111 | The Menopause Conversation Every Couple Needs to Have with Sari Cooper

When was the last time you asked yourself what you actually want?

For many women, menopause is the first time that question becomes impossible to ignore. The body is changing. Desire is shifting. And relationships that have been running on autopilot for years are suddenly asking to be looked at more honestly.

In this episode, Gabriela sits down with Sari Cooper, AASECT-certified sex therapist and founder of the Center for Love and Sex in New York City, for one of the most expansive and shame-free conversations this show has ever had. Sari explains why menopause is often the elephant in the therapy room, why low desire is almost never just hormonal, and how the concept she calls sex esteem — knowing what you want, owning it, and communicating it with confidence — changes everything for women in midlife.

They go places this podcast has not gone before. Consensual non-monogamy. Gray divorce. The erotic mind. Infidelity and what comes after. And throughout all of it, the invitation is the same: approach your sexuality and yourself with more curiosity and less judgment.

Are you ready to awaken your sensuality and feel more empowered in your body? Access the FREE Pleasure Upgrade Bundle at https://www.pleasureinthepause.com/gift.

Sari Cooper is an AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist & Supervisor and Founder and Director of the Center for Love and Sex (CLS), a boutique group practice specializing in sex therapy, couples counseling and individual clients challenged with erotic and sexual disorders. She created Sex Esteem, LLC to provide coaching, books, blogs and Talks to the public on critical cutting-edge insight on how to center one’s sexual pleasure in dating, ‘relationshipping’ and mating.

Highlights from our discussion include:

• Why menopause is still the elephant in the therapy room and what it will take to change that
• How to tell a partner what is changing in your body in a way they can actually understand
• Why low desire is almost never just hormonal and what the full picture actually looks like
• What sex esteem is and the three things it requires: consciousness, confidence, and communication
• Why taking penetration off the table can actually be the most liberating thing a couple does together
• What consensual non-monogamy looks like in practice and when couples start considering it
• Why gray divorce is so often initiated by women and what menopause has to do with it 

If you're seeking to reclaim your pleasure and vitality, join Gabriella at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.pleasureinthepause.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for this enlightening journey into the heart of female pleasure and empowerment.

Sari ends with something I want every woman in this community to carry with her. Sexual and erotic agency begins with yourself. Give yourself permission to slow down, check in, and locate where it is that you feel pleasure, desire, or even just interest or curiosity. Start from there.

Before we can ask someone else to understand us, we first have to understand ourselves. That is what sex esteem is really about. And this episode is a beautiful place to begin.

If this episode resonated, subscribe to Pleasure in the Pause and share it with someone who needs this conversation. And if someone came to mind while you were listening, that is your sign to send it to them.

Resources mentioned:
Sari Cooper: centerforloveandsex.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/-sari-cooper-center-for-love-and-sex/ 

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

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The information shared on Pleasure in the Pause is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health or treatment. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or Pleasure in the Pause.

Transcript

Introduction and how Gabriela met Sari Cooper

Gabriella Espinosa 0:00

Welcome to Pleasure in the Pause, a podcast dedicated to empowering midlife women to connect with their bodies, pleasure, and power in Perimenopause, Menopause, and beyond. I am your host, Gabriela Espinosa. Each week I sit down with leading medical experts, thought leaders, and trailblazers for bold, thought-provoking conversations that educate, inspire, and challenge the myths we've been taught about our bodies, aging, and sexuality. I also share solo episodes with evidence-based insights and real talk to help you feel informed, supported, and in charge of your health and pleasure in this season of life. Because your pleasure matters, in and out of the bedroom. So take a deep breath, settle into your body, and let's begin. Hello, beautiful listeners. Welcome back to Pleasure in the Pause. Tell me something. When was the last time you asked yourself, What do I want? For many women, menopause is the first time that question becomes impossible to ignore. Last month I had the privilege of attending Esther Perrell's Sessions Live event in Brooklyn, New York. If you're not familiar with Esther, she's a world-renowned psychotherapist whose work on desire, intimacy, and modern relationships has shaped how millions of people think about love and connection. For the first time in the history of the event, Esther brought menopause onto the stage. I remember sitting in that hall with nearly 300 therapists and practitioners feeling something shift. It struck me that if menopause isn't part of the conversation around relationships and sexuality, we're missing one of the biggest transitions a couple will ever navigate together. It was there that I met today's guest, Sari Cooper. Sari is an ASEC certified sex therapist and founder of the Center for Love and Sex in New York City. In this episode, Sari explains why menopause is often the elephant in the therapy room, and why hormones are only one piece of the puzzle. We explore how women can begin talking to their partners about what's changing in their bodies, how partners can better support one another through this transition, and why menopause can become an invitation to build what Sari calls sex esteem. It's a conversation about knowing what you desire, communicating it with confidence, and expanding what's possible for intimacy in midlife. I loved this episode, and I think you will too. Here's my conversation with Sari Cooper. Sari, welcome to Pleasure in the Pause. I'm so glad to have you here. I'm so excited that we finally got to

Why menopause is the elephant in the therapy room

Gabriella Espinosa 3:01

do this. So, so excited. So thank you for coming on today. I'd love to start with asking you what drew you to sex therapy. And were you always comfortable talking about sex, or was this something you had to grow into?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

First of all, I've always been comfortable talking about sexuality. I was brought up as the youngest of six kids in a pretty liberal family. And I luckily had an older sister who kind of prepared me for things. I was also a modern dancer, a professional dancer, which is what brought me to New York. I went to the Juilliard School to dance and study, and then I worked in the downtown modern dance world. And sexuality and orientation and gender presentation, all of those things are very open and expressive in the modern dance world. So I was very comfortable actually talking about sex.

Gabriella Espinosa 3:57

I mentioned in the introduction that we met at Esther Perel's live sessions event in Brooklyn this past May. And yeah, I was also surprised how she blew up the whole conversation around gender, identity, orientation, opening up relationships. So I love meeting all the therapists. I love meeting you. I want to open up this conversation to all the things. But specifically, what I was surprised, it was the first time that she brought menopause onto the stage. And I was curious, the reactions of everyone in the room just eating up the information by the menopause experts that were on the stage. It was like, wow, yes, we need to be talking about this. Why do you think that conversation was so long overdue in the sex therapy world?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I think it's actually long overdue in the therapy world for sure, because there's still separate silos of psychotherapy training and sex therapy training. I am a co-founder of a training program and a certification for general therapists because they don't know what to ask about someone's sexual history. They don't know what they're looking for in terms of sexual disorders, and they don't understand the biomedical issues that are going on hormonally with people. They may know like just sort of the surface level stuff, but they really don't understand the science that you need to understand, like evidence-backed clinical interventions and who to refer to. So I think first it's the therapy world. And I think there were a lot of general therapists, actually. There were only a handful of us sex therapists in that live session. Even in the sex therapy world, I think because women's sexual medicine is still so behind men's sexual medicine in terms of the money and dollars that have been garnered for research, that there's still a lot we don't know. And so I think it's a very siloed experience, which I feel I'm a I'm an integrated therapist, I'm an integrated sex therapist. So I go to the medical conferences, I go to the sex therapy conferences, I go to the family and couples therapy conferences, I present there because I am all about cross-pollinating and being more integrated. And so I think what you were seeing is this siloed world. And the fact that menopause had never been discussed is just a symptom of that.

Gabriella Espinosa 6:25

And we're seeing it everywhere, right? Not only in the therapy world, we're seeing it in the medical world where cardiologists or general practitioners are not well versed in the menopause transition. And I'm hearing more and more a call to action for all doctors to be educated in menopause. And still, menopause is the elephant in the therapy room, I can imagine,

How to help a couple navigate menopause together

Gabriella Espinosa 6:53

right? How do you broach that once a couple is actually in front of you? And how do you help each of them navigate it for her and for him?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So it's a very interesting thing. So at Center for Love and Sex, my group practice in New York, we see both men who come in alone, even if they're partner, or if they're single. We see women, if they're partnered, come in alone, or we see them as a couple, if they're heterosexual, or if they're partnered with another woman. And so it's an interesting dilemma because sometimes people will come in alone. And I will invite them to say, would you like to come and bring your partner in at some point? And for some people, their sex life and their sexuality, it's a private affair for them because either they don't want to burden their partner with their medical issues, or they have some private concerns that they don't want to share with their partner. That includes not being that interested in sex with that partner, as opposed to not being interested in sex in general. And there's a sense from some people, I'm the one having a problem. So if there's a male involved, a cis male with a penis, if his penis is not working in the way that he would like, he feels very humiliated about that. He doesn't want to talk about it with his partner. He wants to get it fixed. So he will come in by himself. Alternatively, and similarly, if a woman is having sexual pain or low desire or hot flashes or lack of sleep, or she's just not really functioning in the way that she used to, she feels my problem. I'm gonna take care of it. I'm taking care of everything else in my house and my maybe with my family. This is on me. So there's a sense of internal responsibility, I would say, sometimes when people come in on their own.

Gabriella Espinosa 8:47

And still, so many women assume symptoms like low desire or pain during sex or hot flashes are purely hormonal. How do you help women understand what's hormonal, what's relational, and where those two intersect?

Why low desire is almost never just hormonal

SPEAKER_01 9:12

So, as a certified sex therapist, in my sex esteem model, I do what's called a bio-psychosocial, and then I add on two others sexual, spiritual assessment. All of those realms, all of those domains are assessed during a four to five session assessment because I want to understand the hormonal influence and when that began in the timeline. I also want to understand how they feel about themselves. Were they a very sexual person before this period in their life? Were they interested in sex? How was their sex life with their current partner in the beginning, if they've been together for years? And if there hasn't been a change, that's more maybe psychological. That could be some indication of trauma that hasn't been dealt with. I also have people coming to terms at this point in their life with who they are attracted to. And sometimes for a woman, it's or a man, frankly, have had that too, where people are like coming into a different acceptance. And I'm very careful because I don't always say it's an orientation. People come in with fantasies, longings, desire to have some sort of sexual experience with the same gender partner, but they do not call it bisexuality. They do not call it queer or gay, right? And I make sure that I am not putting any labels because it's not upon me to do that. It's up to them to figure it out. And so that is also a midlife kind of uh transition for some people, that they're giving themselves permission to finally come to terms with some issues that have been relegated to the back of their brain and body for many years.

Gabriella Espinosa 11:06

It seems like there are issues having to do with identity and who am I as a sexual being, which I find from personal experience and from women that I've coached, that comes up when the hormonal fluctuations start to happen, right? Because we've been pushing down. I find estrogen is the accommodating hormone. We've been pushing down everything, suppressing our desires, our wants and needs for being in the service of others, for our work, for our community, for our children. And then when that veil of the estrogen starts to fade, then all of this starts to come up. And I'm curious, what's the story a woman or a couple or a man thinks that they're coming in to tell you? And how is it usually different from the story you eventually uncover through your sex esteem framework?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

A lot of times people will come in. A woman might come in saying, I really want to want. I actually miss that part of myself. Other women come in and say, something like, My partner, whatever the gender of the partner, is really wanting sex more. And I'm not in the mood. I'm not even in the mood to be sexual with myself. What is going on with me? To then doing that kind of long history taking and asking them questions that a therapist or doctor probably has never asked them. So if you ask someone, whatever their gender orientation, if you ask someone, have you ever been sexually abused or assaulted? They may say yes, if it was clearly an assault or a rape. But if they've never been assaulted or raped, they will say no. I've never been sexually assaulted. But if you ask a question, when I ask a question, like, have you ever had a boundary crossing in your life where you were involved in some sort of sexual or erotic experience and you felt icky about it, you felt disgusted about it, you felt it was crossing some line, it disturbed you, it may have been repeated over time. If I ask that question, I will get a very different answer a lot of the time. And that's how I start discovering this is not just a hormone issue. There's some history here that a person hasn't come to terms with. They've never discussed it, they may have never even told their partner about it. I've seen that a lot. May have happened 30 years before. And they are at a point in their life where maybe now they're ready to talk about it.

Gabriella Espinosa 13:58

And is it usually in the context of their current relationship? What comes to mind when I hear you speak is they're either faking orgasms, performing, fleezing without getting their own needs met, not communicating their desires, and just feeling dissatisfied. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

That's sometimes what it looks like because we are all raised in the same society, and women are raised to give and not necessarily request for what they need. But even deeper than that, actually, Gabriella, it's they're not even able to determine what they want. Like never ask themselves, what do I find pleasing? What do I find erotically transformative? I never asked myself that. I just went with what my partner wanted, and it seemed like it worked well. And I enjoyed it. It's not like they hated it the whole time, but they never ask themselves, what

How to help a woman discover what she actually wants

SPEAKER_01 15:00

is it that I want? And that's so true in the bedroom. And it's so true outside of the bedroom a lot of times, for especially for women.

Gabriella Espinosa 15:08

Absolutely. And I have those conversations a lot with women. I I have a set of journaling prompts that I like to guide women in. And that's one of the first questions. What is it that you desire? What is it that you want? For me, it was such a hard question to answer. I would sometimes tell my husband, what I don't want. No, I don't want that. I don't want that. He would ask me, like, what do you want for dinner? Oh, but I don't want this. But Gabriella, what is it that you want? And then I would just like, it was so hard.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

It's hard when you haven't been raised with the expectation, and I might even say entitlement, to ask. Check in with your body, check in with yourself, and go, actually, I would like to eat A, B, and C today. That's what I want for dinner, as opposed to what does everyone else want? I'll just go with the flow.

Gabriella Espinosa 15:59

Exactly. That's a common one, right? What does everyone else want? And I'll just go with the flow. How do you begin to approach this topic with a woman, especially if she is not aware of her wants or desires, if she's questioning her sexual identity or who she is as a sexual being, questioning the relationship itself, how do you begin to guide her?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

First, when I take the sexual history, I'm going back and asking her about things like, did you have crushes when you were four or five? And I leave it genderless. I will then ask, did you ever have a crush on a best friend? A girl. And did you ever dream that you would get married to that girl? So I'm using childlike language for that life stage. Because if you ask someone, did you ever consider yourself being a gay person? It's using an adult label for something that is never been examined or even owned before yet. So I use child appropriate language as I ask questions about each life stage. The other question I ask is exceptions to the rule, meaning, were there ever experiences you had, whether they were casual or with yourself or with another partner that you felt like was a peak experience. And it doesn't have to include penetrative sex, right? It could be any erotic or sexual experience that you've had. And if you frame that question that way, it leaves a much broader idea of what could come up. And it could be just a fantasy, it could be a book, it could be a series that they were like so into when they were younger and they would just watch it over and over. I'll ask them, is there a scene or scenes in in certain movies that are your go-to erotic inspiration? Let's say and most people can find something. And from there, you do a little bit more probing. So what about that scene really got to you? Still gets to you. And it's sort of analyzing what the erotic inspiration is to help them understand what their erotic math is.

Gabriella Espinosa 18:23

With that line of questioning, she comes closer to understanding what it is she truly wants and desires in a relationship and in a sexual encounter.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yes, or meaning, not all people want their fantasies enacted. If they don't want it enacted, it gives them permission to think about it. It gives them permission to maybe watch it, either alone or with a partner. I always tell people your erotic mind is much more powerful than you can ever give it credit for. And most women do not give the erotic mind as much space and time and respect that it really deserves. So when someone says I have low desire, yes, I definitely send them to a medical provider who I know is sexuality educated and informed, but I also am saying to them, what's going on here? And have you brought this into your sexual life? So some people have also a dilemma because they may be very turned on by certain things, but there's so many resentments or conflicts with their partner of many years that they don't really desire to be with their partner and enact or talk about these fantasies. So there are things, I would call them relational traumas that have happened over the years that were never repaired. So people feel resentful or stuck, really. I really have no desire to do this with my partner because I'm angry with them. It can come from a

How to talk to your partner about what is changing

SPEAKER_01 20:03

long time ago. I've had people say to me, when I delivered my second child, my husband, he was in town, but he went out and went to a bar and got drunk. And he wasn't there for me. And there were complications, and it was really traumatic for me. And I felt totally abandoned. And I said to myself there and then, I'm never going to fully trust this person again. That's unrepaired trauma. When you ask someone, do you want to feel vulnerable and share all these erotic experiences you are dreaming about or fantasizing about, they'll say, No, I don't trust this person fully.

Gabriella Espinosa 20:37

So there's a lot going on. It's so multifactorial. Let's come back to the menopause conversation. So if a woman says she has low desire and you've identified a practitioner that she could go see for that, I imagine through your questionnaire you help her identify, okay, it is potentially menopause, right? So how does she even begin this conversation with her partner? And what's one thing you wish every partner understood about menopause that would immediately change how they show up for her?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

I always say you have to use their body as an example for them to truly get it. So, in other words, if you said to a male partner, can you imagine that you were losing your erections every time you wanted to have sex? How would you feel about that? Hopefully, if the man is being honest with himself, he would say, My body's betraying me, and I'd feel totally embarrassed. Correct. That is the experience I'm having because my hormones are actually crashing. I'm going through an estrogen withdrawal. That's what menopause is. And it's impacting my memory, it's impacting my desire, it's impacting my vulva and the way it feels and the pain I'm having. So all of these symptoms are impacted by loss of estrogen. Progesterone as well. So I want you to understand that this is not really about you. And this is not any reflection on you. This is a health issue that I have to take care of. The other thing I want to make sure that we talk about, Gabriella, is the fact that many of these women who come into my office have been to see doctors. I live in New York City. There are plenty of gynecologists. But there's always this specialty around sexual medicine, which we're trying to change through my organization, Iswish, the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, to get more gynecists and allied professionals to be sexuality educated, medically educated. I'll do a lot of psychoeducation. The thing that you have to remember is that many of these women have seen other gynecologists before they reach my office. And they've been told that they look fine, that their vulva looks fine, that their vestibule, where they're having extremely stabbing pain every time their husband or partner enters them for penetrative sex is killing them. And they said, Meh, you look fine, or your home arms are fine. And so they've been gaslit now for several years. So there's that to recover from as well. And they are pissed. They are so angry that they have been misled when they knew in their gut, in their body, that there was something wrong. And so part of the recovery, if you will, and the sex therapy is to help them express their anger at the medical system. And I get it. I totally get it. I've been there myself. So I know that's part of their sort of trajectory in getting back into what is right for them and what do I want going forward. Another sort of team member that is a very important element for working with people in perimenopause and menopause is a pelvic floor physical therapist for men too, by the way. So there's so many symptoms that women complain about: pelvic pain, genital pain, and constipation, bloating, hip rotator pain when they work out. There are many sort of symptoms that a lot of doctors don't think about as pelvic pain disorders. And the pelvic floor is such a myriad, vast place where nerves and muscles and bone structure all intersect and then they impact each other.

Gabriella Espinosa 24:44

I love that you've mentioned the hormonal piece, Sari, as well as the pelvic floor piece. All of that is under the realm of the biology, of the biopsychosocial model. So how do you work with a woman when she's identified these things? Do you refer out?

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I have trusted people I refer to and practices, and then we work collaboratively because then they'll inform me of what they found. And then I also work with a mindfulness approach. As I said, I was a professional dancer. I've also gone into studying yoga. I've been doing yoga now for 30 years and I meditate. And so I understand that when we are more in touch with our breath, when we have active practices of actually calming our nervous system down through mindful breathing, we actually can be more in touch with what's called a proprioceptive system, meaning where our body is in space, what sensations we are receiving, how we can create more intensity because we are more in touch with what we're feeling. So a lot of people are very cut off from their bodies. They just are.

Gabriella Espinosa 26:02

So you've helped a woman identify what's happening biologically, and you referred her out to key specialists and you're working together as a team.

Taking penetration off the table and expanding the erotic landscape

Gabriella Espinosa 26:13

How do you help a couple navigate this minute post transition, helping her have that conversation with her partner, and then having the male partner step in to support her?

SPEAKER_01 26:25

So here's something really important that you have to explain that, you know, I have been having trouble when we've tried penetrated sex, and I need to take that off the table for a little while, but I need your consent and buy-in for that because I finally figured out what kind of help I need. I need to do some pelvic floor physical therapy, but I don't want to stop our sex life altogether. So I'm wondering if you'd be open to experimenting with me in a sexual way, maybe before we ever had penetrative sex, and do some more experimentation and take penetration off the table. Because what I've been informed by my sex therapist is that it will allow me to relax more. When you start to kiss me or approach me, my body has now learned to anticipate penetration. And so I am retracting. And I know that must feel horrible to you because it must feel like I don't want you. But it's automatic. It has been explained to me that when your body experiences pain in a certain condition, your body and mind say, Stop doing that, avoid that. And so I realize now with education that my body is just reacting to potential pain down the road. And I want us to create a new sexual scenario that I know will not lead to pain. But I need you on board.

Gabriella Espinosa 27:56

I love that. Really having that conversation and making the male partner feel that it's not their fault, right? And that there is a reason, but there's something that they can work towards together. There's other ways to imagine what pleasure or sex can look like. And so, what ideas do you have for our listeners who are in that situation of wanting to or maybe a short time, take penetration out of the bedroom and explore other ways of exploring pleasure together?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

So, from a sensuality perspective, I invite people to explore erotic massage. And that may include playing games. I only want you to massage me from the waist up, and I want you to use your tongue and your pinky finger. You can make it playful, and that actually makes someone have to be creative, and it brings this fun back, right? And so it becomes a game. Or I want to touch your backside, and I want you facing down, and I'm going to use my silk scarf, and I'm gonna start touching you, and I want you to tell me if you want me to do it softer, lighter. So you're asking people to explore their sensuality in a fun way.

Gabriella Espinosa 29:23

So it's just again giving them other ideas of how they can explore pleasure without the pressure of penetration. And how do you find the male partners respond to that?

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Oh my God. Men love this because first of all, I want to say something that I haven't mentioned. It's really important. For a lot of male partners whose wives or girlfriends have had pain upon penetration, they feel awful. They feel so guilty and responsible. At the same time, they're stuck because on the one hand, they're horny and they want to have sex or they want to be intimate. On the other hand, if their female partner or their wife goes, Oh, just do it, it's actually terrible for their sex life because it's uh cross purposes of their physical arousal and their erotic desire. So they are so relieved that now there's someone to say, oh no, you should continue to have a sex life, as opposed to we're not doing anything. Because that's what I see most of the time. All intimacy, all touch even has stopped. So men feel so grateful to say, Oh, you mean there's something I can do? You mean there's something I can do that will give you pleasure? Sign me up.

Gabriella Espinosa 30:40

I think we've just been so conditioned, both women and men, to see pleasure through this lens of it has to end in penetration, it has to end in orgasm, but there is so much room for play and curiosity and and exploration. And I find it just adds that novelty that you're talking about that I find when you begin to go there, you realize, oh wow, this can actually be fun. It's such a relief to just know that you can expand your erotic or your pleasure landscape.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

For sure. And the other piece of it is allowing people are very uncomfortable talking about their erotic desires. As we said earlier, some women haven't given themselves permission to even explore it. So the other thing that happens a lot of time in midlife and menopause is women start discovering, I kind of like the power thing. And I said, yeah, a lot of people are actually a lot kinkier than they think they were. And so that's another door that kind of opens up with midlife, where they go, I actually want a little bit more dynamic where maybe my partner takes more of a dominant role, but in a safe way, obviously a consensual way, because I have so much going on during my day. I take care of people, I take care of people at work, I take care of people at home, I may have older parents that I'm taking. I want someone to really change the dynamic, and I want to get told or structured on what I want to do. And they may never have been able to articulate that with a partner before. So, for example, whether it's heated rivalry, baby girl, like the more recent movies that have gotten a lot of viewership from women in midlife, not just gay men for heated rivalry. I'll say, you know, how did you feel when you watched that? Was there any scene in there that got you kind of hot under the collar? And they'll go, actually. And I'll say, Oh, so you do have some desire. They go, Oh yeah. And even that is a relief to them. They don't feel broken. Oh, I do respond. You're right. I didn't think of it that way.

Gabriella Espinosa 33:10

It's again going back to this idea of just opening the realm of possibilities. I hear a lot that it's not really menopause that's the issue in terms of the decline of libido. It's just the kind of sex that women are receiving or having. And again, going back to your point of it being just this kind of stereotypical penis and vagina sex, you're saying it's time to open up our relationships to different ways of enjoying our sexuality, of enjoying our eroticism. And there's so much there to explore. Do you find women in midlife are open to those ideas? One thing is having the fantasy or holding yourself up in your TV room and watching heated rivalry, but how do you actually put this into action?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

So I think sharing with a partner kind of something that is turning you on is a first step. Saying I might want to enact something and understanding that it might not hit the spot. And I tell my clients, this is a lab, this is just an experiment. It may work, it may not. I don't want you to get angry with yourself. I don't want you to get angry with your partner. You have to have a sense of this is like an improv game. And you're learning through experimenting. And it's owning your own practice of experimenting that is really so healing and so exciting. And so it's a new journey for people. In the same way, like some people come in and they say, we want to open up our relationship. We've never done that before. We've always been monogamous. That in itself is something that they have to navigate together. If they're both on board, great. What are the rules? What are the structures? I find a lot of people come in and then they go off and they start doing stuff without having talked about it. And things can go awry because there are things they don't anticipate, but I do because I've been at this for a long time. So there are different structures within consensual non-monogamy.

Consensual non-monogamy explained

Gabriella Espinosa 35:10

Let's go there because I haven't really talked about that on the show. And it seems to be to me, it seems to be that it's something that's trending in relationships. I don't know if it's actually a trend or something that we're wired for. What does opening up your relationship actually look like in practice? And when it works, why does it make a difference?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

If you think of it as a like a large umbrella of what's called consensual non-monogamy, under that umbrella are very different structures. So one of those structures might be what's called a don't ask, don't tell. And that's when people give each other a hall pass and say, really don't want to know the details. You do you. Just make sure that you don't bring any STI home. Or just make sure you don't do it in our community, or just make sure that our kids never find out about it, right? That's one of those sort of blocks, if you will, under that umbrella. Another one might be we want to go swinging together. Very different kind of structure and has different rules to it. And the majority of those people, not all, but the majority of those people only play with other couples. And so they're always together. And there's a sense of fun and unity in doing that so that they can go to someone else's house or go to a play party. And it's this renewed interest and vitality that they're bringing back to their own sexual connection.

Gabriella Espinosa 36:37

So can you just, for those who don't know what swinging is, can you explain what that is?

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Swinging is probably the most popular, if you will, in midlife and for heterosexual couples, I would say. And it's when one couple decide to date, have a casual scenario with another couple. And so everyone has to agree, and everyone has to agree to play with the other partner. And so sometimes that might be all four of them together. That might sometimes it might be the two cross-sex, as we say, partners switching with the other partner, uh, what was called swapping back in the 70s. And so you can do that at a party and meet other people who are into the same thing. You can meet online, you can find people online and just have one partnership meeting another couple. That's what swinging is, it's been around for years. It's quite popular, frankly, of the consensual non-monogamy. Right? Consensual non-monogamy is still an alternative lifestyle of sexuality. But within that big umbrella, swinging is quite popular. So the next one I would say would be polyamory. It is partnering with another person outside of maybe your what we call a primary relationship, but it's more than just a sexual or casual acquaintance, someone you hook up with. It's someone with whom you actually have emotional feelings. It may involve relying on that person, having them rely on you. It may have your primary partner give an okay and meet that person and give the okay of you're seeing that other person, and vice versa. It has a lot of different structures to it as well. Sometimes one partner will say, I don't want to see anyone else, but I agree that you can have this other relationship that involves love as well as sex. So it has its own kind of rules and boundaries that are very different because they're involving love. And a lot of people say, I could never do that. Because what if you fall in love with someone else and you want to break up the relationship? And the other thing I have to explain to people and try to translate it for them, even if they don't want to try it, you know, not it's not for everybody, you have to do a lot of processing of feelings. And some people don't even have time to process feelings with their primary partner. But what I say to them is if you have children, more than one child, do you have enough love for each and every one of them? Do you only have enough love for one of them? And then they understand it. They understand the idea that you can love a lot of different people without feeling like you have to choose one. But it's a harder concept for a lot of people to understand.

Gabriella Espinosa 39:35

So when does a midlife couple get to that point of considering an alternative lifestyle versus say splitting up? We hear more and more about gray divorce. Nearly 40% of divorces now involve someone over 50. Is it an alternative to divorce and just keeping the marriage going? What is the decision-making process for that alternative lifestyle?

SPEAKER_01 40:01

It comes from a lot of different places. That's one option. There may be a lot of great things in your marriage, but your sex life has never really been that great. And if both parties really agree to that, they might agree to opening up because they still share a family. They may, some of the people who come see us also work together. They have a business, they have a community to whom and with whom they feel very strong relationships. They don't want to blow up their lives. It is an alternative to this idea that it's either one or none. Another way people come to us is that they've agreed that they would like to explore alternative sexual experiences, but they want to do it in an ethical way. And they both want to be involved, right? They are both tired of the same old and they want to reinvigorate and revitalize their erotic connection with each other and have that with other people. So people come at it from a wide variety of places. I also work and my therapists at the Center for Love and Sex also work with people after there's been a discovery of infidelity. That infidelity may have occurred because there had been no sex for a very long time. And one of the partners just felt I can't take it anymore. I miss this part of my life. I feel guilty for bringing it up again and again. I'm just gonna take what's mine. But then that betrayal and crossing of what we call a sexually explicit agreement really does a lot of damage to the trust and the foundation of an agreement that you had. So once that trust is repaired, and that's the first order of business with a couple where infidelity has been discovered, then there's the then what? Are we willing to look at the reality of our sex life and figure out a way to bring in other things that revitalize it? And that's a big question. And I think a lot of therapists don't do that part of the recovery from infidelity. And they make the person who stepped out, the betrayer, just someone who has to apologize, which they do, and they have to make amends, which they do, but then they leave it at that. And it goes back. They don't really ask about the what the sex life was like. And so they kind of go back to what it was. So it hasn't really been, in my opinion, recovered and repaired.

Gray divorce and what menopause has to do with it

Gabriella Espinosa 42:32

Yeah, it's so complex, right? What each couple brings into the therapy room. And I love how you've opened up our mind to different ways of relating and loving and enjoying pleasure. Let's go back to this trend that I mentioned of the gray divorce, right? When you look at that trend, nearly 40% of divorces happening in midlife. What do you see through the lens of your work? Is it menopause? Is it this idea of wanting to spice things up and not being able to communicate it? What is it? What do you see in your therapy room?

SPEAKER_01 43:03

I think menopause is, I actually think of it as a breakthrough. It's a breakthrough for us to be able to go, oh, oh, tick tock. We have a limited time, a large time potentially, because people are living older and older. But what is it I want to do with this one fantastic life that I have? And it's a breakthrough to be able to start asking, even asking the questions. And for many people, they've stayed together with partners in very unsatisfying and maybe even abusive marriages. And they go, no more. I don't want this. I want something more for myself because time is of the essence. And even if I don't find another partner, I'd rather enjoy my life and not have to deal with all the problems that have been. Never been resolved, and I don't think will get resolved. That's, I think, part of what's going on here because a lot of the gray divorces are being initiated by women in heterosexual.

Gabriella Espinosa 44:11

Yeah. No, that's so interesting. Yeah, I do totally hear that with the women that I work with, that I talk to, that there is that questioning. I have a 30-year runway. How am I going to live that? And they're questioning their identity, their relationships. And even though it is a big blow-up to their own family structure, they're willing to consider it. There's more space to consider it, especially if you have kids out of the house, if you've had established careers and you're both more or less financially well off. I think it's when you're not in that situation and you have finances to worry about. How are you going to manage all of that that it becomes more of a sticky point and women stay in the marriage? But I meet women who decide to go forward and then reinvent themselves and decide to start new businesses and make it work out on their own. And so, yeah, there's so many different ways to approach this. And I love that you've opened our eyes and our minds to, yeah, there's so much more possible for us in midlife.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

I think of it as a really great opportunity. And I think it helps also people come in to see us or see me or some of my older therapists because they feel like, oh, you get it. Like you've been through this path. You can help guide me now that I'm going through it. That's an important piece to this time.

Gabriella Espinosa 45:40

So, Sari, what I'm hearing you speak is you're helping couples, women build sex esteem. I love that phrase. Most of us know what self-esteem is, but sex esteem feels like this very rich and important concept for women

What sex esteem is and how to start building it

Gabriella Espinosa 45:58

in midlife. For a woman or couple who want to begin building it, where do they start?

SPEAKER_01 46:04

So I think what they have to understand is the reason why I coined it as sex esteem is because it's really a matter of exploring, starting from the inside, from inside you. What is it that I want? What is it that I'm feeling? What does my body want? What does it need? And so it's first of all a consciousness to understand what is it that I do want. Then it's a confidence to actually own it, which is easier said than done for many people, especially women. And then there's the communication skills. How am I going to actually talk to my partner about what it is that I need from them, that I want from them at this time, that we've never done before. And so all of those are skills that have to be practiced. It's not something that just it happens. No, there it's it's I'm a yogi and yoga is a practice. I'm still practicing. Just like in a as a dancer, you have to practice. So with each practice, you learn something more about yourself. And hopefully, you learn something more about a partner. If you learn to listen without taking things personally, a lot of times people immediately go, Does that mean you don't want me? No. It's actually something that they just want for themselves because it'd be curious. Ask them more questions about it. The other thing we say in sex therapy, Gabrielle, and I don't know if you've heard this before, is you shouldn't yuck somebody's yum. Yes. You can say, That's interesting, tell me more. And you can say, It's not my cup of tea, but I'm so glad it gives you such pleasure. Really important because a lot of times there have been little glimmers where partners had brought something up in the hopes that their partner will pick it up and explore it with them. And they say something very critical, disdainful, or even humiliating about that idea or fantasy or activity, and their partner goes, never doing that again, never bringing that up again. Because I don't want to deal with the shame. I have enough internal shame. I don't need to get the shame from my partner. So that discussion just gets blocked. So those are things you need to practice.

Gabriella Espinosa 48:24

We talk about pleasure as a practice. It's not something that you learn overnight, but it is a skill that you can build, just like building a muscle. Before we close, if someone's listening today only remembers one thing from this conversation, what do you hope it is?

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Sexual and erotic agency begins with yourself. Give yourself permission to slow down, check in, locate where it is that you feel pleasure, desire, interest even. It can be just interest, curiosity, and start from there.

Gabriella Espinosa 49:03

Thank you so much. Sorry, this has been such a rich conversation. Tell us where can people find you, follow your work, and learn more about sex esteem.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

You can follow me at Sari Cooper Official. You can check my blog out on my site, which is www.centerforloveandsex.com. And you'll see the profiles of my therapists. We also do coaching as well under the Sex Esteem business. And I also present to organizations, including women's groups and colleges and parent groups, all around how to integrate sexual knowledge in a way that's practical, accessible, and very informative and sometimes fun.

Gabriella Espinosa 49:49

This has been a fun conversation. So thank you so much, Sari, for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

This was really fun.

Gabriella Espinosa 49:58

Wow, that was such a rich conversation. I knew Sari and I were going to talk about menopause and relationships, but I didn't expect us to go where we went. We touched on parts of intimacy we haven't explored on this podcast before. And I loved how open, thoughtful, and shamefree the conversation felt. What I appreciated most was Sari's invitation to approach our sexuality and really ourselves with more curiosity and less judgment. Whether we were talking about fantasies, redefining pleasure, opening relationships, or simply learning to ask ourselves, what do I want? The invitation wasn't to have all the answers. It was simply to become more curious. And I think that's what her concept of sex esteem is really all about. It's about building a relationship with ourselves first, understanding what we desire, believing our pleasure matters, and finding the confidence to communicate that with the people we love. Because before we can ask someone else to understand us, we first have to understand ourselves. I'd love to know what stayed with you. What did this conversation open up for you? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, I'd love for you to share this episode with them. That's how we begin to normalize these conversations and help more people realize what's possible in midlife. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, your pleasure matters. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Pleasure in the Pause. Want to help me spread more pleasure in the world? Please hit subscribe to the podcast and share this episode with a friend, a sister, or any woman you care about. Because when we share these conversations, we remind each other we are not alone. Together, we create ripples of empowerment and support that reach far beyond ourselves. Your support means the world to me. Thank you. Remember, your pleasure matters. The information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider before making any decisions about your health or treatment. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or pleasure in the pause.