Does the menopause mean the end of physical sexual ability? To this important question, the answer is no. The menopause simply means a transition period which ends a woman’s child-bearing ability but not her sexual ability; she may continue to experience the pleasures of sexual relations to the end of her years. The menopause is also nature’s safeguard for the protection of the human race. The bearing of children and the hard task of raising them is allowed only to the young and most physically able; it would be difficult indeed for women of sixty and seventy years to begin the ardors of new motherhood and the menopause guarantees that this will not happen.
Varying in length from one-half year to several years, the menopause technically means a decrease in function of the ovaries with a cessation of the menstrual period. During this period, about one third of all women experience difficulty described as hot flashes, dizziness, irritability and crying spells. Happily, treatment for this difficulty is simple and easily obtained.
There is no real male menopause, as women know and experience it, but both sexes experience a gradual diminution of sexual vigor to the extent that other body functions diminish. Thus sexual ability, visual ability and other physical abilities are gradually lessened but rarely do they completely fail. People in their sixties do not ordinarily expect or want their sexual desires and abilities to be the same as at the age of twenty, but they can expect them to be present and active according to their way of life.
Sexual relations are of great interest to most people, but they are not equally appealing to all. Like playing tennis, some of us will be absorbed with sexual matters until the age of 100, but most of us lose interest somewhere along the line after our “flaming youth.” Losing interest in sex, however, and developing tastes for other facets of life, such as golf, reading or stamp collecting, does not mean that sexual abilities are lost; they are only set aside.
A normal development, after the age of fifty, is a displacement of the passionate and demanding physical sexual relations of youth for a deeper and more endearing marital relationship, revolving more about family activities, interest in children and grandchildren, and more communal thought in the hereafter.
Enduring, satisfying and happy social relations, after fifty as well as before, are built not only upon sex, but far more upon the solid virtues of faithful and unselfish marriage. As written by another-
Sing, for faith and hope are high- None so true as you and I- Sing the lover’s litany; Love like ours can never die!
Rudyard Kipling, “The Lover’s Litany”