222: Menopause and Sexual Pleasure

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 an adolescent, developing into a sexual being seemed to be the biggest thing happening– and the one that adults wanted to address with adolescents the least. In 2016, she gave a popular TEDx talk entitled, “Why We Need to Talk to Girls About Sex”, which addressed female sexual pleasure, including masturbation, for young women. It’s a great talk!

Since many sexually active young women know so little about sexual pleasure, Jane wondered when and where adult women learn about sexual pleasure. Her independent research, including interviews with menopausal women across the country, revealed that many women did not learn to orgasm until taught by their (usually) male partners. And many never learned how to prioritize their own sexual pleasure during partnered relationships.

Subsequently, Jane became a Menopause Society Certified Provider and an ASSECT-certified Sex Counselor. She sees patients in Albuquerque, New Mexico for perimenopause and menopause care, as well as sexuality counseling. Her goal is to help women enjoy pain-free and pleasurable sex, as well as to optimize health through the midlife years and beyond.

Jane spoke to our co-hosts Dr. Sabitha Pillai-Friedman and Dr. Jane Fleishman about the effects of genitourinary symptoms of menopause (GSM), the benefits of topical estrogen at different ages, the current research on hormonal therapies for younger women, older women, and transmen who have a vagina. She gives practical tips and breaks down the research in a language that makes lots of sense.

If you’d like to check out the article she cited in the show, click here.

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