Beyond Linear Books - Come As You Are By Emily Nagoski
Self-help books can be a great tool. My attitude to them and the one I share with my clients is very much ‘take what you need and leave the rest’. If this book helps you, that’s great. If not, then that’s ok too! Hopefully, another book in this series will resonate with you. With that in mind, let’s dive in! The second book in this series is “Come As You Are: The surprising new science that will transform your sex life” By Dr Emily Nagoski.
What I love about this book
When we look at media, we see people all the time who instantly become aroused at the mere sight of their partner. They’re ready for sex, at the drop of a hat, no lube, no pre-sex chat, no one needs to quickly just hang up the washing or anything. This means that if your sex life isn’t like that, it can leave you feeling confused and isolated. In reality, putting so much pressure on sex to look or be a certain way, can cause stress for all parties involved. Lots of things can influence our levels of sexual desire, the type of sex we want to have, and how comfortable we feel.
Although we all know that the way people have sex in media isn’t usually how it works, most people still believe that there must be some truth to it.. otherwise, how could it be so pervasive? It can be pretty demoralizing to only see one type of sexuality portrayed as sexy and functional. This thought process can mean when we hit a road bump in our relationships with sex, either with ourselves or with partners, there can be a lot of blame and self-judgment which only compounds the issue.
Here is where Come As You Are can help. It gives a clear and precise knowledge base and language that you can use with your partner/s and for yourself, to help you learn more about your sexual desire. The book has many useful tools, including the sexual temperament quiz. With this short quiz, Emily Nagoski goes into detail to discuss how unlike what we see in the media and discussions of ‘sex drive’, our desire levels can be more influenced by an intricate series of breaks and accelerators. This book can help demystify sexual excitement for readers, helping you understand why you might be more aroused on holiday or how to possibly recreate those factors at home (sans pool unfortunately). It also specifically looks at normalising different facets of sexuality, and discusses why certain things might affect us more than others, using beautiful metaphors to do so. The language may be flowery in those metaphors but the science is solid. While it is definitely aimed at cisgender women (more on that later), it can be a fantastic tool for helping people understand sexuality for AFAB people and people who are attracted to or have sexual relationships with AFAB people.
The author comes at this topic from an understanding and compassionate lens, making it easy to digest. The book also gives workable actions on how to move forward if you should desire to do so after reading. There is even an accompanying workbook that you can purchase as well, to put into practice some of the exercises offered in the book. It’s an engaging and interesting read that is backed up by science.
What I don’t love about this book
While I think this book has a lot to offer, it is aimed at cisgender women with the research conducted on cisgender women. The author has spoken to this issue and that the book was based on the science of women’s sexuality, which is often centered on cisgender women, as opposed to women’s sexuality in general, which is much more expansive than this book. It also unfortunately doesn’t speak much to queer relationships, focussing on cisgender heterosexual experiences. Again, this appears to be due to the scientific elements and research of the book and (unsurprisingly and annoyingly) the much higher volume of research around cisgender heterosexual relationships. This is certainly a disappointing element of the book, that it doesn’t include more information about the sexuality of queer, trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. These are important considerations when thinking about if this book is for you.
