Self-Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Whether you’re sheltering solo or isolating with your spouse or partner, intimacy can be elusive, especially when your best suit is of the sweat variety, and every day is #Caturday.

Christine Marie Mason, 54, is the founder of Rosebud Woman, a line of luxury, plant-based intimate skin and body care that is “committed to awakening self-love and reverence for the feminine in the world.” A former tech CEO and technology futurist, she’s also a mother, stepmother, grandmother, author, yogi, and a force of nature.

We spent an enlightening hour in conversation covering intimate wellness, the post-menopause “free period” of a woman’s life, natural ways to generate the female anti-stress love hormone, oxytocin, and, yes, the benefits of self-stimulation.

GG50: How did you come to start Rosebud Woman?

It has been decades in the making, influenced by the body and sex positivity movement. I knew what I needed and what my friends needed.

In 2014, through my technology work, I was exposed to some arousal and health devices that revealed how many women were suffering and how much women were silent about it. They had this alienated relationship with their sex.

It really opened my eyes. Companies were trying to solve an arousal problem with technology, when most of the problems women were having could be solved by philosophy and attitude toward their own body, relaxation, anti-stress hormones, and topicals.

That realization eventually turned into the mission of Rosebud Woman. We exist to address the unique needs of a woman’s body, create reverence for the female, and support all the cycles of a woman’s life. In short, to bring more joy and less suffering to women.

GG50: You emphasize intimate wellness vs. sexual wellness. What is the difference?

So often when we're talking about sexuality, we're talking about it in transaction, as in intercourse, in birthing, in something that's related to another being. Intimate wellness encompasses the vulva and vaginal care in general, including self-stimulation. But it removes it solely from the sexual sphere.

Before we officially started the company, we did a survey of 3000 women and found that 60% of women after menopause have pervasive vulva and vaginal dryness. And 25% of women who haven't gone through menopause also have it for a variety of reasons. Stress, cancer, antidepressants, statins, all kinds of medications impact dryness.

*Essential, everyday moisture for lady parts.*

I learned that there was a huge uptick in UTIs after menopause. In the past, they couldn't figure out the correlation. But now the science says that dryness in the vulva leads to micro-tearing whenever there's friction, and it's that micro tear that lets bacteria into the urinary tract.

So there's this other side benefit that has emerged correlating moisture to a defense against UTIs. Our Soothe Calming Cream, which has high-grade Arnica, relieves redness and swelling and addresses that and other skin irritations.

GG50: It’s also wonderfully soothing as a hand cream now that washing our hands has become a competitive sport. How do you suggest getting intimately reacquainted with our bodies post-menopause?

Yes, we’re doing a larger Soothe all-body size this summer, because that’s how people are using it!

In terms of body acquaintance, in many women, lack of sensation is an everyday reality. After menopause, the hormones just aren’t there.

I did an interview with Dr. Barb DePree, who's the MiddlesexMD doctor. She has a book called Fearless Menopause, which is a lovely illustrated, easy-to-follow, awakened guide to menopause. Part of that conversation was that it takes about 20 minutes for a woman to get aroused. You might not have any initial interest, but if you take the time because you care about your partner, or you care about your own system health, you do turn on and enjoy sex just as much as you did before. Even if you're not particularly interested at first.

“It’s getting over the hump of the initial, “not today. I don’t really want to, I’ve got other things to do.” That lack of interest is really a mind trick. ”

She said we use it or lose it. The systems and the pipes and the way the synapses run need to be maintained. So you should be masturbating or attempting to have some kind of sexual contact, even in these years when it's not so interesting.

Traditional aphrodisiacal ingredients and tingly fun.

GG50: You mentioned earlier that anti-stress hormones help with arousal and with a woman’s sense of well-being in general. How do we generate those?

Oxytocin is known as the female love hormone. When it releases in the body, it becomes a neurotransmitter, it sends signals out to other systems in the body to regulate the system. So it has a direct impact on cortisol, the stress hormone.

When oxytocin is present in your body, you feel really good. When it's depleted, it can be implicated in bipolar disorder and depression and all kinds of things, even in GI tract discomfort.

Oxytocin can be generated through all of these free and available activities that you can do:

1. Any kind of touch. A light touch, strong touch, any kind of contact on the skin, on the hair, through self-massage or anointing, or from another person. Just cuddling without any skin-to-skin contact can give an oxytocin boost. Petting your dog. There are half a dozen studies that measure oxytocin levels in people after they pet or see their dog. They get a rush.

2. Masturbation generates oxytocin like crazy. I read a German study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine where they asked women why they masturbated. And about half of them said they didn't masturbate because they had any sexual desire. They did it to relieve stress. And that's what's happening. It's releasing oxytocin.

3. Stimulation of the oral mucosa generates a tremendous amount of oxytocin. People who are a little orally fixated or are always using food to self- soothe, it's not necessarily the food. It’s the oxytocin that comes from having something in your mouth and having those tissues stimulated. If you’re sucking on a straw, chewing gum — all of those things can generate oxytocin on the natural.

4. Undulating movement, dancing, flow in yoga. Anything that moves the hips or has a rhythm. Swimming releases oxytocin really well.

GG50: All of which are more available right now. But what about when we return to the new normal?

There's a whole other way to live that is more in line with a woman’s biology. A way of working that's in line with cycles. We generate oxytocin by getting up and moving every 45 or 50 minutes, doing some breathing, or doing a small task. It’s not sitting at a desk all day, letting that cortisol ramp up to the end of the day.

I work a little bit, I go out in the garden and cut flowers, come back, work some more. It's a very organic way of being that wasn't available when I was going to an office.

GG50: We love thinking about the post-menopausal years as the “Free Period,” as you call it.

After menopause, that emotional roller coaster of the monthly cycle is gone. I'm noticing how the evenness of the biology has given me an open, clear lens that is independent of the hormones. That's number one.

Secondly, you've been through at least three or four economic cycles by this point. You've been through so many news cycles, it's just more of the same. So there's this quality of wisdom that comes with age, of not taking all of this stuff quite so seriously.

If you've been paying attention to your own body and your own life, you know by this point what makes you happy. You know the kind of people you want to be around, and more and more of what you're called to do.

Once children leave home you are hands-free. You can downsize, which means a lot less to maintain. Money should be getting a little easier. So all of those things combine to create this moment where you don't have periods, you don't need birth control, you don't have all of these other burdens.

“There are empty nests in nature, but there are no empty nesters. The birds go on being birds. They leave, they don’t sit there pining for their little one, for their little egg to come back.”

Whatever is wanting to be born in you for the next 20 or 30 years in your body starts to come out. So that's why I think of it as the free period. You're like a queen now.