Why I’m Writing a Book Called Sexy Menopause
And Why It's Not What You Think
I never thought I’d write a book with the word sexy in the title. Let alone Sexy Menopause. It may sound like an oxymoron to some. Controversial? I agree. And yet—as a pelvic and sexual health advocate—I’m summoning all my courage to put these words together. For so many important reasons.
Lisa Fitzpatrick photographed by Kate Nutt
This is one of those photos where I look like I have it all together — but the truth is, I’ve walked through heartbreak and soul fire to arrive here. Sexy Menopause isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about reclaiming what’s always been sacred, even in our most broken moments.
The more I research and write, delve and play in the depths of this subject, the more convinced I am that these words together form an alchemy that is deeply yearned for.
There are approximately 1.01 billion women over the age of 45 on this planet—around 25% of the global female population—who are either experiencing, or have walked through, their second spring. Many of these women are still sexually active, yet their deeper desirous nature is barely represented in mainstream media.
For years, women have arrived in my clinic and workshops—smart, soulful, experienced, accomplished. They lean in and whisper their confessions. I’ve learned to keep the tissues close by for these moments. Because what they reveal, they reveal in layers:
“I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
“My libido has disappeared.”
“I don’t understand why sex feels different.”
“Am I the only woman with these concerns?”
“Am I broken?”
“Is this permanent?”
These aren’t women who are broken. These are women who’ve never been given permission to understand age with agency. Women who’ve internalised the cultural lie that sexuality has an expiry date. Women who light up when they’re told:
There is no expiry on desire.
Yes, things change. But that change holds immense power.
Sexuality can be reclaimed—no matter how long it’s been dormant, disrupted, or denied.
Somewhere in those quietly poignant conversations—the kind only women can have with one another—I realised:
This isn’t just about vaginal changes or hormone shifts.
This is about identity. Power. Desire.
This is about redefining what it means to be alive, embodied, and unashamed in midlife and beyond.
It’s about discovering a new vitality—one rooted not in youth, but in reverence.
In surrender and wholeness.
And I’ve come to realise that we are wiser - especially when we choose partners who honour our depth. This may take a few counterfeit relationships and false starts.
We are more alive when we realise that sexuality doesn’t always require partnership—it may simply be a deeper intimacy with ourselves, or with the divine.
And perhaps most liberating of all:
We are free when we stop tolerating immature, emotionally abusive or unsuitable partners—and choose peace instead.
Here’s what I’ve come to know—through a lifetime of clinical work and my own unfolding:
Sexy doesn’t disappear with age.
It transforms.
Often into something richer, slower, deeper, more fulfilling than we ever experienced in our youth.
Personally, midlife has freed me from many of the constraints I felt as a younger woman. Self-consciousness and Catholic guilt have been replaced by confidence and clarity. I know my body. I know what feels safe, what feels sacred, and when to say no.
Menopause has brought with it a deep I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-think energy.
This is the spirit I want to carry into the public conversation about sex and aging.
Because so many of my midlife patients arrive with their sexual identity in crisis. They feel misunderstood, invisible, unrepresented. They don’t know where to turn with their questions about sex, desire, and the body.
They might lead in their workplaces. Raise children and care for elderly parents. Survive heartbreak and betrayal. But this one part of their identity—their sexual self—feels like uncharted territory.
The Maga woman’s version of sexy is no longer about being youthful, thin, or pleasing to the male gaze.
Sexy in menopause is deeper. Wiser. More sovereign.
It’s sensuality as sacred communion.
It’s confidence born from lived experience.
It’s pleasure without performance.
It’s grief and rage transmuted into power - when given the right support.
It takes into account the stories the pelvis holds.
The traumas. The joys. The untold aches and betrayals.
Menopause and sex are ingredients in a sacred cauldron—when simmered with care, they alchemise past the betrayals, traumas, and inauthentic connections into spiritual sovereignty.
To truly meet a woman in her midlife erotic power is a crucible—and a crown—for the healthy, awakened masculine.
We need more of these men.
And we need more women in midlife and beyond, to claim their thrones.
When women are seen, supported, and lovingly witnessed, sex in the menopausal years becomes an opportunity for radical self-prioritisation. For desire and self-care. For boundaries. For healing.
For many women, menopause is not a closing down—it’s an initiation.
A surrender to mystery.
A homecoming to the body as a temple.
A shedding of what no longer serves.
A redemption of the feminine spirit.
Reclaiming sexual power in mid and later life may well be one of the most peak spiritual experiences of a woman’s life.
Sexy, in this context, is not a look.
It’s a frequency. And a form of grace.
It is a return.
A homecoming.
A surrender into something deeper, more elemental, more spiritually embodied.
And menopause? It’s not the ending we were taught to fear.
It’s the portal no one prepared us for.
It asks us to let go of who we were, so we can rise into who we truly are in the eyes of our Creator.
When we stop bleeding, we don’t stop being women.
We become the medicine.
We become co-creators instead of pro-creators.
Vision-holders.
Wisdom-keepers.
Role models of intuition.
This phase isn’t sterile. It’s sacred.
Because when the hormonal noise quietens, soul starts to speak.
Our bodies reveal how divinity wishes to express through us.
And yes, this awakening touches sex too.
Not as performance.
Not for validation.
But as sacred revelation.
We’re not here to be consumed. Or contorted. Or proved. We have nothing to prove - to anyone.
We’re here to connect.
To explore intimacy.
To merge with the divine in our own skin.
Partnered or unpartnered. Queer, straight, or still discovering.
We’ve been taught that aging women should become quieter, smaller, less provocative.
That our sexuality fades—or worse, becomes inappropriate—with time.
But what if that’s the lie?
What if our desire doesn’t die—it just deepens, waiting patiently beneath perfectionism and people-pleasing?
What if menopause strips away the striving so we can feel the truth of our sensual, sovereign, spiritual selves - beyond the physical changes?
Last week, I received a phone call from a patient. She thanked me.
We had worked through her menopausal sexual health challenges in my clinic—including painful sex due to age-related vaginal changes.
She and her husband were singing my praises, she confessed.
Because their intimacy had been restored.
Because their marriage was thriving again.
That call was one of the highlights of my career.
And it’s what inspired me to keep writing.
So yes, I’m writing Sexy Menopause even though my voice is shaking.
Because midlife is not the death of desire—it is the birth of a deeper, more devotional intimacy.
With our bodies.
With our lovers.
With the divine.
This book is not just a how-to manual.
It’s a reclamation and a redemptive conversation.
A love letter to the women who were never told they could feel radiant, raw, or ravished beyond 40.
And I want you to be part of it.
I’d love to know:
What do you want to see in this book?
What’s missing from the conversation around menopause, sex, aging, and feminine embodiment?
What truths have you carried in silence?
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Because we are not invisible.
And we are only just beginning to awaken.