What Are the Three Ps of Womanhood?
I have decided there are three Ps of womanhood: Puberty. Pregnancy. Perimenopause.
Obviously, this is not a scientific classification. But stay with me, because the more I work with women across different stages of life, the more I realize how much these three transitions have in common.
Your body changes. Your hormones change. Your emotions can change. Your relationship with sex can change. Your relationship with your body can change.
And somewhere in the middle of all of this, you're supposed to continue going to work, taking care of people, maintaining relationships and generally behaving like absolutely nothing unusual is happening.
Cool.
Cool, cool, cool.
And yes, we talk about puberty. We talk about pregnancy. We're finally talking a lot more about perimenopause. But honestly, I don't know that we're always having the conversations women actually need.
In fact, I think we need to talk about all three Ps as much as possible because even with puberty and pregnancy (the ones we've supposedly been talking about forever) we're still figuring out how to do this better.
Why Is Women's Health So Hard to Talk About?
What is it about women's health that makes it so difficult for us to just be real? Women have hormones. Our hormones change throughout our lives. Our bodies respond to those changes. Sometimes those changes affect our:
moods,
energy,
sleep,
bodies,
relationships and
sexuality.
None of this should be shocking, and yet we've somehow managed to turn perfectly normal biological experiences into things women are supposed to quietly manage behind the scenes.
Think about puberty. A girl's body starts changing, breasts start developing, periods begin, sexual feelings may start emerging, and suddenly she is navigating a completely different relationship with her body. We give her some pads, explain some basic biology and essentially say, Good luck out there. We technically talked about puberty, sure, but did we really help her understand what was happening to her as a whole person?
Then there's pregnancy. We've gotten much better at talking about pregnancy, but even there, women often discover enormous gaps between the sanitized version of pregnancy and what actually happens to their bodies, identities, relationships and sexuality. We can talk endlessly about prenatal vitamins and birth plans while somehow still struggling to have honest conversations about what pregnancy, childbirth and becoming a parent can actually do to someone's sense of self, relationship and sex life.
And then comes the third P: perimenopause.
For a long time, this one barely seemed to get a conversation at all. Women could experience all kinds of changes and have no idea that they might be connected. Thankfully, we're talking about perimenopause more now, but I still think we're trying to catch up. And as a sex and relationship therapist, this is where the conversation gets especially interesting to me.
Is This Hormonal or Relational?
A woman may come into my office saying, I don't want sex anymore.
Okay.
Is that relational? Is she angry with her partner? Is there unresolved resentment? Has the relationship become disconnected? Has sex become obligatory?
Maybe. Those are absolutely possibilities, and they're things I work with all the time.
But what if she's also experiencing hormonal changes? What if she's exhausted? What if she's not sleeping? What if sex suddenly feels physically different? What if her desire has changed? What if she's experiencing changes in vaginal comfort or arousal?
Suddenly, “Why don't I want sex?” isn't such a simple question anymore.
And this is exactly why women's healthcare can't happen in little disconnected boxes. Your hormones don't live in one room while your relationship lives in another and your sexuality hangs out somewhere down the hall.
You're a whole human.
Your body affects your relationship.
Your relationship affects your sexuality.
Your sexuality affects how you feel about your body.
Stress affects all of it.
Life affects all of it.
That's also why I love working collaboratively with professionals who understand pieces of the puzzle that I don't. I don't need to pretend to be the hormone expert. I'm the sex and relationship expert. Put those two areas of expertise in the same room, however, and suddenly we can have a much more interesting conversation about what women are actually experiencing.
So I'm Teaming Up With a Hormone Expert
This September, I'm joining Dr. Christy Jenkins, a naturopathic doctor, for an intimate St. Louis event we're calling Sips, Sex & Hormones.
And we're talking about that third P: perimenopause.
I bring the sex-and-relationships side.
Dr. Jenkins brings the hormone and whole-body-health side.
Together, we're going to have the kind of conversation I wish women had access to much more often, because sometimes the answer is hormonal. Sometimes it's relational. Sometimes it's sexual. Sometimes it's stress. And sometimes it's a giant cocktail of all of the above.
That's why one of the questions we're going to explore is deceptively simple:
Hormonal or relational?
Because when something changes inside your body or your relationship, understanding what you're actually dealing with matters. Maybe we don't immediately need to blame ourselves. Maybe we don't immediately need to blame our partners. Maybe we need more information.
We Don't Need More Shame. We Need More Information.
This is the thread connecting all three Ps for me.
Puberty shouldn't be shameful.
Pregnancy shouldn't require women to pretend everything is beautiful and magical when sometimes it's incredibly difficult.
Perimenopause shouldn't leave women quietly wondering, What the hell is happening to me?
And sexuality shouldn't disappear from any of these conversations.
We need spaces where women can ask real questions and get real answers. We need medical professionals, mental-health professionals and sexual-health professionals talking to each other instead of pretending our specialties exist independently. And maybe most importantly, we need to stop treating normal parts of being human like secrets.
Hormones aren't embarrassing. Bodies aren't embarrassing. Sex isn't embarrassing. Not knowing something isn't embarrassing.
These are simply things worth understanding.
And the more openly we can talk about them, the more opportunities women have to understand what's happening to them and make informed decisions about what they want to do next.
Come Talk About the Third P With Us
If you're somewhere in the world of perimenopause (or you're sitting there wondering whether you might be) come hang out with us.
Sips, Sex & Hormones is happening September 25 in St. Louis.
We're keeping it small because we want an actual conversation, not a giant lecture where you sit quietly while someone talks at you.
We'll talk hormones. We'll talk relationships. We'll talk sex. We'll talk about the weird things our bodies do. And you'll have a place to ask some of the questions women often end up Googling alone at 11:30 at night.
Because there are three Ps of womanhood: Puberty. Pregnancy. Perimenopause.
We need better conversations about every single one of them.
This time, we're starting with perimenopause.
Sips, Sex & Hormones — September 25
Event information and registration:
Want to Learn More About Perimenopause?
Check out your resident sex therapist's videos on perimenopause:
