Stigma and Women’s Sexuality

I had the awesome opportunity to talk to a group of undergraduate students who are studying the history of medicine and women. We were talking about the stigma around talking about sexuality and women. The answers that came up to prove that there is stigma was that people don’t want to talk about pregnancy, and we’re all worried about reproduction, and those sorts of sticky topics for sexuality and women, and that’s why it’s really stigmatized. I then said, “Well, what about menopausal women who can’t reproduce because they’re no longer menstruating? What about their sexual behavior or sexuality? Why is that then stigmatized?”

If we aren’t worried about reproduction anymore, shouldn’t they be having the most liberating and unstigmatized sex?

Then we realized the stigma is multifaceted, and it’s actually really complicated. There’s so much around this area of stigma for women’s sexuality at every stage of life. Even for menopausal women, we thought, it’s probably because of our North American cultural priority of youth and considering only young women sexy, which is really crazy. We are a culture  full of contradictions. And I think we just need to keep talking about it.

Keely Jones on Ted Lasso may have said it best: “[Could we just] Restructure society so that women aren’t constantly sexualized and then simultaneously crucified for being sexual?”