Nobody Taught You This in Sex Ed — And It Might Be Holding You Back After Divorce

Nobody tells you that divorce can feel like a second puberty. Suddenly, after years of being someone's partner — someone's spouse — you're standing in your own skin again, sometimes for the first time in decades, asking a question you were never really taught to answer: What actually brings me pleasure? In this illuminating, permission-giving episode of Divorce Happens, host Olivia Howell sits down with Myisha Battle, clinical sexologist, certified dating coach, and author of the brand-new book Sexual Pleasure for Dummies. This isn't just a conversation about sex — it's a conversation about reclamation. About what it means to rediscover your own body, your own desires, and your own standards after divorce. Myisha brings equal parts clinical expertise and radical warmth to a topic that most divorce support spaces completely ignore: the connection between sexual self-knowledge and your ability to build a new, fully embodied life after a marriage ends.What makes Myisha such a revelatory voice in the divorce recovery and dating-after-divorce space is the way she reframes experiences we've been taught to see as losses. She introduces the concept — shared by Olivia's network of divorce professionals — of "cougar puberty": the phase many women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond enter after a major relationship ends, where hormonal shifts, hard-won self-knowledge, and freedom from the pressure of family planning converge into something unexpected and powerful. Where perimenopause is often framed as decline, Myisha insists it can be the beginning of a woman's most liberated, most pleasurable chapter yet. She talks about the women she works with who are energized, curious, and finally ready to explore — women who look back at their earlier selves with compassion and look forward with genuine excitement. Myisha also digs into why so many people — especially women — feel like they're "dummies" about their own pleasure, tracing it back to the shame-based, biology-only sex education most of us received, and the gendered expectations that have quietly shaped our experiences (and our orgasm gaps) ever since.The conversation closes with something both practical and profound: a roadmap for anyone who wants to start, or restart, their sexual self-education — whether they're newly single, years into co-parenting, or simply ready to stop putting their own pleasure last. Myisha walks listeners through what to expect from her book, from anatomy chapters that treat pleasure as a birthright rather than a bonus, to sections on pain during sex that so many women have silently normalized, to chapters on how to communicate about desire in any relationship, including the one you have with yourself. For divorced women navigating starting over after divorce, dating after divorce, or simply the deeply personal work of figuring out who they are outside of a marriage, this episode is both a permission slip and a practical guide. You are allowed to want more. You are allowed to feel good. And you are absolutely allowed to start right now.🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry:The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/