Menopause
The menopause transition typically begins between 40 and 50 years of age (average 47.5). The duration of perimenopause may be for up to eight years. Women will often, but not always, start these transitions (perimenopause and menopause) about the same time as their mother did.
Hormone replacement therapy
Current research that has examined the impact of menopause on women’s self-reported sexual satisfaction indicates that 50.3% of women experience some sexual disturbance in one of five domains, and 33.7% experience disturbances in two of the domains. Of these were desire, orgasm, lubrication, and arousal disturbances. With regards to arousal, they found a significant negative association between age and arousal, in that as women aged they were more likely to report lower arousal scores. In the desire and orgasm domains, 38% of women reported a disturbances in their desire, and 17% reported a disturbance in their orgasm capabilities; of the 17%, 14% were premenopausal, 15.2% were postmenopausal and taking a form of HRT, and 22% were postmenopausal not on a form of HRT. Eight percent of women reported disturbances lubricating during sexual activity; 14.3% in the premenopausal group, 30% in the postmenopausal group not using a HRT, and 11.7% among those postmenopausal women using HRT. Lastly, 21% of women reported pain as a disturbance in their sexual satisfaction — the premenopausal group at 14.3%, the postmenopausal women using HRT at 13.3% and the group with the highest rates, similarly to the other results, was the postmenopausal women not taking HRT at 34%. This study concluded that there was a significant decline in sexual function related to menopause in the pain and lubrication domains.