Bloody Hell! And Other Stories

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.”

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