Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

by Emily Nagoski

Then I described the sexual response mechanism as a set of on and off switches, with each associated with a particular kind of input—genital sensations, relationship satisfaction, stress, attachment, etc.—that throws a switch on or off. Men’s and women’s sexual response mechanisms have the same set of dials and switches, but they tend to be tuned to different levels of sensitivity, so that just a little bit of genital stimulation throws an on switch for men, while just a little bit of stress throws an off switch for women. Laurie’s life, I explained, was throwing all the off switches. He said, “You’re saying I’ve got this strong input from my body, but her strongest input is from her . . . life?” “Yes!” “So to hack the system, what I need to be paying attention to is the stuff that’s hitting the brakes, because once those are off, the accelerator will take over. Is that what you’re saying?” “Yes. You’ve got it. I think she wrote a list of stuff that hit her brakes—” “She did,” he said. “I’ve seen it. I didn’t know what to do with it, but now . . .” He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head and said, “This really changes everything. What this says is that the sexiest thing I can do isn’t some crazy erotic thing. The sexiest thing I can do is take away as many of the brakes as I can, which is . . . I mean, I can do that. Just . . . why did no one tell me this before?”