Come As You Are – The Surprising New Science That WIll Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski PhD

April 18, 2022 – Thornbury

I'm not joking when I say everyone needs to read this as soon as possible.

I consider myself pretty sex positive and open minded, but after reading this book, the amount of misinformation I have discovered I had sitting around in my subconscious is a lot more than I could have expected. I am glad to have swept a little of it out.

There's something profoundly depressing that you have to grieve with this, too. The realisation that women everywhere have been fed a set of lies that stops them from accessing self confidence and joy. That we all accept these lies and even doctors and therapists don't try to undo them. That women everywhere are prevented from accessing safety, self knowledge and pleasure, and we all seem OK with it.

A lot of patriarchy is fucked. This feels really fucked in a particularly devastating way.

Anyway. If you're wondering what secrets I'm alluding to, in no particular order: responsive desire vs spontaneous desire, and the normality of both but stigmatisation of the former due to the dominance of the latter in men; the hymen and its complete irrelevance to the entirely made up concept of "virginity"; the role of mindfulness in accessing pleasure; the chasing dynamic between partners with different desire styles; that sex drive is not at all a drive.

I found the tone of this book very mildly annoying, mainly because Nagoski wants to reach an audience that includes teenage girls, who are the recipients of the majority of the brainwashing she's trying to undo. A more scientific version with more technical terms may have suited me better, but I have to also appreciate that the softness and playfulness of the tone does help to make what can be quite sensitive and upsetting content probably a lot easier to read for many, many, many people.

Being soft, fun and enjoyable doesn't make it less true, trustworthy or authoritative if you can undo your association of masculine and authoritative. And please do that. And read this. Soon! 💓