Erotic Rewilding at Midlife
[9 minute read time]
We live inside a culture that teaches us to measure our sexual worth through performance.
For many people moving through a menopause transition—whether through aging, surgically, or through gender-affirming care—this conditioning becomes especially painful: bodies change, sensations shift, and the old “rules” of desire stop working. What once might have felt easily accessible may require slowness, curiosity, or a completely different approach.
And yet— while loss is part of this process, so is evolution.
Sex is Scarce
(At least, this is what we’ve been sold)
Dominant cultural narratives position “good sex” as something that relies on:
fast arousal
intense orgasms
reliable erections
pain-free penetration
bodies that behave in “ideal,” predictable ways
These standards were never created with aging bodies in mind. They weren’t created with differently abled, neurodiverse, trans or fat bodies in mind either.
They have thrived inside a scarcity-based model of sexuality—one that treats sexual desirability and pleasure as a fragile commodity, something you can “lose,” must “maintain,” and must continually perform for. A model perfectly engineered to create consumer appetite and stabilize market economies.
Let’s be real: the dominant narratives of sexuality have been primarily written by and for white, well off, able-bodied, monogamous, cis heterosexual men. A demographic preoccupied by perceived scarcity - the fear of losing status, power, or desirability is woven deep into the fabric of patriarchy.
We see this not only in the banking industry, but in how we talk about sex.
The transactional language of the “relationship market.”
The idea of being “traded up.”
Beliefs that sex is owed.
Assumptions that changes in desire or function mean we deserve less love.
These are all symptoms of a culture that treats sex as currency and bodies as products—weaponizing performance, idealizing youth and body function, and framing aging as loss of value.
But bodies and sex are messy, complex and alive.
The pursuit of a sexuality that denies mortality, limitation, and complexity robs us of the full depth of erotic life.
Aging Into Abundance
It is radical—and necessary—to imagine ourselves ripening and opening towards new discovery rather than diminishing as we age erotically.
As sexuality shifts in midlife, many people encounter feelings left out of the sexual narratives we grew up with:
grief
frustration
anger
confusion
longing
These emotions often feel like problems in a culture that tells us they don’t belong in sex. But the mismatch is not between you and sex—it’s between culture and reality.
These emotions are invitations. When honoured rather than pathologized, they become openings into deeper erotic presence and more authentic embodiment.
Moving towards a deeper, broader authentic erotic presence isn’t about softening the loss of a changing body by restoring what was possible in youth. It’s not about “fixes,” upgrades, or tricks—though adaptive tools and medical supports can be profoundly helpful.
This is about a shift in paradigm.
A paradigm that welcomes loss as part of erotic truth.
A paradigm that reorients sexuality toward presence, not function.
A paradigm that aligns with Audre Lorde’s understanding of erotic energy as a life force—creative, intuitive, and resistant to commodification.
Feminist, queer, and disability communities have been imagining sexuality beyond function and scarcity for decades. It’s time these paradigms were centred in our sexual discourse.
My Body is not Your Product
Many menopause-oriented books feverishly promise that with the right hormones, diet, supplements, and lifestyle tools, you can hold onto desirability capital a bit longer. Your commodified body can retain some of its value.
I champion accessible, informed healthcare—and the right of every person to decide how to navigate body transitions and changes.
But we must question why this information is marketed the way it is, and whose pockets benefit from telling us that aging must be resisted at all costs and what questions are not being asked. Questions like:
What if the menopause transition could expand your erotic possibilities?
Menopause often brings a “give fewer fucks” energy. Hot flashes, insomnia, mood changes, erratic bleeding—these shifts can interrupt people-pleasing, and challenge silence by pushing us to speak up for our wants, needs, and boundaries. They demand that we make more room for ourselves in daily life—and yes, in erotic life too.
Bodies change without asking permission. These changes can leave us bewildered and needing time to emotionally catch up. That bewilderment can be fertile ground for learning to relate to ourselves with more compassion, curiosity, and honesty.
And when we change how we relate to ourselves, we inevitably change how we navigate our relational world. We may find ourselves choosing different partners, seeking different forms of intimacy, or reorienting toward desires we never knew we had—opening new possibilities for alignment, pleasure, and expansion.
Letting go of normative scripts rarely arrives gently. The menopausal transition is often quite adept at inviting us into that rumble—and on the other side of it, there is the potential for deeper liberation, self-ownership, and erotic integrity.
Pleasure From the Inside Out
Ask yourself:
What is the opportunity for pleasure in my body right now?
What energy wants to move—and what feels stuck?
What breath, sound, movement or rhythm might feel good today?
How might breath, sound, movement or rhythm generate energetic charge in my body, change sensitivity or awareness?
Unscripted movement, non-linguistic sound, and exploratory breath help resist performance. They involve the whole body and cultivate embodied curiosity. This supports a shift toward an erotic landscape rooted in:
transcending cultural scripts
widening emotional range
connecting with bodily truth in real time
collaborating with and befriending your nervous system
expanding definitions of arousal and pleasure
shifting from outcome-based to presence-based sexuality
These practices help us access a broader erotic aliveness and deepen intimate connection—with ourselves and with partners. Through this exploration, we can begin intentionally cultivating pleasure by noticing how the glass is half full. And yes, that means it’s also half empty—we’re not denying that—but aging can expand our internal flexibility and resourcefulness. It can invite us to become more radically inclusive with ourselves (and others), increasing the number and variety of pathways to pleasure, sensation, connection, and imagination.
The Personal is Political
A central question emerges:
Am I relating to desire from inside my body—or from the expectations I’ve inherited?
This is not just personal.
It’s political.
Pleasure from the inside out is inherently inclusive. It honours bodies that culture marginalizes—trans bodies, disabled bodies, fat bodies, neurodivergent bodies, aging bodies. It offers a pathway to erotic sovereignty without relying on language that might alienate or misgender. It supports people who may have challenges related to genital sensation or shifting arousal patterns due to medical interventions, disability or naturally occurring difference. It affirms pleasure is for every body.
To reclaim sexuality from performance is to resist:
scarcity narratives
beauty standards
productivity culture
normative scripts about whose pleasure matters
normative, ageist and ablest assumptions about erotic value
It’s also to reclaim:
deeper self ownership
expanding erotic interoception
More varied forms of pleasure
greater relational depth with oneself and others
Aging bodies are not failing erotic bodies.
They are deepening.
When we honour the full spectrum of sensation—subtlety, slowness, quiet joy, emergent pathways of arousal—we discover that erotic life does not shrink with age.
It becomes more nuanced, more textured, more ours.
An Invitation
Your sexuality is allowed to change.
Your pleasure is allowed to evolve.
Your body is allowed to become something new.
There is an entire world of erotic experience that opens up when performance falls away.
Let’s keep expanding that world together.