Come as You Are - Emily Nagoski  ## Metadata - Author: **Emily Nagoski** - Full Title: Come as You Are - Category: #books - Tags: #sex ## Highlights - 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. (Location 113) - And it was also assumed that because men experience spontaneous, out-of-the-blue desire for sex, women should also want sex spontaneously. Again it turns out that’s true sometimes, but not necessarily. A woman can be perfectly normal and healthy and never experience spontaneous sexual desire. Instead, she may experience “responsive” desire, in which her desire emerges only in a highly erotic context. (Location 122) - It is your Grand Central Station of erotic sensation. Averaging just one-eighth the size of a penis yet loaded with nearly double the nerve endings, it can range in size from a barely visible pea to a fair-sized gherkin, or anywhere in between, and it’s all normal, all beautiful. Unlike the penis, the clitoris’s only job is sensation. (Location 337) - Any blood with first penetration is more likely due to general vaginal tearing from lack of lubrication than to damage to the hymen. (Location 431) - Women’s hymens vary because, as far as science has been able to discover, the hymen was not selected for by evolution. It has no reproductive or any other function. It’s a byproduct, a little bonus left behind by the juggernaut of evolutionary selection pressure, like men’s nipples. (Location 438) - 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. Culture saw a “barrier” at the mouth of the vagina and decided it was a marker of “virginity” (itself a biologically meaningless idea). Such a weird idea could have been invented only in a society where women were literally property, their vaginas their most valuable real estate—a gated community. (Location 441) - Why do we talk about men “getting hard” and women “getting wet,” when from a biological perspective both male and female genitals get both hard and wet? It’s a cultural thing again. Male “hardness” (erection) is a necessary prerequisite for intercourse, and “wetness” is taken to be an indication that a woman is “ready” for intercourse (though in chapter 6, we’ll see how wrong this can be). Since intercourse is assumed to be the center of the sexual universe, we’ve metaphorized male hardness and female wetness as the Ultimate Indicators of Arousal. (Location 462) - Women also have a set of glands at the mouth of the urethra, the orifice we pee out of, called Skene’s glands. These are the homologue of the male prostate. The prostate has two jobs: It swells around the urethra so that it’s impossible for a man to urinate while he’s highly sexually aroused, and it produces about half of the seminal fluid in which sperm travels. In other words, it makes ejaculate. In women, the Skene’s glands also swell around the urethra, making it difficult to urinate when you’re very aroused. If you’ve ever tried to pee right after having an orgasm, you’ve confronted this directly—you have to take deep, cleansing breaths to give your genitals time to relax. (Location 468) - If we embrace this simple, profound idea—all the same parts, organized in different ways—it answers that ever-popular question: Are men’s and women’s sexualities the same, or are they different? Answer: Yes. They’re made of the same parts, organized differently. (Location 540) - Ask your partner, if you have one, to have a close look. Turn on the light, take off your clothes, get on your back, and let them look. Ask them what they see, how they feel about it, what memories they have of your vulva. Let your partner know what you’ve felt worried about, and ask for help to see what they see. Listen with your heart, not with your fear. (Location 595) - When you were born, you were deeply, gloriously satisfied with each and every part of your body. But decades of sex-negative culture have let in weeds of dissatisfaction. (Location 629) - Everyone’s genitals are made of the same parts, organized in different ways. No two alike. (Location 635) - Are you experiencing pain? If so, talk to a medical provider. If not, then your genitals are normal and healthy and beautiful and perfect just as they are. (Location 636) - Your sexual brain has an “accelerator” that responds to sexual stimulation, but it also has “brakes,” which respond to all the very good reasons not to be turned on right now. (Location 663) - Your central nervous system (your brain and spinal cord) is made up of a series of partnerships of accelerator and brakes—like the pairing of your sympathetic nervous system (“accelerator”) and your parasympathetic nervous system (“brake”). (Location 739) - The core insight of the dual control model is that what’s true for other aspects of the nervous system must also be true for the brain system that coordinates sex: a sexual accelerator and sexual brake. (Location 741) - Sexual Excitation System (SES). This is the accelerator of your sexual response. It receives information about sexually relevant stimuli in the environment—things you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or imagine—and sends signals from the brain to the genitals to tell them, “Turn on!” SES is constantly scanning your context (including your own thoughts and feelings) for things that are sexually relevant. It is always at work, far below the level of consciousness. You aren’t aware that it’s there until you find yourself turned on and pursuing sexual pleasure. (Location 746) - Sexual Inhibition System (SIS). This is your sexual brake. “Inhibition” here doesn’t mean “shyness” but rather neurological “off” signals. Research has found that there are actually two brakes, reflecting the different functions of an inhibitory system. One brake works in much the same way as the accelerator. It notices all the potential threats in the environment—everything you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or imagine—and sends signals saying, “Turn off!” It’s like the foot brake in a car, responding to stimuli in the moment. Just as the accelerator scans the environment for turn-ons, the brake scans for anything your brain interprets as a good reason not to be aroused right now—risk of STI transmission, unwanted pregnancy, social consequences, etc. And all day long it sends a steady stream of “Turn off!” messages. This brake is responsible for preventing us from getting inappropriately aroused in the middle of a business meeting or at dinner with our family. (Location 750) - When we ask them, “What gets you in the mood?” women tell us: • Having an attractive partner who respects them and accepts them as they are • Feeling trusting and affectionate in their relationship • Being confident and healthy—both emotionally and physically • Feeling desired by their partner, being approached in a way that makes them feel special • Explicit erotic cues, like erotica or porn, or hearing or seeing other people having sex (Location 1185) - Those rhythmic, involuntary contractions are perhaps the most nearly universal physiological marker of orgasm—but even that can’t be relied on all the time. In one study, two out of eleven women exhibited no vaginal muscle contractions at orgasm.3 And in another study, some women exhibited the muscle contractions without orgasm.4 In other words, genital physiological markers of orgasm are not always predictive of a woman’s subjective experience of orgasm. Which makes perfect sense if you recognize that orgasm—like arousal—isn’t about what happens in your genitals, it’s about what happens in your brain. (Location 4206) - To say that women should have orgasms from vaginal penetration is anatomically equivalent to saying that men should have orgasms from prostate or perineal stimulation. (Location 4304) ## New highlights added April 29, 2025 at 8:30 AM - Difficulty with or absence of orgasm in certain contexts is very common. For example, only 11 percent of college women report having an orgasm the first time they “hook up” with a new partner, compared with 67 percent of college women having sex in the context of a relationship of more than six months’ duration.[20](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note20) Around 16 percent of women have not had an orgasm, or are unsure whether they’ve had an orgasm, by age twenty-eight.[21](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note21) And there probably are some women who never experience orgasm—the research indicates something like 5–10 percent[22](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note22)—but it’s not clear how many of them are not able to orgasm under any circumstances and how many are just not interested enough to keep looking for the right context. Orgasm is, in some ways, like riding a bicycle—it comes more naturally to some people than others, and if you’re not motivated enough to keep trying until you figure it out, you’ll never learn. And it’s a rare person who genuinely needs to learn to ride a bicycle. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jszn7rpz8gx8371da1k34bke)) - The central approach to orgasm difficulties is to make pleasure the goal, not orgasm. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jsznaph5rdx61yes7g3h0jr1)) - She did, and it was true . . . kind of. It turns out putting on socks made it easier for research participants to orgasm while masturbating in a brain imaging machine.[25](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note25) You have to wonder why. Are all brain imaging sex research participants secret foot fetishists? Does it have something to do with blood flow to the genitals? Nothing so arcane. Gert Holstege, the researcher leading the study, said the research participants “were uncomfortable and had cold feet.”[26](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note26) Put on socks, have warmer feet, and have easier orgasms. Even in the unerotic setting of a research laboratory, such a small shift can make a difference. And that type of shift is the key to moving from very nice orgasms to award-winning orgasms. Here’s the science that tells you how. All your internal states—your physical comfort, hunger, thirst, sleepiness, loneliness, frustration, etc.—interact deep in the emotional One Ring of your brain, and they influence each other in a process called “integration.”[27](https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/47334907/#ch08note27) When one state—like cold feet—interferes with another state—like sexual arousal—that’s “subtractive integration.” And when one state actively reinforces another state, that’s “additive integration.” That’s what Laurie and Johnny experienced when they were trying not to have sex and Johnny also told her the reasons he loved making love with her. The proximity seeking of their attachment mechanism mixed with their sexual motivation, and both were intensified. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jsznf833x38vqmavmr36j35f))