The Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) invites the public to a pre-launch book event featuring Dr. Maria Sophocles on Thursday, January 22, from 6 to 8 p.m., where she will read from her forthcoming book, “The Bedroom Gap,” followed by a candid audience Q&A. Tickets are $15.
Sophocles is an internationally recognized gynecologist, author, and women’s health advocate committed to closing the gendered healthcare gap. Her new book, “The Bedroom Gap,” addresses the societal, historical, and physiological forces shaping sexual health in midlife, offering an accessible and empowering guide for women, couples, clinicians, and anyone interested in reframing conversations around menopause, desire, and pleasure.
The evening begins with a wine and cheese reception from 6 to 6:30 p.m., followed by the reading in the ACP Solley theater. After the reading, Sophocles hosts an exclusive Ask Me Anything, inviting open, honest discussion around topics often left unspoken.
Tickets include event admission, reception, a photo opportunity with Sophocles, plus the opportunity to preorder “The Bedroom Gap,” due out from Balance, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, on February 10. Attendees who preorder the book will also receive access to an exclusive bonus webinar with Sophocles in February.
A longtime advocate for reproductive rights, she played a key role in the passage of New Jersey’s Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act and is currently developing a documentary titled HOT! focused on sex, menopause, and gender equality. She is also planning a women’s health clinic in rural Kenya to address global healthcare disparities.
Sophocles is the founder of Women’s Healthcare of Princeton and the global virtual practice The Thinking Woman. Her TED Talk, “What Happens to Sex in Midlife,” has garnered more than one million views.
In that talk, Sophocles defines what she means by the Bedroom Gap: “Everybody thinks of menopause as hot flashes, but for over half of menopausal women, it’s accompanied by sexual issues. Things like loss of libido or painful intercourse, even total destruction of a relationship. It’s what I call the ‘bedroom gap,’ the difference in sexual expectations and capabilities of men and women in midlife.”
She goes on to explain that this gap is both rooted in the biology of menopause and the changes it causes as well as “deeply entrenched cultural and historical gender roles.”
Men, she points out, have had access to Viagra, a safe, medical solution to age-related issues with erectile dysfunction, for 25 years. “And by the way, it’s not men’s fault,” she notes in her talk. “They are just availing themselves of what gender-biased modern medicine has on offer.” But it does add to the bedroom gap.
There are also options to help women, she notes, but they don’t tend to take advantage of them. “One problem may be that many doctors don’t feel comfortable talking to female patients about menopause and sexual issues because they feel they were never properly trained,” she says, siting studies showing minimal coverage of menopause during medical education. This “may explain why doctors are uncomfortable and why 75 percent of women who go to doctors to seek care for menopausal problems come away empty-handed.”
“It is time to revamp medical education to keep up with the demographic explosion of menopausal women,” she concludes her talk, “so that doctors have the tools and the information they need to provide to women so they don’t leave empty-handed. And it is far past time for the concept of sexual pleasure to be gender-neutral.”
“The Bedroom Gap” with Dr. Maria Sophocles, Arts Council of Princeton, 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. Thursday, January 22, 6 to 8 p.m. Register. $15. www.artscouncilofprinceton.org or 609-924-8777.
