Will Vaginal Estrogen Affect My Husband?

Vaginal estrogen and how it helps 50-plus women enjoy good, even great, sex is no secret. As a longtime user, I’ll blurb its benefits all day long.

This week’s query, though, comes with a twist: a woman whose husband is worried that exposure to her vaginal estrogen will somehow affect him.

Our medical experts set the record straight.

My husband and I have talked a lot about vaginal estrogen and how it could benefit me. However, he believes the estrogen will transfer to him and affect him in a negative way — causing male breast growth, weight gain and muscle loss. We are in our 70s and exercise, eat healthy and are sexually active. Is there any medical basis for his negative belief? — Submitted by R.L.

The short answer? No.

Vaginal estrogen is super low-dose, says Rochester Regional Health ob-gyn Maureen Slattery, and even if a man encounters it during intercourse, it won’t impact him.

That includes breast growth. “He could rub it on his breast every single day for a year and it won’t do anything,” Slattery says. 

Weight gain should not be a concern either: “It will not cause literally anything he is afraid of.”

Slattery advises against the wife applying it right before having sex, but not for the reasons the husband is worried about. It’s just not a great lubricant, she says. 

More Ways to Benefit

View All

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

Previous Next

1. Related Benefit 1
2. Related Benefit 2
3. Related Benefit 3
4. Related Benefit 4
5. Related Benefit 5

Understanding how topical estrogen works. The vulva and vaginal lining are estrogen-dependent tissues. When estrogen drops to near zero after menopause, says retired ob-gyn and sexuality educator Gretchen Frey, these areas very often become thin, dry, fragile and easily irritated.

The outcome? Vaginal penetration often becomes painful, says Frey. Urinary incontinence is another possibility. Tight clothing can put uncomfortable pressure on the vulva. (Ouch!)

Low-dose vaginal estrogen works directly on the tissues and restores them to a premenopausal state: thick, elastic, moist and resilient, says Frey. The result? A healthy and happy vagina that feels sexy again.

Among its many other benefits, according to Vanderbilt University Medical Center urologist and urogynecologist Melissa Kaufman, vaginal estrogen amps up sex drive, arousal, genital sensation and orgasmic response while also reducing the need to urinate frequently and urgently. Last but not least, she says, it can prevent recurrent urinary tract infections.

Even if you are on systemic menopause hormone therapy, Kaufman recommends that you use topical estrogen, because the systemic therapy doesn’t treat all the changes that happen in the menopausal vagina.

“This can make the sexual experience regain some of that spark and vigor they had in younger years,” Kaufman says. “The fact is, we should have more women using it more often.”