Dear 518 generous supporters of Bloody Hell!

Thanks to you, we are halfway through raising the funds we need to get started on Bloody Hell! And Other Stories. Thank you thank you and more thank yous!

I am very excited about this anthology. Primarily becasue menopause has been kicking my fucking ass! Wow, it has been harder than I imagined. And I would have loved an anthology like this when I was younger. That's why I agreed to edit Bloody Hell! 

It's been thrilling to hear more about menopause in magazines and newspapers, on TV programmes and films, and to see it feature in more obvious ways (sometimes well, other times not so well) in popular culture than when I was younger. 

And if there's one thing I am learning as I make my way through perimenopause, it's that it is much more than to go on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or not and "How to lose menopause belly," which are the ways menopause is so often framed in those popular culture representations.

And that's exactly why I'm excited about Bloody Hell! Because the essays in this book will be as different and truly diverse as the authors who've agreed to contribute are. BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT MENOPAUSE IS LIKE! 

I've been told that the second half of raising funds for projects is much easier than the first half, which is why I'm writing. You've been so generous already through your pledges but I have a request:

PLEASE SHARE THIS PROJECT WITH JUST ONE PERSON EACH. 

If each one of you generous people can help me get just one more person to pledge their support, we can get started on Bloody Hell! 

THANK YOU!

Love and solidarity

Mona

We are halfway there!

I found out almost by chance that perimenopause – the time leading up to menopause – could last up to fourteen years. At first, I thought 'Are you fucking kidding me?' And that quickly turned to 'How the hell did I not know that?' How was a feminist like me so ignorant about menopause? Was I not paying attention?
When I finally did start to pay attention: lo and behold! The silence, shame and taboo that for so long had cocooned menopause seemed to be lifting and M was also for mainstream.
Some are calling it a revolution. I wish! A moment? A wave? A movement? Maybe! A moneymaker? Definitely, as one business after another launches geared to a demographic apparently flush with cash and most likely with hot flashes.
It is not just cis women who experience menopause. Non-binary people, trans men and other gender non-conforming groups also experience menopause and do so under even greater levels of silence and taboo.
This anthology aimes to expand the Menopause Moment/ Wave/ 'Movement' beyond white and cis women.
And also, beyond merely the 'symptoms'. This is not a medical textbook, nor a guide on how to 'remedy' or 'fix' anything.
Rather, it is a collection of menopausal people, each with their own entry point into that transition. There are as many menopause stories as people who have experienced menopause, and this anthology will showcase some of them, from people from all walks of life and all over the world.
 Each essay will be beautifully illustrated by Sheyam Ghieth.
Contributors will include:Heather Corinna, Prof. Sunny Singh, Ann Marie McQueen, Sonora Jha, Dr. Jenn Salib Huber RD ND, Omisade Burney-Scott,Tania Glyde and Simi Hoque.
Image credits: Cover and assets designed by Mecob, with kind permission from Sheyam Ghieth. Book designs, cover and other images are for illustrative purposes and will differ from final design.

Moisturize Your Vagina*


 *Menopause Chicks et al


 When you are shameless, you cannot be shamed.


 Few things are surrounded by more shame and silence than a cis woman who is
 no longer young, her vagina which is no longer wet, and her sex drive which
 is not supposed to exist.


 If I thought I needed to be brave to write about my two abortions, it is next level courage to admit to being that cis woman who is no
 longer young, whose vagina is no longer wet, and whose sex drive is not
 supposed to exist.


 And so here I am looking shame in the eye, daring it to test me.


 The Black lesbian poet and intellectual Audre Lorde famously told us “your
 silence will not protect you.” Silence protects our oppressors. Silence
 fuels shame. Patriarchy deploys shame like a drone: it shadows you, ready
 to take you out any minute, exhausting you by keeping you forever aware of
 its presence to the detriment of all other things that you could be
 investing your attention in.


 I am learning, much to my thrill and awe, that one of the greatest gifts of
 the transition known as menopause is shamelessness. I am not known as one
 easily shamed nor is modesty one of my virtues. Still, I gasp at the
 heights of audacity that I like to think come monthly in lieu of my
 increasingly AWOL menstrual cycle. It is as if instead of shedding the
 lining of my uterus, I am shedding the lining of patriarchal fuckery that I
 was socialized into.


 October 18 is Menopause Awareness Day. I am not a fan of “days,” be they
 for love, women, or menopause. I am “aware” of my menopause every day. If
 we want the world to be more aware of menopause, we will need more than a
 day (a month? Maybe the entire year?) to make up for the silence and taboo
 that ensures we know next to nothing about what happens to our bodies
 during this time.


 Before I continue: if you have ever menstruated, you can go through
 menopause, a point in life that marks 12 months without a menstrual cycle.
 The time leading up to menopause is known as perimenopause, and once you’ve
 reached the point of 12 months without a menstrual cycle, you are
 post-menopausal. It is not just cis women who experience menopause.
 Remember non-binary people, trans men, and other gender non-conforming groups who also experience menopause and do so
 under even greater levels of silence and taboo.

 If you’re wondering where along my menopause journey I am, it is far enough
 that if I hear a voice in my head saying "Oh my god, you can't write about
 that!" I WILL IN FACT WRITE ABOUT THAT.


 And that is an absolute advantage of being 54 years old and just weeks if
 not days away from post-menopause.


 Fuck "you can't." Watch me.


 And so: getting older, vaginas getting drier, and sex drives that don’t
 know if they’re coming or going.


 Why am I focusing on that Trifecta of Shame rather than, say, hot flashes,
 and insomnia, and other effects of the menopause transition? The simple
 answer is that for many post-menopausal people, hot flashes and insomnia
 subside. But vaginal dryness does not. It does not improve. Vaginal
 atrophy, or atrophic vaginitis, as it's clinically defined, is a set of
 symptoms that includes vaginal dryness, persistent burning, irritation and
 painful sex. It has been replaced by the broader term GSM or genitourinary syndrome of
 menopause. This verbiage was meant to be inclusive of all genital
 changes caused by diminished estrogen levels. Left untreated, it can
 lead to other risks.


 The complicated answer is because I feel robbed.


 Not by the menopause transition, which is “natural” (I rarely use that word
 because it is often employed by cis heteronormative patriarchy in the name
 of fuckery), but by an upbringing and socialization that instilled in me
 something that should be considered unnatural and which took me years to
 shed.


 I was socialized into a shame around sex and sexuality, and I was
 taught--and I obeyed--that I must wait until I get married to have sex.


 At their core, such teachings are flags planted by patriarchy on our bodies
 to remind us we do not own them; to control our sexuality and fertility.
 Soon after puberty begins, especially after menstruation starts, we become
 walking liabilities that must be contained and controlled, as if our
 uteruses were grenades ready to explode if left to our own devices.


 I am childfree by choice. And now that my fertility has finally vacated the
 building, who owns my body?


 I do. And it is at exactly this point in my life when I am standing in my
 power, as a 54-year-old woman of colour that patriarchy wants to remind me
 that it renders me moot. Well, fuck that shit.


 I am sad for my younger self that I obeyed for so long and thus deprived
 myself of the joy of sex with another person. It is a form of grieving that
 I am now beginning to honour as grief over the loss of joy and intimacy.


 I was enjoying sex with myself from the age of about 11. I knew my way
 around my genitals and was giving myself orgasms for years before another
 person did. I finally had sex with another person when I was 29.


 I often say that I have “made up for lost time,” and that I fucked the
 guilt from having extra marital sex out of my system. After the laughter
 clears though, you should know I am making a serious point: I worked hard
 to own my body, to have sex the way I want to, to figure out who I am
 attracted to and how I want to be intimate with them.


 I wanted to write to every person raised with any version of “purity
 culture” and tell them to enjoy their bodies at every stage. Don’t wait, I
 wanted to yell at them. Don’t let the patriarchy rob you.


 When I began to notice the impact of perimenopause on my vagina and sex
 drive, it bothered me more than hot flashes, no longer sleeping through the
 night, and changes to my digestive system.


 It bothered me because I felt I was being robbed again.


 At first, I was shell shocked. Because I am determined in my shamelessness,
 let me tell you: I did not have sex for a year. If you had told
 enthusiastically-and-determinedly-sex-positive me that I would go a year
 without having sex, she would have told you to fuck right off with your
 nonsense.


 I was bereft. How was this happening?


 And then, I was fucking enraged. Something I loved, that brought me so much
 pleasure, was gone, poof, just like that! How did that happen? Who was that
 person I did not recognize, who did not even masturbate? Who abducted Mona?
 And how do I bring her back?


 And furthermore, I was ashamed. And that shocked me too. I am shameless!


 So I took my rage and shame and pronounced them as loudly as I could. I was
 determined to talk my way out of the shame. Heather Corinna was my perfect
 confidant when they interviewed me for their book What Fresh Hell is This?
 Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You.


 “My sex drive is broken,” I told them.


 “Not broken,” they said. “On pause, evolving. Not broken.”


 And soon after, they texted me a recommendation by one of the OB/GYN
 doctors they had interviewed for their book. It heralded what I now call
 Mona’s Moisturize Your Vagina Revolution.


 I want to be clear on two things: what I’m talking about is very different
 than being asexual, which is a sexual orientation. Also: I have not been
 paid nor do I get a reduction for mentioning any of the supplements I use.
 I mention them because they work for me. I have also listed other menopause
 resources at the bottom of my essay.


 Heather’s recommendation sent me on a deep dive on all things menopause
 that I now share with the zeal of a convert.


 To grasp at how perimenopause and menopause can affect sex drive and
 libido, it is useful to remember and to repurpose something else that Audre
 Lorde said: There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do
 not live single-issue lives.


 “Low sex drive can certainly be a symptom of menopause and aging,” says Dr.
 Suzanne Hall, OBGYN. “But libido in women is based on so many different
 factors, so seeing hormones as the main cause is largely a misconception.”


 Many of the impacts of perimenopause and menopause are due to declining
 levels of the hormone estrogen but that hormone is not directly responsible
 for libido. So what’s going on?


 Many things at once, some due to hormonal changes, others not so much, for
 example the stress and anxiety due to changes as we get older. Cis men have
 Viagra and conversations about erectile dysfunction. What do the rest of us
 have? Where are our conversations about a “loss of sexual satisfaction, fewer and/or weaker orgasms, and decreased physical arousal” that are often associated with menopause?


 And something that is more directly due to declining estrogen: that a vagina which is not wet and which is such a taboo to talk about because the stereotype of a
 no-longer fertile cis woman is that of a “dried up hag.”


 “More than half of my patients say they’re experiencing it, so it’s a
 really big problem,” says Dr. Hall. “And when you have pain and dryness,
 that can potentially lead to a loss of interest.”


 I was determined to steal back my sex drive. I started taking a supplement that includes French maritime pine bark, which is associated with increased blood flow to the genitals to enhance
 physical arousal and orgasm in cis women.


 I learned that hyaluronic acid, a popular ingredient in facial moisturizers, is also
 an effective vaginal moisturizer. Research has shown it is as effective as hormonal solutions to vaginal dryness.
 
 I do not want to take hormones right now so that was a major plus.



 And it has become my best friend: every night after I moisturize my face, I
 moisturize my vagina by inserting a hyaluronic suppository up my pussy. And
 for lubricant, I use coconut oil. Note: lubricant is not the same as a
 moisturizer. You still need to moisturize your vagina!


 I am writing this in Canada, where cannabis is “legal” and can be ordered
 for home delivery from a state-run dispensary. After I moisturize my face
 and my vagina, I microdose: a little THC is great for enhancing TLC, alone
 or partnered.


 If Menopause Awareness Month is to benefit more than the $$$$ menopause
 industry, it must find ways to ensure that menopausal people who cannot
 afford supplements or hyaluronic acid suppositories, for example, are not
 punished for their lack of discretionary income. All menopausal people must
 have access to whatever they need during this transition in life.


 I am having sex again. And I intend to have sex for many more years to
 come. The more I read about how hormonal changes affect a menopausal body,
 the more I appreciate queerness: that sex is more than penetration/penis in
 vagina, that sex is not about a goal or an end/orgasm, that pleasure and
 intimacy between partners or alone are what make sex vital for those of us
 who want it.


 I am grateful to the many social media accounts dedicated to menopause in
 all its aspects. I have learned a lot from them. I am not a dedicated
 menopause account. I am, rather, a dedicated shamelessness account. Find
 the places where you are ruled by should not/would not/could not and defy,
 disobey, and disrupt the patriarchy by knowing—and vowing—that you shall,
 will and can.


 You cannot be shamed if you are shameless. And moisturize your vagina!


 
 This essay first appeared in Mona Eltahawy’s newsletter, Feminist Giant

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