So I may have put myself in a bit of a bind as now I need to talk about sex and isn’t that always a bit of an awkward topic when you’re not sure who is listening? Come as you are is a bit of a mixed bag for some for other’s it’s the self help sex guide they have been looking for. Personally I feel it fills in some of the gaps lacking in sexual education because it moves beyond mechanics and cultural questions like ‘does my junk look like their junk and if it doesn’t is it still okay?’ It’s aim is to reassure and to dispel some myths. But it also jumps straight into several different narratives associated with sexuality.
Rather then giving straight answers to questions it gives a frame work of suggestions of what could be going on and how to alleviate the problems being encountered. But it does it all with a confidence boosting tone in a non-invasive, sitting-here-to-chat-and-not-judge-way. Because if you’re here already, surely you’re already curious right?
And if you’re already curious, then this book assumes you’re obviously ready to do a little work in exploring.
Come as you are – Emily Nagoski
Firstly I should say that this book is very gendered. It is a broad look at a woman’s sexuality, but it deals in both heterosexual and homosexual partners. But. And this is a big but (heh heh butt) you do not have to identify as a woman to get something from this book. To paraphrase Emily Nagoski a little and to put my own spin on it: Human beings are the same biological-ikea-flatpack with slightly different instructions. Fundamentally we are all the same, but we are in different arrangements. (As a side note, everyone is allowed to realise those instructions and the current arrangement do not match up and bloody change the arrangement if they want. Don’t be shitty.)
This might not be relevant to you because of the parts you possess arranged in the ways they are, but if you’ve had sex before with anyone, even yourself, you will likely find something to think about in Come as you are. Even if you become the best buddy giving advice to his buddy about is other buddy’s girlfriend. Sometimes it pay’s to do a little homework on a subject you think you’re already pretty hot in.
Nagoski covers an umbrella of topics that are for the most part interlinked and inform one another. Her ten years of experience as a sex therapist has given her a rabbit warren of things to write about. She talks about anatomy, stress, lions, your emotional brain, your primitive monkey brain, trauma triggers, brakes and accelerators, being sex positive and cultural myth for a few. But she writes in a gentle way, discussion on the theoretical doesn’t read as confusing or suffocating. Instead she gives you easy to digest metaphors and compresses things down without condescending. For example, giving the boiler a long time to heat the water BEFORE trying to use the shower (more on that later).
Nagoski generally writes what feels like a safe and informed space that’s relatable. Partly she achieves this by writing about fictional couples each battling with one or several different issues. These couples each feature throughout the book to inform her own writing and ideas, but they aren’t simplistic. Put though their paces these couples demonstrate that intimate relationships are a work in progress. But also these couples reinforce her idea that the map of what we expect to happen (which has been given to us culturally, through hollywood and a sex education that only considers mechanics) isn’t necessarily the terrain of HOW it WILL happen.
The terrain of how it will happen belongs almost entirely to context. Whatever is going on in your life will inform the sex you are having. You may have just lost a relative, or lost your job, or gained a promotion, or have a child that’s sick or or you might suddenly have a weekend free for the first time in months or you just may not be feeling your own vibe in your own skin. For example, Nagoski writes about a couple who deal with stress very differently, for her it is an accelerating factor for her desire and increases it, but he is the complete opposite. This leads to miscommunication on the topic and feelings of unease and pressure but ultimately goes towards a solution of why she smothers her stress with desire.
In this and the other couples Nagoski writes about solutions aren’t easy and are worked for with a lot of mistakes along the road. But they are worth finding.
Nagoski writes eloquently in the way she breaks up sexuality into building blocks that are easier to understand. Rather then the so called myth of a ‘drive’, she claims instead that a combination of Accelerators and Brakes (things that turn us on and off) are responsible for sexual desire.
The catch-22 is that some of your past sexual experiences will have informed your Accelerators and Brakes. But some of your general experiences will have too. The things that make us stop and freeze in flight response and the things that get the party going, are rooted in our emotional world. Of course, they are different for everyone and figuring out you have a sensitive Brake is just as important as understanding how to work around that with your partner.
Here is the point where I am going to be clever and explain one of those metaphors: “giving the boiler a long time to heat the water BEFORE trying to use the shower.” In Come as you are there is a couple where one party has one of these very sensitive Brakes and a low Accelerator. An easily triggered Brake or flight response is a good as an off switch, and the only way this couple found to move away from the stress signal of THERE ARE LIONS ABOUT TO EAT ME, is to take a long time heating the water in the boiler. Sometimes it was about giving pleasure rather then receiving it but before all of that came a quiet night in, having fun and relaxing, and telling the story of how they met to rekindle the intimacy and remember why they were together in the first place. And hey presto! The shower works and is running hot. And there are no lions.
Nagoski talk about lions and stress a lot in this book. She suggests that stress cycles are something that our brains deal with the same way it would a hungry, salivating lion coming towards us on the savannah. She suggests that the only way to break that stress cycle is to complete it. In the savannah when a lion is chasing you, you have two (maybe three) options: one. run, get back to the village and tell everyone, and survive and feel relief, two. be lunch (three. batman swoops down from a helicopter and saves you). But it has to be a process of I’m at Risk, I am in an action, and I am now safe for a stress cycle to complete. We cannot rush the process from shutting down entirely because I am at risk without the action that finds us safe is not a completed cycle.
She suggests a number of ways of being kind to ourselves in forming deliberate rituals that complete our stress cycles. Whether it is running, art therapy, but most of all it is communicating with your body that you’ve survived. Such as a good cry, a primal scream, sharing affection, body self care such as grooming, or progressive muscle relaxation or other sensorimotor meditation.
The biggest thing Nagoski offers in Come as you are is being kind to yourself through this entire process. Often when we have a problem, we try to muscle through it and in doing so misunderstand what we need from ourselves and other people. She offers common sense clues into what might be going on, a way of reminding ourselves that our primal monkey brain is still wired to deal with lions and not stock sheets. And sometimes those wires get a little lost and the lions creep into bed with us.
On the whole I love this book and have recommended it to just about everyone.
The Shelf Wanderer 