124. Sex challenges in Midlife

Is Your Sex Life Struggling in Midlife? You’re Not Alone. Have you ever thought, “Is this it?” when it comes to sex in midlife? Maybe intimacy feels awkward, your libido has disappeared, or it just… hurts. If so, you’re not broken—and you’re definitely not alone. In this honest and eye-opening conversation, I’m joined by certified sex educator and coach Karen Bigman to talk about the real changes that happen in our sex lives during perimenopause and menopause—and what you can actually do about it.

Whether you're in a long-term relationship that’s lost its spark or rediscovering your own pleasure solo, this episode will give you validation, encouragement, and practical ideas to reconnect with your sexuality—without pressure or shame.

Karen Bigman is the dynamic host of the podcast, Taboo to Truth: Life and Sex After 50. With a passion for empowering women and men, Karen is on a mission to break down barriers and liberate us to engage in open conversation about midlife sexuality. Karen’s personal journey of divorce, dating, and menopause inspired her to become a Certified
 Sexuality Educator and Certified Menopause Coach. She launched her podcast as a safe
 space to explore topics that are often thought about, yet rarely spoken about. Through candid, and often raw conversations, Karen helps her audience navigate an overlooked aspect of aging by offering education, support, and a dash of humor, to more easily embrace sexuality.

In this episode:

• Why sex changes during perimenopause and menopause (and what’s totally normal)
• The top three reasons your libido might be MIA
• What to do if sex has become painful, awkward, or emotionally disconnected
• Why communication is everything—and how to actually start the conversation
• How midlife men experience sexual changes (and what they wish you knew)
• The truth about responsive vs. spontaneous desire—and how to bridge the gap
• Creative ways to bring back intimacy (hello, “sex snacks” and six-second kisses!)

Resources Mentioned:

Karen Bigman’s Website: https://www.taboototruth.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taboototruth 

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@taboototruthpodcast 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@taboototruth 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenbigman/

Link to Freebie: https://www.taboototruth.com/pleasureplaybook

Connect with me, Dr. Sara Poldmae:

Website: https://risingwomanproject.com

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/drsarapoldmae 

Transcript

Sara Poldmae: 0:01

Sarah, welcome to menopause. Rise and thrive. I am Dr. Sarah pulled me and this podcast is your go to guide for navigating perimenopause and menopause. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, trust me, you are in great company. Each week, I'll bring you expert advice, raw, honest conversations and simple tips to help you stay grounded and maybe even find some humor in the process. Let's rise, thrive and tackle this wild ride together. Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This should be a juicy episode. I'm super excited to welcome Karen bigman to the show. Karen is a certified sex educator and a dating and sex coach, and so you know this episode is going to be fun, because we love to talk about sex. Welcome Karen. Thank you for having me. Nice to be here. Yeah, absolutely. Let's dive in. So obviously, in midlife, sex changes. And in long term relationships, sex can change, or I should say it does change. So how can we help women to have more sex and to want to have more sex?

Karen Bigman: 1:13

I think what happens is we go through whatever change. There could be several issues that are going on. One is that we are going through physical changes with respect to hormones. Two, is perhaps the sex that we've been having, and it's been going on for a really long time, has not been that great. And three, there could be relationship issues. And of course, there's a lot more that can add to that too, but those are basically the three ones that I see. And oftentimes women because they feel whether they lose their libido or they've got to dry vagina or something, just brings them to a point where they're like, I don't really want sex. I don't need it. They give up on it, and that really can hurt a relationship, especially when one partner, typically it's the male, but not always. In my marriage, it was the opposite. Does not really wants more sex than than the female partner. So the key is to figure out what, what the issue is, and often it starts with really just understanding, like, is sex important to the relationship? Because that's not always the case, but assuming that it is, then is how do we address

Sara Poldmae: 2:17

this? Yeah, so I like that, that you said, what is the issue? And I would love to also point out, what is the goal, right? Because everybody's different in what they would like out of a relationship sexually, so is the goal to preserve the relationship, and then the conversation may have to happen with your partners to say, you know, my sex drive is not that high right now, or it hurts when I have sex. This relationship is important to me. What? What does a healthy sex life look like to you? Like? We have to have these conversations, right? And often we don't, within our relationship. But also is the goal, because you want to become more sexual, you've lost that part of yourself. So it doesn't always have to be in the context of a relationship, right?

Karen Bigman: 3:05

Absolutely. And I think it's, it's also when it gets just back to the relationship for a minute. It can also be, you know, we used sort of bringing back, that we used to have some great sex, and it really brought us very close. And I would love for us to be able to get back. We're never going to be at what we were in our 20s and 30s, but perhaps we can get some intimacy that will bring us closer together as we get older. And so I think that's a really big, an important way to kind of address it without really, you know, healthy sex life is obviously, what does that mean? Yeah, but to start with that. It may be that the couple's in a situation where they haven't even talked about it and so uncomfortable, like even to bring it. I mean, I know in my own situations, I'm single and I'm dating, and even bringing up certain issues can be very uncomfortable. So it's like, how do you start the conversation?

Sara Poldmae: 3:53

Yeah, especially because it gets so awkward. I think once, once my patients report that they've largely stopped having sex, or they're only having sex once every couple months. The initiation of sex, or the conversations around sex become extremely awkward, because we know that there's disappointment on one or the other or both ends, right? So I think that that's really important. And I just want to back up into the clinicians lens, because I, you know, I treat people holistically. So I think the emotional component is certainly important, but there is also that physical component. So I would like to urge any of the listeners out there that if there, if there's pain during sex, you should probably address that first in order to be able to jump into the conversation willing and not fearful, but Karen, you mentioned to me before we hopped on this episode that you like really enjoy coaching men, so I'd like to kind of pick your brain about that, because I think men don't understand women. But to be fair, women don't always understand men, and I think. We can throw that out there. I know, I you know, sex can be very different for men. They don't need as much foreplay. They can be very sexually motivated. And women in midlife can want to kind of step back and re evaluate that part of themselves. So I think it's really easy for women to say, Oh, well, men don't understand women. And I think that that is a true statement, but I think there is also a true statement that we don't understand men. We have very different brains. We have very different needs. So can we talk a little bit about your work with men and what that entails, some of the issues you see come up for men sexually, just so that we can kind of Glimpse Inside the male brain, as scary as that may sound.

Karen Bigman: 5:42

So the thing that I think we really need to understand about how men operate, men can are more visual. So a man sees a naked woman, or he sees his partner, and he's like, Oh, wow, I'm ready. Let's get into the bedroom or whatever I want. Yeah, next where a woman's like, Whoa, hang on a minute. Like, I'm not, not so fast. This isn't going to happen for me. So I think the first, the first thing that I talk about is to explain the difference between responsive and spontaneous desire, and how it may take a woman, you know, in the beginning, of course, everybody's got that with the NRE is like the sex educators call it or new relationship energy. And everybody, you know, we're both in on the same page, but over time, it becomes something that we have to build to. So it's explaining to, typically, to the male partner that whatever the issue is with with his female partner, to sort of step back and say it doesn't work the same way it used to. It doesn't mean it's not going to work, but it doesn't work the same way. So be understanding if it comes often when partners are in long term relationships, a man feels terrible that the woman is suffering, but he doesn't know what to do. So sometimes it's just teaching them to say, I don't know what to do. I want to help you. I want this to work. How can we do it together and helping and encouraging her, for for for both of them. And because I think we get as women, we get this sort of, like, you know, he doesn't care. He just wants to get off kind of mentality. And that's I really, I was pleasantly surprised as I started to do this work that, in fact, that's not the case that men really want. They don't want to step outside the marriage. They don't want, you know, to walk away from sex altogether. But they also and and they want to maintain their relationships, but yes, they want to figure out how they can have a sexual relationship with their female partner.

Sara Poldmae: 7:27

Yeah, I love that. So when you're coaching men, do you coach them on mostly how to communicate with their partner? Is that where you start? Or give us an idea of what your coaching process with a man looks like.

Karen Bigman: 7:44

Well, it depends on the problem, but the bottom line is, yes, communication is the thing that that is the issue to begin with, whether it's, I mean, a lot of times it's not just the woman that's having issues sometimes, or it could be one or the other or both, but oftentimes men start to face erectile dysfunction as they age 40% in their 40s, 50, in their 40s, 50 in their 50s, 60 in their 60s. It's, it's a common problem, and whether it's premature ejaculation or delayed ejaculation or difficulty having an erection, and they're kind of, they're mortified. You know, they're like, whoa. I mean, if they can sneak a Viagra from their friend, they will. But if that's not working, it's like, now, you know, they're embarrassed. So even coming, you know, saying that, that this is not something that I that I know how to deal with, and I want, I want us to deal with it together. So it's, it's really it. What is the goal? Do you want to have a sexual relationship with your with your partner, and talking about what that would look like? And then how do we get there? Do you want to just be able to talk to your partner? Or are things not working out so well? And you take, you know, different kinds of steps, in which case, of course, I refer them out to somebody who's who's licensed in therapy, but it's, it's also, there's a lot of shame, and just helping men understand, you know, that you're perfectly normal, like we deal with all. We know we're going to go through menopause, we know we're going to have all these issues, but men sort of feel they're going to be virile for the rest of their lives. And it's kind of it's kind of facing that, you know, it's okay to age. We're all going through it, and this is just the way that it happens for you, right?

Sara Poldmae: 9:10

Right? Absolutely. So if, let's say that, I'm just going to kind of throw out an image, right? We've got a perimenopausal or menopausal woman used to have sex with her husband twice a week, let's say, maybe in the beginning more, but they kind of settled into the years of rearing their children, and twice a week was kind of what they were doing when the kids were young. It was kind of hard to fit it in, but they did, and they enjoyed it. And then all of a sudden, these hormonal shifts began to happen, and now the idea of sex is like, right? And I think a lot of women describe it to me as either there's pain or, let's say, there's no pain. Either there's just this awkwardness, because slowly the sex life has faded, and then they also just don't feel like the sex is meeting. Their needs. So you know the idea of, you know little to no foreplay. Sex lasts about five minutes. There's not as much emotional connection there during the act. Where should a midlife woman start with this? Because even though it may not be high on their priority list, they know that the relationship is struggling. Where do they start?

Karen Bigman: 10:24

I think the first thing is to take it out of the bedroom. So I have this expression I call sex snacks. Start to and whether it's you towards him or him towards you, start to bring back intimacy. Because you're not gonna go from zero to 100 when you haven't had sex in however long. So the first thing is to is to take whether it's a little you know, the gottmans, who are a famous relationship psychotherapist, talk about the six second hug and the 22nd did I get it backwards, the six second kiss and the 22nd hug. So just give your partner a hug out of context. When you when you're not used to it, do things that are going to sort of say, oh yeah. Now I remember what it felt like to be intimate with you, so just start really slowly. Then another exercise I'll give is to not have a goal of penetration, to get into the bedroom with clothes on, and just try just being with each other, doing something sort of out of the ordinary, or getting naked, but not no penetrative sex, just trying to touch each other and get to know each other. So doing things that will bring back intimacy, that don't put the pressure on of having to have intercourse, which often that's that's the ultimate problem, if you can find things to do that are outside of that.

Sara Poldmae: 11:33

Yeah, I think that that is. I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because so many women feel like you know, their husband offers to rub their back, and we're like, okay, we know what that's about. And Right, right? The sensation of like your body just clenching up, because you know that if you accept that intimacy, right, the back rub is intimate. That means that you are then kind of expected to finish the job, so to speak. And you know that, do you have that conversation? I mean, I know that I've had that conversation with my husband, like, no, I'd love a back rub right now, but I know what that means to you, and to me, it just means a back rub. But I get this feeling that, like, then I'm expected. So, you know, that's the type of thing I would think we would need to expand the conversation around and say, like, I would love a background, but it needs to be just that in order for me to kind of develop that sense of ease, right, right? Exactly the pressure,

Karen Bigman: 12:33

yes, yes. The other thing, the other two things I'll say, is, one is to expand your definition of what sex really means. You know, Esther Perel says sex starts at the end of the last orgasm. So just because, you know, we define sex in our culture as intercourse, it doesn't have to mean that there's a lot of things you can do in and out of the bedroom that are sexual, that will be erotic and turn your partner on, that don't necessarily mean penetrative sex. And then, then, you know, the other thing, the last thing is, is, it's not really the last thing, but one of the things that you can also do is start to try, try new things. I mean, I got introduced to vibrators at 52 I was, I was newly single, I was having troubles with orgasm. That was the beginning of my, my journey. And I was in that, literally, in the doctor's office, and they offered me a bullet vibrator, and I learned how to use that, which kind of changed my life. Bring, you know, get a vibrator, bring some new tool or toy, or if that's too intimidating for you, start some sensation. Play with feathers or or warm wax, or things that that are a little bit different and that it will make you laugh when you start doing. Because I know when couples try this, or, like, it's so awkward, but that's part of part of it, like just being playful with each other again, like letting go of the pressure of this intense moment and that, like, so if he comes to you with a feather, that could be kind of fun, as opposed to, okay, let's just take intercourse off the table for some period of time until we're ready to do and even just taking that off the table can be really sexy, because you're like, Oh no, no, you can't, you can't, like, getting that anticipation. Women need that. Women need that novelty. We need that rush. We need that feeling like we're, you know, we're skydiving, or whatever it is, to get excited. And it takes a lot more than it used to,

Sara Poldmae: 14:19

yeah, for sure 100% and I think it's so funny that you said, like skydiving, it's funny because I I like, I'll listen to books on audible. And I always say I love to read. I'm a reader, but I it gives me something to listen to when I don't feel like listening to things that are health related, because I listen to a lot of podcasts, I listen to and read a lot of information that's health related. So I like to listen to like smut novels on Audible for a couple of reasons. Smut novels are not very confusing. You don't have to keep track of characters. You know the main characters, you know that they're gonna hook up, right? But I get a little annoyed, and often am fast forwarding through the sex scenes because they're. So unrealistic. They're so like, I don't know, they go from zero to like, all of a sudden, she's like, so thrilled to be in bed. And it's like, the best sex she's ever had simultaneous orgasms, right? Yeah, it's Simon come together. It's like, Oh, come on, give me a break. And like, yeah, we've all had experiences maybe that are that exciting and thrilling, but 20 years into a relationship, that's highly unlikely that you're gonna feel that it's earth shattering within two minutes of like him sucking your nipple. I mean, I hate to get too graphic, but like, it's ridiculous these sex scenes, and you know, porn on is made for men a lot of times, so it's like finding the things that turn you on, and I think taking that pressure off, you know, allows it to be more playful, rather than I think that pressure to a lot of women makes it feel like a job or a duty. And we all play so many roles as women already, we don't want one more job. We do not want another job,

Karen Bigman: 15:59

right, right? You know, there's also audio erotica. There's dipsea, which is one. There's a bunch of sites that are better than just the romantic novel that can really, I'm

Sara Poldmae: 16:10

not even in it for that. I'm more in it for like, an easy plot that gives me something to not think. But I love the erotic. Perhaps we can do some links in the in the show notes for stuff that's actually good, rather Yes, yes

Karen Bigman: 16:22

and, and there's some, there's some sex education sites that that are, you know, might give you a tool. I have a bunch of affiliates on my website too that have some great tools to help couples. Caitlin B has some great courses. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff. And sometimes, like, like, just download one of these courses or books, or even, you know, there's, there's porn, there's ethical porn, a lot of female led companies now that make it a little maybe it's more realistic and more female focused. Yeah, there's so much out there now, but you have to be willing to do that. Because even, I mean, I remember when I was married, when we decided to put on a porn movie and like, it was just like, we ended up watching something that was just horrible. The two of us were just like, oh my god, this is not turning me on. So well,

Sara Poldmae: 17:05

not only that, it can be, it can be just that it's not turning on. It could be, you know, offensive to some people, and doesn't have to be. There is good material out there. What is your website so that we know where to point people.

Karen Bigman: 17:17

So my website is taboo to truth.com. I have my podcast links to my podcast there. I have a YouTube channel. My podcast is on YouTube. I also have an adult sex education masterclass called hotter wilderweiser, which is available. And I go through six modules of all kinds of everything from understanding your sex script that you were taught to the anatomy, the changes, communication skills, tools, tips. I have some educators on there who did some extra content, and then I have a module on on dating and relationships.

Sara Poldmae: 17:46

Okay, great. And is there anything else that you feel like midlife women should walk away from during this conversation empowered, knowing anything, any other slices of wisdom you'd like to share?

Karen Bigman: 17:59

I think the biggest piece, the thing that disappoints me the most is when I hear a woman say that, like, I just don't need sex anymore. And I it makes me sad for them, because sex is such an important part, and it's such a beautiful thing, and it makes us feel good and releases amazing hormones into our body, and it's good for our health. And I really whether it's partnered or solo, however you do it, I just would say, don't give up.

Sara Poldmae: 18:23

Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think communication like we said, is so important. There are resources out there, not only for women, but for men. Women, again, carry so many roles in their lives, so it should not feel like an obligation. But you know, if you're not being served, you can speak up and say that you want, you want more, not necessarily more times a week. I think that that could be like the male brain, like, what you want more sex, but I think that it's, it's it is so beneficial to your health. And just to recap on something I said earlier, if it hurts, you've got to figure out why and get that fixed, because otherwise it's really going to be hard for you to look forward to

Karen Bigman: 19:07

that, and it could be something more more serious. So it's really,

Sara Poldmae: 19:11

it is. So definitely figuring that out first would be a great first step. I love the concept of six second kisses. It's very hard in long term relationships, to remember to slow down. You can barely get a kiss. You know, when you walk in sometimes, everybody's on their phones. These days, the hugs are quick. The kisses are quick. We're living in such a quick world, so taking the time to slow down. There's so many benefits to 22nd hugs, whether it's with your partner or with other people, just to feel more connected. Karen, thank you for sharing all of your wisdom, and we'll have all your links in the show notes for the audience to reach out. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Karen Bigman: 19:52

Thank you so much for having me. This is great. You.

Unknown: 20:00

You.