In the warm, evening glow of Ibiza’s closing weekend, she came to sit with me at the outside tables. She was trying not to cry, but it was a torrent of feelings that arose from her whole body.
“I never knew my body was actually mine; I always thought it was for someone else,” she said while trying to hold back the flood of tears.
That afternoon, I had guided our group into an organic arousal practice: slow, mindful self-touch that focused on whole-body pleasure, not just orgasm. Some women had fallen asleep; some had left early (I’m so excited when people honor their body). Other women stayed to dive into the full expanse of their pleasure. She was one of the women who found something more: the power of her own pleasure.
The Myth of Orgasm
We’ve been lied to about women’s orgasm, and this lie makes most of us feel like we’re broken. The lie is focused on what’s normal: spontaneous desire, the fast speed of arousal, and an orgasm model that’s based on a male body (build up-plateau-release-relax).
Most importantly, we’ve learned that orgasm is a destination to reach. And if you’re having partnered (hetero) sex, your orgasm is often an afterthought, a bonus. Maybe you’ve even faked your orgasm to get on with your day, to make him happy, to get it over with.
Is this because you genuinely don’t like sex (I always hold space for that possibility). Or is it because you were never offered the chance to create sex that was actually for you and your body. Maybe you, like my sobbing student in Ibiza, never learned that your body was your own.
This disconnect may have been fine for years, or decades even. But now, in your mid-forties, you have noticed that things are different. The quick sex you used to have is no longer tolerable; maybe it’s even painful. Your turn-on isn’t as accessible as it once was. Your orgasmic threshold may have increased (that is, it’s harder to get to orgasm). This does not mean you are broken—in fact, it is yet an invitation deeper into the body.
This is the invitation into an experience of female pleasure that is multidimensional—a cascading experience that can be felt in your whole body, and one that is nourishing to your body, mind, and spirit. This is especially valuable for those in perimenopause and beyond.
If you’ve never taken your pleasure seriously, now is a great time to start that reclamation.
Peaks & Valleys: An Orgasmic Map for Perimenopause
In Tantric frameworks, we talk about two broad territories of orgasmic experience.
Peak orgasm is what we’ve always been shown: genital stimulation creates tension and sensation, breath gets short and shallow, everything gathers toward a point, and then there’s some type of release. There’s nothing wrong with this type of orgasm—sometimes you just need that release. And yet there is much more… and that more is especially important during your perimenopausal years and beyond.
Historically your body may have been able to override some of the challenges of shorter arousal experience and the push towards a peak orgasm. And if you’re one of the women noticing shifts in your arousal and orgasm, you might conclude that something is wrong, or maybe sex just isn’t for you any longer.
This isn’t what’s happening: it is the wisdom of your body telling you something needs to shift.
Sex can be for you, if you let yourself have a new map into your pleasure experiences. That longer arousal runway that you might be noticing—that increased threshold you might be experiencing—will feel inconvenient if your only goal is to move towards the peak. But it’s in the valley is where your body and your arousal have always longed to be.
Welcome the experience of the valley orgasm: rather than building up, up, up into tension, we breathe into the whole body, disperse the sensation, find a depth within each stroke, each breath, each touch. It’s an ongoing softening, not a tension-focused experience. Just like wandering in a gorgeous alpine valley, we’re not trying to get to the top of the peaks; instead, we’re flowing along the path of our own arousal. Pleasure builds, softens, releases. Maybe there is an orgasmic peak along the way, maybe not.
Valley orgasms, the meanderings of pleasure, are delicious at all ages. This type of pleasure can be healing, nourishing, and lovely. Rather than focusing on the friction (which can burn, irritate, and tug at our most delicate tissues), we focus on the softening, the sensation, the gentle touch. This is not about just stroking your softest tissues into a big climax, but letting your whole body shift into a different state of being.
And you do not have to choose one over the other: both are available on your sexual journey.
And once your body is open to the slow, soft exploration of the wild within, there is a massive shift in how pleasure can continue to emerge. With this softening, new experiences can emerge: vaginal orgasms (once she’s awakened, softened, there is much pleasure to be had inside), cervical orgasms (an energetic, innervated access point to the most intense experiences), g-spot and squirting (opening the doors to your sacred waters offers you new experience of release), and anal pleasure (the ultimate surrender, accessing new pathways to arousal).
You Create the Map
Now that you know how the landscape differs from what you may have learned, you get to go on an adventure.
As you’re unwinding old scripts and removing old maps—and probably explaining this to a partner—there is much to examine along the way. Rebuilding your pleasure pathways into this new body takes some time and energy—give yourself the space for the slow, gentle attention your genitals are craving. You get to experience the felt-sense of your body being your own, much like my student tearfully experienced in Ibiza last year.
Part of this is eliminating the old scripts you might have used: first kissing, then touching, then stimulation, onwards to intercourse.
Instead, it’s following your body and her desires. This means asking, ‘What can we create today, together?’ rather than moving forward with ‘what have we always done?’ Shifting from scripts or routines and into an exploratory co-creation of pleasure is how we stay connected to self and to others.
I genuinely think that exploring our sexual selves is truly the most interesting part of being a human. I’m newly married, and while I’ve had plenty of sex over my decades, it’s just been in the past 10 years that the wisdom of holistic sex practices and my own sexual capacity has really taken off.
Now I’m 46, and my sexuality and sexual experiences keep changing, because my body keeps changing. Just last month my husband and I switched to using nitrile gloves on his hands for genital stimulation. My tissues have become too sensitive (even with HRT and lube) for his bare hands. We continue to make adjustments for my body, for his body, for the sex we want to co-create.
Awakening into Sensation
If you want to shift one thing this week for your body, your pleasure, your depth… try these two sensation-focused practices.
One, choose right now to find something that feels good in/on your body, and see if you can deepen the feeling. Breathe into it, and remember—this is pleasure, too. This sensation is your body speaking to you using the language of sensation. Here’s what this looks like:
Right now, as I’m typing, I’m noticing the soft texture of my knit pants on my legs, the feel of my feet on the wool rug, the scent of my body oil (jasmine, vanilla, patchouli), the damiana tea in my mouth as I sip and write. I can tap into my toes: feeling the texture on my feet of my layered rugs. I can breathe in the scent of my oils, noticing the notes of each layer to the fragrance. I notice the taste in my mouth, seeing if there is a way to savor my new favorite herbal tea. Naming these sensations as pleasure, as delight, invites me into my body though I’m typing and mostly focused on my brain. You can hold both, with practice.
Two, invite in your organic arousal.
When you make space this week for self- or partnered pleasure, focus for just five minutes on your breath. Breathing deep into your belly as you stroke your skin, breathing deep into your genitals as you experience genital touch, breathing together if you dive into intercourse. No matter which activity you add into your sexual adventures, breath can deepen and enhance it. Notice if/how your arousal shifts.
That’s it: two simple practices you can do right now to feel more of your body, your sensation, your pleasure, and your breath. Those practices open the doorway into everything I’ve described here, and it costs you nothing but your attention.
If you feel this land in your body, come play! I write about pleasure, perimenopause, and the sex education most of us never received. You can stay here on Substack for weekly musings, and for more, you can subscribe to my free newsletter to get practices, wisdom, and invitations into transformation.
And if you’re already craving more: I’m teaching a long-form workshop on all of this on Saturday, September 12 (11am-4:30pm Pacific) in Multi-Orgasmic Journeys. Join us here.
Pleasure is medicine. And midlife is your reclamation era.
I’m Andrea Devon Bertoli, a Pleasure Coach and Sex Educator devoted to the erotic lives of women in midlife. My work lives at the intersection of science, sacred sexuality, and the slow, gorgeous practice of coming home to your body.
Here on Substack you’ll find thoughtful essays, embodied practices, and the kind of honest, warm conversation about sex and intimacy you didn’t know you needed.
On my website and online learning platform, I offer deep-dive resources, coaching sessions for those ready to go further, and alongside my husband, I host wildly popular workshops online + in-person in the Bay Area. Ready to journey inward? Send me a note to find out what is possible.
Welcome to Love in Adulthood… where you’ll tap into perimenopausal pleasures, sexual sophistication, and midlife intimacies for all.
Andrea, your student saying, “I never knew my body was actually mine,” gives this reflection its human center. The shift from pursuing a prescribed outcome to exploring sensation, pace, and choice makes pleasure an experience a woman can understand on her own terms. Your example of adapting touch with your husband also shows how that agency can remain active as the body changes. Thank you for centering curiosity and ownership in a conversation where many women have learned to measure themselves against someone else’s expectations.