Nagoski - Come as you are: the surprising new science that will transform your sex life

COME AS YOU ARE

EMILY NAGOSKI is director of Wellness Education and lecturer at Smith College, where she teaches womens sexuality. She has a PhD in health behaviour with a doctoral concentration in human sexuality from Indiana University (IU), and a masters degree (also from IU) in counseling, with a clinical internship at the Kinsey Institute Sexual Health Clinic. She also has a BA in psychology, with minors in cognitive science and philosophy, from the University of Delaware.

While at IU, Emily worked as an educator and docent at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. She also taught graduate and undergraduate classes in human sexuality, relationships and communication, stress management, and sex education.

She is the author of three guides for Ian Kerners goodinbed.com, including Guide to Female Orgasms , and she writes the popular sex blog thedirtynormal.com.

Emily lives in western Massachusetts with two dogs, two cats, and a cartoonist.

Scribe Publications
1820 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia
2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Scribe 2015

This edition published by arrangement with Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York.

Copyright Emily Nagoski, PhD, 2015
Illustrated by Erika Moen

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Nagoski, Emily, author

Come as You Are: the surprising new science that will transform your sex life.

9781925106596 (AUS edition)
9781925228014 (UK edition)
9781925113839 (e-book)

1. Sexual excitement. 2. Sex instruction for women. 3. WomenSexual behavior.

613.96

scribepublications.com.au
scribepublications.co.uk

contents

Introduction:

The True Story of Sex

The Organization of This Book

A Couple of Caveats

If You Feel Broken, or Know Someone Who Does

part 1 the (not-so-basic) basics

Anatomy:

The Beginning

The Clit, the Whole Clit, and Nothing but the Clit

Meet Your Clitoris

Lips, Both Great and Small

Hymen Truths

A Word on Words

The Sticky Bits

Intersex Parts

Why It Matters

Change How You See

A Better Metaphor

What It Is , Not What It Means

The Dual Control Model:

Turn On the Ons, Turn Off the Offs

Arousability

What Medium Means

Different for Girls... but Not Necessarily

What Turns You On?

All the Same Parts, Organized in Different Ways

Can You Change Your SIS or SES?

Context:

Sensation in Context

Sex, Rats, and Rock n Roll

Your Emotional One Ring

You Cant Make Them

Is Something Wrong with Me? (Answer: Nope)

part 2 sex in context

The Stress Response Cycle: Fight, Flight, and Freeze

Stress and Sex

Broken Culture Broken Stress Response Cycles

Complete the Cycle!

When Sex Becomes the Lion

Sex and the Survivor

Origin of Love

The Science of Falling in Love

Attachment and Sex: The Dark Side

Attachment and Sex: Sex That Advances the Plot

Attachment Style

Managing Attachment: Your Feels as a Sleepy Hedgehog

Survival of the Social

The Water of Life

Cultural Context:

Three Messages

You Are Beautiful

Criticizing Yourself = Stress = Reduced Sexual Pleasure

Health at Every Size

Dirty

When Somebody Yucks Your Yum

Maximizing Yum... with Science! Part 1: Self-Compassion

Maximizing Yum... with Science! Part 2: Cognitive Dissonance

Maximizing Yum... with Science! Part 3: Media Nutrition

You Do You

part 3 sex in action

Arousal:

Measuring and Defining Nonconcordance

All the Same Parts, Organized in Different Ways: This Is a Restaurant

Nonconcordance in Other Emotions

Lubrication Error #1: Genital Response = Turned On

Lubrication Error #2: Genital Response Is Enjoying

Lubrication Error #3: Nonconcordance Is a Problem

Medicating Away the Brakes

Honey... Im Nonconcordant!

Ripe Fruit

Desire:

Desire = Arousal in Context

Not a Drive. For Real.

Why It Matters That Its Not a Drive

But Emily, Sometimes It Feels Like a Drive!

Impatient Little Monitors

Good News! Its Probably Not Your Hormones

More Good News! Its Not Monogamy, Either

Isnt It Just Culture?

It Might Be the Chasing Dynamic

Maximizing Desire... with Science! Part 1: Arousing the One Ring

Maximizing Desire... with Science! Part 2: Turning Off the Offs

Maximizing Desire... with Science! Part 3: Desperate Measures

Sharing Your Garden

part 4 ecstasy for everybody

Orgasm:

NonconcordanceNow with Orgasms!

No Two Alike

All the Same Parts...

Your Vaginas Okay, Either Way

The Evolution of the Fantastic Bonus

Difficulty with Orgasm

Ecstatic Orgasm: Youre a Flock!

How Do You Medicate a Flock?

Flying Toward Ecstasy

Meta-Emotions:

Cant Get No...

The Map and the Terrain

Positive Meta-Emotions Step 1: Trust the Terrain

Positive Meta-Emotions Step 2: Let Go of the Map (the Hard Part)

How to Let Go: Nonjudging

Nonjudging = Emotion Coaching

Nonjudging: Tips for Beginners

No Good Reason

Healing Trauma with Nonjudging

When Partners Dismiss!

Influencing the Little Monitor Part 1: Changing Your Criterion Velocity

Influencing the Little Monitor Part 2: Changing the Kind of Effort

Influencing the Little Monitor Part 3: Changing the Goal

To Feel Normal

This Is It

Conclusion:

Why I Wrote This Book

Where to Look for More Answers

Appendix 1:

Appendix 2:

For my students

introduction

YES, YOU ARE NORMAL

To be a sex educator is to be asked questions. Ive stood in college dining halls with a plate of food in my hands answering questions about orgasm. Ive been stopped in hotel lobbies at professional conferences to answer questions about vibrators. Ive sat on a park bench, checking social media on my phone, only to find questions from a stranger about her asymmetrical genitals. Ive gotten emails from students, from friends, from their friends, from total strangers about sexual desire, sexual arousal, sexual pleasure, sexual pain, orgasm, fetishes, fantasies, bodily fluids, and more.

Questions like...

Once my partner initiates, Im into it, but it seems like it never even occurs to me to be the one to start things. Why is that?

My boyfriend was like, Youre not ready, youre still dry. But I was so ready. So why wasnt I wet?

I saw this thing about women who cant enjoy sex because they worry about their bodies the whole time. Thats me. How do I stop doing that?

I read something about women who stop wanting sex after a while in a relationship, even if they still love their partner. Thats me. How do I start wanting sex with my partner again?

I think maybe I peed when I had an orgasm... ?

I think maybe Ive never had an orgasm... ?

Under all these questions, theres really just one question:

Am I normal?

(The answer is nearly always: Yes.)

This book is a collection of answers. Theyre answers that Ive seen change womens lives, answers informed by the most current science and by the personal stories of women whose growing understanding of sex has transformed their relationships with their own bodies. These women are my heroines, and I hope that by telling their stories, Ill empower you to follow your own path, to reach for and achieve your own profound and unique sexual potential.