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

by Emily Nagoski

Love/Emotional Bonding Cues, such as feeling a sense of love, security, commitment, emotional closeness, protection, and support in your relationship, and feeling a kind of “special attention” from your partner.

Visual/Proximity Cues, such as seeing an attractive, well-dressed potential partner, with a well-toned body and lots of confidence, intelligence, and class.

Romantic/Implicit Cues include intimate behaviors such as dancing closely, sharing a hot tub or massages or other intimate touch (like touching the face or hair), watching a sunset, laughing or whispering together, or smelling pleasant.

Context is made of two things: the circumstances of the present moment—whom you’re with, where you are, whether the situation is novel or familiar, risky or safe, etc.—and your brain state in the present moment—whether you’re relaxed or stressed, trusting or not, loving or not, right now, in this moment. The evidence is mounting that women’s sexual response is more sensitive than men’s to context, including mood and relationship factors, and women vary more from each other in how much such factors influence their sexual response.

It’s the same sensation, but because the context is different, your perception of that sensation is different.

“What would happen if you met your friends at dinner and said, ‘I feel so beautiful today!’?”

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.

The answer is yes. You belong in your body. You belong in the world. You’ve belonged since the day you were born, this is your home. You don’t have to earn it