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

by Emily Nagoski

The frustrating reality is we’ve been lied to—not deliberately, it’s no one’s fault, but still. We were told the wrong story. For a long, long time in Western science and medicine, women’s sexuality was viewed as Men’s Sexuality Lite—basically the same but not quite as good.

I know for sure that what I’ve written in this book can help you. It may not be enough to heal all the wounds inflicted on your sexuality by a culture in which it sometimes feels nearly impossible for a woman to “do” sexuality right, but it will provide powerful tools in support of your healing. How do I know? Evidence, of course!

The hymen is a profound example of the way humans metaphorize anatomy. Here is an organ that has no biological function, and yet Western culture made up a powerful story about the hymen a long time ago. This story has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with controlling women.

“We’re raising women to be sexually dysfunctional, with all the ‘no’ messages we’re giving them about diseases and shame and fear. And then as soon as they’re eighteen they’re supposed to be sexual rock stars, multiorgasmic and totally uninhibited. It doesn’t make any sense. None of the things we do in our society prepares women for that.”

Women have cultural permission to criticize ourselves, but we are punished if we praise ourselves, if we dare to say that we like ourselves the way we are.

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). And that’s why we need self-compassion.

even though I’d love you to find meaning in every page, every paragraph of this book, cherry-pick from here, too. We’re all different, so what’s relevant for you is definitely, absolutely not the same as what’s relevant for me or for any of the many hundreds of women I’ve taught. Take what’s relevant. Ignore what isn’t; it’s there for somebody else who needs it.

E. L. James, if you’re reading this: Lubrication means it was sex-related, which tells us nothing about whether it was sexually appealing. Therefore I humbly request that in the next edition, Christian says to Ana, “Feel this. See how sex-related your body considers physical contact with your buttocks and genitals, Anastasia. That gives me no information about whether or not you liked it. Did you like it? No? Double crap, let me make it up to you by reading Emily Nagoski’s book about the science of women’s sexual wellbeing, so that I have a clue next time.” Thank you.

🤣

Women are not liars, in denial, or otherwise broken. They are women, rather than men, in a world that wants women to believe they can’t understand their own internal experience.

In my all years of reading the research on sexual desire and talking with couples, therapists, scientists, and medical providers, I have seen no more powerful key to treating “problems” with desire than to understand that it is normal not to want sex you don’t like.

You were born entitled to all the pleasure your body can feel. You were born entitled to pleasure in whatever way your body receives it, in whatever contexts afford it, and in whatever quantities you want it. Your pleasure belongs to you, to share or keep as you choose, to explore or not as you choose, to embrace or avoid as you choose.

Suffering is not a virtue and pleasure is not a sin. We’ve been lied to all our lives.

Pleasure is a gateway to accessing your fullest, truest personhood. Pleasure is where you find a no-holds-barred connection with yourself and with those you love most. Why? Because pleasure only happens in a context where your brain feels safe enough to be completely and entirely you, without shame or social performance or “shoulds.”

I am done living in a world where women are lied to about their bodies; where women are objects of sexual desire rather than subjects of sexual pleasure; where sex is used as a weapon against women; and where women believe their bodies are broken, simply because those bodies are not male. And I am done living in a world where women are trained from birth to treat their bodies as the enemy. I wrote this book to teach women to live with confidence and joy.