The conversation turns toward expanding sensuality as fun, more pleasure and menopause is explored further.  In this episode, a continuation of the last one, we present talk radio show host Rebekah Beneteau and her guest Yvonne Wray, a researcher, instructor and blogger from the Welcomed Consensus, both experienced in pleasurable menopause.

Rebekah: Good evening everyone and welcome. I am thrilled to have as my guest, a woman that I have just discovered, by the name of Yvonne Wray. I found her as a referral through Twitter to her blog Menopause Flashes – Turning up the Heat.

Yvonne’s background is that she’s a sensual researcher with the Welcomed Consensus. When she celebrated 50, she began her menopause blog which highlights her experiences and research into this topic. I think that she has a lot of really positive viewpoints about menopause and just about life in general – about living a pleasurable life.

Yvonne: Thank you, Rebekah. I’m glad to be here.

This conversation is a continuation of Episode 21 of the Female Orgasm Podcast.

Yvonne: So as I was saying, when I tell the truth about what I’m feeling, I find that it’s the same as I do in everyday life. It’s not just in menopause – every day my moods are changing. Every day how I am experiencing my life changes moment by moment. So when I communicate with my friend (what I’m feeling), and I’m telling him and letting him know what’s happening, that creates movement. It also moves the energy through my body. It moves the energy through my life and it opens up more possibilities for pleasure and enjoyment. That happens in conversations every day.

Rebekah: You mean we actually have to talk about how we are? That’s a big deal for some people!

Yvonne: Well, it was a big deal for me.

Rebekah: Yeah, to show up and be authentic about where I’m at right now. Huge! You’re saying it makes it better.

Yvonne: Well, the possibility – absolutely! Sometimes I don’t talk and I just keep everything to myself. I have to say, I’ve got a big brain. I like to try and figure things out, you know? I cogitate and spin and think and go through all these myriad of possibilities. I think about things like “Gosh, you know I have over a hundred hormones in my body? And what must be happening and how am I going to figure out how to control this body of mine and make it do what I want it to?” You know, all those different things.

Or not let people know anything is going on. “How am I going to cover up that I’m having manic mood swings from one hour to the next?” Whenever I keep it to myself I am a mess! I mean if you were my best friend you would not recognize me. You would think, “Hmmmm, she’s a shell of her former fun self.”

When I talk about what I’m experiencing, even when I think sometimes it might seem like really silly or dramatic or whatever, but if I tell the truth to my friends, to my partner, then the possibility opens up that something can change. Two people can relate over something in a pleasurable way because I’m telling the truth. It really takes ME communicating. I think you probably heard this before but one of the things about Deliberate Orgasm that we teach is that sensuality is a subset of communication.

Rebekah: Right. Absolutely. It’s just another form of my communication. Now, one of the things that I found, what happens for me is you know the story of putting a frog in boiling water? It will jump right out. But if you put it in cold water and gradually turn up the heat it will stay there until it boils to death. I think that is what happens to me with my mood swings. And it took me awhile to recognize what was going on – to the point where my husband was so distressed because I was using my inner space as a hall pass to be nasty. Then one day I woke up and realized that this was not serving me and it was not serving him. I had to turn it around.

So one of the things that we did was we started tracking my cycles so that we could start to see (what was happening in my body). I started being able to verbalize, like you’re saying, what was going on with me. One of the things I find is I still bleed, but in the seven days before my period I become hypersensitive. So what that means on a physical level is sometimes I can’t even wear a necklace because it is too irritating to my neck. Every emotional thing that usually I can take in stride like the dishes in the sink or the trash not taken out suddenly becomes something that must be dealt with immediately. I can’t live with it one more second. I just want to jump right out of my skin. And he just thought I was being a bitch until I was able to verbalize what my internal experience was like. Once I said it, it actually lessened. So I guess I’m just corroborating what you said.

Yvonne: Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up. You know I was saying that we have the Common Sensuality class online now. It’s called the Doing Essentials Teleclass. In the Teleclass one of the topics that it covers is heat cycles and (a woman’s) tumescence. Up and down, that sensitivity a woman feels in her body. All of those things. There is a basis for that. And there is something that men and women can track and it is something you can take advantage of and have a lot of fun with. But you’ve got to get on top of it and be aware.

Also in communicating, and I think you said this really well, communicating without anger. Being responsible for what is happening as a woman and really taking a look at where are you making choices for pleasure. Or not. You know you can change if you’re not, if you want to feel more pleasure.

That Teleclass is truly great because there’s a lot of people that are not aware of this cycle that happens. Even though it happens your whole life as a woman. The build up, the waning and that waxing and waning of energy in your body on a cyclic basis. And it just gets, in my experience, it’s just a little more erratic during this (menopausal) transition. But it still happens. And it still happens after you stop bleeding. Once you have your final period it still happens. These energy fluctuations, these cycles.

Being aware every day of my body through Deliberate Orgasm, that is one of the main tools that I use to keep being aware of what’s happening so that I can communicate without anger. So I can take advantage of the highs and lows to have a really fun time with my partner. I mean, there’s a lot of energy there.

Rebekah: Yes. Well, and the sensitivity can be used for good or it can be used for evil. It is my choice.

Yvonne: Yes, and there’s always that choice. And you know, that’s the great thing – when you get the information then you have a choice.

Rebekah: Right and you have the course, the six steps in The DOing Essentials Teleclass starting soon, right?

Yvonne: Yes, it is a three week Teleclass people attend over the phone. Twice a week there is a class session and each session is about 40-60 minutes long. There is homework, experiential exercises that people do inbetween the sessions. You can call in and listen to the lectures or they are recorded in case you can’t make it for the call. It takes three weeks, so in three weeks you get the fundamentals, the essentials of DOing, of Deliberate Orgasm. Not only the technique, like I said the stroking part which is very fun, but you get the underlying viewpoints too.

Rebekah: Now what if you don’t have a partner?

Yvonne: : It’s fine. It’s for anybody. It’s for men or women. For people who have a partner or don’t have a partner. It doesn’t really matter because these beginning courses, the DOing Essentials Teleclass and the Common Sensuality Class that we were talking about before, both begin with the individual. So it is the individual’s sensuality. The individual getting the information for themselves and experiencing themselves. Once you do that, of course you can spread it out to a partner or a friendship or use it yourself. It doesn’t require a partner.

Rebekah: Wonderful. You can find that at their website Welcomed.com. Now one thing I am getting, Yvonne, you can tell me if I’m right, is that that you really approach everything as research. I think that is a viewpoint that many people don’t have. They kind of look at experiences, “Oh that was bad sex.” Or “That was good sex.” Rather than “What would happen if? What happens when? Oh isn’t it interesting that this is how it went?”

Yvonne: Well, yes. That’s a good way to describe it. It’s like getting out of that judgmental mode and putting on that researcher-umbrella. Putting that kind of concept in there helps take those judgments out of there.

But I really have to say the viewpoint that is even more fun is that you do it for pleasure. That’s why I do it – the only goal is pleasure. When my goal is pleasure I find things that are pleasurable in every sex act that I have. I mean it’s kind of like pasta. Pasta