After 50 Vaginal Maintenance: What Every Owner Needs To Know

Are you "After 50" and a  proud owner of a vagina? If you are, you might have noticed that your vagina and her needs are changing.  Vaginas actually have an environment that shifts during our life cycle and what we expect of them. Vaginas need and enjoy attention; and knowing how to keep your vagina happy is very important because if your vagina isn't happy nobody is happy! Most of us know that vaginas are self cleaning ovens, a source of pleasure and a sometimes portal for life. But did you know that in the United States alone, six thousand women go into menopause every day?

Did you know that some of these women may experience uncomfortable dryness, pain and a lowering of libido.

Well, phooey on that (phooey is a scientific term for 'get outta here').

Yes, you can go the route of estrogen therapy and other pharmaceutical remedies. But for some women who have or have survived estrogen-receptor positive cancer, or are concerned that they may be at high risk for cancer, they can't use hormone therapy. And even if you do use these therapies; I think that my routine for vaginal maintenance could either be a stand alone or combined with western medicine.

Pamela's Tips For Vaginal Maintenance:

1.  Keep a bottle or jar of coconut oil (organic) in the bathroom. After you pee and wipe; put a little oil on your fingers and massage your inner labia and the area around the opening of your vagina. This will keep the skin of your inner labia and the opening to your vagina soft and subtle. Yes, do this every time you use the bathroom at home. 2. Buy a jade egg or Kegel Beads.  Not everyone has a partner, and even those of us that do have partners are not having intercourse enough for our vaginal health. Our vaginas needs to be exercised! If we do not provide our vaginas with regular stimulation we may experience the walls of our vaginas thinning or worse  vaginal atrophy can occur.  By wearing a jade egg or play with Kegel Beads, we are taking the health of our vaginas into our own hands.  The use of the egg or beads can also help you maintain your ability to create lubrication. The beads jump around in your vagina and literally work out the walls.  Many vagina owners report that they don't even notice that they are wearing the egg or beads. Just be care when you go to the bathroom! They could fall out! A great first step with the beads is sleeping with them inside you. You can wear the beads or egg all day. Experiment with them. 3. Use lubricants! Lube is really your friend. Don't let your partner use spit to create a wetter environment in your vagina(yes, some partners really try to get away with that!).  Sex doesn't have to be painful, and using lots of lubricant can make your vagina really happy. Use lubricate when you place your Kegel Beads inside of you, or when you use the Jade Egg.  Use lubricants when you play with sex toys.  Use lube! I like Sliquid Silk Lube and Hathor Aphrodisa Lubricant.

4. Check out Sex Butter.  Sex butter is also a natural lubricant, but it is also a stimulant.  Many women report that using Sex Butter has also supported them in easing vaginal pain. I keep it in my tool box.

5. Use insertables. That's right, I am talking sex toys that you can put in your vagina. Once again, this is about pleasure but it's also about keeping our over 50 vaginas happy! My favorite toys at the moment are made by njoy. These toys have body and weight to them. They can give a woman something to hold onto and I like that.  I highly recommend the "Pure Wand", "The Fun Wand" and the njoy "Eleven". These toys are made out of pure medical grade stainless steel.  They feel good, can give you lots of pleasure and they are really fabulous for vaginal maintenance.  Invest in one or try them all.  All three of these beauties are in my tool chest.

6.  Vagina Hugs: Your vagina needs love and attention. This does not always have to look like rocket ship orgasms. Vaginas like to be touched and held. Sometimes, simple hold and rocking is enough.  Or gentle petting either with dry hands or with lubricant. Try that when you wake up in the morning or when you are falling asleep at night.

Remember, do one else can really love and maintain your vagina for you.  And when your vagina is happy, the world is a brighter place!

Kintsukuroi and The Heart/Vagina Connection

My day is often filled with speaking with women who are trying to connect to their vaginas. Some of the women that I speak with find it hard to get through the conversation without feeling physically ill. They may get a headache or an upset stomach. Some speak of an inability to feel their own vagina or any sense of aliveness in their genitals. Some are willing to make peace with this feeling, others sense that there is so much more life in their bodies and that somehow it is related to this somewhat unknown place between their legs. The feel a sense of  disconnection or brokenness.

And I keep coming back this week to this art form called Kintsukuroi.  This idea that an object can be made more beautiful after it's broken. It's value is not diminished, in fact the filling in of gold, silver or lacquer is used not only to repair, but makes the object more beautiful. What a metaphor for so much in our lives.

This is what I have learned. Our hearts can stretch to hold love, grief, devotion, and dreams. Our hearts can sacrifice, forgive and remember. And I believe that in female bodied persons, so can our vaginas.

We just have to be able to listen. And we have not been taught to listen to our own vaginas. So somehow we are getting static on this incredible line from our vaginas to our hearts and then back again to our vaginas. You see, they are wired together.

If we are feeling physical illness, numbness, and fear when we think about connecting to our own vaginas it's time to stop and listen deeply. Trust your vagina the way you trust your heart. Sometimes, we will need to practice Kintsukuroi and support the places that have worn thin with gold or silver. It just makes what we have more beautiful and more valuable.

And if your vagina is screaming at your heart to go away - listen to that too with a different ear. Why is she so scared and shut down? Perhaps it is time, to hear her pain and softly begin to coax her out of hiding. Speak to her about the practice of Kintsukuroi and tell her that you will go and get some gold, or silver.

After all, your vagina will ache for you, bleed for you, open for you and shut down to protect you. Pay attention to her. She has stories to tell you. Truths to share. She is valuable.

And sometimes, her silence is a cry for help.

Loving you from here,

Pamela

Learning To Trust Your Own Vagina

I am deep in the world of vaginas.  I am watching "Hysteria", reading Naomi Wolf's new book, "Vagina: New A Biography", and busy planning the details for"Back to The Body: A Sensuous Retreat For Women". I went to sleep literally holding mine in my hand, and lulling myself to sleep. My vagina gives me comfort, pleasure, and is literally the biggest tool in my tool chest for my own continued transformation. I want that for all women.

It makes me so sad that many women don't trust their own vaginas. We have so much fear about them, and create a world of Grimm Fairy tales around them.  We worry that we smell funny. That we won't orgasm, or lubricate enough, or that our vulva is funny looking. We worry that our vagina will take too long to give us pleasure and that our lovers will get bored or tired.

Most of the healing and relationship building I have done with my own vagina has been through vulva massage and through talking about vaginas in the company of other women. Most heterosexual women have never seen another woman's vulva. We have no idea of the different shapes, colors and textures. Many men know more about vaginas than women because they actually get to see them, and touch them.

Most women are left alone, in isolation with our vagina for our entire life. We don't even have words we are comfortable with to name our vagina, and way too many women cannot name the landscape of their own vulva. Let's face it. Nobody talks about their own vagina. Women talk tons about their relationships with men, but when was the last time (if you own a vagina) that you talked about your vagina?

I believe that women need way more touch on their vaginas then they are currently getting. I am not necessarily talking about love making. I am talking about vulva,clitoral, vaginal and g spot massage. Women can learn to do this for themselves, and it is absolutely awakening to us, to simply be able to lie back and receive this. It can bring you into a place of transcendence. It will open you up to parts of yourself that you didn't know existed. Emotional weather will come in like a tornado, and leave you in sunshine. You may cry, scream or laugh. You may have an orgasm, or you may not. The more you receive genital massage the deeper you will go. You will wake up in ways you cannot even imagine. And once you wake up your vagina - you will touch your own beloved, and she will never leave you. You might even lull yourself to sleep, gently holding her.

The feminine spirit lives there, and we need to teach women how to access it. Why don't we teach girls about vaginas and the emotional powerhouse that is stored in them? That is the endless question, that there are way too many answers too. But we can take control now, and teach ourselves. It is never too late to access the power of your own vagina and learn to trust her. One tool, might be to listen to "Self, Love and Sexuality" my meditation created to take you inside your own vagina.

Your vagina is beautiful, desirable, and can help you release the creative potential that you hold inside of yourself.  If you want help in your explorations, please reach out.

Loving you from here,

Pamela