Season 12 Teaser
Our Better Half
Hey listeners! Great news... we got picked up for season 12! We can't wait to share this next season of amazing conversations with you all. We've got some some deeply-moving personal stories about sex in an aging body, up-to-date research from leading scientists, and our usual brilliant insights from Sabitha, Rosara, and Jane. So stay tuned, and we'll see you in September! If you want to catch up on other shows, just visit our and please subscribe! We love our listeners and welcome your feedback, so if you love Our Better Half, please give us a 5-star rating and follow us on and . It really...
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230: The Magic of Matchmaking
Our Better Half
Our guests today are Freddie Weisberg and Char Cohodes, two modern-day Jewish matchmakers who have started a new project that they call Old School Jewish Matchmaking. They started this project -- all volunteer and free to their community -- as their retirement project. If you’re interested in learning more or getting involved in their new project, you can find out more and and an article in their local paper . Also, you can get in touch with them by reaching out via email to . If you want to catch up on other shows, just visit our and please subscribe! We love our listeners and welcome...
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229: Dr. Sarah Girardi: A Urologist's Perspective on Sexual Pleasure
Our Better Half
On this episode of Our Better Half, we enjoy an in-depth conversation with Dr. Sarah Girardi, a trailblazing urologist and female sexual health specialist with over 25 years of experience. Together, we unpack the often-neglected world of older adults' sexual health. Dr. Girardi connects the physical and urological realities of aging to the broader relational and emotional aspects of intimacy, drawing on her extensive clinical background to bust long-standing myths and advocate for the well-being of her patients. A primary focus of the discussion revolves around the biological realities of...
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228: Lesbians: Aging on Their Own Terms in a Southern Cooperative
Our Better Half
In this episode of Our Better Half, hosts Dr. Jane Fleishman, Dr. Sabitha Pillai-Friedman, and Dr. Rosara Torrisi welcome Jenifer "JJ" Firestone, a seasoned geriatric social worker and community organizer with a rich history of LGBTQ+ advocacy. JJ shares her journey from coordinating artificial insemination programs in Boston to pioneering a unique family structure where she co-parented her daughter through a landmark 35-page co-parenting legal decision with two fathers. Her extensive career in hospice and her personal experience caring for her own aging parents for six years have culminated...
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227: Titans in Sexology: Teaching Sexual Health Providers How to Fish
Our Better Half
Our guests this week are two accomplished sexuality professionals – Ms. Sue Goldstein and Dr. Irwin Goldstein. Sue and Irwin Goldstein have been titans in the field of sexology for some time now; they were there on May 14, 1998 when the first article on sildenafil (Viagra) was published with Irwin Goldstein as the first author. Ms. Sue Goldstein, a graduate of Brown University, is Sexuality Educator and Clinical Research Manager at San Diego Sexual Medicine (SDSM), responsible for sexual medicine educational programming and clinical research. She works with the SDSM team to develop clinical...
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226: Overcoming Sexual Losses in Older Adults
Our Better Half
Lara Krawchuk has been practicing as a clinical social worker for over 30 years, specializing in grief, living losses and trauma in her psychotherapy practice. She has an intimate connection to the losses people suffer and is an expert in holding the "tough stuff" for her clients. Lara has a tremendous capacity for helping her clients maintain hope and move towards healing. Lara offers trainings and continuing education classes through her clinical practice and in affiliation with . She is passionate about teaching helping professionals how to exquisitely listen, help heal burdens and make our...
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225: Magnificent Sex: Research that Can Help You
Our Better Half
Peggy J. Kleinplatz, Ph.D. is Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Director of the Optimal Sexual Experiences Research Team at the University of Ottawa. She is a clinical psychologist, Board Certified in Sex Education and is a Diplomate and Supervisor of Sex Therapy. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She was awarded the Prix d’Excellence in 2000 for her teaching of Human Sexuality. She has a particular interest in sexual health among older people, disabled and marginalized populations. Kleinplatz has edited five books, notably , (Routledge, 2nd Edition),...
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224: Relieving the Symptoms of Menopause
Our Better Half
Dr. Sheryl Kingsberg is the chief of the division of behavioral medicine at MacDonald Women’s Hospital/University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and Professor in Reproductive Biology, Urology and Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University. Her areas of clinical specialization include female sexual disorders, menopause, pregnancy and postpartum mood disorders, and psychological aspects of infertility. Dr. Kingsberg’s primary research interests are in treatments for female sexual disorders, genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM) and reproductive mental health. She is an Associate...
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223: Senior Sex: What I Wish I'd Known At My Age
Our Better Half
Our guest this time is an old friend, Joan Price. Joan is an award-winning author, speaker, sexuality educator, advocate for ageless sexuality, and truly the inspiration behind much of what we do here at Our Better Half! She’s written numerous books, did a great video with Jessica Drake just a few years ago, and just reissued her amazing book, , and it’s better than ever! She reviews sex toys for older bodies and often laughingly says, “somebody’s got to do it!” She speaks about senior sexuality all over the world. And she’s 82! Joan has been on our show before, and we love...
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222: Menopause and Sexual Pleasure
Our Better Half
Our guest this time, Jane Epstein, is a nurse practitioner and a Menopause Society certified provider. She’s also an AASECT Certified Sex Counselor. She lives and practices in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jane graduated as a nurse practitioner from the Yale University School of Nursing in 1989, followed by a one-year training in Adolescent Medicine at Yale Medical School. She practiced adolescent medicine for over 25 years before transitioning to adult women’s health and sexuality counseling. Jane first gravitated toward the topic of sexual health while working with adolescents. In the life of...
info_outlinePlease join us for an enlivening conversation with Dr. Cynthia Graham, an esteemed editor, researcher, and educator. She has done so much research on older adults and amid a negative focus on aging, she has found in her research that sex can actually get better with age. Her research focuses on sexual health among older adults, male condom use, hormonal contraceptives, women’s sexuality, women’s sexual pleasure, and sexual problems. We discussed her current research along with Dr. Justin Lehmiller on older women and masturbation and whether it might improve some symptoms of menopause.
She is the editor of the Journal of Sex Research and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Gender studies at Indiana University and a senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute. In the wake of NIH and other funding cutbacks in scientific research, she talks about the need to continue to do sexuality research and continuing to find alternative avenues to fund and publish this critical work.
Listeners, if you’re interested in Dr. Cynthia Graham’s research, click here. If you’re interested in Dr. Patricia Barthalow Koch’s article we discussed on body image and aging, click here. And if you’d like to read the statement Dr. Graham and her colleagues wrote about the attacks on scientific research, click here.
If you want to catch up on other shows, just visit our website and please subscribe! We love our listeners and welcome your feedback, so if you love Our Better Half, please give us a 5-star rating and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. It really helps support our show!
As always, thanks for listening!