Society has told women that midlife is a closing door. Twenty years as an OB/GYN, and my own experiences as a woman in midlife, tell me otherwise.
The patients I see in their 40s and 50s are often sharper, more grounded, and more certain of themselves than they've ever been. The fog of early adulthood — the people-pleasing, the performance anxiety, the relentless self-doubt — has lifted. What remains is a woman who knows exactly who she is. And what she wants. That includes what she wants out of her sex life.
A recent survey commissioned by Hims & Hers of 2,000 Americans aged 18-60 in January, 2026 confirms what I see in my exam room every day: for women in midlife, this isn't an ending. It's an arrival. The desire is there. The confidence is there. What's often missing is a healthcare system willing to meet them where they are, one that takes their sexual health as seriously as they do.
That's the gap Hers was built to close. Convenient, clinically-led care that gives women access to the support they need to stop white-knuckling midlife and start living it — fully, vibrantly, on their own terms.
Here are the findings that challenged everything society has told us about women in midlife. It’s time we turn the page and start a new story.
1. The bedroom is still busy. Findings show that 70% of women 40+ have had sex in the past year, and more than half of women over 50 have been active in the last month alone. For these women, midlife intimacy isn't a memory, it's a present-tense reality.
2. And they want it to be even busier. 79% of women respondents aged 40+ say they want more sex, with more than half reporting they’d like to have it more than 10 times a month. Women over 50 drive that number even higher, making them the demographic with the strongest sexual appetite of any group surveyed. This is not resignation; that's a woman full of self awareness and desire.
3. Sex is central to identity, and that doesn't change with age. Nearly half of all women surveyed say their sex life plays a large role in their personal identity. That's not just a young woman's sentiment. It's a human one. Which is why the healthcare system's failure to prioritize women's sexual health in midlife isn't just a clinical gap, it's a deeply personal one. When women can't get the care they need, they don't just lose pleasure. They can lose a piece of themselves.
4. Menopause is where the system fails them. Here's what the data makes impossible to ignore: women experiencing menopause are less sexually confident (46% vs. 55% of women overall), less satisfied with their sex lives, their relationships, their physical appearance, and their lives overall. And yet 42% of Americans still say perimenopause and menopause is taboo to talk about, a number that rises to 58% among women in their 40s who have actually been through it. The women most affected are the ones least likely to feel they can speak openly about it. That silence has consequences. When menopause goes unaddressed, women don't just lose physical comfort. They lose confidence, identity, and connection. That's a clinical failure with a very human cost. Digital health platforms like Hers help give women a place to have the conversation their doctor's office too often doesn't make room for, and the access to clinical support to do something about it.
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5. The bucket list is growing. 58% of women respondents over 40 have sexual fantasies they're still eager to explore. Their sexual curiosity doesn't diminish with age. If anything, it deepens.
6. Confidence comes with experience. 55% of women respondents 40+ rate their sexual performance a 4 or 5 out of 5, with more than half of women over 50 saying the same. Decades of knowing their body, their needs, and their boundaries have a compounding effect. It shows.
7. The "sex age" gap. Women 50+ report that their "sex age" — how old they feel during intimacy — is 30. A twenty-year gap between the calendar and the lived experience. That's vitality.
8. Steady and satisfied. When asked to describe their sex lives, the top descriptor women chose was "smooth and steady," nearly twice as many as those who called it "broken." This suggests that women in midlife have done the work to figure out what they like and are reaping the rewards.
9. They are not phoning it in. Women respondents 50+ are the least likely demographic surveyed to describe themselves as "lazy in bed." They're present, engaged, and invested because they know what this is worth.
10. Confidence that comes with experience. In my experience, women don’t arrive at sexual confidence overnight. They earn it; and by 50 it shows. Nearly one in four women surveyed in this age group describe themselves as "extremely sexually confident," a level of self-assurance that younger generations still figuring themselves out can’t claim.
I want women to understand the symptoms of midlife — the hormonal shifts, the changes in libido, the discomfort that too many women are told to simply endure — are not the whole story. They are obstacles, and they are surmountable. The woman on the other side of those symptoms is not diminished. She is, in many cases, the most fully realized version of herself.
That's who Hers is building for. Not a woman winding down. A woman who has finally arrived, and deserves care that meets her at the opening of a new door.
