Daily Mail - 12.08.2019

Page 42 Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019

BY SARAH RAINEY

Yummy recipes from

just three ingredients.

This week:

THREE

STEPS TO

DELICIOUS

✁

CUT OUT AND KEEP

16 SQUARES OF YOUR

FAVOURITE CHOCOLATE

2 MEDIUM EGGS

FRENCH TOAST

POCKETS

MAKES 4

4 SLICES OF BRIOCHE

=

1. Grease a large frying pan
   with butter and place it over a
   medium heat.


2. Lightly toast the brioche for
   a few minutes on each side.
   Meanwhile, put the eggs in a
   shallow bowl and beat them.


3. Using a knife, make a slit
   along the bottom end of each
   slice of brioche to make a
   pocket and then slide in four
   squares of chocolate. Press the
   bread together with your
   fingers to seal the pocket.


4. Soak each slice of brioche in
   the beaten egg before
   transferring to the hot pan.
   Cook for a couple of minutes on
   each side until golden.


5. Serve hot, topped with
   shavings of grated chocolate.

sexuality had developed in the

face of my mother’s modesty. Like

a lot of women in the Fifties before

the Pill, she’d been taught that

sex outside marriage could ruin a

woman; that only slutty girls

enjoyed it.

She wasn’t really interested in

any sexual freedom at all. So one

of the ways I defined myself in my

20s was by my sexuality.

I was probably fairly demure

compared to some people, and I

was a serial monogamist. But I

was definitely interested in sex,

and tried to have better and bet-

ter sex with my partners as I

moved into my 30s.

A

S I got into my late

40s, however, I found

my desire waning. If I

was no longer led by

my biology, who was I?

I went to see my doctor. Even

though she knew my periods had

stopped and I was in the first

months of menopause, she didn’t

link my symptoms to the change.

Like so many women, I learnt what

was happening to my body from

online forums and chatrooms.

I didn’t know anything about

the sexual changes, the changes

in desire that menopause brings.

When my husband and I made

love it felt uncomfortable —

almost like being a teenager again.

It was as if my body, without me

knowing it, had travelled back

through time to the beginning of

my sex life, when it was still a little

painful and very strange.

This was sad, as well as weird.

Sometimes I wonder if these

changes were brought on by

the drop in my body’s production

of oestrogen, or if I’d internalised

the way society dismisses meno-

pausal women.

Women are valued for their

sexuality and their role as

mothers. Once fertility ends,

many women feel pushed to the

sidelines. There’s a lot of shame

because we’re made to feel that

our bodies are useless.

I chose not to take hormone

replacement therapy (HRT)

because my late mother took hor-

mones and had breast cancer. But

I felt my femininity was fraying.

There was one time I caught sight

of this elegant older man in the

window next to me, before I

realised: ‘Oh God, that’s me.’ I

sympathise with women who

want to ignore menopause, and

pretend that the transition hasn’t

come. They want to be seen

as women who are still fertile,

still viable.

I have a friend in her 50s who

works in the media and she would

love to go grey, because she’s sick

of dyeing her hair. But in her world,

she just can’t. She needs her

colleagues to feel like she’s hover-

ing around 47. This is an extremely

brilliant woman and she’s feeling

this incredible pressure.

I found few books about the

menopause that I could really

connect with. There were medical

texts and these celebrity hormone

screeds. I hated Suzanne Somers’

The Sexy Years in which she

warns that if we don’t go on hor-

mones, our husbands are bound

to leave.

So I started writing my own

book, Flash Count Diary: A New

Story About the Menopause. I’ve

written five novels, but this is my

first non-fiction book.

As research I spoke to 100

women. Most did feel transformed

by menopause, but each had their

own unique way of moving

physically through the change.

Some were more, not less, inter-

ested in sex now they couldn’t get

pregnant. There was Brenda, who

found that menopause ramped

up her sexuality. She got divorced

and began dating younger, less

uptight guys.

Several women ended relation-

ships with men and began new

ones with women.

L

IkE me, many women

felt decreased sexual

interest. Some, like my

high-school friend, were

sad that sex had turned into a

‘wifely duty’, while others did not

see this as a tragedy.

Even women who had chosen

celibacy were not dried-up crones,

but extremely vital sexy women

who welcomed the chance to opt

out of the sexual rat race.

One married woman told me

about the peace she found. Susan,

a 55-year-old artist, said her move

away from sex was natural.

‘Not having sex doesn’t in any

way reduce the way my husband

and I feel about each other,’ she

told me. ‘There was a time for it,

and maybe now it is time to do

other things.’

I also spoke to a half dozen men.

Many were frustrated by their

wives’ changing attitudes towards

sex. They deflected questions

about their own ageing bodies

and were focused instead on their

wives’ libidos.

Others thought the women

didn’t like them any more because

they didn’t want to have sex in

the old way they always had done.

And that was really sad, too.

But one professor in his 60s told

me: ‘Now we have less sex, but

more hand-holding, hugging

and kissing.’ Another man, a free-

lance writer in his late 50s, found

more positive than negative in

postmenopausal sex. Now, he told

me, it was more like play.

I didn’t want to give up sex

completely. I longed to be close to

my husband. But I thought there

had to be a new way of thinking

about my body and my sex life.

I went to see a hormone doctor.

She told me that most of her

patients didn’t enjoy intercourse,

but at least with oestrogen

supplements it wasn’t as painful.

B

EFORE then, I’d always

had sex once a week — I

still have sex once a week.

But at times I felt numb,

like I’d be happy never to

have sex again.

My husband and I have been together for

17 years (married for ten). He’s an attractive

man — his pale blue eyes are set off by salt-

and-pepper hair, he has nice legs and he is

self-deprecating and funny. But between

myself and my physical desire, there was

now a thick barricade.

My hot flushes were like four-minute

anxiety attacks. The sleeplessness and

night sweats disorientated me. I was

completely drenched with sweat.

I was often up at night wandering around

the house, feeling like I was moulting. I’d

rush to the freezer and grab frozen peas,

pitta bread, packs of ham, and plonk them

on my forehead, chest, stomach.

I was bewildered.

My general sense of well-being was off. I

felt out of synch with myself.

My desires also changed; sex, which had

held me under its spell for 30 years, was

slowly receding. Its signal, once loud, was

now so soft it was hardly audible at all.

When I went to a party, I no longer ranked

the men in order of who I fancied. I didn’t

feel desire build up until I felt jittery.

This was a huge blow. In many ways, my

Sur vive the

and have you

DARCEY STEINKE lost her libido at

Now she’s written a revolutionary

AS A young woman, sexual

desire was the main way

DARCEY STEINKE orientated

herself. So when her libido

decreased when she started

the menopause at 50, it felt

like a seismic change, as she

tells LIZ HOGGARD...