Applying the principle that a man who is happy at home is productive at work, Australian mining company Xstrata offers “Toolbox Talks,” a series of health-related seminars aimed at educating workers about various topics affecting their quality of life, including their perimenopausal and menopausal wives’ changing sexual needs.   

 

"If you have a healthy home life you will have a happy work life and sex is an important part of any relationship, and it’s important to address sex for an individual that is going through menopause," Xstrata spokesman James Rickards told Reuters.

While most of us cannot imagine our office managers telling us to report to the conference room for the company sex talk, note that Puritans arrived here over 400 years ago, long enough to have made their mark. “Australian society is unbelievably sex-positive. Good sex heals, and Australians know it. Kudos to the top management at Xstrata mining company,” says Boston-based sex therapist Aline P. Zoldbrod Ph.D.

 

Zoldbrod applauds the mining company for its broadminded attitude and efforts to improve their workers’ home lives. “It is unbelievably progressive and sophisticated to offer middle-aged miners information on what their wives might be experiencing as they go through menopause. What a huge contrast to the way sexuality is treated in the U.S.”

 

The Toolbox Talks don’t focus solely on sexual health; rather the program treats sex as component of an individual’s total health and well-being. "The Toolbox Talks are a series of health briefings...addressing issues such as fatigue, prostate cancer, nutrition, heart disease and this month we are addressing the issue of menopause," Rickards told Reuters.

 

Zoldbrod says that this last issue, menopause, merits serious attention given all of its symptoms, and the effects they can have on a relationship. “Perimenopausal and menopausal women may experience all kinds of physical and emotional distress, including bleeding changes, mood swings, sleep disturbance, vaginal dryness, night sweats, and loss of sexual desire,“ Zoldbrod tells demo dirt. “Imagine how much more marital harmony might exist in couples where the spouses actually understand and are sensitive and understanding to these changes.”

 

Joanne, 61, a pre-school teacher's assistant, demonstrated many of the symptoms listed by Zoldbrod during the height of her menopause. “I was a mess! When it came to sex, I just thought, ‘Leave me alone! I want to get some sleep!’” she explains. “I was so sleep-deprived from the hot flashes at night. They kept me up and I would get so hot that I would just take off all my clothes…but I didn’t want sex!”  Besides being “exhausted all day” from the sleep deprivation, Joanne also experienced bleeding changes.

 

The New Jersey native tells demo dirt that although she was fortunate to have a loving, patient partner—“He had been through it before, with his ex-wives,” she explains—she sees the value in what Xstrata is doing down under. “It’s good to give men some insight into what the woman is going through. Maybe then they won’t fight at home,” and the man (or woman) won’t come to work distracted and unhappy, Joanne maintains.

 

Zoldbrod points out the cultural gap between the U.S. and Australia. “From a cultural standpoint, it really highlights cultural relativity when it comes to sexual attitudes. This isn't even the government promoting sexuality, it's a private company,” says the doctor, who has firsthand knowledge of Australian society.

 

“Had I not spent three weeks in Australia to lecture and travel in 1993, I would have been in complete disbelief over this story. But at the time, I was struck by the completely open attitude toward sex,” Zoldbrod explains .

 

Perhaps viewing sexuality as a component to total emotional as well as physical health is the key to the open-minded attitude. “Up in Cairns, near the Great Barrier Reef, in an area where a lot of young people vacationed, the streets were full of booklets and posters saying, ‘No glove, no love,’” Zoldbrod describes . “They were really serious about their AIDS prevention. There were condom machines in the bathrooms in the elegant Sydney Opera House!”

 

Now that’s something to sing about.