May 27, 2025 • 53 mins
The Besties are still on their vacay so here’s another blast from the past. Originally aired in October 2023, our guest
Dr. Maria Sophocles, a Board-Certified OB-GYN and Medical Director of Women's Healthcare of Princeton, unveils shocking truths about female sexual health and pleasure that have been systematically ignored by medical education for centuries.
Angie was aghast by the fact that there is so much her generation was never taught about this unique part of our bodies:
- full anatomy of the clitoris wasn't correctly included in medical textbooks until 2005, reflecting how patriarchal values have influenced medical science
- It’s not a “tip” but an eight-centimeter organ with 15,000 nerve endings
- It is an organ solely designed by The Creator for pleasure
Tune in for even more “who knew!” revelations with Ang & Les, your favorite Besties!
More from Maria:
TED: What Happens to Sex in Midlife? A Look at the “Bedroom Gap” | Maria Sophocles | TED
https://youtu.be/alYBnyxMuPk?si=LxqY1IuXm71BSNbk
Get Angie’s eBook:
We’re Too Old for This Shit! The Inquisitive Older Woman’s Guide to Joy http://joystrategy.co/ebook
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey Ant.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, les, listen, guys, we are going to be taking
a little break, we need avacation, and so we thought we
would bring back some earlyepisodes that you've enjoyed.
So we're going to bring backsome episodes from our season
(00:24):
two and season four.
The first one let me just giveyou a warning we're going to be
talking about a part of the bodythat a lot of people associate
with taboos and shame, and alsopleasure and intimacy, and we
(00:48):
see it as a part of the body,just like all the parts of the
body, as being God-given.
And so Leslie's going to talkabout the guests that we had on
for this episode.
Who did we have on us?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So we introduced Dr Maria Sophocles.
She's a board certified OB-GYNphysician and I've actually
known Maria probably upwards of20 years by now.
Um and I came to know her andwe became close to the point
(01:27):
where we're really good friends.
And Maria over the years hasreally, in addition to a
thriving um medical practice inPrinceton, new Jersey, she has
really transitioned her careerand developed her career into a
(01:47):
very niche area.
She talks about women's femalesexuality after 50,
perimenopausal sexuality, andshe also is very direct and
intentional about teaching aboutfemale pleasure.
(02:10):
Yes, female sexual pleasure.
So you can only imagine thewonderful conversations that she
and I have while I'm providinganesthesia and she's doing dying
procedures in the office.
In fact, she has been in withone of the early developments of
(02:31):
a line of vibrators and sextoys which are proudly displayed
in every room in her office.
So it's a very interestingplace to be and very female
centered and empowered.
So this episode we talk alittle bit about the clitoris
(02:53):
and my co-host here.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I've got a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
She hasn't calmed down about it yet.
Just a little bit, so we hopeyou enjoy the rewatch of this
episode and be sure to leavecomments and let us know what
you think now.
Thank you Well, hello.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Hello, let's do a doubt, mrs Doubtfire.
Hello, let's do a doubt, mrsDoubtfire.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Look at us, here we are again, and I'm so excited.
I'm always excited.
Actually, excited is mybaseline.
So, I'm at my baselineexcitement.
No, I'm a little bit above that, actually.
So welcome to another episodeof Black Boomer Besties from
Brooklyn, brooklyn, brooklyn.
All right, ask me why I'mexcited, ange.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Leslie, why are you excited?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Because I have a gorgeous young lady here that is
our guest today and she's goingto excite us in a way that oh,
that was an interesting choiceof words, that was a good one.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, pun intended, pun intended.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And I'm going to tell you why I'm excited, but later,
because I am, I think, doublyexcited.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Okay, so you'll hear that story, all right.
Just, no funny noises from thatcorner.
I can make as many funny noisesas I choose.
I'm a grown-ass woman.
Okay, that's true, that's true.
Okay, so the beautiful lady inthe coral shirt is dr maria
(04:39):
sophocles.
You're gonna find out about herand you're to love her as much
as I've loved her.
For what I know.
It's well over 10 years, but itcould be about 14 years that
we've been working side by sidetogether it's.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
It's felt like two years.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Oh well, yeah, yeah and and and you and I have a
psychic connection that I'mgoing to mention also because I
was thinking about it earlier.
But I'm going to read your bioa little bit.
Dr Maria Sophocles is a boardcertified OB-GYN with more than
25 years of medical experience.
She is the medical director ofWomen's Health Care of Princeton
(05:19):
, a progressive and innovativewomen's health practice in
Princeton, new Jersey.
That's an understatement.
Dr Sophocles understands thespectrum of issues women face,
from their teens throughpost-menopause.
Women of any age want aphysician they can trust.
Dr Sophocles says I spend timewith my patients so they can
(05:43):
share intimate issues andcomplex problems.
That's just a tidbit of who sheis and what she does.
So let me just set the stage.
When you walk into her office,it's a beautiful, women-led and
forward office with warm,soothing colors.
(06:04):
It does not look like a medicalpractice at all and there are
these giant photographs of womenof all stages, races, diversity
and colors and just the mood isjust calm and so inviting.
(06:25):
And when I hear from herpatients who they become our
patients, the things that theysay about you are just, it's
just wonderful, very special,very special so.
I'll turn it over to you tointroduce yourself and say a
(06:46):
little bit about who you are andwhat you do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Well, first, thank you so much, leslie and Angela,
for having me.
I'm not from Brooklyn.
I wish I was a black bestie,but I am a kind of a boomer.
So I hit two of the four andI'm just so happy to be here.
I, I love, um, the womanconnection.
(07:11):
I love that.
I think this is a forum for open, honest conversation and boy do
women need that.
Boy, have we been put intoboxes and told to behave and be
quiet and be nice?
And you know, I know the phrase, you know good, nice women
rarely make history.
(07:31):
But there's nothing wrong withbeing nice.
But there's also nothing wrongwith advocating for yourself and
for feeling like you want tohear from others who are going
through the same thing, or justto learn something.
And that's always been themission of my practice.
Women's Healthcare of Princetonis a progressive place for open
(07:53):
communication where there is nojudgment based on race, religion
, gender identity, anything likethat.
So it's a place women have feltsafe to come be themselves,
express themselves, find out whothey are or redefine who they
are.
And I've been so lucky, luckyto know Leslie for so long and
(08:16):
watch her.
Just you know weave herclinical magic and you know you
all think of her as a podcaster,but I know her as this
spectacular and empathicanesthesiologist who takes
people at their most vulnerableand their most terrified and
makes them feel they're safe andthey're cared for and lets me
(08:38):
be able to do my thing with themand help them.
And so she's just been a lovelycolleague for me, but more like
a clinical sister really.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, we've been a really good team and the
patients say all the time howhelpful it is.
Let me just give you a littletidbit into her office.
When you come in and you knowhow in an office you need to
disrobe, you'll get a warmedrobe in practice no way.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and you'll say I've never had that before.
Why would you not want that?
Why would you not?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
want that.
It's unheard of.
Yeah, but why wouldn't you?
Now that you've said it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, I always think about what would I want.
And they're cold.
Offices are cold so thatthey're clean, but cold just
adds to your anxiety.
So I feel like warm is such asimple soothing thing speakers,
(09:46):
that they can speak into to getthe music they like.
And I remember one woman camein covered in tattoos and nose
ring and earrings and I thought,oh, I wonder what music she'll
choose.
And she said I'm really nervous.
Could I, could I get FrankSinatra?
Really?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Okay, I didn't mean to be so judgmental.
You cannot judge a book.
You cannot judge a book by itscover.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I did it.
I was so ashamed of myself.
She said I just need some FrankSinatra.
I said okay, but thanks, welove it.
It's been there 15 years.
We have 25,000 patients fromall over the country, but mostly
from the Northeast.
Women come from far awaybecause we don't do any
obstetrics, it's only gynecology, and it focuses on the things
(10:31):
that fall under the radar in atraditional OBGYN practice, such
as pediatric and adolescentgynecology.
You know kids and teens needhelp too sometimes, and their
pediatricians often don't knowhow to help.
Menopause is, of course, thebiggest that's a big deal for
that you deal with yes, and inour office we pioneered the use
(10:52):
of a laser that regeneratesvaginal tissue is the first
office in the country to havethis.
So women find that out so theycome to have bladder help or
sexual discomfort helped, skindiseases of the vulva helped.
We take care of urology.
We take care of geriatrics andpelvic pain, terrible pain
(11:12):
syndromes that really need time.
So I decided just to collectall those little things that a
regular practice doesn't want todo in depth and just train for
gosh.
I probably spent a decade goingaround the country training
with the experts and all thesethings and then bringing that
back to Princeton and thentraining six women under me to
(11:34):
do it too.
So it is different.
I mean, we do regular PAPs,checkups, but we we like to
focus on these little things.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The different things yeah.
Yeah, they won't necessarilyget in another place.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I wonder, you have 25,000.
I mean, yeah, 25.
Let's call that 25,001, becauseI will oh, I will be reaching
out to you.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I'm sorry you have to get 25,000, angel, I forgot to
tell you that.
No, no, it's a very special,it's a very special place and
(12:26):
I'm not modest about it at all.
But because we hear every dayand Leslie hears this too, you
know, thank you, I've been tofive doctors.
Or thank you, I'm a trans womanand I was actually excused from
three practices.
Or thank you, I have severepain and I've just been told it
was a yeast infection for 10years.
So it's really gratifying to tonot dismiss and brush off and
to to listen and to give peoplepermission.
I mean, those are the twothings that are critical, I
think.
So it's, yeah, it's been ajourney for me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
There's a room in her practice that has a showcase
full of dildos and stimulationtoys.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Sex toys.
Sex toys, yes, and excuse me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Leslie were you trying to find a?
You package it, Leslie.
Were you trying to find a?
You package it.
Were you trying to package thatinto a clinical way?
Little OK, OK.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
This doesn't all have to be.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
If I may.
If I may, let me jump in andexplain how, at least from my
vantage point, how this all cameto be, because there was this
cataclysmic occurrence thatbrought you to in my age group
to push their comfort aroundtheir sexuality a bit.
(13:57):
That I ended up is the TEDTalks site and I stumbled upon
this TED Talk by Maria Roszakabout the clitoris and let me
tell you, when I first saw thatorgan not the tip of the organ
(14:26):
but the entirety of the organ Igot so angry that in my at that
time, 58, 59 years on the planetthat that was withheld from me
in all of the education thatI've had being a mother, all of
those things, times three, thatthat had never been shown to me.
(14:52):
I was so angry.
I was so angry and Leslie, ofcourse, heard about it, because
I speak to Leslie at least oftenabout it, so you did start
talking about the clitoris.
And Les did you know, yes, andthen wait, wait, wait, hold on.
And then for our Patreon, whichis where our subscribers get
(15:17):
extra content through asubscription service called
Patreon.
I put a question to ask forsome topics that they would want
to see for this season, ourseason four, and one of the
topic suggestions that I gave isdo you want to hear about
women's sexual health?
I think I may have mentionedclitoris specifically, and that
(15:39):
is what was the most thing thingthing asked for, right?
And then, leslie, you can takeit from here, because that all
all happened, and then, okay, goahead so I told you, maria and
I have a cosmic spiritualconnection yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I don't know where it comes from.
She's a white, greek beautifullady.
I'm a black boomer fromBrooklyn.
But we get into theseconversations and the
similarities and and we like seeeach other eye to eye I
mentioned.
I said you know, maria, youshould come on our podcast at
(16:19):
some point.
My co-host is always talkingabout the clitoris and she's
saying about this and that andwhatever.
Maria stops me and says.
I just turned in a chapter in abook about the clitoris, like
probably days prior to thisconversation yeah, exactly what
(16:45):
she was talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
It was like I had just spent the last couple weeks
immersed in all this detail.
Now I've forgotten it allalready.
I'm sorry guys.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
No, no, but just a tenth of it that you remember
will be more than good yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Otherwise, everyone will go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So I'm like, and this is big you know it's big.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's big.
I am so looking forward to this.
You, you have.
You have no idea, you have noidea.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Specifically.
I'll say what made you angryand is how one that we.
This is not an organ that wehear about.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's an enemy.
Well, when you hear about it,you hear about the almost, the
smallness of it is something,this little thing, or it's this
point, or it's this.
I know everything about thepenis.
I know everything about thepenis and everything about the
penis, and I know everyone.
I mean it's in every medicalbook it's on.
(17:42):
You know the, the.
I could sketch it out, you, yousee how many works of art and
how many works of art.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
How many sculptures over centuries and millennia
have we seen with?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
a penis, it's you.
You would have to be deaf, dumband blind, exactly so.
That is where my anger camefrom.
That is where I can.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I can take your anger and raise it one, because as a
woman, I would be angry.
As a mother, I would be angryas a sexual being.
I am angry as a physiciantrained in women's health.
I was livid, so you would thinkI would have been taught this
right.
You would definitely think.
(18:25):
But I think the story of whenwe learn was aware of the
discrepancy between theprioritization of the penis and
the clitoris, and it was in 1988.
(18:48):
I was taking anatomy in medicalschool and we all were assigned
a cadaver, male or female.
All were assigned a cadaver,male or female.
And the anatomy professor, thisbuttoned up white guy, says now
when we get to the pelvis, ifthose of you lucky enough to
have a male cadaver, pleaseshare with the people who got a
(19:11):
female cadaver because, frankly,there's not much going on down
there.
Wow, can you imagine in ananatomy class?
So the whole semester the mannever said vagina, he never said
vulva, he never said clitoris.
He said move over to the malecadaver and learn from them.
(19:33):
So that was 1988.
And I mean that was my firstwake up that something's not
right.
Yeah, why don't?
Why do we not count?
We have babies through there.
Anyway, flash forward to meresearching this book and
learning that Grey's Anatomy themost esteemed anatomy textbook,
(19:58):
that right, leslie, everybodylearns Grey's.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Anatomy.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Grey's Anatomy this is G-R-A-Y not G-R-E-Y, G-R-A-Y.
G-r-a-y.
Yeah, not the show, although wecould probably learn about the
clitoris from that show.
Yeah, yeah, but anyway,probably more.
But Grey's Anatomy.
The esteemed textbook has 40something editions.
I'm gonna say 44, but I couldbe off there.
(20:23):
The correct anatomy of theclitoris was not included.
Hold this until 2005 edition.
They did not get the correctclitoral anatomy added to that
textbook until 2005.
Shame for shame.
That's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's gross.
It really is.
It really is.
That puts so much of how oursociety is structured into
perspective.
Just that fact alone, it is.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It speaks about the patriarchy For sure, because I
don't, they didn't miss it, itwasn't important it wasn't
important and it wasn'timportant enough to dissect.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like leslie will tell you, when you go through
medical school, you dissecteverything, everything, part of
the except the clitoris, exceptthe clitoris so no one had
dissect Except the clitoris.
Except the clitoris.
So no one had dissected theclitoris fully, fully.
People had made little thoughtsuntil well, she dissected it in
the late 90s, but she didn'treally get it right until it was
(21:32):
2005.
An Australian urologist thefirst urologist in Australia was
a woman named Helen O'Connell.
You can Google this.
It's an amazing story and shewas like this is weird.
How come nobody knows what thewhat's behind the little nub?
Gotta be something.
So she did MRIs on cadavers andthe MRI showed her that there
(21:58):
is an eight centimeter bilobedpenguin looking shape with two
arms and two bulbs, not sodifferent than the than a penis
with a scrotum, but ours is allinternal.
And when I say eightcentimeters, centimeters, you
guys should know, like, spreadyour fingers, that's, that's
(22:19):
huge.
Why that is that's huge.
Wow, nobody thinks that theirclitoris is bigger than their
finger tip.
Yeah, exactly, but that's trulythe tip of the iceberg and the
iceberg's almost all underwater,meaning almost all internal.
Yeah, but boy, does that have alot of nerve endings?
And that's another crazy story.
(22:41):
The full number of nerveendings was published last year,
2022.
You are lying, no.
And when I tell you what we'vebeen using, no, it was a gay
male plastic surgeon finally didmicroscopic evaluation and
found that the fingertip, whichwe all know is full of nerve
(23:05):
endings, has 4,000 nerve endings.
A penis has, I think I want tosay 10, 8 to 10,000.
Right the clitoris has closerto 15,000.
So it's more than the penis,more than a fingertip and thank
goodness for this plasticsurgeon.
Because guess what?
(23:25):
The figure that was in all ourtextbooks right, what?
Okay, this is the mic dropthing was not even from humans.
It was from the clitoris ofcows that the textbooks were
using a figure from cows yes,I'm not kidding if that doesn't
tell you that, that thepatriarchy in medicine hasn't
(23:51):
even valued us enough to usehuman tissue.
Just stick it in the.
Stick it in the textbook,nobody's gonna know.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, use a cow close enough, I don't even want to go
there right with the heiferright with you know what I was
thinking we even know about thespleen and I I still.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
You guys correct me whether it's been.
It's now understood whatpurpose the spleen has.
When I learned about it, it had, but we knew about the fucking
spleen and not about the organthat brings women and people
with vaginas pleasure.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Pleasure.
Female sexual pleasure has notbeen prioritized, has been
deprioritized, not for 10 years,not for 20, for millennia, for
millennia.
So these are messages passeddown century after century that
(24:49):
sex is for number oneprocreation.
We're the vessel for thatnumber two male pleasure penis
and vagina ejaculate malepleasure easy.
And it's like they forgot therest of the story you know, I
don't think they forget.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I think I think that it that is deliberate, I think
that, um, it's one of thosethings.
If there was ever somediscovery of it, they just
covered it up.
I I can't imagine, because ifyou're doing surgeries down
there and you guys tell me if Igot this, what, what is to make
sure that you're not cutting, orwhat is to make sure that
(25:27):
you're not in some way damagingthis organ, if you don't even
recognize its existence as apart of our, an important part
of our?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
bodies Because the damage isn't considered
important.
Look at female genitalmutilation.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yes, I was thinking about that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
There are 200 million women worldwide who have been
mutilated as of 2023.
That is an enormous.
That is not a rare thing.
That's enormous.
And the fact that all thosewomen are intentionally having
those nerves destroyed tells youthat female pleasure in some
cultures is actually maybe athreat.
I know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You have to hide that .
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Sorry to cut you off, but I actually heard that that
was practice here untildefinitely the 20th century,
here until definitely the 20thcentury.
Because, you know, just likeother parts of our body, like
the penis, for example,different shapes and sizes right
(26:28):
, they all basically are thesame, but they have different
shapes and sizes.
Same with the clitoris, andwhen they were considered,
considered bigger, I'd read thatthey thought those people were
hermaphrodites and they theywould cut them.
So it's it's.
It may have been a culturalpractice.
Um, it may be a culturalpractice, but it was not off the
(26:51):
table in the united states ofAmerica, either as something
that was discounted or somethingto be erased because it doesn't
have value.
So I just, probably in the lastfew months, read that.
So I just wanted to insert thatthere too, because you know we
(27:12):
sometimes are aghast at thingsthat happen elsewhere.
I was just going to say, youknow what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That gives us permission to ostracize other
cultures if we call it medical.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yes, right.
Well, do you want to hearsomething, leslie?
Overseas, mostly in Africa, butin the Middle East as well, a
huge percentage of the femalegenital mutilation is done by
clinics or clinicians.
Not because it's medical,because the families now think
they're evolved.
So instead of having your auntdo it in a field, I'm going to
(27:50):
take you to the clinic so thedoctor can sew you up properly
or whatever.
But like two wrongs don't makea right.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Sure, sure, absolutely, and that's happening
in our country.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Just I've had a couple of patients um, I believe
they were from africa who'vehad the?
Um clitoridectomies and thedegree of scarring and
mutilation and the?
Um difficult menstruation withthe area that's just closed and
(28:22):
it's just awful trying to do anycorrective procedures on people
you know.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Very awful and the emotional trauma is enormous and
the stigma and the shame, butthat's.
I think we're kind of gettingto a very dark place.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, let's talk about the pleasure part.
Can we pivot to pleasure please?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, we're going to getting to a very dark place.
Can we pivot to pleasure?
Yes, yeah, we're gonna pivot topleasure.
And we were saying, there's lotsof nerve endings.
That's good, I think, animportant thing, though, because
pleasure eludes a lot of women,and for different reasons.
Okay, I get women coming inevery day saying I can't have an
orgasm, or I've never had anorgasm, or I'm in menopause.
(29:01):
Now my orgasms are wimpy,they're a thing of the past.
So I think it's kind ofimportant to to understand a
couple things.
One is that the clitoris isresponsive to testosterone.
It's a, it's the homologue ofthe penis, right?
So, believe it or not, as welose estrogen and menopause, we
(29:22):
lose a little testosterone aswell.
We don't have much testosteronewe have about a tenth of what
men have but when we lose thatlittle smidge and it goes from a
little bit to a smidge that canhave profound effects on libido
but also on sexual performance.
(29:42):
And then when we lose estrogenas well, there are estrogen
receptors all around theclitoris as well.
So the clitoris actually hasfewer nerve endings.
So less pleasure istheoretically an outcome and
fewer blood vessels.
So it's not.
If that's you and if you feelthat your orgasms have changed
(30:06):
to just become I call it wimpy,but more faint or take longer or
something, there's nothingnecessarily wrong with you.
That's the biology of aging.
The good news is a littletopical estrogen can help that
and it's perfectly safe.
It does not cause cancer.
Topical estrogen has beenaround since 1946, has been
(30:28):
studied since 1946.
And it's hard to say the wordnever in medicine, but I can say
it here it has never been shownto be associated with breast
cancer or any cancer.
Now I'm talking about topicalvaginal estrogen.
I'm not talking about pills andsomething systemic and it takes
(30:50):
about three months, but it'shelpful.
And if that's not enough help,there is and this is another
patriarchal, horrible, obviousthing there is no FDA approved
testosterone for women in thiscountry.
I'm going to ask you that.
Now there is in other countries, but in our country we do not
(31:11):
have it.
It doesn't exist and it's soexpensive to get a new drug to
market and no one seems to wantto invest the probably several
hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Because, of course, our sexual pleasure comes from a
man.
It comes from penetration.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
It's the only way, right what?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
else is there?
Wasn't it Freud who said thatif women don't have an orgasm
that way, something's wrong withthem, literally, I think?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
he said they were crazy.
Yes, freud said us that backmore than almost anyone, because
he said you have to have aorgasm only from vaginal
penetration or you're not amature, evolved woman.
So let's just call bullshit onthat right now I'm sure he, you
know, made other amazingcontributions to psychiatric
(32:00):
literature.
But that was he had his ownissues with women.
And here's the irony what Freuddidn't know is that because the
clitoris anatomically is allbehind and wrapped around the
vagina, the 20 percent of womenwho do have vaginal orgasms are
actually stimulating theclitoris through the vaginal
(32:20):
walls, so they're all clitoral.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Even vaginal orgasms are clitoral.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So sorry, siggy, you are so wrong about that Sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Siggy.
No, you did not say that.
That's going to be like hashtag.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Sorry, Siggy like hashtag, sorry, sorry.
Well, he did a lot of damagebecause women then felt they
were broken if they couldn'thave an orgasm vaginally.
And that's another myth we haveto bust today.
Have to on this program.
Bust that you not having anorgasm from penetration does not
(32:55):
mean something's wrong with you.
It means you're in the group of80 plus percent women on the
planet who can only have anorgasm from clitoral stimulation
with a finger, a mouth, avibrator, a strap on.
I don't care and it doesn'tmatter, but there's nothing
wrong with you.
And if you feel you'restruggling to climax or
(33:16):
struggling to have what you wantto have, I think it's okay to
go back to basics.
It's okay to say I'm not goingto worry about what happens with
my partner.
I'm going to take a shower or abath and I'm going to touch
myself and figure out what feelsgood, what doesn't and what
feels good and how does thatfeel?
(33:37):
what feels good, what doesn'tand what feels good and how does
that feel.
Is it pressure, is it water?
Is it my finger, is itsomething?
And find the courage, maybetalk in the mirror first, or to
your black boomer bestie and saythis is a practice, you got to
practice.
Yeah, I, I.
You know you're not complainingand you're not going to hurt
(33:58):
anybody's feelings.
A smart man wants you to havepleasure and say this is what
feels good and this doesn't.
If you're not sure and youthink something's wrong, you
know you can go to an OBGYN tocheck it out, although now we
know many OBGYNs are not welltrained in sexual health.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And that brings up another question what if you
need more than a gynecologist?
Or what if your gynecologist iskind of lame and says, I don't
know, drink wine.
Yeah, you know there are sexualsex.
Well, I've heard this a hundredtimes.
When we come in and say my gynsaid he just tells his wife to
drink wine before sex, and Ithought, oh, my god, where do I
(34:39):
start?
First of all, not medical, notclinical, insult, disrespecting.
It's like mrs doubtfire,remember mrs doubtfire?
She said mr doubtfire's God,you know, like brace yourself.
(35:03):
Okay, we got to do better thanthat.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And doctors, have to do better, and doctors have to
do better, because if peoplecome to us for help, it's up to
us then to get the informationif we don't already have it.
You're right to us then to getthe information if we don't
already have it.
You're right.
Obviously, in medical school Itoo did not learn about the
clitoris, not much about thevagina.
I did definitely had a malecadaver.
(35:27):
Yeah, it wasn't stressed, youknow, because that part is not
important, right?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
And you know, as of today, 2023, two thirds of all
training programs still don'thave a single lecture on
menopause, much less sexualhealth.
So we're failing.
We've got to revamp this.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And that's why you have to create practices like
yours.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I wish there were more yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, I think women have to demand it too, right?
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not goingback to you.
I found this other place thattreats, treats my entire body.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
And it's never been considered that.
It's been considered someprivate thing or fun thing.
And we know there are plenty ofstudies that show that sexual
health promotes, reducesdepression, reduces heart
disease, increases longevity.
I mean these are real studies,these are real medical studies
(36:34):
and I mean, heck, that's a goodreason to have an active and
prolonged sex life.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
We're all looking at health optimization, right, and
remember women, as we've justheard about all of these nerve
endings that can happen with orwithout a partner.
You don't have to only getthese benefits with someone
alongside you.
You can get them on your own.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
However you want, with help or without, you can do
it.
You can do it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And sex toys have really come back in vogue.
They kind of tend to come inand out of favor.
There has been an explosion ofcompanies designing and selling
all kinds of sex toys and I usedto do this for a Swedish
company and it's really fun andone of the trends is that you
used to do what for the Swedishcompany I used to design, were
(37:29):
you a?
Demonstrator.
No, I was a designer.
Well, you're the model myhusband was wishing I would
bring them all home.
I think my husband was wishingI would bring them all home, but
the point is that they used toall look like penises because
they were all designed by men.
Now many sex toys are not sothreatening looking.
They puff air or they vibrateor radio waves, and they're for
(37:58):
the clitoris, but they're alsofor the vulvas, for the breast,
for the thighs.
So I tell patients, if you'reintimidated by that, I give them
homework.
I say I want you to do G-ratedmasturbation.
They say what's that?
I say it's non-genital.
I want you to take that littlevibrating thing that looks like
a mouse for your computer,because they don't look like
penises, and in the shower useit on your legs or your arms and
(38:20):
see what feels good.
And don't give yourself thepressure of I have to have an
orgasm, that's yes.
Yeah, for that you know sure,sure that's another hashtag.
Derated masturbation yes, forsure.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now that reminds me like this type of thing would be
so helpful for those patientsof ours that come in where their
cultural beliefs dictate thatthey are not supposed to.
Now, this is now.
We're now internalizing it,because I guess they've been
grown up or taught this orwhatever that they're not
supposed to experience pleasurefrom.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, I don't know where that is in the case, Les.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So gynecologic exams are difficult for them and
anxiety provoking, as you canimagine.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, you know, it's like anything below the waist is
taboo.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, but, les, I mean we've, we've.
Well, I grew up partially inJamaica and partially in the
United States.
I think that that is soabsolutely here also, it's not,
it's not an other thing, it'sthis, that's how, that's how I
was raised, that's how I felt,you know, there's nothing.
I've lived america for almost50, over 50 years now, so it's,
(39:37):
it's, it's.
It's a part of our, um, how weare socialized, also very much
so I don't think.
Do you think that that is notso in america?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
it is no, that's, but we don't want to admit that
we're going to admit it here.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
We're not going to, just, you know, use that crazy
talk.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
We're going to do crazy talk.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It's like go get it together.
Can't you all catch up toAmerica?
Hell, no.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, I had a patient who was Catholic from Ireland
yeah, this isn't castingjudgment, it's just giving color
and she told me in Catholicschool they were taught that the
girls were taught, not the boys.
They separated them for thislesson because the boys
masturbation is is fine, it'sjust what boys do.
(40:26):
But for the girls they weretaught masturbation was a bigger
sin than murder, murder tolittle girls.
They told that.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
So how do you undo that type of damage?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Wow, oh no.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah no no, you help normalize it.
You help them say you'reentitled.
God, you know what I did?
This woman was very religious.
So I met her where she was andI said, well, god designed your
body.
She said, yes, god designed mybody.
And I had to say that because Iknew that's what she believed.
So I had to meet her where shewas.
(41:03):
Yes, I said now, would Goddesign something whose sole
function was pleasure?
Yes, if pleasure was bad, right, she said was pleasure.
Yes, if pleasure was bad, right, she said.
You know, I guess not exactlyshe said I guess that pleasure
is part of god's plan.
I said yes, it is, because heallows pleasure for men.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And I was um, I was desperate, desperate to help her
, so I had to think about whatis exactly true what would click
, you know?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
yeah, man, that's out of the box thinking that is so
common in your practice.
And, as I said, we've beenworking together way over 10
years, probably about 14.
And always, always, you, justyou know it's funny.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
You mentioned Catholicism and I'm going to
broaden it to Christianity.
What the Bible does talk aboutis male masturbation being
because it's it's wasting theit's wasting.
Let's say so.
That's their issue.
That's that's not our issue,Even in the Bible.
(42:09):
That's not our issue.
All the other stuff is is man'sstuff that is put upon um women
?
Um, it is, it is not.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
That is not biblical not in the bible that I've read
and read and read yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
So anyway, um question about um, how did you
come to contribute a chapter toa book and what was the book in
its entirety about?
Well, talk about the TED.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Talk, yeah.
So the book is a book writtenby me.
The book is my book.
It's not published yet I'msearching for a publisher but
the book is about sex in midlifeand what happens to sex in
midlife and what it says aboutus as a society.
But the chapter I'm referringto talks about the history of
(43:02):
the clitoris and how it goesfrom the Egyptians to the Greeks
to the Renaissance and how evenfamous anatomists were denying
it you, you know, and eventhough their little nobody
assistants would sneak in anight and try to dissect it and
say, um, um, I think there'ssomething there, and they say,
hush, nothing for women.
So I do a little chapter on thehistory of the clitoris and and
(43:25):
why it's been so delayed andand really what that says about
us.
So that's within this biggerbook talking about the disparity
between sexual expectations andcapabilities between men and
women in midlife.
That gets why accidental?
(43:46):
No, it's.
It's there from the startbecause of how we learn and
what's okay and masturbation andpleasure and all that.
And then in midlife, because welose estrogen, vaginal walls
get thin, blood vessels go away,collagen degrades, that gap
widens.
So I felt this was worthy of abook.
I felt there were 40 millionAmerican women with sexual
(44:10):
issues directly related tomenopause.
Right now, today, 40 million,40 million and globally there
are 500 million women withmenopause related sexual issues.
So I feel like this is too biga crowd to ignore any longer.
Absolutely, so I'm excited toget that published and maybe
I'll come back on once it does.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
That would be fantastic.
We have um, a friend of theshow called um.
She has a.
It was a only a podcast, butit's it's, it's, it's really
blown up.
Her um, her um mission, um isis called um, um black girl's to
(44:52):
Surviving Menopause.
So it kind of first focused onpeople who were experiencing
menopause but now it's becomethis intergenerational movement,
if you will, because you knowwe don't know that much about
menopause, because you know wedon't know that much about
(45:14):
menopause.
And imagine those younger womenwho, younger people with
vaginas I have to just make surethat I include non-binary folks
also that.
What are they looking forwardto?
It's all gloom and doom, yeah,unless we get the new
information about that.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be.
If we can educate and beeducated, no one's coming down
the bike and it allows us toadvocate for ourselves and be
sexually more open with ourpartners and say, look, you know
how I liked it like this at 35?
Well, now I'm 48.
Things don't feel the same andlet's be creative together, you
(45:56):
know.
But instead women hold all thatshame and guilt in and they
come into my office and say I'mbroken and I'm ruining it for
him.
They always tell me I'm ruiningit for him and it's a horrible
thing to hear.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, Wow, and they had to have felt that for a
while to bring it to theirphysician you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
That's right, right, and to feel safe enough to bring
it to their physician.
Sure, thank god, that's goodenough yes well, my god.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
I'm hoping it'll it'll help with that.
I know I do sometimes.
I'm a guest on this Sirius XMshow, Dr Radio.
I know.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, Out of NYU right.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yes, so she has me on a lot and whenever I do that
show, the next day the phonerings off the hook in the office
.
I live in Indiana and I'mgetting in the car and driving,
my staff are like wait a minute,wait a a minute.
Why?
Because because they feel theyhaven't been hurt.
They've been going to theirOB-GYN getting told to drink
(46:57):
wine and yeah, and they feellike wait, there is something
wrong and there is something youcan do and they want it.
You know, everyone thinks thatwomen just lose all their drive.
Yeah, not every woman losestheir drive and some women want
to be intimate at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
They want it, or that loss of, or perceived loss of
drive is due to that discomfortand the pain that's right, so
they're like I guess it's overfor me.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Right, and so we always start with fixing the
pain first.
We fix the tissue, make thevaginal epithelium thicker,
healthier, stretchier, bringback the blood vessels, bring
back moisture.
We do this either with vaginalestrogen or vaginal prostorone
it's another hormone that doesthis or an oral medication,
(47:48):
ospamiphene, that turns onestrogen receptors in the vagina
, or we have a laser that westarted in our office.
It needs more research, not Iknow it works, but it should
have bigger studies to be usedmore widely.
But it's been wonderful.
It creates new blood vesselsand creates new collagen and
(48:10):
it's been great.
So have like four options, uh,to really make the tissue better
.
Once we do that, then we cansay okay, is your libido still
rotten?
If so, let's talk about how wemake that better.
And sometimes the libido getsbetter as soon as the pain is
gone because who nobody wants to, everybody runs away from pain.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Right, right, well, I am.
I am so grateful that you aredoing the work that you're doing
.
I must also say that I am notone of those women who have
issues there.
I am amazingly able to bepleasure, okay, I have no,
(49:03):
there's no.
You know, and I want to saythat too, for those of us who
fall into the to the category ofhaving a beautiful, pleasurable
, um body, um, that that thatthat we're here also, it does
not, it's not a a given thatthis happens with, with aging,
with aging.
(49:23):
Even if it happens, um, youknow, the majority of the time,
it doesn't have to be that wayfor you, yeah, yeah, so, um no,
no, but if you are, it isimprovable.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I think yes, and you should seek that.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You should seek that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
And if your mother had breast cancer, that does not
mean it's contraindicated foryou.
I wish I had a quarter forevery time a woman said I wish I
could take vaginal estrogen,but my mom had breast cancer so
I can't.
That's one, doesn't equateeither.
It doesn't.
Your mom having breast canceris a different human being and
(50:04):
even if it raises your breastcancer risk a tiny bit, why is
it still okay for you to takevaginal estrogen?
Because it's been studied for70 years and never, ever ever
been shown to be linked tobreast cancer.
So that if you leave withnothing else today but the
knowledge that vaginal estrogenis safe for you, whether your
(50:27):
mom had breast cancer or not,you'll be doing yourself a huge
favor in terms of advocating foryour own health and sexual
pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, we're gonna keep talking about it, that's
all.
We just have to keep talkingabout it because people need to
hear it and people don't know.
I've learned so much in thelast 45 minutes.
It's like you know, I wentthrough several years of medical
school and anatomy class andwhatever.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
I cannot wait.
Listen publishers, get to it,get to it.
There's a book that we need.
We need, yeah, get to it.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, I agree, I think it will ring for people.
I think they will.
They will nod and understand it.
Ring for people.
I think they will nod andunderstand it.
I can't thank you all enoughfor having me.
This has been just great.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
I'm glad that the schedule worked out and we were
able to talk to you, and it waswonderful seeing you.
I didn't work with youyesterday, but I was looking
forward to seeing you today,yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
I knew I was getting my Leslie fix this week Exactly.
Angela thank you for agreeingwith Leslie's idea.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Oh my gosh, I hope we'll get to meet in person.
You were meant to be here.
Yes, for sure, you were aprayer answered for me.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Speaking of prayer answered.
I told you that we have aspiritual connection.
So, in reaching to the storyabout the clitoris for me,
speaking of prayer answered.
I told you that we have aspiritual connection.
So in addition to the storyabout the clitoris.
I went in to work with Mariaone day and I said to her I got
news for you.
We have a date Omari's gettinga kidney, I'm donating and
(52:12):
Omari's getting a kidney.
I'm donating and Omari'sgetting a kidney.
And Maria said you know,yesterday I had a dream that
Omari got a kidney.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Wow, and I almost didn't tell you because I'd been
hoping and praying for it tooand I thought it's not going to
happen.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I mean, he's been on dialysis for six years.
She waited for me to tell herthat he had a date and she said
yesterday I had a dream about it.
Why would she be dreaming aboutOmari and his kidney, just out
of the blue?
Speaker 3 (52:53):
I know and actually you said I have news.
And I said, well, I have newstoo.
And I said, go ahead, you gofirst, because I wanted to tell
her about the dream, the dream,but I was afraid it would upset
her and so I thought, you know,if her news is really bad, I I'm
going to not tell her.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
But, I don't believe in coincidences.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So this has been wonderful.
I love you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Love you too, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
This has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties
from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
Hey Ant.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, les, listen, guys, we are going to be taking
a little break, we need avacation, and so we thought we
would bring back some earlyepisodes that you've enjoyed.
So we're going to bring backsome episodes from our season
(00:24):
two and season four.
The first one let me just giveyou a warning we're going to be
talking about a part of the bodythat a lot of people associate
with taboos and shame, and alsopleasure and intimacy, and we
(00:48):
see it as a part of the body,just like all the parts of the
body, as being God-given.
And so Leslie's going to talkabout the guests that we had on
for this episode.
Who did we have on us?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So we introduced Dr Maria Sophocles.
She's a board certified OB-GYNphysician and I've actually
known Maria probably upwards of20 years by now.
Um and I came to know her andwe became close to the point
(01:27):
where we're really good friends.
And Maria over the years hasreally, in addition to a
thriving um medical practice inPrinceton, new Jersey, she has
really transitioned her careerand developed her career into a
(01:47):
very niche area.
She talks about women's femalesexuality after 50,
perimenopausal sexuality, andshe also is very direct and
intentional about teaching aboutfemale pleasure.
(02:10):
Yes, female sexual pleasure.
So you can only imagine thewonderful conversations that she
and I have while I'm providinganesthesia and she's doing dying
procedures in the office.
In fact, she has been in withone of the early developments of
(02:31):
a line of vibrators and sextoys which are proudly displayed
in every room in her office.
So it's a very interestingplace to be and very female
centered and empowered.
So this episode we talk alittle bit about the clitoris
(02:53):
and my co-host here.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I've got a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
She hasn't calmed down about it yet.
Just a little bit, so we hopeyou enjoy the rewatch of this
episode and be sure to leavecomments and let us know what
you think now.
Thank you Well, hello.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Hello, let's do a doubt, mrs Doubtfire.
Hello, let's do a doubt, mrsDoubtfire.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Look at us, here we are again, and I'm so excited.
I'm always excited.
Actually, excited is mybaseline.
So, I'm at my baselineexcitement.
No, I'm a little bit above that, actually.
So welcome to another episodeof Black Boomer Besties from
Brooklyn, brooklyn, brooklyn.
All right, ask me why I'mexcited, ange.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Leslie, why are you excited?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Because I have a gorgeous young lady here that is
our guest today and she's goingto excite us in a way that oh,
that was an interesting choiceof words, that was a good one.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, pun intended, pun intended.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And I'm going to tell you why I'm excited, but later,
because I am, I think, doublyexcited.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Okay, so you'll hear that story, all right.
Just, no funny noises from thatcorner.
I can make as many funny noisesas I choose.
I'm a grown-ass woman.
Okay, that's true, that's true.
Okay, so the beautiful lady inthe coral shirt is dr maria
(04:39):
sophocles.
You're gonna find out about herand you're to love her as much
as I've loved her.
For what I know.
It's well over 10 years, but itcould be about 14 years that
we've been working side by sidetogether it's.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
It's felt like two years.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Oh well, yeah, yeah and and and you and I have a
psychic connection that I'mgoing to mention also because I
was thinking about it earlier.
But I'm going to read your bioa little bit.
Dr Maria Sophocles is a boardcertified OB-GYN with more than
25 years of medical experience.
She is the medical director ofWomen's Health Care of Princeton
(05:19):
, a progressive and innovativewomen's health practice in
Princeton, new Jersey.
That's an understatement.
Dr Sophocles understands thespectrum of issues women face,
from their teens throughpost-menopause.
Women of any age want aphysician they can trust.
Dr Sophocles says I spend timewith my patients so they can
(05:43):
share intimate issues andcomplex problems.
That's just a tidbit of who sheis and what she does.
So let me just set the stage.
When you walk into her office,it's a beautiful, women-led and
forward office with warm,soothing colors.
(06:04):
It does not look like a medicalpractice at all and there are
these giant photographs of womenof all stages, races, diversity
and colors and just the mood isjust calm and so inviting.
(06:25):
And when I hear from herpatients who they become our
patients, the things that theysay about you are just, it's
just wonderful, very special,very special so.
I'll turn it over to you tointroduce yourself and say a
(06:46):
little bit about who you are andwhat you do.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Well, first, thank you so much, leslie and Angela,
for having me.
I'm not from Brooklyn.
I wish I was a black bestie,but I am a kind of a boomer.
So I hit two of the four andI'm just so happy to be here.
I, I love, um, the womanconnection.
(07:11):
I love that.
I think this is a forum for open, honest conversation and boy do
women need that.
Boy, have we been put intoboxes and told to behave and be
quiet and be nice?
And you know, I know the phrase, you know good, nice women
rarely make history.
(07:31):
But there's nothing wrong withbeing nice.
But there's also nothing wrongwith advocating for yourself and
for feeling like you want tohear from others who are going
through the same thing, or justto learn something.
And that's always been themission of my practice.
Women's Healthcare of Princetonis a progressive place for open
(07:53):
communication where there is nojudgment based on race, religion
, gender identity, anything likethat.
So it's a place women have feltsafe to come be themselves,
express themselves, find out whothey are or redefine who they
are.
And I've been so lucky, luckyto know Leslie for so long and
(08:16):
watch her.
Just you know weave herclinical magic and you know you
all think of her as a podcaster,but I know her as this
spectacular and empathicanesthesiologist who takes
people at their most vulnerableand their most terrified and
makes them feel they're safe andthey're cared for and lets me
(08:38):
be able to do my thing with themand help them.
And so she's just been a lovelycolleague for me, but more like
a clinical sister really.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, we've been a really good team and the
patients say all the time howhelpful it is.
Let me just give you a littletidbit into her office.
When you come in and you knowhow in an office you need to
disrobe, you'll get a warmedrobe in practice no way.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and you'll say I've never had that before.
Why would you not want that?
Why would you not?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
want that.
It's unheard of.
Yeah, but why wouldn't you?
Now that you've said it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, I always think about what would I want.
And they're cold.
Offices are cold so thatthey're clean, but cold just
adds to your anxiety.
So I feel like warm is such asimple soothing thing speakers,
(09:46):
that they can speak into to getthe music they like.
And I remember one woman camein covered in tattoos and nose
ring and earrings and I thought,oh, I wonder what music she'll
choose.
And she said I'm really nervous.
Could I, could I get FrankSinatra?
Really?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Okay, I didn't mean to be so judgmental.
You cannot judge a book.
You cannot judge a book by itscover.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I did it.
I was so ashamed of myself.
She said I just need some FrankSinatra.
I said okay, but thanks, welove it.
It's been there 15 years.
We have 25,000 patients fromall over the country, but mostly
from the Northeast.
Women come from far awaybecause we don't do any
obstetrics, it's only gynecology, and it focuses on the things
(10:31):
that fall under the radar in atraditional OBGYN practice, such
as pediatric and adolescentgynecology.
You know kids and teens needhelp too sometimes, and their
pediatricians often don't knowhow to help.
Menopause is, of course, thebiggest that's a big deal for
that you deal with yes, and inour office we pioneered the use
(10:52):
of a laser that regeneratesvaginal tissue is the first
office in the country to havethis.
So women find that out so theycome to have bladder help or
sexual discomfort helped, skindiseases of the vulva helped.
We take care of urology.
We take care of geriatrics andpelvic pain, terrible pain
(11:12):
syndromes that really need time.
So I decided just to collectall those little things that a
regular practice doesn't want todo in depth and just train for
gosh.
I probably spent a decade goingaround the country training
with the experts and all thesethings and then bringing that
back to Princeton and thentraining six women under me to
(11:34):
do it too.
So it is different.
I mean, we do regular PAPs,checkups, but we we like to
focus on these little things.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The different things yeah.
Yeah, they won't necessarilyget in another place.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And I wonder, you have 25,000.
I mean, yeah, 25.
Let's call that 25,001, becauseI will oh, I will be reaching
out to you.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
I'm sorry you have to get 25,000, angel, I forgot to
tell you that.
No, no, it's a very special,it's a very special place and
(12:26):
I'm not modest about it at all.
But because we hear every dayand Leslie hears this too, you
know, thank you, I've been tofive doctors.
Or thank you, I'm a trans womanand I was actually excused from
three practices.
Or thank you, I have severepain and I've just been told it
was a yeast infection for 10years.
So it's really gratifying to tonot dismiss and brush off and
to to listen and to give peoplepermission.
I mean, those are the twothings that are critical, I
think.
So it's, yeah, it's been ajourney for me, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
There's a room in her practice that has a showcase
full of dildos and stimulationtoys.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Sex toys.
Sex toys, yes, and excuse me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Leslie were you trying to find a?
You package it, Leslie.
Were you trying to find a?
You package it.
Were you trying to package thatinto a clinical way?
Little OK, OK.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
This doesn't all have to be.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
If I may.
If I may, let me jump in andexplain how, at least from my
vantage point, how this all cameto be, because there was this
cataclysmic occurrence thatbrought you to in my age group
to push their comfort aroundtheir sexuality a bit.
(13:57):
That I ended up is the TEDTalks site and I stumbled upon
this TED Talk by Maria Roszakabout the clitoris and let me
tell you, when I first saw thatorgan not the tip of the organ
(14:26):
but the entirety of the organ Igot so angry that in my at that
time, 58, 59 years on the planetthat that was withheld from me
in all of the education thatI've had being a mother, all of
those things, times three, thatthat had never been shown to me.
(14:52):
I was so angry.
I was so angry and Leslie, ofcourse, heard about it, because
I speak to Leslie at least oftenabout it, so you did start
talking about the clitoris.
And Les did you know, yes, andthen wait, wait, wait, hold on.
And then for our Patreon, whichis where our subscribers get
(15:17):
extra content through asubscription service called
Patreon.
I put a question to ask forsome topics that they would want
to see for this season, ourseason four, and one of the
topic suggestions that I gave isdo you want to hear about
women's sexual health?
I think I may have mentionedclitoris specifically, and that
(15:39):
is what was the most thing thingthing asked for, right?
And then, leslie, you can takeit from here, because that all
all happened, and then, okay, goahead so I told you, maria and
I have a cosmic spiritualconnection yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I don't know where it comes from.
She's a white, greek beautifullady.
I'm a black boomer fromBrooklyn.
But we get into theseconversations and the
similarities and and we like seeeach other eye to eye I
mentioned.
I said you know, maria, youshould come on our podcast at
(16:19):
some point.
My co-host is always talkingabout the clitoris and she's
saying about this and that andwhatever.
Maria stops me and says.
I just turned in a chapter in abook about the clitoris, like
probably days prior to thisconversation yeah, exactly what
(16:45):
she was talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
It was like I had just spent the last couple weeks
immersed in all this detail.
Now I've forgotten it allalready.
I'm sorry guys.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
No, no, but just a tenth of it that you remember
will be more than good yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Otherwise, everyone will go to sleep.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
So I'm like, and this is big you know it's big.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, yeah, it's big.
I am so looking forward to this.
You, you have.
You have no idea, you have noidea.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Specifically.
I'll say what made you angryand is how one that we.
This is not an organ that wehear about.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
It's an enemy.
Well, when you hear about it,you hear about the almost, the
smallness of it is something,this little thing, or it's this
point, or it's this.
I know everything about thepenis.
I know everything about thepenis and everything about the
penis, and I know everyone.
I mean it's in every medicalbook it's on.
(17:42):
You know the, the.
I could sketch it out, you, yousee how many works of art and
how many works of art.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
How many sculptures over centuries and millennia
have we seen with?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
a penis, it's you.
You would have to be deaf, dumband blind, exactly so.
That is where my anger camefrom.
That is where I can.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I can take your anger and raise it one, because as a
woman, I would be angry.
As a mother, I would be angryas a sexual being.
I am angry as a physiciantrained in women's health.
I was livid, so you would thinkI would have been taught this
right.
You would definitely think.
(18:25):
But I think the story of whenwe learn was aware of the
discrepancy between theprioritization of the penis and
the clitoris, and it was in 1988.
(18:48):
I was taking anatomy in medicalschool and we all were assigned
a cadaver, male or female.
All were assigned a cadaver,male or female.
And the anatomy professor, thisbuttoned up white guy, says now
when we get to the pelvis, ifthose of you lucky enough to
have a male cadaver, pleaseshare with the people who got a
(19:11):
female cadaver because, frankly,there's not much going on down
there.
Wow, can you imagine in ananatomy class?
So the whole semester the mannever said vagina, he never said
vulva, he never said clitoris.
He said move over to the malecadaver and learn from them.
(19:33):
So that was 1988.
And I mean that was my firstwake up that something's not
right.
Yeah, why don't?
Why do we not count?
We have babies through there.
Anyway, flash forward to meresearching this book and
learning that Grey's Anatomy themost esteemed anatomy textbook,
(19:58):
that right, leslie, everybodylearns Grey's.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Anatomy.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Grey's Anatomy this is G-R-A-Y not G-R-E-Y, G-R-A-Y.
G-r-a-y.
Yeah, not the show, although wecould probably learn about the
clitoris from that show.
Yeah, yeah, but anyway,probably more.
But Grey's Anatomy.
The esteemed textbook has 40something editions.
I'm gonna say 44, but I couldbe off there.
(20:23):
The correct anatomy of theclitoris was not included.
Hold this until 2005 edition.
They did not get the correctclitoral anatomy added to that
textbook until 2005.
Shame for shame.
That's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
That's gross.
It really is.
It really is.
That puts so much of how oursociety is structured into
perspective.
Just that fact alone, it is.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It speaks about the patriarchy For sure, because I
don't, they didn't miss it, itwasn't important it wasn't
important and it wasn'timportant enough to dissect.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like leslie will tell you, when you go through
medical school, you dissecteverything, everything, part of
the except the clitoris, exceptthe clitoris so no one had
dissect Except the clitoris.
Except the clitoris.
So no one had dissected theclitoris fully, fully.
People had made little thoughtsuntil well, she dissected it in
the late 90s, but she didn'treally get it right until it was
(21:32):
2005.
An Australian urologist thefirst urologist in Australia was
a woman named Helen O'Connell.
You can Google this.
It's an amazing story and shewas like this is weird.
How come nobody knows what thewhat's behind the little nub?
Gotta be something.
So she did MRIs on cadavers andthe MRI showed her that there
(21:58):
is an eight centimeter bilobedpenguin looking shape with two
arms and two bulbs, not sodifferent than the than a penis
with a scrotum, but ours is allinternal.
And when I say eightcentimeters, centimeters, you
guys should know, like, spreadyour fingers, that's, that's
(22:19):
huge.
Why that is that's huge.
Wow, nobody thinks that theirclitoris is bigger than their
finger tip.
Yeah, exactly, but that's trulythe tip of the iceberg and the
iceberg's almost all underwater,meaning almost all internal.
Yeah, but boy, does that have alot of nerve endings?
And that's another crazy story.
(22:41):
The full number of nerveendings was published last year,
2022.
You are lying, no.
And when I tell you what we'vebeen using, no, it was a gay
male plastic surgeon finally didmicroscopic evaluation and
found that the fingertip, whichwe all know is full of nerve
(23:05):
endings, has 4,000 nerve endings.
A penis has, I think I want tosay 10, 8 to 10,000.
Right the clitoris has closerto 15,000.
So it's more than the penis,more than a fingertip and thank
goodness for this plasticsurgeon.
Because guess what?
(23:25):
The figure that was in all ourtextbooks right, what?
Okay, this is the mic dropthing was not even from humans.
It was from the clitoris ofcows that the textbooks were
using a figure from cows yes,I'm not kidding if that doesn't
tell you that, that thepatriarchy in medicine hasn't
(23:51):
even valued us enough to usehuman tissue.
Just stick it in the.
Stick it in the textbook,nobody's gonna know.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, use a cow close enough, I don't even want to go
there right with the heiferright with you know what I was
thinking we even know about thespleen and I I still.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
You guys correct me whether it's been.
It's now understood whatpurpose the spleen has.
When I learned about it, it had, but we knew about the fucking
spleen and not about the organthat brings women and people
with vaginas pleasure.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Pleasure.
Female sexual pleasure has notbeen prioritized, has been
deprioritized, not for 10 years,not for 20, for millennia, for
millennia.
So these are messages passeddown century after century that
(24:49):
sex is for number oneprocreation.
We're the vessel for thatnumber two male pleasure penis
and vagina ejaculate malepleasure easy.
And it's like they forgot therest of the story you know, I
don't think they forget.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I think I think that it that is deliberate, I think
that, um, it's one of thosethings.
If there was ever somediscovery of it, they just
covered it up.
I I can't imagine, because ifyou're doing surgeries down
there and you guys tell me if Igot this, what, what is to make
sure that you're not cutting, orwhat is to make sure that
(25:27):
you're not in some way damagingthis organ, if you don't even
recognize its existence as apart of our, an important part
of our?
Speaker 3 (25:36):
bodies Because the damage isn't considered
important.
Look at female genitalmutilation.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yes, I was thinking about that.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
There are 200 million women worldwide who have been
mutilated as of 2023.
That is an enormous.
That is not a rare thing.
That's enormous.
And the fact that all thosewomen are intentionally having
those nerves destroyed tells youthat female pleasure in some
cultures is actually maybe athreat.
I know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You have to hide that .
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Sorry to cut you off, but I actually heard that that
was practice here untildefinitely the 20th century,
here until definitely the 20thcentury.
Because, you know, just likeother parts of our body, like
the penis, for example,different shapes and sizes right
(26:28):
, they all basically are thesame, but they have different
shapes and sizes.
Same with the clitoris, andwhen they were considered,
considered bigger, I'd read thatthey thought those people were
hermaphrodites and they theywould cut them.
So it's it's.
It may have been a culturalpractice.
Um, it may be a culturalpractice, but it was not off the
(26:51):
table in the united states ofAmerica, either as something
that was discounted or somethingto be erased because it doesn't
have value.
So I just, probably in the lastfew months, read that.
So I just wanted to insert thatthere too, because you know we
(27:12):
sometimes are aghast at thingsthat happen elsewhere.
I was just going to say, youknow what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That gives us permission to ostracize other
cultures if we call it medical.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yes, right.
Well, do you want to hearsomething, leslie?
Overseas, mostly in Africa, butin the Middle East as well, a
huge percentage of the femalegenital mutilation is done by
clinics or clinicians.
Not because it's medical,because the families now think
they're evolved.
So instead of having your auntdo it in a field, I'm going to
(27:50):
take you to the clinic so thedoctor can sew you up properly
or whatever.
But like two wrongs don't makea right.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Sure, sure, absolutely, and that's happening
in our country.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Just I've had a couple of patients um, I believe
they were from africa who'vehad the?
Um clitoridectomies and thedegree of scarring and
mutilation and the?
Um difficult menstruation withthe area that's just closed and
(28:22):
it's just awful trying to do anycorrective procedures on people
you know.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Very awful and the emotional trauma is enormous and
the stigma and the shame, butthat's.
I think we're kind of gettingto a very dark place.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, let's talk about the pleasure part.
Can we pivot to pleasure please?
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, we're going to getting to a very dark place.
Can we pivot to pleasure?
Yes, yeah, we're gonna pivot topleasure.
And we were saying, there's lotsof nerve endings.
That's good, I think, animportant thing, though, because
pleasure eludes a lot of women,and for different reasons.
Okay, I get women coming inevery day saying I can't have an
orgasm, or I've never had anorgasm, or I'm in menopause.
(29:01):
Now my orgasms are wimpy,they're a thing of the past.
So I think it's kind ofimportant to to understand a
couple things.
One is that the clitoris isresponsive to testosterone.
It's a, it's the homologue ofthe penis, right?
So, believe it or not, as welose estrogen and menopause, we
(29:22):
lose a little testosterone aswell.
We don't have much testosteronewe have about a tenth of what
men have but when we lose thatlittle smidge and it goes from a
little bit to a smidge that canhave profound effects on libido
but also on sexual performance.
(29:42):
And then when we lose estrogenas well, there are estrogen
receptors all around theclitoris as well.
So the clitoris actually hasfewer nerve endings.
So less pleasure istheoretically an outcome and
fewer blood vessels.
So it's not.
If that's you and if you feelthat your orgasms have changed
(30:06):
to just become I call it wimpy,but more faint or take longer or
something, there's nothingnecessarily wrong with you.
That's the biology of aging.
The good news is a littletopical estrogen can help that
and it's perfectly safe.
It does not cause cancer.
Topical estrogen has beenaround since 1946, has been
(30:28):
studied since 1946.
And it's hard to say the wordnever in medicine, but I can say
it here it has never been shownto be associated with breast
cancer or any cancer.
Now I'm talking about topicalvaginal estrogen.
I'm not talking about pills andsomething systemic and it takes
(30:50):
about three months, but it'shelpful.
And if that's not enough help,there is and this is another
patriarchal, horrible, obviousthing there is no FDA approved
testosterone for women in thiscountry.
I'm going to ask you that.
Now there is in other countries, but in our country we do not
(31:11):
have it.
It doesn't exist and it's soexpensive to get a new drug to
market and no one seems to wantto invest the probably several
hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Because, of course, our sexual pleasure comes from a
man.
It comes from penetration.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
It's the only way, right what?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
else is there?
Wasn't it Freud who said thatif women don't have an orgasm
that way, something's wrong withthem, literally, I think?
Speaker 3 (31:37):
he said they were crazy.
Yes, freud said us that backmore than almost anyone, because
he said you have to have aorgasm only from vaginal
penetration or you're not amature, evolved woman.
So let's just call bullshit onthat right now I'm sure he, you
know, made other amazingcontributions to psychiatric
(32:00):
literature.
But that was he had his ownissues with women.
And here's the irony what Freuddidn't know is that because the
clitoris anatomically is allbehind and wrapped around the
vagina, the 20 percent of womenwho do have vaginal orgasms are
actually stimulating theclitoris through the vaginal
(32:20):
walls, so they're all clitoral.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Even vaginal orgasms are clitoral.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
So sorry, siggy, you are so wrong about that Sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Siggy.
No, you did not say that.
That's going to be like hashtag.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Sorry, Siggy like hashtag, sorry, sorry.
Well, he did a lot of damagebecause women then felt they
were broken if they couldn'thave an orgasm vaginally.
And that's another myth we haveto bust today.
Have to on this program.
Bust that you not having anorgasm from penetration does not
(32:55):
mean something's wrong with you.
It means you're in the group of80 plus percent women on the
planet who can only have anorgasm from clitoral stimulation
with a finger, a mouth, avibrator, a strap on.
I don't care and it doesn'tmatter, but there's nothing
wrong with you.
And if you feel you'restruggling to climax or
(33:16):
struggling to have what you wantto have, I think it's okay to
go back to basics.
It's okay to say I'm not goingto worry about what happens with
my partner.
I'm going to take a shower or abath and I'm going to touch
myself and figure out what feelsgood, what doesn't and what
feels good and how does thatfeel?
(33:37):
what feels good, what doesn'tand what feels good and how does
that feel.
Is it pressure, is it water?
Is it my finger, is itsomething?
And find the courage, maybetalk in the mirror first, or to
your black boomer bestie and saythis is a practice, you got to
practice.
Yeah, I, I.
You know you're not complainingand you're not going to hurt
(33:58):
anybody's feelings.
A smart man wants you to havepleasure and say this is what
feels good and this doesn't.
If you're not sure and youthink something's wrong, you
know you can go to an OBGYN tocheck it out, although now we
know many OBGYNs are not welltrained in sexual health.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Right, right.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And that brings up another question what if you
need more than a gynecologist?
Or what if your gynecologist iskind of lame and says, I don't
know, drink wine.
Yeah, you know there are sexualsex.
Well, I've heard this a hundredtimes.
When we come in and say my gynsaid he just tells his wife to
drink wine before sex, and Ithought, oh, my god, where do I
(34:39):
start?
First of all, not medical, notclinical, insult, disrespecting.
It's like mrs doubtfire,remember mrs doubtfire?
She said mr doubtfire's God,you know, like brace yourself.
(35:03):
Okay, we got to do better thanthat.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And doctors, have to do better, and doctors have to
do better, because if peoplecome to us for help, it's up to
us then to get the informationif we don't already have it.
You're right to us then to getthe information if we don't
already have it.
You're right.
Obviously, in medical school Itoo did not learn about the
clitoris, not much about thevagina.
I did definitely had a malecadaver.
(35:27):
Yeah, it wasn't stressed, youknow, because that part is not
important, right?
Speaker 3 (35:34):
And you know, as of today, 2023, two thirds of all
training programs still don'thave a single lecture on
menopause, much less sexualhealth.
So we're failing.
We've got to revamp this.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
And that's why you have to create practices like
yours.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
I wish there were more yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, I think women have to demand it too, right?
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not goingback to you.
I found this other place thattreats, treats my entire body.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
And it's never been considered that.
It's been considered someprivate thing or fun thing.
And we know there are plenty ofstudies that show that sexual
health promotes, reducesdepression, reduces heart
disease, increases longevity.
I mean these are real studies,these are real medical studies
(36:34):
and I mean, heck, that's a goodreason to have an active and
prolonged sex life.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
We're all looking at health optimization, right, and
remember women, as we've justheard about all of these nerve
endings that can happen with orwithout a partner.
You don't have to only getthese benefits with someone
alongside you.
You can get them on your own.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
However you want, with help or without, you can do
it.
You can do it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
And sex toys have really come back in vogue.
They kind of tend to come inand out of favor.
There has been an explosion ofcompanies designing and selling
all kinds of sex toys and I usedto do this for a Swedish
company and it's really fun andone of the trends is that you
used to do what for the Swedishcompany I used to design, were
(37:29):
you a?
Demonstrator.
No, I was a designer.
Well, you're the model myhusband was wishing I would
bring them all home.
I think my husband was wishingI would bring them all home, but
the point is that they used toall look like penises because
they were all designed by men.
Now many sex toys are not sothreatening looking.
They puff air or they vibrateor radio waves, and they're for
(37:58):
the clitoris, but they're alsofor the vulvas, for the breast,
for the thighs.
So I tell patients, if you'reintimidated by that, I give them
homework.
I say I want you to do G-ratedmasturbation.
They say what's that?
I say it's non-genital.
I want you to take that littlevibrating thing that looks like
a mouse for your computer,because they don't look like
penises, and in the shower useit on your legs or your arms and
(38:20):
see what feels good.
And don't give yourself thepressure of I have to have an
orgasm, that's yes.
Yeah, for that you know sure,sure that's another hashtag.
Derated masturbation yes, forsure.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Now that reminds me like this type of thing would be
so helpful for those patientsof ours that come in where their
cultural beliefs dictate thatthey are not supposed to.
Now, this is now.
We're now internalizing it,because I guess they've been
grown up or taught this orwhatever that they're not
supposed to experience pleasurefrom.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Yeah, I don't know where that is in the case, Les.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
So gynecologic exams are difficult for them and
anxiety provoking, as you canimagine.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah, you know, it's like anything below the waist is
taboo.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, but, les, I mean we've, we've.
Well, I grew up partially inJamaica and partially in the
United States.
I think that that is soabsolutely here also, it's not,
it's not an other thing, it'sthis, that's how, that's how I
was raised, that's how I felt,you know, there's nothing.
I've lived america for almost50, over 50 years now, so it's,
(39:37):
it's, it's.
It's a part of our, um, how weare socialized, also very much
so I don't think.
Do you think that that is notso in america?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
it is no, that's, but we don't want to admit that
we're going to admit it here.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
We're not going to, just, you know, use that crazy
talk.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
We're going to do crazy talk.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
It's like go get it together.
Can't you all catch up toAmerica?
Hell, no.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Yeah, I had a patient who was Catholic from Ireland
yeah, this isn't castingjudgment, it's just giving color
and she told me in Catholicschool they were taught that the
girls were taught, not the boys.
They separated them for thislesson because the boys
masturbation is is fine, it'sjust what boys do.
(40:26):
But for the girls they weretaught masturbation was a bigger
sin than murder, murder tolittle girls.
They told that.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
So how do you undo that type of damage?
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Wow, oh no.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Yeah no no, you help normalize it.
You help them say you'reentitled.
God, you know what I did?
This woman was very religious.
So I met her where she was andI said, well, god designed your
body.
She said, yes, god designed mybody.
And I had to say that because Iknew that's what she believed.
So I had to meet her where shewas.
(41:03):
Yes, I said now, would Goddesign something whose sole
function was pleasure?
Yes, if pleasure was bad, right, she said was pleasure.
Yes, if pleasure was bad, right, she said.
You know, I guess not exactlyshe said I guess that pleasure
is part of god's plan.
I said yes, it is, because heallows pleasure for men.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
And I was um, I was desperate, desperate to help her
, so I had to think about whatis exactly true what would click
, you know?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
yeah, man, that's out of the box thinking that is so
common in your practice.
And, as I said, we've beenworking together way over 10
years, probably about 14.
And always, always, you, justyou know it's funny.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
You mentioned Catholicism and I'm going to
broaden it to Christianity.
What the Bible does talk aboutis male masturbation being
because it's it's wasting theit's wasting.
Let's say so.
That's their issue.
That's that's not our issue,Even in the Bible.
(42:09):
That's not our issue.
All the other stuff is is man'sstuff that is put upon um women
?
Um, it is, it is not.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
That is not biblical not in the bible that I've read
and read and read yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
So anyway, um question about um, how did you
come to contribute a chapter toa book and what was the book in
its entirety about?
Well, talk about the TED.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Talk, yeah.
So the book is a book writtenby me.
The book is my book.
It's not published yet I'msearching for a publisher but
the book is about sex in midlifeand what happens to sex in
midlife and what it says aboutus as a society.
But the chapter I'm referringto talks about the history of
(43:02):
the clitoris and how it goesfrom the Egyptians to the Greeks
to the Renaissance and how evenfamous anatomists were denying
it you, you know, and eventhough their little nobody
assistants would sneak in anight and try to dissect it and
say, um, um, I think there'ssomething there, and they say,
hush, nothing for women.
So I do a little chapter on thehistory of the clitoris and and
(43:25):
why it's been so delayed andand really what that says about
us.
So that's within this biggerbook talking about the disparity
between sexual expectations andcapabilities between men and
women in midlife.
That gets why accidental?
(43:46):
No, it's.
It's there from the startbecause of how we learn and
what's okay and masturbation andpleasure and all that.
And then in midlife, because welose estrogen, vaginal walls
get thin, blood vessels go away,collagen degrades, that gap
widens.
So I felt this was worthy of abook.
I felt there were 40 millionAmerican women with sexual
(44:10):
issues directly related tomenopause.
Right now, today, 40 million,40 million and globally there
are 500 million women withmenopause related sexual issues.
So I feel like this is too biga crowd to ignore any longer.
Absolutely, so I'm excited toget that published and maybe
I'll come back on once it does.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
That would be fantastic.
We have um, a friend of theshow called um.
She has a.
It was a only a podcast, butit's it's, it's, it's really
blown up.
Her um, her um mission, um isis called um, um black girl's to
(44:52):
Surviving Menopause.
So it kind of first focused onpeople who were experiencing
menopause but now it's becomethis intergenerational movement,
if you will, because you knowwe don't know that much about
menopause, because you know wedon't know that much about
(45:14):
menopause.
And imagine those younger womenwho, younger people with
vaginas I have to just make surethat I include non-binary folks
also that.
What are they looking forwardto?
It's all gloom and doom, yeah,unless we get the new
information about that.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, it doesn't have to be.
If we can educate and beeducated, no one's coming down
the bike and it allows us toadvocate for ourselves and be
sexually more open with ourpartners and say, look, you know
how I liked it like this at 35?
Well, now I'm 48.
Things don't feel the same andlet's be creative together, you
(45:56):
know.
But instead women hold all thatshame and guilt in and they
come into my office and say I'mbroken and I'm ruining it for
him.
They always tell me I'm ruiningit for him and it's a horrible
thing to hear.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, Wow, and they had to have felt that for a
while to bring it to theirphysician you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
That's right, right, and to feel safe enough to bring
it to their physician.
Sure, thank god, that's goodenough yes well, my god.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
I'm hoping it'll it'll help with that.
I know I do sometimes.
I'm a guest on this Sirius XMshow, Dr Radio.
I know.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah, Out of NYU right.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yes, so she has me on a lot and whenever I do that
show, the next day the phonerings off the hook in the office
.
I live in Indiana and I'mgetting in the car and driving,
my staff are like wait a minute,wait a a minute.
Why?
Because because they feel theyhaven't been hurt.
They've been going to theirOB-GYN getting told to drink
(46:57):
wine and yeah, and they feellike wait, there is something
wrong and there is something youcan do and they want it.
You know, everyone thinks thatwomen just lose all their drive.
Yeah, not every woman losestheir drive and some women want
to be intimate at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
They want it, or that loss of, or perceived loss of
drive is due to that discomfortand the pain that's right, so
they're like I guess it's overfor me.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Right, and so we always start with fixing the
pain first.
We fix the tissue, make thevaginal epithelium thicker,
healthier, stretchier, bringback the blood vessels, bring
back moisture.
We do this either with vaginalestrogen or vaginal prostorone
it's another hormone that doesthis or an oral medication,
(47:48):
ospamiphene, that turns onestrogen receptors in the vagina
, or we have a laser that westarted in our office.
It needs more research, not Iknow it works, but it should
have bigger studies to be usedmore widely.
But it's been wonderful.
It creates new blood vesselsand creates new collagen and
(48:10):
it's been great.
So have like four options, uh,to really make the tissue better
.
Once we do that, then we cansay okay, is your libido still
rotten?
If so, let's talk about how wemake that better.
And sometimes the libido getsbetter as soon as the pain is
gone because who nobody wants to, everybody runs away from pain.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Right, right, well, I am.
I am so grateful that you aredoing the work that you're doing
.
I must also say that I am notone of those women who have
issues there.
I am amazingly able to bepleasure, okay, I have no,
(49:03):
there's no.
You know, and I want to saythat too, for those of us who
fall into the to the category ofhaving a beautiful, pleasurable
, um body, um, that that thatthat we're here also, it does
not, it's not a a given thatthis happens with, with aging,
with aging.
(49:23):
Even if it happens, um, youknow, the majority of the time,
it doesn't have to be that wayfor you, yeah, yeah, so, um no,
no, but if you are, it isimprovable.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
I think yes, and you should seek that.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You should seek that yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
And if your mother had breast cancer, that does not
mean it's contraindicated foryou.
I wish I had a quarter forevery time a woman said I wish I
could take vaginal estrogen,but my mom had breast cancer so
I can't.
That's one, doesn't equateeither.
It doesn't.
Your mom having breast canceris a different human being and
(50:04):
even if it raises your breastcancer risk a tiny bit, why is
it still okay for you to takevaginal estrogen?
Because it's been studied for70 years and never, ever ever
been shown to be linked tobreast cancer.
So that if you leave withnothing else today but the
knowledge that vaginal estrogenis safe for you, whether your
(50:27):
mom had breast cancer or not,you'll be doing yourself a huge
favor in terms of advocating foryour own health and sexual
pleasure.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, we're gonna keep talking about it, that's
all.
We just have to keep talkingabout it because people need to
hear it and people don't know.
I've learned so much in thelast 45 minutes.
It's like you know, I wentthrough several years of medical
school and anatomy class andwhatever.
Wow, wow.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
I cannot wait.
Listen publishers, get to it,get to it.
There's a book that we need.
We need, yeah, get to it.
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, I agree, I think it will ring for people.
I think they will.
They will nod and understand it.
Ring for people.
I think they will nod andunderstand it.
I can't thank you all enoughfor having me.
This has been just great.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
I'm glad that the schedule worked out and we were
able to talk to you, and it waswonderful seeing you.
I didn't work with youyesterday, but I was looking
forward to seeing you today,yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
I knew I was getting my Leslie fix this week Exactly.
Angela thank you for agreeingwith Leslie's idea.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Oh my gosh, I hope we'll get to meet in person.
You were meant to be here.
Yes, for sure, you were aprayer answered for me.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Speaking of prayer answered.
I told you that we have aspiritual connection.
So, in reaching to the storyabout the clitoris for me,
speaking of prayer answered.
I told you that we have aspiritual connection.
So in addition to the storyabout the clitoris.
I went in to work with Mariaone day and I said to her I got
news for you.
We have a date Omari's gettinga kidney, I'm donating and
(52:12):
Omari's getting a kidney.
I'm donating and Omari'sgetting a kidney.
And Maria said you know,yesterday I had a dream that
Omari got a kidney.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Wow, and I almost didn't tell you because I'd been
hoping and praying for it tooand I thought it's not going to
happen.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I mean, he's been on dialysis for six years.
She waited for me to tell herthat he had a date and she said
yesterday I had a dream about it.
Why would she be dreaming aboutOmari and his kidney, just out
of the blue?
Speaker 3 (52:53):
I know and actually you said I have news.
And I said, well, I have newstoo.
And I said, go ahead, you gofirst, because I wanted to tell
her about the dream, the dream,but I was afraid it would upset
her and so I thought, you know,if her news is really bad, I I'm
going to not tell her.
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, isn't that crazy.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
But, I don't believe in coincidences.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
So this has been wonderful.
I love you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Love you too, thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
This has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties
from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
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