Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

by Emily Nagoski

Images matter. They tell us what’s possible, what things go together, what belongs and what doesn’t belong. And we’re all just trying to belong somewhere.”

These changes in perception are not “just in your head.” People who are given a drug that will relax them and are told, “This is a drug that will relax you,” not only feel more relaxed compared to those who got the drug but not the information, they also have more of the drug in their blood plasma.11 Context changes more than how you feel; it can change your blood chemistry. It’s

Remember that beating yourself up is the emotional One Ring equivalent of treating yourself as your own internal lion, experiencing yourself as a threat that needs to be escaped (which is impossible), conquered (which is literally self-destructive), or avoided through shutdown (which is counterproductive, to say the least).

These participants’ experiences show us that great sex is not about what you do with your partner, nor about which body parts go where or how often, or for how long, but about how you share sensation in the context of profound trust and connection. Which sounds astonishing, right? But this research isn’t about setting an impossibly high bar for the rest of us to reach for, it’s about recognizing the difference between what great sex is really like and what most of us expect great sex to be like. For example, notice anything missing from that list? How about desire? Turns out, desire is not a big part of extraordinary sex. It was not mentioned by the majority of participants, and was only rarely emphasized as a necessary aspect of great sex. “Lust, desire, chemistry, attraction” was, at most, a minor component of optimal sex. Even among people who have extraordinary sex, responsive desire is normal. And they’re not alone. “Optimal” sex is remarkably similar to the “good sex” described by survivors of child sexual violence, including qualities researchers identified as “communication,” “openness, vulnerability,” being “present in the moment,” and being an “active, assertive participant.”23 In another study that asked twenty women to describe “good sex,” only three participants mentioned being “in the mood” or “wanting it” as hallmarks of “happy and joyful” sex.24 More common in these women’s narratives of good, happy sex were comfort and naturalness, basic pleasure, and, abo...