“Love is having. Desire is wanting. And you can want only what you don’t already have.”
How much do you actually know about female sexuality? Not what you picked up from movies, locker room talk, or late-night internet browsing — but the real science behind it?
If you’re being honest, probably not much. And that’s not your fault. For most of human history, nobody bothered to figure it out. The research was underfunded, the cultural conversation was nonexistent, and the myths filled the vacuum. Emily Nagoski’s Come as You Are is here to fix that.
Written for females to understand themselves and the culture around them. The author is both emotionally and academically intelligent in the way she navigates sex education for women.
These topics include the anatomy of women, cultural subjugation of women, self-esteem issues of women, brain triggers, hormones, and relationships.
This book is empowering and enlightening to women because it does need to cover the thousands of years of brainwashing from a male-oriented and dominated society.
For thousands of years, women were seen as a lower class of citizens. Thus, so were their sexual desires, anatomy, and philosophy.
The Dual Control Model
One of the most useful frameworks in the book is what Nagoski calls the “dual control model” of sexual response. Think of it like a car — you have an accelerator and a brake. The accelerator responds to sexually relevant stimuli in the environment. The brake responds to threats, stress, and reasons NOT to be aroused.
Here’s the key insight — most sexual problems aren’t caused by a broken accelerator. They’re caused by a brake that’s STUCK ON. Stress from work, body image issues, relationship tension, exhaustion — all of these hit the brake pedal hard.
This completely reframes the conversation. Instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?” the question becomes “What’s hitting my brakes?” That shift alone makes the entire book worth reading. It’s one of those ideas that seems obvious AFTER you hear it, but nobody was saying it before Nagoski.
Sexual Nonconcordance
The concept of sexual “nonconcordance” involves “getting wet, or getting hard” (for males), yet not actually feeling the urge to have sex. This could involve waking up with an erection or having an orgasm at the gym, yet not from any actual sexual arousal.
We are excited by “sexually relevant” stimuli such as animals having sex (primates/monkeys), books and films about rape/BDSM (50 Shades of Grey), but this doesn’t mean we want to have sex.
This distinction is MASSIVE. Nagoski explains that for women, the overlap between physical arousal and mental desire is only about 10%. For men, it’s around 50%. So physical response is NOT a reliable indicator of what someone actually wants. The legal and cultural implications of understanding this are enormous.
The Myth of Virginity
One of the most relevant topics involves the concept of “virginity” and the hymen. Apparently, this is a bullshit cultural imagination about the “purity of essence” within women. The reason women bleed during their first sexual experience is because of vaginal tearing.
Women were sold, killed, captured, and raped based on the tearing and bleeding of their vaginas. Bleeding can also happen during sex without enough lubrication.
When you think about how many lives were destroyed over a completely made-up concept — it’s infuriating. Entire cultures built systems of honor, shame, and violence around something that has zero basis in biology. Nagoski lays this out clearly and doesn’t hold back, which I respect.
The Female Orgasm
The book also covers the female orgasm and how it can be initiated through many different ways — such as vaginal and clitoral stimulation, earlobe stimulation, nipple stimulation, giving and receiving oral sex, feet stimulation, and even just mentally inducing an orgasm with no touching.
For many women, their mental energy is tied to other stresses and self-esteem issues in their lives. Thus, having an orgasm (which is heavily dependent on mental relaxation) can be very, very difficult for many women.
The author recommends two solutions for women to release stress and potentially achieve orgasms. One is through mindfulness, which involves focusing on breathing, thus relaxing and preventing unnecessary thoughts from distracting you.
The other is to get a sex toy, preferably a vibrator. The intensity of a vibrator can allow much faster orgasms, while a vibrator also allows the comfort of privacy.
And for sex, the best lubrication is silicone-based. But do not use silicone-based lubrication with silicone toys, since this will break the toys.
Context Is Everything
Nagoski keeps coming back to one word throughout the entire book — CONTEXT. The same touch, the same person, the same situation can feel completely different depending on the emotional and psychological context surrounding it.
A partner’s hand on your back can feel loving after a great dinner date and suffocating after a stressful argument. The stimulation is identical. The context changed everything.
This applies way beyond sexuality, by the way. As someone interested in psychology and behavioral science, I see the same principle in marketing, negotiation, and persuasion. The same ad copy converts differently depending on where the audience sees it. The same sales pitch lands differently depending on the buyer’s mood. Context shapes perception. Always has, always will.
Final Thoughts
If you are a woman, I recommend this audiobook as a great education into sexual awareness for yourself.
As a male, if you want to learn about the sexual dynamics of women — from the perspective of an “emotionally and academically intelligent” woman — then I recommend this as well. It’s written for women, so it can be emotionally fluffy at times, but it’s a good deconstruction of some cultural beliefs.
Nagoski writes with warmth and conviction, and she backs up her points with actual research — not just opinions or anecdotes. In a world where so much of sex education is either prudish, misleading, or flat-out wrong, this book is a breath of fresh air.
Recommended — 4/5
Thanks for reading.
— Leonidas
