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

by Emily Nagoski

The second brake is a little different. It’s more like the hand brake in a car, a chronic, low-level “No thank you” signal. If you try to drive with the hand brake on, you might be able to get where you want to go, but it’ll take longer and use a lot more gas. Where the foot brake is associated with “fear of performance consequences,” the hand brake is associated with “fear of performance failure,” like worry about not having an orgasm.

“So how do I stop hitting brake?” The million-dollar question. The short answer is: Reduce your stress, be affectionate toward your body, and let go of the false ideas about how sex is “supposed” to work, to create space in your life for how sex actually works.

Learning to recognize the contexts that increase your brain’s perception of the world as a sexy place, and having skills to maximize the sexy contexts, is key to increasing your sexual satisfaction.

The sequence works this way: Something sexually relevant happens, and your brain goes, “Hey, that’s sexually relevant.” That’s expecting. And if the context is right, your brain also goes, “Hey, that’s nice!” That’s enjoying. And if the stimulus is nice enough, your brain goes, “Ooh, go get more of that!” That’s eagerness.

Physical activity is the single most efficient strategy for completing the stress response cycle and recalibrating your central nervous system into a calm state.

Emotions are like tunnels: You have to walk all the way through the darkness to get to the light at the end.

Stress reduces sexual interest in 80–90 percent of people and reduces sexual pleasure in everyone—even the 10–20 percent of people for whom it increases interest. The way to deal with stress is to allow your body to complete the stress response cycle.