Yes, and it depends.

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Perimenopause is a portal of hormonal reconfiguration parallel to that of puberty. Estrogen and progesterone fluctuate, testosterone often declines, and the familiar rhythms of your body begin to change, resulting perhaps in vaginal dryness, discomfort, exhaustion, and disrupted sleep; the list goes on.

 

The reason why I stand for a relationship with your sensuality well into peri/post-menopause is for the same reason I stand for it at all. Our sensuality is what connects us to our aliveness and creativity. We were made to be able to access this part of ourselves as a resource of replenishment and insight. The magical thing that happens in peri/post-menopause is that our “nice girl” veil is lifted, which makes us that much more potent as a deliverer of our unique creative voice. The fact that we are deterred from accessing and cultivating our erotic life force from such an early age results not only in internalized misogyny as young women, but also starves the second half of life of our authentic voice. An Erotic Embodiment practice reconnects you back to the part of yourself that society (aka the church and the patriarchy) felt brazen enough to stifle, out of fear that our wholeness would dissolve their power. Fair fear, because we sure as hell would have and I hope, still will.

 

For many women, one of the most tender and confusing changes is a shift in libido. Maybe the desire that once came easily feels distant. Maybe you love your partner but rarely think about sex. Maybe your body needs more time, more touch, more context, or a completely different kind of invitation to become aroused, or the mental load of holding everything together has made sex feel more like one more thing on your to-do list than something you genuinely want. And maybe the hardest part isn't the change in desire itself. It's what you've been taught to believe about it. That something is wrong with you. That you're losing your sexuality. That you should want sex more often. That your body is letting you down.

 

Your libido is not a measure of your worth, your femininity, or your capacity for pleasure.

 

And you do not have to force yourself to want sex.

What you can do is begin cultivating a relationship with your sensuality that doesn't depend on spontaneous desire showing up first.

 

This is where an embodied sensual pleasure practice can be transformative. 

 

Not because dancing will magically balance your hormones. 

Not because you need to become better at sex. 

But because you can begin creating the conditions in which curiosity, sensation, arousal, and desire have room to return, if and when they want to.

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So, to return to the question at hand, whether vaginal dryness can be alleviated or not by introducing a sensual practice, this is what I have experienced both personally and as a teacher.

 

I have had clients in their 70s regain a sense of being turned on that they never even experienced in their 30s.  I have had clients who did not experience a change in their dryness but did, however, find a new sense of joy and empowerment that changed the trajectory of the way they traversed this portal. I have had women report newfound inspiration in their creative endeavors. Women who have shared that they finally feel free inside of themselves and no longer fear what "they" may think because they have finally integrated the capacity to hold themselves in their own aliveness.

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The way I see it, vaginal dryness or not, this practice is only additive to one's journey through the lifting of the veil, and I want that for you, if that is also what you want for yourself.