Tell me if this sounds familiar, Reader: A clean, inconvenient want rises in you. I want to be touched like you cannot wait another second. I want time that belongs completely to me. I don’t want to do this anymore. And then the sharpest woman in the room gets involved. She pulls out the files. Calls the witnesses. Begins building her case. Is it fair?Is it practical?Shouldn’t I be grateful?What if I regret it?What if this is just perimenopause, boredom, restlessness, or some embarrassing...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, There's a version of you who turned the music up in the car for no occasion. Who flirted because it was fun, not strategic. Who felt a whole conversation happen in her body two seconds before her brain arrived to edit it down to something appropriate. You didn't lose access to her. Somewhere along the way you got extremely good at managing your own hunger instead of feeding it. Maybe you've gotten good at faking it too... The laugh that wasn't quite real. The "I'm fine" that...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, A client told me she and her partner hadn’t had sex in two months. Before I could ask the next question, the case was already assembled. They had just moved. They were living out of an Airbnb. He had started a new job. His mother was in the hospital. They were house hunting. Every reason was true. Not one was invented. Not one was ridiculous. The case was airtight. And it still wasn’t the whole truth. I listened, then said:“Nothing is more important than this. This is your person....
12 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, A few years ago, someone asked me a simple question: Who do you love most in this world? I gave them ten names. I wasn't one of them. On paper, my life looked fucking good. I built things. Raised two extraordinary kids. Took care of everyone and handled everything, and did it well enough that people assumed I had it all figured out. Inside, I was ravenous. Starved for intimacy. Attention. Pleasure. Passion. Adventure. Spontaneity. Connection. Play. Flirting. All the delicious,...
13 days ago • 1 min read
You are the woman people trust to know what to do. You make the decision. Carry the consequence. Handle the conversation. Keep the whole machine moving. Then your erotic imagination hands you a fantasy in which you are not in charge at all. You surrender. You're chased. You're watched. You're wanted so completely that someone else takes over and, for once, you're responsible for absolutely nothing. And instead of letting yourself feel it, your intelligent brain starts building a case against...
19 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Something tells me that you are one of THOSE women. The one people call when shit falls apart. The one who makes the decision. Finds the solution. Handles the conversation. Holds everyone together. You know how to do hard things. But that spectacular competence has a shadow. It can keep you inside situations long after they have stopped being right for you simply because you are capable of handling them. So you keep managing the relationship that quietly drains you.You keep...
23 days ago • 1 min read
He thinks you like it. The way he touches you. The pace. The pressure. The thing he keeps doing because you keep making the sounds that tell him it’s working. Of course he thinks you’re satisfied. You’ve become exceptionally skilled at protecting him from the truth. You tell yourself you don’t want to interrupt the moment. You don’t want him to feel criticized. You don’t want to turn sex into another complicated conversation that has to be carefully managed. So you adjust. You make do. You...
26 days ago • 1 min read
Reader, There’s a particular kind of fantasy that makes a lot of women nervous to admit. The fantasy of someone else taking over. Not because she wants to be powerless. Because she is so fucking tired of being responsible for everything. She makes the decisions. Keeps track of the details. Anticipates everyone’s needs. Holds the family, the work, the schedule, the emotional temperature of the room. And somewhere inside all of that competence is a body whispering: Please. Let me put it down....
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I hadn't moved out yet. I was still sleeping down the hall from a marriage I had already decided to leave, 26 years deep into a life that looked good on paper and felt half alive underneath it. And one night, lying in bed, I picked up my phone and texted a man I hadn't spoken to in 27 years. I didn't plan it. I didn't overthink it. Something in me just knew. Today's episode is the first time I've told this story (publicly) anywhere. All of it. The end of my marriage. What I actually said to...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
There are very few things in life that:Feel fucking fantastic.Cost absolutely nothing.Are available whenever you want them. And may offer real benefits during perimenopause and menopause. Yet somehow, most of us were taught to feel ashamed of masturbation before we even knew what it was. Even I've felt that shame. And I'd call myself a pretty sexually expressed woman. So Barbara and I decided to drag the whole conversation into the light on the podcast this week. We also went places we didn't...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read