The Magic of Midlife Female Sexuality

This can be the most erotic, full era of your life.

Despite a culture telling women that midlife, perimenopause, and beyond bring less sexiness, more wrinkles, and crankiness, many are boldly saying the opposite. Sure, there are real symptoms and shifts in the body that occur with age and changing hormones. Still, many women are coming forward to reveal that midlife sexuality is liberating, full, and better than any other era so far.

At 40, I feel the most erotically alive I’ve ever been. It’s not about having more sex or fitting into a particular body size. It’s about awe for my body after birthing a nine-pound baby and caring far less about appearance or “getting it right.” It’s about leaving behind the shadow scripts of maidenhood, no longer fawning, performing, or waiting for a partner to create my sexual fulfillment for me.

During this new midlife era, I am reclaiming my own erotic power, prowess, and agency. I am not waiting for my man to rip off my clothes and give me the Outlander sex scene of my dreams. I am evoking that kind of ravishment. I am not depending on a man to unleash my sexuality or create my erotic life for me. My erotic nature is leading the way in a very new way, as an embodied pulsing alive invitation. Active not passive. Pulsing alive before even entering into the bedroom.

Something within has matured into a new era of erotic invitation and expression.

I’m not alone. When I asked other midlife women about their erotic lives, the responses echoed a similar awakening:

“I just can’t fight myself anymore…”

“I’ve stopped expecting my partner to initiate all the time. I am the erotic juice in the relationship…”

“I finally have space to enjoy my body…”

“Sure, life is crazy busy, but it’s more a frame of mind…”

Even in 1923, Dr. Heinrich Kisch noted in The Sexual Life of Women how women in midlife often experience a stronger desire. While hormonal shifts play a role, the transformation feels more spiritual, a deeper awakening.

Explorations of this shift through spiritual or psychological lenses are rare online. Articles like DailyMail’s “Better with Age: Does a Woman's Sex Life Really Begin at Forty?” focus on how post-40 women feel more at ease with their bodies, have increased testosterone, or prioritize their needs, but the shift goes much deeper.

I first encountered the idea that a woman could be sexually alive and erotically full “later on” from Sex and The City’s fabulous Samantha, who inspired many millennial women to explore their sexual lives in their 20s and 30s. But I eventually learned that for me “casual” sex often required shutting down my heart. In fact, in my opinion now, I can’t see sex as ever being casual.

In my coaching practice, I encourage women to have a solo practice when exploring their sexuality and erotic life to feel themselves first alive on their own. Then, if they aren’t in a partnership, I recommend creating a “trusting container”—agreements that build safety—to help them stay close to what is happening emotionally as they explore with a new lover. The same can be important with a long-term partner.

As you get wiser, there can be an essential shedding of who you thought you were sexually and erotically, shedding the illusions and distilling the truth. The fantasies that were born from cultural conditioning, pain, addiction, or compulsion shed. And as you heal, transform, and mature, many of those erotic fantasies evolve. You begin to feel under them into the hidden desires they speak to. Eventually, as you change, the fantasies can change. Your erotic nature stays the same, but the way it manifests evolves and matures with you into a full radiant blossoming that is your own. It does not belong to a sick culture. It does not belong to another. It is yours.

Feeling erotically full and sensually alive after 40 does not just have to do with sex. It’s energy. It’s a vibe.

We all have been sold the lie that feeling sexy comes from having a certain amount of sex, or from fitting into society’s narrow beauty and body ideals. Or being wild, liberated, and sexually “free.” Or from being desired by men, or anyone really. But erotic aliveness comes from within, and the veil thins to this brilliant knowing as you get older. Finally, you are able to enjoy what you do have, not obsess about what you don’t. You start to realize on a much deeper level how spectacular the body is, how beautiful it is, how powerful it is, and, at the same time, so soft and tender. And you feel something deeper being whispered through your flesh—this sense that it will be gone one day.

And that is like plugging into the electric socket of aliveness. The reminder that you are now closer to death. That this moment is precious.

Your own carpe-diem-soul-whisper emerges not from the outer world telling you to do more and be more productive, but from the inner world speaking to you, reminding you how delicious this human experience can be.

Having sex from that place is a whole different experience. It is deep, wild, passionate and true.

I have a client, about to turn 60, who is the sexiest woman I come into contact with on the regular. She exudes sensual juiciness. She has never done Botox. She barely wears makeup. But she is so radiant. It’s her energy. She is in love with her body and life now. As a self-identified crone, she has surpassed the “mother” or midlife phase of eroticism and is in the menopausal rewrite of the crone era, being the most delicious sexually of them all.

This is a 180 from everything we have been taught about aging, sensuality, and female sexuality.

Regardless of age, in practicality, it takes space and slowing down to stay in touch with your sensual body. Many women have shame around taking the time to feel sensual, alive in their bodies, sexy, and erotically expressed—or for even wanting any of that in the first place.

Mothers are not told to prioritize themselves sexually or sensually. It would be selfish to ask your partner to watch the kids while you bathe, dance, or lie around naked (or so they say). How dare you want to feel sexy and sexually connected to both yourself and your partner? Women are made to feel guilty in general for being “non-productive,” whether they have kids or not. Pleasure—aka dolce far niente, or lying around rubbing oil on your body, savoring the sun on your skin, or, god forbid, an afternoon of self-pleasure—is often saved for vacations or “off” time. Who has time for all that?

But taking a few minutes to feel your body sensually every day is essential for any woman living in this digital mayhem of modern life.

And taking that time to tend to intimacy in a relationship is just as important. If you mostly sit and talk with your partner, then the tone of the relationship will become just that: cerebral, intellectual, heady. And for my sapiosexuals in the house, I get it. Talking can be so hot—but only with intention and containment. In a relationship, a lot of talk becomes about logistics: what are we eating next, what bill needs to be paid, etc. If neither partner is doing the sensual inviting into the body, the eros can dry up quick.

And if you aren’t feeling full of your own erotic juice, how can you serve it up in a chalice to share with your beloved?

Taking time daily for your sensual body reminds you that you don’t need someone else to validate your hotness and aliveness. You enliven it first. Then your partner and the world will follow suit. For moms, this practice will positively impact your family in the long run. The world tells moms they’re supposed to feel tired and overwhelmed, and often, we do. But we also have moments of remembering we’re sexual, alive beings in our own unique ways.

What imprint do we want to leave for our daughters? That moms must always be exhausted and doing it all, or that we can also feel radiant, alive, and sensual in life’s precious moments?

Finding time to dance naked in the sun in the living room when the family is out, instead of doing laundry, or to pause the work project for an erotic novel, can feel frivolous, but it draws us back into an often-neglected part of ourselves.

Moving into midlife is a gentle reminder that this human experience is fleeting. It’s not always about long baths, dancing, or being naked that awakens our erotic power. It’s in the sway of your hips as you walk, the deep breaths you take, the sound of your pleasure while savoring a strawberry. It’s about putting down the phone, catching your reflection, and finally thinking something kind about your body. It’s about letting go of the teen girl who strove for perfection and embracing the midlife woman who is content in her imperfection. It’s about saying no to the things that make you feel less than—the people, the conversations, the distractions. It’s about softening into the tenderness of your body. Not waiting passively, but being actively engaged in creating the sex life you desire.

So make out with your partner and taste their sweet warmth.

Choose music and dancing in the kitchen over another cerebral podcast.

Dive into a lover’s lap instead of doing another chore.

Ask yourself who you are now, today, erotically, and make space for her.

Savor this life and the small sensual moments that make it up.

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JOIN ME IN ALCHEMY OF LOVE, A 3 MONTH MENTORSHIP INTO THE DEEPER WATERS OF INTIMACY, RELATIONSHIP, AND EROS. WE BEGIN NOVEMBER 7TH.

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