Menopause, Hormones and Women’s Sexual Health with Dr. Rachel Rubin; Listen Again

In this episode of unPAUSED, pulled from the archive because it’s one worth hearing again, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Rachel Rubin, board-certified urologist, nationally recognized expert in sexual medicine, assistant clinical professor of urology at Georgetown University, and a lead advocate behind the 2025 American Urological Association guidelines on genitourinary syndrome of menopause. The conversation starts with the number that explains everything: three training programs in the last three years even acknowledge women’s sexual health — men have more than 27. The reason your doctor doesn’t know how to talk to you about libido, arousal, orgasm, or pain is that no one ever taught them.

Dr. Rubin delivers the anatomy lesson medicine skipped — why the clitoris and penis are the same tissue, why the cervix is triply innervated despite being taught as nerve-free, and why “my orgasm changed after my hysterectomy” is biology, not psychology. They cover why sex should never hurt and pain always deserves a diagnosis, the vulvar vestibule tissue most doctors were never taught to examine, the hormone changes that start in your 30s — not at menopause — and the case Dr. Rubin has built her career on: vaginal estrogen and DHEA prevent more than half of UTIs and could save Medicare an estimated $6–22 billion a year. Plus the medications that quietly affect sexual function, the two FDA-approved drugs for low libido most women have never heard of, and the five hormone options every woman deserves to know are on her menu.

Guest links:
Dr. Rachel Rubin (Website) https://www.rachelrubinmd.com/
Dr. Rachel Rubin (Instagram) https://www.instagram.com/drrachelrubin/
Dr. Rachel Rubin (X) https://x.com/drrachelrubin

Books:
“The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://thepauselife.com/pages/the-new-perimenopause-book
“The New Menopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKBZ4K1Z

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