masturbation may also be the sexual outlet of choice, over and above available partners. Masturbation is also a good way of getting started for women who, because of estrogen depletion, experience arousal too slowly to begin sexual activity at the same time as a mate. It is also a loving way to express sexuality for men or women during the illness of either partner or in instances when the desired amount of sexual activity differs for each partner.

There is no right and no wrong when it comes to sex. Society’s very recent acceptance of individual sexual preferences has also lifted the taboo on masturbation. Just as children need to be assured that there is nothing wrong with masturbation, so older persons need to know that it is not an improper activity for them. Although there is less disapproval of masturbation today than in prior times, there is still significant discomfort with the issue. However, if we agree that sexu­ality is basic to life, then masturbation must be included as one of our natural sexual outlets. According to one study, nearly half of the women questioned indicated that they masturbated in their fifties, and this amount decreased to about one-third of the women at age seventy and over. Two-thirds of the men involved in this study masturbated in their fifties and this amount dropped to 47 percent at age seventy or greater. Those achieving orgasm ranged from 83 percent of the women at age fifty to 74 percent when they reached their seventies and beyond. In their fifties, 91 percent of the men reached orgasm. At age seventy and later, 73 percent of the men who masturbated reached orgasm.

Mutual masturbation is another way to enhance your sex life when you want to, or when other possibilities are limited because of illness or injury. It involves each partner giving each other pleasure until such time as they are both ready to join in whatever way is possible for them.

The techniques for masturbation are as varied and individual as what brings you satisfaction and pleasure. Do not be afraid to experi­ment. Self-experience and self-pleasure are valuable safe sex tech­niques. You do not actually need to have sexual relations with another person to feel sexually fulfilled.

In the study by Masters and Johnson that we mentioned earlier, it was found that each of the female volunteers masturbated differently. So you need to try and see what feels good to you. You may use your fingers and hands in caressing motions in whatever position feels best. Some women stroke or press, covering their entire genital area, whereas others find that stimulating the clitoris feels best. Hands and fingers can provide intense stimulation by stroking and rubbing the external genitals, by the fingers’ gentle thrusting motion in the vagina, or by a combination of both. There is no preferred way of self-stimulation; only personal preferences apply.

Vibrators also provide stimulation and excitement to many sensitive areas of the body and can be used in many ways. They come in both electric and battery-operated models and in shapes as different as women are unique. They also sidestep the old taboo of not touching oneself for women who find it is a lingering problem. These are available for purchase in pharmacies and most department stores, as well as offered in catalogues too numerous to mention.

Jacuzzi jets or hand-held shower heads playing directly on the clito­ris can offer sexual pleasure, and for some women so does the crossbar of a bicycle or the back of a horse when riding. Do not be afraid to try to seek sexual pleasure by yourself or to engage in a satisfying fantasy life that may stimulate you in different ways by “dream” imaging. Erotic books, movies, and videotapes may also be used to heighten your sexual excitement. Just remember, there would not be so many erotic items available if they were not in use. If you are not sure of how to start your process of experimentation, there are many good books available that offer specific instructions and techniques for masturbation, such as L.G. Barbach’s, For Yourself: The Fulfillment of Female Sexuality (New York, Anchor/Doubleday, 1976) and Sex Is Not Simple by Stephen B. Levine (Ohio, Ohio Publishing Co., 1988). You can also try to find a support group for women that deals with sexuality.

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What Midlife Means to You

What Midlife Means to You? Menopause is an event common to all women. For some women, it is not difficult, but for many it arrives with complications, both physio­logical and psychological.

Today, a healthy fifty-year-old woman can reasonably expect to live for another thirty to forty years. Doctors are now becoming more aware of the need to help women turn these postmenopausal years into quality years.

In an ideal scenario, long before menopause, each woman would have found her ideal physician. Over the years, she would have been able to sit for hours with her doctor and acquaint him or her with all the details relevant to her medical history. She would visit the doctor with a complete list of pertinent questions and the doctor would have all the right answers and take the time to share them with her.

Yet, how many women actually have this experience? Very few. One reason is because the medical care for women at midlife has been so haphazard. Physicians are only now beginning to understand the female climacteric—that ten-year transitional period surrounding menopause. Perhaps many women feel that they are lucky if they can get through menopause, by themselves, without seeking the often complicating and shifting views of doctors.

So much happens in your life when you are approaching and experi­encing the years that surround that milestone—menopause—that oc­curs around the age of fifty. Your work life may be gearing up or down. Your children may marry and leave home. You may have to handle your parents’ illnesses or death. You may become a grand­mother for the first time. You will also experience menopause. It is apparent that an incredible amount of change will be going on in your life.

In an effort to learn how women view menopause, the International Health Foundation surveyed four hundred women in each of five countries: Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, and West Ger­many—a total of two thousand postmenopausal women. The results of the 1970 survey concluded that for many women, menopause is a period of disorientation, physical discomfort, and emotional upheaval. The postmenopausal period was described as a time when women could not feel as content as they had in their premenopausal state. Further, the survey revealed that menopause is more difficult for women who lack the social supports that more affluent women have available to them. Women who engaged in activities such as those described in my program seemed to bounce back better from “the menopause crisis,” as the study termed it.

I want to assure you that menopause is not a “crisis.” It is, however, a transitional process that occurs on social, emotional, and medical levels. To make menopause a comfortable transition, I believe that doctors must offer preventive medical programs to women over the age of forty-five that prevent estrogen deficiency and its subsequent medical and psychological problems, as well as offer a way to affirm productive attitudes and actions for midlife women.

Today, nearly twenty years after the International Health Founda­tion’s survey, women still are not sure what to do about menopause. A 1987 Harris Survey showed that American women are confused and misinformed about menopause and its treatment. The survey results were compiled following telephone interviews with five hun­dred women between the ages of forty-five and seventy, evenly di­vided among ten major U.S. cities: Boston, New York, Washington, Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Memphis, and Hous­ton. These are all cities in which the best of American medicine is provided. The interviews covered the subject of menopause, its treat­ment, its symptoms, and other related women’s health issues. Sixty percent of the interviewees were postmenopausal, 22 percent were experiencing menopause, and 16 percent were premenopausal.

The dismal findings indicated that a very small percentage of the women knew the long-term consequences of estrogen deficiency.

Fewer than half of the study participants could name a single treatment for the common menopausal symptoms that affect more than 85 per­cent of all women at menopause such as night sweats, vaginal dryness, and hot flashes.

Although this menopause survey drew similar responses through­out the country, there were some interesting regional differences. For example, the highest level of confusion about effective treatment of menopausal symptoms was in the Southeast, where a significant num­ber of women mistakenly believed that antidepressants, aspirin, and tranquilizers were effective therapy. The Northeast registered the highest number of women who were unable to name any form of treatment. Just 40 percent of the women in the West knew about the role of the ovaries and estrogens in preventing osteoporosis—a seri­ous degenerative condition of the bone that afflicts women—which made them the most knowledgeable group about hormone replace­ment therapy in the country!

These survey results reflect a high level of confusion among women about menopause. How can a woman get the medical help she needs if she is not informed about what is happening to her, what to expect, and how to get help when help is needed?

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What Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Do for You

What Hormone Replacement Therapy Can Do for You. Most of the changes that happen to your body when your hormone production slows down can be prevented, and many others can be reversed.

Exciting scientific advances in the last fifty years have given rise to whole new groups of hormonal and nonhormonal medications for use during and after menopause. These are not remedies prescribed over the telephone or obtained over the counter, but ones that must be discussed with and carefully prescribed by your own physician and taken under your doctor’s supervision.

There is nothing new about the theory of “rejuvenation” therapy. Ancient Egyptians introduced organotherapy, or glandular therapy, and ate the penis of the ass for this purpose. Ancient Greeks and Romans changed the prescription to asses’ testicles. Early scientists of the 1800s added other ideas to that kind of treatment. More than one hundred years ago, in 1888, a seventy-two-year-old famous French physiologist, Brown-Sequard, reported that he had rejuvenated him­self by taking injections of “testicular juice.” He wrote that he achieved greater body vigor, improved bladder and intestinal func­tion, and that his wife used the testicular extract to combat feminine discomforts.

By the close of the nineteenth century, ovarian therapy started, with ovarian juice, powdered ovaries, and powdered ovarian tablets pre­scribed for surgical menopause, dysmenorrhea, and obesity. In 1926, A. S. Parkes and C. W. Bellerby, two scientists in Great Britain, extracted female hormone from an ovary for the first time. They named it estrin. A few years later, a German chemist, A. Butenandt, isolated and synthesized a pure form of estrogen and progesterone. He won the Nobel Prize for his work. Now that these hormones were available, physicians prescribed them for a wide range of women’s symptoms.

The wholesale prescription of this treatment became so popular that by the 1960s many books and articles ascribed all sorts of value to it, but did not describe any of the risks. The use of these powerful hormones escalated. Physicians and women alike were shocked when, in December 1975, scientific papers were released showing a causal relationship between hormone therapy and cancer of the uterus.

Women became afraid to use these medications. Fear, coupled with confusion and combined with a lack of comprehensive information, reigned. The only redeeming feature of this frightening dilemma was that scientists, physicians, and paramedical specialists finally began to conduct intensive research on the phenomenon of menopause. As a result, today physicians are able to reassure women because they have a fuller understanding of how menopause works. They now know much more about how the hormones function, how they can safely be prescribed, and what other forms of observation and treatment are necessary for their female patients.

While hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for postmenopausal women continues to be somewhat controversial, it is growing in popu­larity. Earlier, we described how the ovary starts to lose certain hor­mones and what happens to women as a result. Remember, too, that this hormone deficiency is more severe in some women than in others. The purpose of HRT is to make up for that deficiency. Not all women can take HRT, and not all women need to. For women who can, and who choose to, HRT holds the promise of preventing or reversing many of the negative effects on the body caused by the lack of estrogen.

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About of Guide Menopause

Since the first step in prevention is understanding, Guide Menopause provides an overview of the most important points to remember about the fascinating systems that operate in women’s lives.

The human body is an exquisite mechanism constructed so that each system works in a delicate balance with other processes within the body. This idea of balance and interrelationship is especially important in understanding what occurs at midlife.

Your monthly cycle is controlled by certain centers in your brain. They signal appropriate body parts and systems, “telling” them when and how to operate.

Often women ask me whether they have a glandular problem. It is important to understand just how the glands work within your cycle. There are two types of glands in the body: exocrine and endocfifu. The exocrine glands release chemical substances directly to the area where they are heeded. A good example is the sweat glands, which aid in the cooling of the skin, and the sebaceous glands, which secrete oils that keep the skin pliable. When meno­pause arrives, these glands may not work as effectively because of the changes in their “programming.” The sweat glands may not “cool” as efficiently and the sebaceous glands may not keep the skin as soft and smooth as before. Endocrine glands, in contrast, produce and release their substances directly into the blood­stream. These substances are chemical messengers called hormones.

Guide Menopause attempts to solve the “mysteries” and alleviate the “miseries” surrounding menopause by cutting out the noise and helping you understand the “why” and evaluate options available to you.

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