Things You Learn in Therapy
Things You Learn in Therapy
Ep 142: Hormone Havoc and Honey, We Need to Talk with Brooke Bralove
The silence around menopause and sexuality in midlife is finally breaking. Sex therapist Brooke Bralove returns to the podcast for a candid, informative conversation about what women really experience during perimenopause and menopause—and why suffering should never be the default option.
Brooke reveals that even as medical understanding evolves, many healthcare providers remain woefully undereducated about treating menopausal symptoms. Most OBGYNs receive just hours of training on menopause management throughout their entire medical education. This knowledge gap leaves countless women struggling with hot flashes, painful sex, mood swings, joint pain, and fatigue without proper support or treatment.
The conversation dives deep into how hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been misunderstood and unfairly maligned. Contrary to outdated beliefs, many forms of HRT are safe and effective for managing symptoms that significantly impact quality of life. Brooke encourages listeners to seek out menopause-educated providers who understand current research rather than accepting outdated "it's just part of aging" dismissals.
Beyond the physical aspects, we explore how menopause affects relationships and sexual satisfaction. Many couples who've been together for decades have never had honest conversations about their sexual needs. Brooke offers practical strategies for breaking through shame and initiating these difficult discussions, including "walk and talk" conversations and sexual activity lists that help partners express preferences without direct confrontation.
For women experiencing painful intercourse—a common menopausal symptom—the message is clear: stop. Expanding our definition of sex beyond penetration becomes increasingly important as bodies change. As Brooke puts it, "Women in their 40s and 50s are very empowered and want more pleasure. They know they can have it."
Want to learn more about navigating menopause and enhancing intimacy in midlife? Visit About Brooke Bralove | Bethesda, MD or follow @brookebralove_psychotherapy on social media for resources that can help you reclaim pleasure and well-being during this transformative life stage.
This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast
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www.bethtrammell.com
Hello listener, welcome back. I'm your host, dr Beth Tramiel, and I am a psychologist and a professor of psychology at Indiana University East, where I'm also the director of the Master's in Mental Health Counseling program. I love to make words matter for good. I love to connect with other really smart people to talk about all things mental health and kind of wellness overall, and I am so excited because I have a returning guest again here, and I didn't say this to you before we pushed record, brooke, but your episode is one of the most listened to episodes of all time. Oh, that's so cool, isn't that so interesting?
Speaker 1:I thought this is such a niche topic that we discussed, but it seems like that niche was something that was very interesting. So, anyway, brooke Braylove is back, and actually we're not talking about art this time, but we are going to talk about something else that I think is going to really resonate with folks, whether you're in this phase of life, you know someone in this phase of life because, well, I don't know, I mean I guess I don't think we actually talk about this enough in this phase of life. Because, well, I don't know, I mean, I guess I don't think we actually talk about this enough, and so I'm just really excited about the conversation. So, brooke, welcome back. I'm glad you're here and go ahead and introduce yourself to listeners and then tell us something fun that you're going on right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me back. It's good to kind of be here with a familiar face. So I'm Brooke Braylove. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, I'm a psychotherapist, I'm a master accelerated resolution therapy practitioner and I'm an ASEC certified sex therapist and I have a private practice just outside Washington DC in Bethesda, maryland. I've been in private practice for 21 years and I love what I do. Something fun I've got going on. I just had a really fun. My younger one, my younger daughter, is a junior in high school and I just did the you know prom pictures and stuff, and it was so joyful. It was just so joyful and you know you don't get a lot of those moments that are really joyful and sometimes you know these kinds of things end up sucking for the, you know, for the parents or whatever. It was just lovely and that was my fun thing.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. Is she finishing her junior year now? Yeah, that's great. So we have a daughter that's the same age, because my daughter just finished and, ironically, the picture taking. I apparently am a terrible picture taker, I don't know, it's like I. She wants a different angle of me holding the phone in front of my face, and I can't ever seem to get it right Wrong.
Speaker 2:Correct. Yes, it's wrong, it's always wrong.
Speaker 1:I'm just like yeah, it's a thing talking about, you're not alone, yeah you're not alone, she just you know she'll come and she'll look at it and she'll say, mom, I told you to lift it up. And then, like four seconds later, she's like oh look, this one's really good. I was like, see, the angle wasn't so bad, you know. Anyway, I do love the pictures Too close, exactly, you're too close. I want my whole feet. Oh, and now, why did you get that in there? And I'm like I don't know. I don't know, I'm never going to be a this generation photographer, that's for sure. God love them. God love them. Okay.
Speaker 1:So, brooke, I am, I'm really excited about this conversation because, like I said at the beginning, I'm not sure we talk about this enough and we talk about certain things around womanhood, around you know, various stages of life I think we talk a lot about, perhaps pregnancy, perinatal. I think there are a lot of organizations that are devoted to that stage of life, perhaps new motherhood, I don't know. And maybe you're going to educate me and everyone else today about all of the resources. Obviously, you're not going to tell us about all the resources. Maybe you'll tell us about some of the resources around these particular issues in this stage of life, but we're we're talking about kind of that middle age stage of life, including menopause and changes and, you know, relationships and sex stuff going on. That's all happening and I know you're an expert in those things, you love kind of working with this population, and so I'd love to just sort of hear what is kind of going on, what is important during this stage that we could begin talking about, and then we'll see where we go from there.
Speaker 2:Perfect, yeah, so a lot of my clients are in their women, in their forts and 50s, often heterosexual, cis women married to cis men. So I do have that kind of lens. I want to be very clear about that that I may not always use pronouns that include everyone. It's mostly because that's just who I see in my practice. But what I'm seeing is a lot of women who are pretty dissatisfied with their sexual relationship. They are dealing with lots of physical changes that are really hard, you know to deal with and they're you know kind of new, and some are, you know, they're you know, kind of new and some are, you know, vaginal and genital related, but some are, you know, frozen shoulder and joint pain. And again we've got this perimenopause and menopause and I think there are a lot of people who are kind of reevaluating their lives at this stage, are kind of reevaluating their lives at this stage.
Speaker 2:What am I doing here? My kids are either launched or very close to being launched. Who am I now and am I where I want to be? And you know, one of the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause is mood shifts and, frankly, there are a lot of angry women out, there is mood shifts and, frankly, there are a lot of angry women out there.
Speaker 2:They, you know, they sort of say there's like a lot of divorced attorneys that get contacted by middle-aged women because they're pissed off and sometimes that's, you know, valid and real, and you know they proceed down the divorce route, but oftentimes it's, you know, not getting the hormone replacement therapy that they actually need to regulate their nervous system and to help with some of these problems, these physical and emotional changes that go on during peri and menopause.
Speaker 1:So you bring up this, you know, anger, mood swings. I think that those are probably two of the really common things that we sort of I feel like media kind of pushes this narrative that that's what menopause or perimenopause might be kind of all about. What are some of the other kind of symptoms that people talk about or that kind of we know about around perimenopause and menopause that maybe people are like oh, I didn't even know, I was maybe in perimenopause, but it makes sense that I've had this and this and this happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think actually one of the most common things that we think about are hot flashes. So flashes can be wow, they can be a lot. And you know people say, well, how do you know? I mean, sometimes I get a little sweaty. If it's a big one, you'll know. It's come suddenly for no reason and then it also passes suddenly for no reason. I used to remember seeing my mom just kind of disrobe, you know in a moment, you know, taking off her sweater and she's got a tank top underneath, you know. Or looking around and saying, you know, is it hot in here? God bless her. But you know she's 80 and guess what, she's still in menopause.
Speaker 2:I mean, one of the main myths is you know, the definition of menopause is a day, one day in which you have not gotten your period in one year. They say menopause is one day and that's how people thought about it. Well, menopause kind of starts that day, it's more clearly indicated that day, but you're in menopause forever. So when you your estrogen starts going down it's not like you know. You do a couple years of HRT and then all of a sudden your estrogen comes back. It ain't coming back, and I think what a lot of people also need to sort of realize is like you got to like saddle up and you know it's going to be a while, and so even more reason to really seek out the help. But you asked about symptoms and I got away from that.
Speaker 2:So, you know, hot flashes, mood swings, as I mentioned, frozen shoulder all of a sudden tons of fatigue, very poor sleep, sleep, random joint pain that you never had, kind of more aches and pains. Most people have no idea that these things you know and then you ask like, so you know, do you have frozen shoulder? And they're like my god, yes, I do. How is that related to menopause? You know, but it, and so one of the things I really want people to know about is that, you know, menopause is having a moment here. The wonderful Dr Rachel Rubin, who's in practice here, urologist, sexual medicine doctor. She was just on the Peter Attia podcast brilliantly for two and a half hours telling people that everything they heard about in you know the night, the 2000s, was wrong.
Speaker 2:Hrt is not dangerous. Hrt does not cause breast cancer. Most women can be on topical estrogen or an estrogen patch with zero you know problem related to. You know, are they going to get cancer or you know? Obviously you have to talk to your doctor, but the main thing is you have to go beyond your OBGYN, because OBGYNs get zero training in menopause. They probably get like a few hours, okay, and so they know nothing and it's not their fault, they didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 2:But it's really important to say you know, are you menopause, you know, educated, or should I see someone else? And I think it's a really fair question. And if your OBGYN or your regular doctor says absolutely no HRT, they're just basically wrong and you need to go elsewhere. You can find good doctors, but they're not necessarily you know everywhere. But you know part of you know. People like Kelly Kasperson, rachel Rubin, mary Claire Haver really are educating people on you know what to look for and what are some actual options, and also training doctors how to prescribe HRT, what to look for, what is you know, what's the dosage, what, where to start. And I think that is huge because we have to train the doctors, because that's where women are going and they're hitting a dead end.
Speaker 2:You know I have painful sex. Of course I forgot to mention painful intercourse dryness, much more vaginal dryness. All of these are major symptoms of menopause and you should not stop at no. Hrt is bad, you know. Sorry, you'll be okay, it's normal. Who cares if it's normal, if it hurts, if it bothers you, it can be managed and there are a lot of wonderful ways to manage you know. And now parties. I go to you know we're talking about. What HRT are you doing? I'm doing the patch, I'm doing the pellets, I'm doing you know the topical and I think it's awesome. I think it's awesome that we're talking.
Speaker 1:I love what you're saying, that you know we need to have more conversations and you know, I think about my, my parents generation and my parents' generation and my parents' parents' generation, and that really was the mindset. It was like, well, there's something kind of physically going on in your body, but at least you can still walk and at least you can still lift your arms and at least you like. Their mindset was like don't focus on what your body can't do or, you know, be grateful that it's not these other kinds of things that would make your life different in some sort of way. You know, and I think we're moving into a generation where that doesn't have to be the answer. That doesn't have to be the answer.
Speaker 2:Women want more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Women are very empowered in their 40s and 50s and women want more pleasure. They know they can have it. They may not know how, but I think women are starting to believe that they matter. And you know, before you know, a woman at 50 was kind of washed up, right. And you know, to say the least, we are not washed up, we are in our prime, we are in our kind of essence and we want more. And I love that. I love working with women who want more.
Speaker 2:I mean my job as a sex therapist, you know, is to help people in the way they need when they come in. But a lot of times it's just, you know, what is pleasure in the first place and what do I take. And you know I've been doing it the same way for 25 years with my husband and frankly, I'm just bored as shit, right, just think it's so great. Yeah, and you know that's okay. Sure, I bet it's boring. I mean, that's, you know, new sex, new positions, new things. So part of my job is just to like introduce ideas that people have never thought of. And if they have thought about it, it's secret, it's, you know. You know kind of under wraps. They don't share it with their partner, I mean. One thing I'm continually shocked by is how people who have been married for 20 or 30 years have never once spoken about their sexual relationship.
Speaker 2:Have never once said honey, can you do it a little to the left or right? And that makes me sad, right? They're communicating about carpools in detail, but they're not doing that. And that makes me sad, right? They're communicating about, you know, carpools in detail, but they're not doing that, and that's shame. And so sex and shame go hand in hand.
Speaker 2:And I really think that part of my job is to separate those as best I can, to acknowledge them, to know they exist, to look where do they come from. What were the messages in childhood about sex, about your genitals? I mean, it starts really young, yeah, you know how do we name genitals. You know what if your little child starts masturbating which is a normal thing, People you know fetuses actually masturbate, you know, in the womb sometimes. And so what do you do? Do you shame that kid and tell him he's terrible and bad? Or do you just say, oh honey, so I see you doing that and I bet that feels good. And we do that in our room, in private, not around other people, but it's okay to do that.
Speaker 1:What's wrong?
Speaker 2:with that that's going to develop a kid who's got a much healthier attitude towards sex and much less shame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there are so many paths along the way where the message is shame, I think around masturbation obviously, like you're talking about, and I think it is always a really tricky thing because one, I don't think we talk to people we love because we feel shame, and so then we don't, we just feel very isolated and so we just feel like well, it must just be a no.
Speaker 1:I think pornography is similar. I think any sort of movement away from what folks would kind of think is kind of vanilla sex sort of way of doing things, I just think all those things are ripe for shame messages from the beginning. I guess I have two questions. One is how do we continue to kind of hold that supportive, non-shame response, to continue to have that conversation? But then I wonder too you kind of mentioned about how folks who've been married for a long time don't have these kinds of conversations. I wonder how you encourage people to start. I think the starting is often, you know, the catalyst for change is sometimes the hardest. But then once you get, you know, the giant boulder rolling a little bit, then it feels a little less hard, and so I'm curious about those two things.
Speaker 2:So how we sort of keep shame at bay, I think, is to read sex positive things. There is so much out there now. There's so many sites and communities that are just supportive of sex, of any sex. All consensual sex is good sex. That's not exactly what I mean, because actually they're bad sex. But my point is like if two consenting adults want to do something, then that's great, that should be encouraged, you know, as long as it's not harming anyone or anything, that's fine. So but I think you have to keep you know, kind of almost like saying like mantras, like this is normal, this is healthy, is healthy. You know, there is nothing wrong with desire.
Speaker 2:Now the uphill battle is usually with very religious people yeah um, that is an uphill battle because they've literally been told it's a sin and so that you really do have to kind of do some work to really unravel that, and that's actually you can't need that work, really do have to kind of do some work to really unravel that, and that's actually that work really needs to be done in therapy. Yeah, that's very ingrained and that's harder to manage.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 2:But just really kind of surrounding yourself with you know literature and you know support sites that are talking in a sex positive way. So that's kind of the one thing. And then your second question how do you begin, Right, yeah, so first of all, I do think that sex therapy can be a way to begin. Yeah, I mean, if you don't feel safe at all ever bringing anything up, or, frankly, you've tried and you get shut down or it doesn't go well, I really do believe that sex therapy is important and can really help people Because it kind of allows the couple. It's for individuals too, but I see a lot of couples kind of use me as a way to sort of bounce things off me, rather than it being so direct and intimate, and so I can facilitate that and actually create a space that's very non-shaming and non-judgmental, and then each person feels safer to say you know what they want, what they don't want, how it is for them.
Speaker 2:If you aren't going to you know a sex therapist or a couples therapist, as most people don't then I really think that the first thing I would say is don't ever bring it up in the bedroom. Do not bring up complaints, anything negative, while you're having sex, after you have sex, anything like that. That is a recipe for disaster. If you want to shut down quickly, it's you know to talk about the erectile dysfunction that just occurred five minutes ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like the wrong moment, for sure.
Speaker 2:So I think that choosing a moment where you've actually decided to have a conversation, or saying you know something like hey, hon, you know, I was thinking about our sexual relationship and I realized you know, we really don't talk about it and I was wondering if you're open to that. So I always think consent is important in any conversation that you think is going to be difficult because you want to say let's talk about our sex life when, um, you know, your spouse just fired someone an hour ago and it was straught.
Speaker 2:You know, your spouse just fired someone an hour ago and then straught. So you want to find a actually a time that you all consent to sit down. Okay, now, actually, I'm going to change that you don't have to sit down. In fact, sometimes that can feel too intimate.
Speaker 2:So I do encourage people to say and set dates for like a walk and talk. Walking can both regulate your nervous system while at the same time kind of decreasing that intimacy, which can make people feel safer. They don't have to have that direct eye contact, there's not as much like staring and expectation. So either sit down or take a walk, yeah. Or you know, maybe you're doing an activity together, like side by side, like parallel play kind of thing. And I really think, starting out with just plain curiosity is we don't talk about our sexual relationship and I'm really curious why you think we don't. Or I think that it's been 25 years and I'm wondering if we could start a conversation around our sexual relationship. Or I've noticed that you don't seem as interested recently and I want to understand that. Can you tell me more about that? Okay, so the first conversation has to open things up. Yeah, you know it can't be. What are you going to do about your? You know, premature ejaculation, right? Yeah, that's not going to work. Shut down, you know you're really dry and it's not fun anymore. Like, what are you going to do about that? Yeah, so we is very important. We are in a sexual relationship together and we also have individual needs in that we. So that's really important.
Speaker 2:Another tool that I really like when, when people are just like it's just getting boring right, like they're good, they love their partner it's been good in the past. It was hot and heavy in the beginning I often suggest doing something called a sexual activity list. You can find them online and it's again a way to talk about really difficult things without having to talk directly to your partner. So it's basically a list of you know a hundred different sexual activities, from you know kissing in public to rimming to you know threesomes, and what you do is you rate your interest in each of those things and sometimes like a five point scale, like absolutely never, not over my dead body.
Speaker 2:To maybe I'm interested to yeah, I think I'd be into that. To yes, I really want to try that. Or this is a must for me. And you do it separately and then again you consent to a time. This probably should be done sitting down, because you'll be looking at your papers and you just start sharing. It gets you comfortable saying things like you know blow job and, um, you know, uh, anal sex right, because you're reading it yeah not bringing it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just reading it on paper. You did your assignment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Brooke told us we needed to.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you can't even imagine the number of times that I tell people blame everything on me. Yeah, that's just what Brooke said we should try. So I do imagine that that I, that I show up in people's houses and at interesting times, and I do imagine that I show up in people's houses at interesting times and I do want to be blamed, blame me, that's great. The sex therapist told us to do it. It's homework.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think in so many conversations I've encouraged kind of a similar thing, where it's almost like this kind of funneled approach right, where you're kind of like talking about talking about it first, where you're sort of like, well, can we, yeah, yeah, like can we talk about maybe talking about this at some point, you know, and then we figure out when we're going to do this. I love the idea of it being sort of less intense at first, right where we're kind of taking a walk or maybe we're driving, you know, in the car and we have a little bit of time where we don't have to like look eye to eye but we can still be present and not distracted by other things. So I love all of this. And so I think about this as we overlap this with menopause.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I thought about earlier when you were talking is that you said something like it's going to be a while, like menopause is going to be a while and so you're going to have these kind of physical symptoms. And you know, you and I both know that most of most of us are not necessarily made for tolerating chronic conditions. Well, and so I think about emotionally and relationally, how kind of the longevity, the somewhat unpredictability that comes with the physical symptoms of perimenopause and menopause, like how does that impact relationships? Because I think all of those things then certainly impact a couple's sex life. But I think emotionally for women kind of you know, generally of course there's always exceptions to the rule it's a more emotional process and so I'm just curious about those things kind of the chronicity of menopause and the physical symptoms and how that interacts.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's a roller coaster and I think you got to just kind of know that right Symptoms are going to come and go. You just got to know it's a roller coaster.
Speaker 2:You can't expect what works for you at 50 is going to work for you at 75. And look, I mean you know we don't pretend to say it's an exact science. You know you may need a little more of this and a little bit less of that, and then, if your sleep gets bad, you might need some progesterone, even though you didn't need it five years ago. So this is not exact. Some of it is trial and error.
Speaker 2:Now, it's all based on science. I mean, nobody's saying you know and it's all safe, but it isn't exact and so sometimes it's not going to be quite right and, yeah, you do have to tolerate that. But when you were talking, I was really thinking about. I went to a screening of this wonderful movie on menopause and, and there were probably 150 people, one man one. So, frankly, men need to get on board, because this impacts men just as much, whether it's your mother, your son, sister, your, you know, daughter, if you're old enough, your wife, your loved one, your co-worker. I mean not that you want to be involved in your co-workers, you know HRT, but you know, if they're just roaming and get, you know, taken off their layers, you, instead of being like what the hell is going on with her, you can just know in your mind that's a menopausal symptom, you know. And so we need men, we need men on board and we need men to be compassionate. We need men to save space for us. Give us some band, you know, more bandwidth.
Speaker 2:I think men need to learn how to, you know, frankly, tolerate a little bit of confusion and disruption. To you know, frankly, tolerate a little bit of confusion and disruption and you know hormonal surges and you know. But you know it's real, menopause is real and until men understand that it's real, I think we got a problem. I think we got a. I think we got an empathy problem and I think it just goes along with how you know, we think women make up shit about their bodies, you know. And it goes along with, as you said, like chronic illness. I mean, how many people with chronic illness have been told they're making it up? It's usually a mysterious thing, not that they're making it up. Sometimes they find out why. Sometimes they don't. This we know. We know it's menopause, we know some of these. You know real symptoms are common. So men need to get on board quickly.
Speaker 1:I am curious how you know when you are working, like, what percentage of the work that you're doing are men coming on board?
Speaker 2:Zero, I mean a lot of the work that you're doing are men coming on board?
Speaker 1:Zero. I mean a lot of the women that you work with when you get to work in couples. You know when I didn't, I didn't do a ton of couples work. I worked mostly with kids and families, or at least didn't work with couples and couples things. I worked mostly as parents, right.
Speaker 1:But I remember so many conversations where you know, when we got the male partner to start to see things through her lens in a different way and obviously we can talk about how that could be true in the opposite direction too. But I just remember moments where it was like, oh, he's really starting to get it now, but it took a little while for right For us to kind of have this conversation, and I think maybe some of that could be to your point earlier that that we're just not having these conversations. We've been married for a long time but then haven't had these conversations, and so in some ways it's like, well, we have to get them on board, but we also have to maybe start those conversations and then keep the conversations going so they can understand how important it is that they get on board.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I want to be really clear. I'm not saying no, men understand it yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and guess what? Women have to talk to men and that's where she's at again. So if you are all of a sudden dry and sex is extremely painful, many women don't even tell their partners. They just suffer. Why is this happening? I don't know why. Maybe they'll use a little extra lube and guess what? When you have painful sex over and over again, guess what? You're going to avoid Sex intimacy. You might even avoid a quick kiss because you think it's leading to intercourse, which you know is painful. I see this all the time. So women do need to say what hurts, and I need help and I need to see someone about it.
Speaker 2:So I absolutely think right now, you know the burden is on women to think about what's happening in their bodies and I cannot reiterate this enough Do not have painful intercourse. You know, I really think women are taught things like oh well, you know, I think he's almost, you know, going to orgasm. It's hurting, but it'll be over soon. Why are we not teaching girls, women, that the second it hurts you yell stop. Why are we not teaching that? And I think that goes along with consent and everything. But I mean, if you should not be having painful sex, stop I'm not saying stop having sex altogether but expand the definition of sex.
Speaker 2:If intercourse is painful right now, think of other ways that you can be romantic and sexually connected. There are other things besides penis in vagina penetration. That's the only thing that sex means, and that's insane. And as we get older, look, things stop working well, right? 50% of 50-year-olds have erectile dysfunction, 60% of 60-year-olds. And it just goes up from there, right? So ED is pretty common.
Speaker 2:We don't need to be ashamed of that, we just know it's going to happen. So you know, men, you can also say you know, honey, I'm sure you've noticed my erections aren't as strong, but they are so really strong in the morning. Could we shift to having sex in the morning, Communicate, but again, it's just shame everywhere you turn, Shame, shame, shame. And so we've got to work through that. And, to be honest, that starts really early and I think the sex education is basically either non-existent or crap. They don't teach where a clitoris is. Most women don't know where their clitoris is. So you know, here's my. You know one thing Women go Google clitoris anatomy, Look at a clitoris, Look. You know, I guarantee you 85% of women don't. You know, your listeners don't know what a clitoris looks, actually looks like. How are you going to feel pleasure if you don't know what make what's there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I like I'm smiling and thinking in the back of my mind like what our search histories are going to look like after this episode.
Speaker 2:I think it's great.
Speaker 1:So, okay, I want to come back to this issue because I love what you're saying around painful intercourse and how I also have heard from a lot of women who sort of have that mindset right, when it's like, well, we're already in the middle of it and I can't say stop now because it's painful and it'll be over soon and I'll just tolerate it. And I had conversations with women who then invited their partner in and the partner was like I wish you would have told me. And so I sometimes can encourage women by saying like it's unfair to your partner to withhold this right, Because most people who are having sex with other people actually care about them, and if they don't have a deep caring relationship, most people don't come out to want to hurt people, right, Especially during intercourse, right. And so we forget that this person actually does care about us and they wouldn't want to be hurting us.
Speaker 1:And so I think I've actually had encounters with people that the man is actually hurt, like is hurt, upset that the person that the woman didn't tell them. And so, again, I'm not trying to like shift into this who, who should be to blame or the pity party should be where, wherever, Right. But it's like. If you're feeling like, oh man, I'm not sure I should have this conversation, Maybe your mindset shifts from hey, I don't want to have this conversation too. It's actually unfair to my partner if I don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what you're talking about is extremely important. And men are crushed when they realize their partners have either been suffering with pain or never feeling pleasure. I mean they're crushed because it is a betrayal. Now, again, women are scared but it ends up as a betrayal to the relationship. So, again, not on purpose and it's really out of fear, of course, and we understand it's fear and shame, we get all of that. But I think you're right. I mean men will practically cry in my office when their partner says it's just been really painful. I mean that is you, know they, and they're not. They have no idea, and so it's. It's how I feel about faking orgasms. Faking orgasms is actually not fair to the relationship either, because you are, you're, because you're actually making your partner feel that they're pleasing you when they're not. It's a secret, yep, and again, I always tell people I'm not saying that you should go to your partner and say I've been faking it for 23 years.
Speaker 1:No, that's not a good no. We got to go back to that funnel conversation we talked about earlier right.
Speaker 2:But I think you can say you know I'm not, you know I'm not experiencing as much like pleasure as I kind of want to, and you know, here's an idea, or I'm wondering if we could talk about that. Yeah, and and for young women don't fake it, really, don't start, don't fake it, really don't start, don't do it. Because I always say, if you fake an orgasm, you are actually ensuring that you will never have one, because now that partner's like, oh, I'm going to do that move again Cause she had an orgasm, so he'll never, he'll never change anything, cause if it was working, he'll do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so much of sexual experiences really is like trial and error. It's like, hey, we're trying different things on one another's body and we're in these moments. We have to be able to trust the verbal and kind of physiological responses that we're getting from the other person. Right, and if I can't trust what you're saying to me or what your sounds are meaning, how do I trust that this sexual relationship is working for us at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I, I agree, and I do think women are the ones who are more likely to keep a lot of this secret, and it's really hurtful to men.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, okay, so we could. So we could keep talking about this. So before we kind of wrap up, is there anything else that you really wanted to share today?
Speaker 2:You don't need to suffer. You don't suffer with menopausal, perimenopausal or menopausal symptoms. You don't need to suffer with painful intercourse or I mean a lot of menopausal symptoms. Are women saying? I just don't feel like myself. You know what. That's reason enough to go see someone who has education about menopause and how to treat it, because that's a lot of it right and people would say that's not a reason to see a doctor. So I really I just don't promote suffering.
Speaker 2:So, if you're suffering in any way, use your voice, find someone who can help you in your city, and you might have to travel a little bit if you live in the middle of nowhere. I don't know that you know, but really ask your doctor are they familiar with hormone replacement therapy? Yep, and do they? You know, use it regularly in their work, and that those are the people you should be talking to. So that's the main thing. Please don't stop.
Speaker 1:How can people find you and follow you in the work you're doing?
Speaker 2:So my website is brookbraylovecom, and they can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at brookbraylove psychotherapy.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. I am so glad we had this conversation. I mean, I just think, even talking through some of the like really nitty gritty kind of cognitive things, those automatic or, you know, continued thoughts that that folks have around you know, whether it's menopause or or sex in general, I just am grateful for it. So thank you for saying yes to being here again and listener, thank you for being here also, and so until next time, stay safe, stay well and ciao.
