Embracing Men-oh-pause
More like men-on-pause, amirite?
Hello and welcome back again dear friends and readers. It's good to be here with you again. Friends, the time has come to find your courage. Elections will not save us. Politicians will not save us. It is up to us. WE THE PEOPLE MUST SUCCEED! The system is broken. It is a lie. A clever illusion. Both sides work against our common purpose. Tear it all down and build something new before it is too late!
When I was younger I always assumed that menopause was something all women should fear. Indeed, a quick search for stock photos related to menopause produces nothing but an endless stream of visibly irritated, uncomfortable or pensive middle aged women in various poses and settings. That's why I said fuck it and chose a random picture of flowers instead. Culturally this is enforced through endless menopause discourse alongside ubiquitous advertisements for everything from face creams to pills powders and supplements all aimed at selling women's fear of aging back to them at a thousand percent markup. And yes, to be sure, there are certain things about menopause that can be a huge pain in the ass. Hot flashes are annoying as fuck, hair thinning is a real and distressing thing, as are the changes to our skin and sleep schedules. However for me, speaking personally, my menopause has also brought about changes that have made my life immeasurably more pleasant and much easier to manage.
First and foremost among those changes, I no longer feel as though I am a helpless captive to my sexual impulses and that means I can now more easily avoid the predictable and unfortunate attendant problems resulting from subjecting myself to the company and whims of straight cisgender men. And hey, before anyone accuses me of being a man hater, let me stop you right the fuck there. I love men. Despite my past history and experiences with several of them, I find the company of men to be largely enjoyable and I do not paint all of them with the same brush. I am, in fact, raising two wonderful young men and I am striving at all times to send fully formed, capable and empathetic men-folk out into this confused fucking world, which is a job all unto itself given the current cultural trajectory we find ourselves on.
All that being said, at nearly 50 years old, I am mature and in touch with myself and my myriad issues well enough to acknowledge that I will ALWAYS pick the wrong man. If you sit my ass in front of a lineup of strange men and told me to have a five minute interaction with them and rate them on my attraction to them you can almost bet money on the fact that I would choose the worst ones. When I was younger and less aware of my own issues, I would tell people that the guys who were the best in bed always had a touch of sociopath in their eyes. How fucking embarrassing is that to admit? Doesn't make it untrue though.
Of course, there is something to be said about the existing disparities of the available dating pool and it's members but that's a topic for another day. This is about knowing myself, and I KNOW there's something broken in my brain that leads me astray every time. I've known it for years but that inescapable sexual pull kept me man adjacent and being abused for wayyy too long. Now, it's just…gone. No more feeling like I'm willing to put up with some petty ass trifling bullshit just because it comes with a side of ‘good dick down’. And ho boy, I don't mourn that shit at all.
Another surprising development that has occurred in conjunction with my menopause, over the course of about the last six years or so, is the discovery that my body has grown intolerant of stimulant drugs. Even mild ones like caffeine are something I'm easily able to limit myself on these days. Maybe to you this doesn't sound particularly impressive, but just know that stimulants were my weakest link for the majority of my adult life. I knew I liked speed way too much at 13 years old popping cross tops we stole from my friend Melissa's mother and also at 14 when our pill pushing family doctor wrote me a scrip for diet pills, the generic drug label just said “amphetamine” and I would periodically “lose” my prescription and have the pharmacy refill them (back when they would do such stupid things). Then when I was older, my drug of choice was cocaine, followed by meth and also crack. So yeah, to me this is a huge thing. Now this is obviously anecdotal and I have no way of proving the correlation equaling causation and all that, but I honestly feel as though the things are related.
I also find that it has become much easier for me to be up front and straightforward about things in a way that often felt inaccessible to me when I was younger. I was groomed from childhood to always be nice, always be polite, never confrontational. Trained to feel as though making others uncomfortable with my unvarnished honesty was a bad thing. Taught to dress every opinion in equivocation and apology. Schooled in absorbing and softening abuse, translating any legitimate grievance of mine into something palatable to others. The further I progress into my menopausal journey, the freer I find myself from those sensibilities and their insidious chains that bound me to unacceptable places and treatment. I am much more likely to speak up on my behalf and in defense of others. Much more likely to feel comfortable rocking the boats of privilege. This truly has been a gift. I claim this mantle of courage in honor of a life that I lived on my own terms and with a declaration that never again will I surrender my voice.
So, has menopause come with it's own set of challenges? Absolutely. Would I turn back the clock on my own body for a second swing at youth? Not on your life. I plan on cherishing and enjoying this new phase of my life and I am thankful for the wisdom found in the natural progression of things because it has truly freed me at last.
bpnwc 😻 2026
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Yes there are definitely things that suck about it. I think perhaps those issues don't hit exactly the same way for me because I'm a chronic illness survivor and I have been at war with my physical body now for longer than I even care to acknowledge. So the physical parts of menopause, for me, may simply be bundled in with the shit I already deal with on the daily lol 😆
Ha! Same here! 😄 I have my one or two cups in the morning and I'm good. Crack would put me in the ground within a week these days lol