Better Sex In Menopause and Beyond

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night.

How's better sex in menopause sound? Like a foreign distant destination? For a lot of our audience members, that's the truth. Sex is one of the most popular topics on this show, by the way.

It's on the platform overall.

Many women tell me their partners are glad that they're attending when we talk about libido. Sex is such a hot topic— see what I did there— that low libido was a topic answered in one of the first 3 episodes of Flipping 50 TV nearly 8 years ago, after hundreds of questions had come in asking about questions from women in menopause. So buckle your seatbelt, it's going to get a little dirty. My guest today is Dr. Kelly Caspersen. She's a urologist public speaker, sex educator, and top international podcaster whose mission is empowering women to live their best lives. Dr. Kelly identified the need for better resources and developed a sex education class for women that covers topics like sexual health, intimacy, mind work, and the science of desire. She combines education, humor, and candor in her podcast, You Are Not Broken, where she dismantles the myths women have learned and normalized healthy, enjoyable sex worth desiring, in addition to essential education on midlife health and hormones. Here we go. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve. Dr. Kelly Casperson, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

All right. We're going to talk sex. We're going to get right to it.

We're going to talk sex.

And here's the deal. I love this because I have to tell you, so I lived in a two-story house, grew up in a two-story house, and my brother's bedroom was the south bedroom.

He had a big bed.

I just had a twin bed. When my girlfriend would come over and elementary and junior high and high school, we would have like talks, like we would have the talk and we would go in there and we would play what if. And that's, that's my sex education. I don't think I ever had a conversation with my mother. You know, we kind of figured things out ourselves. I am dying to know your background. I mean, was this something for you growing up? Or was it not until you were a professional that you realized a lot of women struggle with this?

Well, I— yeah, so I grew up Catholic. Very open, educated mother, though. Okay. And from like, I was always the weird kid who had to use the anatomic body part names, right? So growing up, it was anus, it was vulva, it was urethra, you know, and like nobody else called it that. And so I always thought like, that's so weird. And now as an adult and, you know, Fast forward, having gone through medical school, and if you can't use the right words, it limits your communication. Whether you're a kid communicating or a partner trying to talk about what feels good, or you're at your doctor's office and you say it hurts down there, right? If you don't know the right words, it's very hard to communicate what issues are going on. So I grew up, I think, very fortunate. In understanding these body parts have names and we're going to use them. But as far as like the biopsychosocial, Catholic was sex is for marriage. It was kind of a black box until marriage. I remember a, a boy in 6th grade went to a Catholic elementary school. The boy in 6th grade bought like— he brought like a roll of condoms and like pulled them out in the coatroom. And I didn't know what they were. I didn't know the word for them. I just knew like I don't think you're supposed to have those here. And he got, he got in trouble for it. So he was like, clearly things were happening at his house where he had access to that. So I remember like, I didn't know what that was or what that was for, but that got him in trouble.

Oh my gosh. That's so funny. There was one kid in our junior high who seemed to walk around with a condom in his wallet the whole time. So everybody knew it was John. John had those.

My guy's name was Ryan. Ryan had the condoms at the Catholic elementary school. But, you know, and then, you know, then being trained in Western medicine, getting an MD, it was very much a disease and pregnancy prevention plan. And realizing that if we get an education and the data tells us now in schools, the sex education in America now is worse than it was in the '90s.

What?

Yeah. Any of us who were trained in the '90s—

when you say worse, do we mean telling them anything at all, or do we mean talking about disease and what can happen?

What? Both not having it be part of the curriculum and then really pushing an abstinence-only, which we know abstinence-only education sets you up for more diseases actually, because you don't get— you get— don't get the knowledge for protection, consent, pregnancy prevention, things like that. So yeah, worse because it's not talked about and worse because your only agenda is abstinence. It actually backfires.

Wow. Okay, so that said, our audience, you roughly— so by the way, if you're listening and you're an outlier, we're not ignoring you. It's just the bulk of our audience is probably somewhere between 45 and 70. So, or it may be what's most important is they're probably over 45, you know, and knowing that, you know, in their education and that demographic, what are the most common myths that you know and find women believe about their sexuality?

Yeah, so many. That's why the book's subtitled Stop Shitting All Over Your Sex Life, because we put all these limits on it that you're supposed to have an orgasm by putting something in your vagina. That's a huge, huge miseducation that basically explains the orgasm gap in heterosexual relationships, which we can go into. Nobody knows at all what happens when your hormones drop and sex becomes painful. They don't understand that is because of hormones and menopause. The amount of women who I see who are like, I stopped having sex 8 years ago because it hurt, that sex isn't supposed to hurt, and that we can do things to help that. So that's another big one, that sex is for another person, right? So really, in our culture, especially people raised as women, the the belief that sex is for somebody else, that it is a marriage duty, that if you don't do it for somebody else, then they have the right to be grumpy, right? And then you, you must have sex with them to control their behavior. Oh wow, there's a lot of heteronormative damage that's happening, I think, because we never got an education, right? Especially people in midlife. We definitely didn't get the consent conversation— is brand new. Let alone what does consent look like within a partnered long-term relationship. The other big myth is that desire for sex should be spontaneous all the time. And then so many people feeling broken because they're like, I'm not sitting around desiring sex. You're like, well, you're in a committed long-term relationship, which desire does wane after about a year. So if you're on year 17, here we are, right? And then really not understanding that sex is— it's a lot like exercise. It's like, if you want it in your life, you have to prioritize it, and you have to set time apart from it. And you might have to practice it, you might have to communicate about it, you might have to get some help about it. Like, that— this, like, sex exceptionalism, that you're just supposed to be good and read each other's minds and be hot all the time. Like, we've kind of put sex on this pedestal and then used it just to beat ourselves up about.

Okay, I want to go off something you just said. So sex is kind of like exercise. If you want it in your life, you have to make time for it. I could easily say working in fitness is, is one of the best jobs ever because nobody ever regrets like going out of the fitness center. They're always in a better mood. Is sex the same way?

Yeah. I mean, in thinking about desire, right, and the myth of desire, so many women are like, you have great sex and then you're like, I forgot how good that— like, you forget, like, forgot how good I feel after I have a good day in the gym. You know, you're like, will you remind me how good that is?

Right?

And it's like, sometimes you just got to get to the thing and start doing it. And that's where the desire for it comes in. But the desire doesn't always come first, or you're sitting around like, I'm just gonna sit around on the couch waiting to desire to work out. It's like, it might not come. You just gotta go start exercising, and then you're like, oh right, yeah, no, this is good, this is good.

So with exercise, I mean, we say within seconds the feel-good hormones start to change, the chemistry starts to change. How soon does that happen with sex?

It depends. But remember, you're doing what all Americans do. You want the drive-through home loan. You want this to happen fast. This is a really good dinner. Let's rush through it. This is a really great movie. Let's make it over faster. Sex is awesome. Let's have it be over quicker, right? Like, no, it's not about how fast can things happen. And like, sex really is about pleasure, connection. And if you put a 'how fast should it happen,' you're shitting all over sex lives, right? How— another thing people do, 'how many times a week should we have sex?' 'How long should it take to have an orgasm?' Like there's a quota. Yeah, like we're comparing ourselves to other people's sex lives, right? Like, how fast can you run a mile? Of like, it takes away your love for exercise when you start comparing it to other people.

So true. So true. So what I hear you say is like we kind of, we withhold it maybe like as a reward, as a tool, as leverage in our relationships. How damn many people do this?

Quite, quite. Yeah, there's multiple ways to do that. But you can say like, I need you to have sex with me in order to get— well, there's this one woman, she was like collecting tokens from her husband for every time she had sex with them. And then she's like, I don't really like sex. And you're like, yeah, because it's You doing it for somebody else and collecting tokens, you know, like that's an extreme example. But like when somebody says they don't like sex, there's always a story behind that, right? There's always like, what does sex mean to you? Under what circumstances are you having sex? What type of sex are you having? And it's like the mushy, mushy broccoli analogy of like, if your sex is mushy broccoli, like not many people desire that. Right. And so, but they'll come in and they'll be like, I have low desire. And I'll say, do you enjoy sex when you're having it? And if they say no, I'm like, well, you're never going to desire something that is mushy broccoli, right? Work on the sex worth desiring. And then for the people who are like, I don't know, I love sex when it happens, I just don't sit around desiring it, we're like, well, that's normal also, right? We are busy, we are overextended, we have kids, we have jobs, we have parents to take care of. We've got this amazingly interesting world full of Netflix and Häagen-Dazs ice cream and like all these other things that give us rewards. It's like you really have to set time away for a good sex life because you're not going to spontaneously desire sex all the time. It's a myth. That's Hollywood.

Love it.

Love it.

Okay, so with— there's a distinct falling off or falling out, things that occur for women in our community in regards to exercise or seeing changes in muscle. What about with sex? Is there a dramatic place that happens in between pre- and perimenopause, or between peri- and postmenopause, when there seems to be a trend where this is when it falls off, or interest falls off, or gets painful, and it never was?

I mean, I think for many people, sex changes in midlife. Hormones, relationships, busyness. All of these things can change. But that's a myth that it dies off for everybody, right? If you look at the most sexually satisfied, happy people, they're in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. And the theory being they're master communicators, they're prioritizing their pleasure, they can communicate like champs, right? So it's like the people who are actually really good at sex are the people who've kind of figured it out. The 22-year-olds aren't the experts.

Interesting. And is there something to be said for, you know, I turned 60 this year and I'm having this conversation with a lot of women. It's like there is something so freeing about it. Like, I don't care what you think about what I wear. I don't stand in my closet now and wonder if this will be appropriate. I stand there thinking, do I like this? Do I feel good in it? Do I want to wear this?

Yeah. That would be an interesting study. You know, they look at reasons that women fake orgasms, right? And it's usually to— are we still doing that? We're still doing that. And a lot, it's to make the partner feel good, to make it end because it's a performance, because you think it's supposed to feel good. Like all these reasons that we do it. But hey, you bring up a good point. I wonder if they studied— do older women just not fake as much anymore because they're like Why? Why would I do that? I'm either going to get what I want that feels good. I'm not going to pretend anymore.

Let me ask you this. Is there any TV show— and you may not even watch TV, so it's not a fair question if that's the case— but is there anything on TV, Netflix included, that you feel like this is actually helpful to women because it's kind of opening up the sex conversation in a safe way, in a safe place for them to watch.

I haven't watched any— a lot of the new stuff. I haven't watched Bridgerton, believe it or not.

I haven't either.

But I mean, for Sex and the City was groundbreaking back, you know, not all of it has aged well, but for women to talk about it, to talk about what they like, to talk about what they don't like, right? Because for a long time you're just supposed to like what's given to you. And that's— that doesn't end up working out because men didn't— as much as women didn't get a good sex education, men didn't get a secret class, right, where they know more than us. So we give away a lot of our power, especially in heterosexual relationships, in assuming like what he's doing is what's supposed to, to do it for us. And it's not.

Super interesting. Yeah. And that's the show I was thinking about. I wondered if you liked it or didn't like it. I didn't want to plant that.

The newer ones, they're smoking cigarettes like banshees in the new spin-off. So that just, that disturbs me. I'm like, what are we telling? What, what are we saying is glamorous now? But true. And, and the fact that, you know, they talk about things that are pleasurable that aren't just penetrative intercourse, which we know we need to do in order for women to feel pleasure.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want that I don't want hiding in most protein powders. That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich. Sometimes the protein, and don't forget the fiber. They kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today. So you talk also about two different types of desire. So talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah, so there's the Hollywood shoved down your throat top 10 country hits is spontaneous desire. I'm hot for sex, I'm gonna go look for sex, I'm thinking about sex. That is spontaneous. That's new relationship novelty, dopamine seeking, common when we're in new relationships. And then the brain, the definition of the brains in a new relationship is about 12 to 12 months to 16 months. The brain's like, I know you now, you know, the novelty is wearing off, right? So when you're like this new relationship, spontaneous desire wears off pretty quick in the definition of how long people are together.

Well, is a part of that— talk about that— is a part of that like the risk and the routine?

Okay, I know what your moves are, right? If you don't keep— if you don't keep your moves changing, I know what your moves are, so I know how this is going to go. And the brain doesn't tend to crave things that aren't novel. We love novel, right? Very cool. Love novel. So you have to keep that in mind if you want spontaneous desire. But most people don't know that's just a certain type of desire that happens under certain circumstances. It can happen with a higher testosterone So men tend to have more spontaneous desire, but not always. Men are allowed to not be interested in sex too. They get stereotyped as well. And when you look at desire or libido mismatch in a couple, right, usually the woman gets blamed. She gets blamed. She has to revolve around what the guy wants. She either desires sex too much or too little, right? So we're already blaming her for her not being where the guy is.

Oh my gosh, I know we can't win either way. Are you kidding?

Well, unless you see it and then you're like, why am I being— why am I the person with the— right? And the experts say, oh my gosh, desire mismatch in a relationship is a couple's problem. It's not one person's problem, which I think really helps take the blame off of people. How do—

how do people get married and stay married if they are mismatched?

Learning how to talk about it.

Wow.

Learning how to talk about it in a healthy way, not in a blaming— or like, if a guy brings his partner in to see me and he's like, she won't have enough sex with me, then I'm like, no shit, Sherlock, look at you. You're saying she's the problem, right?

Right.

And what does she want? What turns her on? What do you need to do to help her get there? So yeah, you can work around it, work through it, but you have to talk about it. And assuming that somebody's level of desire is the appropriate level of desire usually isn't hitting it on— hitting the mark. So that's spontaneous. And then there's responsive. Okay, responsive is busy, not thinking about sex. Oh well, my partner looks pretty good, and we did set apart this like hour to like go see if things feel good, and I kind of know what feels good. So I can like advocate for that. And oh yep, it's good. I like sex. I just forget that I do. So that's responsive desire. Rosemary Basson was the sex researcher who kind of coined that and really started being like, sex exists in a relationship in a biopsychosocial construct. If you're stressed, if you're not sleeping, if you have health issues, like you're not going to have spontaneous desire. That doesn't mean you're broken. It just means you need to prioritize what does work for you. If, if you want sex in a relationship or sex by yourself.

We talk a lot about longevity here, right? Especially, I think, now as our community and audience is maturing, but we're also seeing the value in— this is not just so that it's skinny jeans worthy, but it's what is it, what is it going to do to me in 20 or 30 years? What about sex? Where does that come into play with regard to longevity, is there any connection there?

Yeah, well, we do have male data. I have not seen female data, but I'll extrapolate. So they, they have done studies showing that men who are sexually active do live longer, whether that's because they're partnered, whether that's because they have a certain level of fitness so they can actually function sexually. Right. So there's probably a lot of pieces to it, but the data does support that people who are sexually active live longer. And I never do that to— should people— to say you should have sex to live longer? No. It just means like, you know, the things that you do that promote healthy sexuality tend to be good for you. What's good for your heart is good for your penis. What's good for your brain and heart is good for your clitoris and your pelvic blood flow. So it is all related. And if you look again at the, the people who are having magnificent sex, they're not young. Well, wait a minute.

Okay. Is that not a hard thing to say? Because people who have magnificent sex, do we know they have magnificent sex, or we just know they say they do?

So yeah, there's a book, it's called Magnificent Sex. Peggy Kleinplatz wrote it. She's a sex researcher. What she did is she basically put up flyers and was like, hey you, if you say you have magnificent sex, I want to talk to you, right? People are like— they had to come in and they got interviewed for it, right? So they'd be making a lot up, both parts or just one person.

So was she talking to individuals or to couples or—

okay, yes, there might have been some couples in there, but individuals. And so she did, you know, she researched all of them and she's like, break it down, what makes magnificent sex for somebody. And nowhere in there is there spontaneous desire.

Really?

Nowhere in there. And I think that's the big myth, is like, I can't have sex because I'm not desiring it. And there's a chapter in my book, it's basically that says F desire, because so many people will— it's like exercise, right? Like, sit around on the couch, wait to desire to exercise, and don't exercise until you desire it. Like, that's not how it works. You've got to start putting yourself in that exercise context, right? Yep, get moving. And then you're like, oh yeah, no, I want this in my life. It's nice.

Very cool. Okay, so what do you say to the single woman who's not dating? Not even looking at prospects about sex and sexual health.

She doesn't have to. You don't have to do anything if you're happy with that. Great. I— what I see a lot is men or women, this is any gender, they're afraid to get out there for some reason. I'm worried about my weight, I'm worried about pain with sex, I'm worried about my erections, right? And so you completely cease to have any sort of start of a romantic relationship because of this, like, theoretical what if my erection fails in the bedroom, or, you know, pick a topic. And I think that's really limiting. You're not going out and even meeting people because you're worried about this hypothetical what if that you're nowhere near right now. So I see that a lot. But to me, I'm like, you know, if somebody truly doesn't want sex, I'm not here to make them do it. Like, this is— you're an adult. Make adult decisions. But I'm here to help you. If you want to be sexually active, have the best, healthiest sex life that you can. Ideally pain-free, ideally wonderfully consensual, ideally full of communication of what everybody needs and what feels good.

And earlier you mentioned kind of the age-related— where sex improves and satisfaction improves. What about over time? Are there studies out there at this point of where does sex fall off, or do— does sex continue?

It doesn't fall off.

Death, death do its part, really?

Yeah. Well, I mean, if you want it to fall off again, right? So, you know, I saw these— this couple in their 40s, and they're like, maybe we're just too old to have sex. And I'm like, I saw like a 73-year-old, she was married for about 40 years, and they had a sexless marriage for a very long time. And then at one point they were both like, man, why don't we try? Why don't we see? And now they're having like great sex twice a week, like completely happy. So I, I— so many people think sex is like set in, like this is how it is, right? And it's like, no, you— I mean, you know that from the fitness world. It's like, just because I can't do 5 pull-ups now doesn't mean I couldn't get there if I put in the work. Right.

So true. So true. So I'm going to come back to a question that maybe feels like I'm returning to something, but do women realize that they might have issues with their sexual health, or are we just assuming the only thing we know is the thing we know? Right.

Right. Oh, like, like, what if I think this is a good sex life, but I don't know if it actually is a good sex life? Yeah, I mean, there is no standardized— I was just reading this paper like this week about sexual dysfunction, right? And it's like part of identifying what sexual dysfunction is, identifying what is healthy sex or good sex. And there's no universal definition of what that is. But people would say it's the absence of pain, it's the absence of coercion. You know, it's pleasurable, it's satisfying.

Right?

So you kind of have to like— but you would say, well, sex that's pain-free, that's a pretty freaking low bar to say, oh well, your sex isn't like Susie's sex is. It's like, this is not a comparison, right? It's— sex is so individualized that it's very easy to again comparison shop, and in the comparison shopping, lose the joy and lose the individual experience.

So talk to me about this part. It's very easy for me to talk to you because we're not really diving into my sex life. We're talking about sex. So that's for a friend. Yeah, right, right.

So let me ask something for a friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just hypothetically. So how would a woman listening who feels like, I'd like to talk to somebody about this, and how do they open that up with their current doctor or potentially find somebody new? So they know they've got a fluid conversation that they will be completely open and honest about.

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the better ways, whether it's sex or hormones or anything that's kind of a newer thing, is get as educated as you can before you go into the doctor's office, because then you can—

are we including Google in that, or where would you suggest they go?

Google's not bad, but I mean, to me, I'm like, I created the book in my podcast specifically for people to get educated, to then go in and advocate. And so many women are like, you know, I listen to your podcast and then I went in and asked for vaginal estrogen, right? Then I went in and asked for— there's medications for low desire, to try a medication that, that, you know, get to a certain level of education and then go advocate. You're— the conversation you can have is already so elevated that if you just go in and say like, hey, doc, what do you have? You know, it's— that's a, that's a pretty low bar to start with. So I'd say get educated, then go in. When you go in, I say this is how— this is like the golden way to talk to a doctor: can I try XYZ? I will come back in 3 months and I will let you know how I'm doing. Hmm. That is a great way because the doctor's like, oh, okay, she's gonna follow up, she knows what she wants, blah blah blah. It's a great way to, to try and advocate for yourself. If your doctor's— and don't talk about your sex problem as the last thing. In an already busy doctor appointment.

Truth.

Yeah.

Which is so often, I'm sure, what comes up because it's— you're like, I'm not quite comfortable.

So it's like, yeah, yeah, you got to warm up to it, right? But then if you're like, hey, great, we did our yearly thing. I want to make an appointment to actually talk about my pain with sex. And what, you know, what do you have? A great resource is the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. ISHWISH is the abbreviation. So if you go to ishwish.org, you can do find a provider. These are great people because not only are they comfortable with sex, they're comfortable with hormones because hormones and sex are so linked. And so that's a really nice one-stop shop for people who are comfortable with sex and comfortable with hormones because doctors are not comfortable with sex. Mm-hmm. More are comfortable with hormones, especially easy things like vaginal estrogen. So that's just a nice resource. And then as far as talking to your partner, lead with— and first of all, talk about it clothed, ideally on a walk. Walking and scanning the horizon is a very safe way to talk about difficult things, right? And lead with being open and vulnerable. Like, this is so awkward for me, right? Like, set the stage of like, I'm really nervous about this. This is so awkward for me. Can you just— can you not talk until I can get this out? Because I'm worried I'm not going to say it well. Like, you kind of like set the stage and now the partner's like, oh my God, it's going to be blah, blah, blah. And then you're like, I just want to try, like, can we just maybe use my clitoris a little bit more because it might feel better for me so that I want sex more? And they're like, oh, okay, sure. Right. So like set the stage of the awkwardness because talking about sex is awkward. Unless you're like me and have been podcasting for like 5 years about it. But like, it's awkward. So, but you know, my advice is talk about it when it's good. What's good? What do you like? Do you like it on Tuesday afternoons? Is that a good— do you have a lot of energy on mornings?

Is that better?

Like, talk about it when it's good, because inevitably there will be health problems.

Yeah.

Knee injuries, a knee replacement, parents sick, you know, there's a newborn baby around, you're breastfeeding, you're postmenopausal and your vagina is dry. Like, there, there will be bumps in the road. So if you can talk about it when it's kind of chill and mellow, you're setting the stage for being like, oh, let's talk about this thing again. Everybody's like, there's one sex talk. It's like, no, there's not one sex.

That is so good. Do you do practitioner training on this? I mean, because you mentioned doctors are not comfortable talking about sex.

No, I don't, I don't train people right now. I'm too busy, but Ishwesh actually has a fall course. I think they just did it. Uh, maybe it's November. It might be still to happen. So Ishwesh does a fall course. It is so high yield. It is so wonderful. I learned so much that I didn't learn in my training. And I would recommend that one. I mean, they're dialed. They do it every year.

So great. Okay. So first of all, listeners, we've got resources. So you heard it right here. You are not broken. That's the podcast. You Are Not Broken is also, I believe, the title of the book, the subtitle of which is what?

Stop shitting all over your sex life.

Nice. And that was out, by the way, September 11th. If you didn't already get it, now is the time to pick that up. Where else can they stalk you?

I hang out on Instagram, so I'm Kelly Kaspersen, MD, on Instagram. That's my website, kellykaspersenmd.com. And then the podcast is You Are Not Broken.

So great. This has been wonderful. Time has flown. Is there a question that I should have asked you, Dr. Kelly, that I didn't?

Oh, I would just say real quick, pain with sex is common but very treatable. Lube is your friend. Always lube is your friend. And vaginal estrogen is incredibly safe. It's got a scary boxed warning on it. We're actually starting a campaign to get the FDA to remove it because it scares people and it's wrong. And immensely helps people's sex lives.

Amen. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

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