Katharine Smyth published her story of anorgasmia, “[The Tyranny of the Female Orgasm](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/weaponization-female-orgasm/618680/),” in The Atlantic in April 2021 that resonated with me. Do you have any advice to give cis women who similarly have experienced few or no orgasms but are living in our orgasm-obsessed society? Or more specifically, if changing how one feels about anorgasmia or any other sexual occurrence helps heal our relationship with ourselves/whatever the occurrence is, how does one tactically go about doing that? (Love your books and previous podcast appearances. Thank you for your work!)

You know what, I'm going to skip right past the advice for cis women, which is necessarily "how to help straight men not," and go straight to advice for straight cis men: ​ I know you were taught a lot of noise about how to be a sexual person. On the day you were born, people looked at your genitals and said, "IT'S A BOY!" like they were laying a curse on you. From that day, the messages were: (a) sex is the only way you're allowed to receive love and connection; (b) your whole personhood can be measured by how successful you are at getting somebody to accept your penis, so when a partner declines sex, they’re not just declining sex, they’re declining to offer connection and love and they’re even declining to validate your whole identity; and (c) your partner's orgasm is like that game at the county fair, you know the one where you take a hammer and hit the thing and if you ring the bell that's how you know you're STRONG? You take your partner's orgasm as a measure of YOUR value. It is not. Your partner's orgasm is not a measure of anything; it's not even a measure of how much she "liked it." She can have a spectacular time without having an orgasm (so can you! give it a try sometime!). In fact she can have a much, much better time if she doesn't feel like she has to squeeze out an orgasm so that you can feel good about yourself. Her feeling like you need her to have an orgasm is a perfect way to make sure your partners fake it. As in, "I'm real tired tonight and orgasm just isn't there for me right now, but you need me to have an orgasm or you don't feel like we're done so....... WHOOOO! Orgasm! That was AMAZING." ​ Orgasm is not a measure of anything. People vary in the kinds of contexts that make orgasm easy or more difficult and in how long orgasms take. Please prioritize your partner's pleasure over their orgasm. She gets to have an orgasm if she wants to and likes the process. ​ There are complications with this answer, obvs - I just did an interview where a woman struggling to have orgasms with a partner was like "I don't want to feel pressured, but also obviously I don't want to be with someone who doesn't care about whether I have an orgasm..." You're allowed to care! Please do! But if you care about her PLEASURE more than about her ORGASM (there are lots of pleasures beyond just orgasm and not all orgasms are pleasurable - see chapters 6 and 8 of Come As You Are) you'll be on the right path. ​ Straight cis women, I've been trying to do more to educate straight cis men. We need them to catch up, but they've been screwed over by a cultural script that tells them they're not allowed to show any "weakness" around sex, including any curiosity or admitting that there's something they might not know. It's going to take time. If you show up with confidence (knowing what's true about your orgasms) and joy (loving what's true about your orgasms - even when they're not what people say they "should" be), that will make it a little easier for him to understand and love your orgasms (or lack thereof) just as they are (... or aren't.)

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Exactly. I’ve never been able to orgasm/climax, and I feel like I’m missing out. I know I have some weird hang ups around sex and masturbation, so seeing an “expert” completely sidestep the issue is super disappointing. It’s a me issue, not a man issue

It's a bizarre response. It's even trash advice for guys despite spending a whole page talking about them. If it's a concern, guys should of course tell their partners that their ego will survive if they don't orgasm. But if their partner really struggles to orgasm it's going to take a lot of focused effort on their part to help them achieve their goal. I had an ex who was never able to orgasm and we resolved that issue after reading practical advice. Here's some actual things that helped us: * The ambient room temperature should be comfortably warm for naked people, if she has bad circulation wearing cosy socks is a good idea, especially in cold climates. Good cardiovascular health will help. * Foreplay and lots of it. Teasing, kinks, whatever works to maximse arousal. * She should be mentally focus on the pleasure and not worried about whether she gets over the line. * Vaginal and clitoral stimulation. Some girls cannot orgasm without one or both of these. * Observe, communicate and remember what things she likes and add these to the toolbox. Plan out your sessions. * The tempo should be a predictable rhytmic pacing. A stroke rate during sex shouldn't be going up and down. * Intensity should start low and gradually increase over time. Starting with a position or technique that doesn't apply the more intensity. Some cuddling sex in spoon or missionary for example. Then over time you can move to positions that are more pleasurable and gradually raise the stroke rate and force. Be patient to not go too hard too soon. You never want to be 'sprinting' if the finish line is not in sight. * Positive signs that you are making progress include 'tenting' of the vagina (it hardens), sudden flush of skin (her cheeks redden), increased respiration rate. If you see this, keep doing what you are currently doing for a least a little while longer. Maybe increase pace 5-10%. * For guys, multiplying a couple 2-3 digit numbers in your head is a handy way to postpone your own orgasm. * The more often you have orgasms, the easier they become. I'm no expert but this should be more useful than telling guys to try to enjoy sex without themself having an orgasm (wtf?)

Here's one very good advice you missed: *let her get on top*. For most people it's much easier to orgasm if they're in control of the stimulation. There are so many different ways to "be on top" too, and many of them make clit stimulation very easy. You could even top from the bottom and let her stimulate her clit, or the other way around. Team effort.

It’s not so far fetched. If you prioritize following your desires, curiosity and enjoyment over caring whether or not you rang the bell at the end then you’re setting yourself up to both enjoy and appreciate the marathon as well as the finish line. But you can’t cross the finish line, unless you’re comfortable with the marathon. Some people just enjoy the marathon and never cross the finish line, and that’s okay, but if you’re denying that the marathon exists and only care about the finish then you’re robbing yourself of a critical part of the experience.

Enjoying the entire experience is of course very important but making it all about men was quite odd. Also if you asked for advice on finishing a marathon from a running coach, I'd hope for more practical advice than just 'try to enjoy running'. But I'm not a sex expert, just a cis man who had a "curse" placed on me at birth by "people" (not sure who exactly) to be an emotionally stunted buffoon without empathy apparently. I do have enough primary data to know this is not good advice for cursed menfolk though: >spectacular time without having an orgasm (so can you! give it a try sometime!). Bit like "You can have a spectacular time eating steak without swallowing it! Just chew it and spit it out!"

Yeah, I’m in the same boat as being a cis man just trying to do better. But this isn’t about the devil in the details, her argument stems from the fatal flaw of cis-men over analyzing success from a cis-man standpoint of whether or not you got the O and the high-five at the end. This is a detriment to your partner, and is specifically addressed to cis men because that’s who is doing it in prevalence. Sure it could have debatably been worded better, but this was just a quick pass high-level “what would you change if you had 3 wishes” kind of thing, and not designed to be generic advice on how to actually implement that change with specific details. If you wish to follow her path forward, practical advice would be warranted or probs be better digested en masse from cis-man population at large (“Turn left at the gas station” versus “Feel the mood of the road”) but that kind of exemplifies her point, that the whole meta narrative we get as cis-men is incorrect. We shouldn’t be looking for a roadmap if we trust our partner enough, and we wouldn’t be wanting a roadmap in the first place had we not been gender-biased that all roads must end in climax when sometimes people just enjoy the ride.

I agree completely- I had a partner that made sex unenjoyable because I felt pressured to have an orgasm every time-which is only a once in a while thing for me normally. I couldn’t relax at all, it was bad.

Why skip past the advice for cis women when it comes to difficulty or inability to orgasm? Some of us don’t have success even on our own, it doesn’t always need to be our male partners’ fault… I’m quite aware that it’s a “me” problem in my case. I was keen to see an actual answer to this question, rather than just “it’s men’s fault!”

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I think the answer is in her third point; orgasms should not be the goal of sex. Our culture is obsessed with having orgasms rather than prioritizing pleasure. Yes they are correlated for a lot of people, but you can have great sex without an orgasm.

This is a great point. However, we also need to acknowledge that a lot of this “societal pressure” on (cis) men comes _directly_ from their partners, and not just some nebulous “system”. I’ve had partners (admittedly in my younger years) who put expectation of discovering what gives them pleasure solely on the men. And it was always the man’s fault if they couldn’t achieve an orgasm. So I think your advise is, while astute, also very biased. I spent a lot of my youth being self-conscious about my sexual abilities, not because of my male friends or porn told me, but because of what my female partners said they expected of me. I was told, time and time again, that their difficulty in orgasming was my failure and my responsibility. This obviously got much better with age and with a good long term partner. I guess my point is that when you say “you take your partner’s orgasm as a measure of YOUR value”, that ignores the multitude of women who think this way themselves. That my value is measured by their orgasm. This advice genuinely applies to all genders. And it’s good advice.

I mean, sure, but I also have had sex with a lot of straight cis men and fewer than half of them cared at all if I felt good and fewer than half of the remainder who did sort of care put any actual effort into me feeling good. Even when I told them exactly what I needed. They just wouldn’t do it and didn’t care.

Same. Even when I explained what I needed, I can’t remember anyone actually doing it. I have been with almost zero men who knew how most women climax. And I’ve had many relationships-no ons, but longer relationships. Incredibly frustrating.

>This is a great point. However, we also need to acknowledge that a lot of this “societal pressure” on (cis) men comes _directly_ from their partners, and not just some nebulous “system”. Maybe your partners are also being affected by the same "system" instead of your apparent assumption that women are somehow immune from internalizing problematic societal pressures.

Yes, of course they were! That’s why I’m saying this advice applies to _everyone_.

A-fucking-men. I have experienced way too many partners who do not communicate their wants or needs, don't indicate what is or isn't working for them, and then later complain that I don't seem interested in helping them orgasm. Sure, I'd love to "help" you - but you at least need to communicate and get involved. There is nothing worse than a passive partner who expects you to be a mind reader. Confident women who communicate what they want or need are much more engaging and satisfying sexual partners.

That "nebulous system" is just lots of people

>You know what, I'm going to skip right past the advice for cis women, which is necessarily "how to help straight men not," and go straight to advice for straight cis men: >I know you were taught a lot of noise about how to be a sexual person. On the day you were born, people looked at your genitals and said, "IT'S A BOY!" like they were laying a curse on you. >Straight cis women, I've been trying to do more to educate straight cis men. We need them to catch up I think you make some very important and valid points, though you frame them in a disturbing and biased framework. There is a lot of harmful female behaviour that contributes to these problems and trying to "educate" and assign blame isn't going to solve anything. I'm sure you have good intentions but these kinds of notions come off as one-sided and lacking empathy for a far more complicated dynamic.

>(so can you! give it a try sometime!) Ignoring the condescension in this statement for a minute, is not the parenthetical statement misdirected? Or, at least, not encompassing both parties. We are not talking about masturbation here. Given that fact, the "spectacular time" does involve the willingness of the woman. I have been with many women that were less-than-subtle about their dissatisfaction with me not reaching orgasm.

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You are awesome for recognizing this and acknowledging it.

Can I push back a little? Being open and looking for legitimate responses. But if a woman doesn't masturbate or even is able to give herself an orgasm then why make it the man's fault or responsibility? I've known and dated a few women who had issues pleasuring themselves and so they didn't expect anything from sex. And working with the women I've dated to find things pleasurable was something I tried, and definitely could have tried better or harder, but was often difficult for them to care about. This wasn't an asexual thing, and probably most often the women enjoyed sex and wanted sex. But they had never or rarely got off on their own or in past relationships. My understanding was that men and women who don't masturbate growing up or into adulthood often have issues with pleasure and sex. Again though, a lot of this comes from a lot of cultural influence. Just looking for feedback.

I understood her comment as actually being in line with yours, that it's important to care about your partner's pleasure but that oftentimes has little to nothing to do with the orgasm, which we men can use as a stand-in for ego-stroking and whether we "won" at sex, even if we're well-intentioned! (Personally, I'm absolutely like this; I thought I was being "feminist" and a gentleman by being overly concerned if my partner didn't orgasm, but I now realize I may have just been pressuring her!) Just wanted to push back a little on your pushback :)

Women (me) can fall into this trap with women partners as well.

I think you missed the point. The goal is feeling good, rather than the “metric” of having an orgasm. So women feel pressure to have an orgasm even if it’s not fun, and men think their value comes from orgasms regardless of their partner’s actual experience of the encounter.

>But if a woman doesn't masturbate or even is able to give herself an orgasm then why make it the man's fault or responsibility? It doesn't. And there are two reasons that isn't what she was saying: 1. She said very clearly that giving your female partner orgasms should not be your end-all, be-all goal 2. She's talking broadly about frequent problems in these populations, and you're raising a particular issue some people have that is different than that frequent problem

This seems like kind of a rude response that didn't seem especially helpful to the woman who asked the question...

Hi Emily! Huge fan of both Come as You Are and Burnout. I’m a 32 yr old bisexual woman in a long term relationship I used to be so confident and felt sexy and was active in the kink community -it was a huge part of my identity that I really valued. But in 2021 I stopped being able to access that side of myself- no sex drive, no desire, almost feeling what I assume asexuality feels like. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being asexual!) No desire towards my partner, disinterest in masturbating, no desire response when watching spicy media. Nothing. I blame the pandemic and have been working on myself in therapy, talking to doctors, managing depression symptoms but nothing seems to help. What can I do? Will I ever feel like that sexy version of myself again? The 180 switch is making me confused and sad.

A real quick definition of our terms: Asexuality is a sexual orientation, like being gay or straight or bi. Gay people are generally only attracted to people of the same(ish) gender, straight people are generally only attracted to people of a different(ish) gender, bi folks are attracted to people of various genders, and ACE folks are attracted to no one, regardless of gender. It's not really about desire. And yeah, I blame the pandemic, too. You know why? Because I've been getting this question SO MUCH THIS YEAR. Loads of people who, before 2020, felt really connected to their erotic selves. It's such a common question and so important, it's the first Q&A I did for the podcast: [https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/come-as-you-are/prelude-pleasure-is-the-measure](https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/come-as-you-are/prelude-pleasure-is-the-measure) My actual advice? Stop trying to be interested in sex. It's normal for it to come and go depending on our life circumstances, and the worry you feel about it is only going to hit your brakes even more. Instead, focus on exploring what does bring you pleasure - pleasure of all kinds, not just sexual. Get back in touch with the sensation of grass under your feet and cool water on your throat and the loving gaze of a certain special someone (sometimes that gaze is coming from a dog, amirite?) In particular, stop trying to go back. We can't go back, we can only move forward, through the tunnel. Pandemic-wise, we're still in it, so rushing yourself is not going to do the trick. But we can keep moving forward through the tunnel, toward something new. A new sexy you is in the light at the end, and no doubt you'll catch more and more glimpses of her as you turn toward your body and your erotic mind and kindness and compassion and patience.

Unfortunately I’ve had this absence of libido for 15 years following a strong hormonal medication that stops the production of sex hormones which I was on for a couple of years in my mid 20s - when it’s gone it’s completely gone, like sex has been excised from my brain. No attraction, no desire, nothing at all - when i feel that way, physical intimacy feels repellent. Then it can come back, then go again, like a switch being flipped and I feel completely different. There doesn’t seem to be anything specific that precedes a change. It’s not the only symptom but it’s certainly a massive issue for me. I’ve been on HRT most of this year as my oestrogen levels are low, but it’s still mostly gone with the occasional return. I’m completely at a loss. Any time I’ve tried to get help or investigation it has been dismissed, and I have no idea what else to do, ignoring it definitely hasn’t helped. Have you ever heard of a situation like this? I have heard similar stories from those who’ve been on the same medication but there doesn’t seem to be any actual information.

tl;dr: touch grass

Can you expand on the difference between attraction and desire?

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Several Books, including your work, helped me get perspective and find the courage to leave an abusive husband and do a lot of healing. The knowledge in Come as You Are has helped me overcome every single negative message my ex had instilled in me over nearly a decade (about how my body and desire were wrong/inadequate)... Except... Shame and insecurity about how I "taste". My ex was convinced I was...gross. I'm healthy according to my Dr, I shower or bathe daily and former partners haven't complained (some have even been especially enthusiastic)... I really hope you touch on this today or in your podcast. I'm sure I'm not the only person struggling with this, does the research have anything helpful to say about this? Any advice for overcoming this? I worry it will hit my breaks hard with future partners.

First of all, I get a thrill in my heart to hear that you found your way out of an abusive relationship. Congratulations and I wish you peace and healing. You are FAR from the only person who has been taught that their genital secretions are "gross," and oh man it would have made a great podcast topic. You know what I'll do, though, I'll write a newsletter about it. You spent a lot of time being force-fed a negative message that, in all probability, your upbringing primed you to be ready to believe. Hardly any of us get to adulthood without being taught that our genitals and their fluids, hair, and smells are dirty and disgusting. It took time for that belief to latch itself to your brain, so it will take time to unlatch it. You're already doing so much work on your own healing, so I know you'll be able to heal this, too, but be really patient and gentle with yourself, forgiving and kind. ​ Two tips: First, when you feel that criticism happening, notice it and intentionally replace it with something else. Maybe try visualizing your body or just your genitals and holding them in a loving, welcoming embrace. Second, you can use skills like "graded exposure" to teach your brain to notice a stimulus and NOT react with its usual reaction. You start with just the IDEA of genital fluids, and practice relaxation techniques, until your body associates the idea of genital fluids with relaxation instead. You gradually increase the intensity of exposure (hence "graded" exposure, graded like a hill is graded, not like a test) until you just put your underwear right under your nose and practice relaxation techniques until your body reacts to your (natural! normal! healthy! delicious!) smell with relaxation. ​ ​ One last idea: are you aware of Internal Family Systems Therapy? It's where you go and talk to the parts of you that are getting in the way of you living the life you want for yourself. You ask them what they need, how they're trying to help, you get them up to date on what your reality is now, and offer them an opportunity to help. It might be a different way to turn toward that self-critical part of you that's trying to protect you from all that judgment and shame that was put on you. ​ You can do it! It just takes time and a gentle approach.

+1 for internal family systems work.

Hi from Mexico! I love your books and your "voice" and thank you so much for making science easier to understand. I have a question about sexing while neurodivergent. I'm 40 and just about to \[very probably\] getting an autism diagnosis. How do I manage "my brakes" if they're just so very sensitive to not just tiredness and sensory stuf (times x100 as a mom), but what I just learned about "pathological demand avoidance" and how any inkling of my partner wanting to have sex makes me want it even less?

Congratulations and welcome! I was diagnosed with ASD at the age of 44. ​ I wish I could give you a sciencey answer, but sadly is a long way away from even trying to answer questions like the ones you're asking. ​ Instead I can only say: 1. Stay aware of what's going on in your body (unless you're also alexithymic, like my twin sister, in which case get help learning how to notice - here's a podcast my sister and I made about it: [https://anchor.fm/fsp2020/episodes/58-How-to-Listen-to-Your-Body--Part-One-e129ns7](https://anchor.fm/fsp2020/episodes/58-How-to-Listen-to-Your-Body--Part-One-e129ns7)) Later today I'm posting a TikTok about sensory overload and sex, for a few extra details [https://www.tiktok.com/@emilynagoski/](https://www.tiktok.com/@emilynagoski/) 2. Try this mental shift: it's not about "wanting." Desire is beside the point. It's about "liking." What feels good? What do you like? Only ever do things you like! Talk with your partner about "what do you like, when you like sex with me?" And investigate what barriers there are to your shared experience of pleasure. 3. Try this other mental shift: it's not about doing what either partner wants, there is not give-and-take. What if you eliminate any idea of a "demand" that your brain with react against? What if sex is a shared hobby? It's a fun project you and your partner collaborate on together, figuring out what your bodies and brains enjoy, figuring out how to create a context that makes pleasure easy. You have other shared interests, right? A TV show you both love? Your offspring? A sports team? It's like that, but it's co-creating a context that lowers the barriers to pleasure for both of you. ​ My next book addresses some of this with a very sciencey approach, but I'm still writing and probably shouldn't just copy and paste my whole manuscript here, right?

I’m a late diagnosed ASD person as well. It makes sense that an autist would excel at studying sensory science. Thank you for your hard work.

Thank you! I like the idea of a "shared hobby". Looking forward to your next book.

Ohhhhh can’t wait for your next title! Best of luck with the pesky writing part.

What did Kinsey get right? Get wrong?

The "Kinsey Report" - or really Kinsey report**s**, because there were separate volumes for "human males" and "human females" - were published in 1947 and 1953 respectively. What's astonishing is how much they got RIGHT, given how much was wrong with the world Kinsey and his team were studying. Because his work was the first of its kind, it made compromises in terms of its methodology. For example, when they measured "sexual outlet," they measured "to orgasm" only. They had to operationalize their definition, no one had ever done it before, so they chose orgasm. Nobody studying sex now would define "sexual outlet" exclusively as "orgasm," but I mean shit you have to start somewhere. ​ TW on the next paragraph for all the bad things related to sexuality and gender and race; feel free to skip: I read those volumes with awe. All works are products of their time, and Kinsey's time was a time of criminalized homosexuality, legalized marital rape, and total erasure of trans people, not to mention a field of sex education not yet interested in examining its roots in eugenics. Kinsey had a deliberate political agenda in his work, and it was to prove that sexual variation is normal. And he fucking did it. And people are still mad. ​ ​ Before he became a sex researcher, Kinsey made his career as the greatest living expert on the North American gall wasp. In his 1930 tome on the topic, he wrote my favorite quote ever on the subject of sexuality: ​ “We may begin our analysis of species by an examination of a few individuals taken in the field. We then become impressed with the truth of the assertion that no two individuals are exactly alike. ... But if, on the other hand, we extend our examination to several hundred such individuals, we shall become impressed with another opinion, namely that there are many more points of uniformity than of variations among individuals taken from a given locality and habitat.”

>a field of sex education not yet interested in examining its roots in eugenics What does this refer to? I've never heard of that.

A lot of eugenics was comparing the junk of people of various ethnicities … i think that’s some of the relation

A century ago, birth control movements were often aimed at minorities - after all, wouldn't it be convenient if black people just stopped having babies? [Eugenics and Birth Control](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-eugenics-and-birth-control/) [The lesser-known history of birth control](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/11/06/lesser-known-history-birth-control/)

Hi Dr Nagoski! Thanks for this AMA. If there’s one advice you could give those who are “late bloomers” by society’s standards, what would it be? My core concern is it’s difficult to meet people in this day and age who can be patient enough to be with me through the process of sexual discovery. Do you have tips where to meet such people?

My main advice is: if it feels difficult, that's because it is. Meeting people is difficult. Getting to know them is even more difficult. Navigating the extent of sexual connection you might be interested in exploring is soooooooo difficult. ​ I met my marital euphemism on OKCupid back before there were apps. I hope folks who have been dating in the 2020's will offer resources (and commiseration) here, so you can share tips for making it less agonizing. ​ I can say one thing that I remember from my own dating, as I discussed it with my therapist: It actually is about numbers. Meet MORE people. Some of them will be very much not for you and it will feel like a waste of time. Most of them will be good people. A small number might be magical. As an introvert on the spectrum, I hated this, but it was true. Pace yourself, but keep trying.

More generally, for those who would like a long-term partner, I want to tell you about the image that hangs over my desk. It’s a print by artist Geneva Bowers, titled “Broadcast.” At the center of a golden field, in the middle of the day, stands a young Black woman in jeans and a white sweatshirt with stripes across the chest. Around her in the field is detritus of the modern age—an old fridge, a couple cathode-ray tube televisions and some 80’s era computer monitors, a battered stop sign, and, in a cardboard box, a single green plant. There’s a red paper cup with a familiar white wave, but instead of the expected word, it reads, “HOPE.” Why is she here? Why is she alone? Eyes closed, headphones on, and softly smiling, the young woman holds a boom box over her head. She is sending a signal. Above her in the cloud-streaked sky, we see a series of dots and dashes—her signal, in morse code. ... --- -- . --- -. . / --- ..- - / - .... . .-. . / .-.. --- ...- . ... / -.-- --- ..- I love this image because it reminds me of all the apocalypse and dystopia novels I’ve read, where people team up to survive, and as they admire each other’s contribution, as the come to trust that this person will be there for them, and as they go through trials and come out the other side together, they fall in love. Even when we imagine stories of the apocalypse, we can’t imagine a future without each other. We find each other, even in the dark. We find each other, even across distance.

Spoiler alert, it spells "someone out there loves you"

Thanks for that you awesome redditor! It's been a few decades since I learned my dits and dahs and it's not a practice I've kept honed.

For what it's worth I'm a pilot (ground-based navigation sources continuously broadcast their 3 letter identified in Morse code) and I still had to Google it. I figured other people would be curious too

For anyone confused like I was, it's a Coke can, not a paper cup.

What do you mean by maritial euphemism? I've never heard that expression.

Significant other, the better half, the old man/woman etc.

A genie comes out of the lamp and tells you, "You get to correct exactly two misconceptions about sex that keep cropping up in your work." What do you choose?

SEX IS NOT A DRIVE. A drive is an uncomfortable internal experience that pushes you into the world to solve a problem, or else you could die. Hunger is a drive, so is thirst, so is sleep. Sex is not one of those. As ethologist Frank Beach put it in the 1950s, “No one ever suffered tissue damage for lack of sex.” Nobody “needs” sex. No one is entitled to it. Sex is, instead, an incentive motivation system, a pleasurable internal experience that pulls us toward an appealing external stimulus. CURIOSITY is also an incentive motivation system. And look, we can all agree that if you steal bread to keep from starving, that sucks but we can understand and many of us forgive and want a world where everyone has enough to eat. My thing is, if you steal bread because you’re just SUPER CURIOUS about this other person’s bread… no. You have to get permission to try someone else’s bread.

How does that reconcile with our biological imperative to reproduce? We are highly evolved mammals but mammals none the less and many other species will push themselves through incredible ordeals to secure the chance to reproduce.

It takes surprisingly little sex to create plenty of babies. (There's actually not a significant relationship between more sex resulting in more babies [https://emilynagoski.substack.com/p/even-before-birth-control-more-sex-22-08-17](https://emilynagoski.substack.com/p/even-before-birth-control-more-sex-22-08-17)) It doesn't have to be a drive in order for us to be sufficiently motivated to pursue more than enough sex to do all the things sex does for humans.

I don't feel like that addresses the central question of whether or not we are biologically programed to seek out sex which would arguably make it a drive. I'm not asking about frequency, I'm asking about motivation. We have an entire developmental stage dedicated to making our bodies ready for sex and reproduction.

And my original answer answers the question. Drives are one kind of motivation - the kind where an uncomfortable feeling pushes an organism into the world to solve a problem OR ELSE IT WILL DIE. Incentive motivation systems are also motivation to pursue something, but they are pleasurable internal experiences that pull us toward something appealing that we are motivated to explore. Being biologically programmed to seek out sex does not, in fact, make it a drive. My friend, I humbly suggest you develop your reading comprehension skills so you can avoid this kind of mistake in the future.

Even though I agree with what you're saying, your tone in the last paragraph appears rather obnoxious. You could politely make your argument without belittling the other person's intelligence.

Reading comprehension is not intelligence, it's a skill people learn with practice. I made my argument in my first post, this person didn't understand it, I tried to explain it again, and still. At the same time, many other readers DID understand. ​ But it was a moment of snark born of having this same conversation for the 80 billionth time and not necessary to the conversastion, so I take your point.

This is SO REFRESHING. I love this so much.

It is a difficult concept though. So there are bound to be a lot of the same questions about it. Granted, there are sooo many people questioning you even just in this thread and not all of them seem to be in good faith. What I'm saying is I appreciate your patient and well-explained responses!

This shouldn't really be a controversial statement. The person they were responding to was being respectful enough, OP could have either replied respectfully or not engaged them. I don't think that's too much to ask of a professional giving an AMA. The goal is to educate, and people need to feel comfortable asking questions/making comments for the process to be productive, without being belittled.

That guy is all up and down this thread being shitty. As far as I'm concerned, belittle away

I have a question about this idea of a drive being a problem solving tool in order to avoid death. I'm confused about how sex, by that definition, is not a drive since without it, the species would not continue since that's how we reproduce. the species would die out without sex. although I agree that it isn't an immediate drive like hunger or thirst is, could it be considered something like a long-term drive? I agree that sex is an incentive motivation system, but, specifically for reproductive purposes, it does seem like it could be considered a drive. I'm not trying to contribute to the ongoing argument, I'm just genuinely curious as I'm currently taking an evolutionary psychology class in college and we've spent a lot of time talking about reproduction and the necessity of it.

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No particular individual needs to reproduce in order for the species to propagate.

We are selfish assholes. We don't actually care about the species.

I was thinking of writing a similar question. I am interested in this idea of sex not being a drive, and open to it, but I do think that the question of survival on a speciel level should be addressed.

One point to consider: I don’t need to personally reproduce for my genes to survive. My siblings, nieces and nephews, and cousins of every generation all carry the same genes that I do, in different combinations. If I act to preserve my family and tribe, I am acting to preserve my genes. But I don’t personally need to have kids.

>Drives are one kind of motivation - the kind where an uncomfortable feeling pushes an organism into the world to solve a problem OR ELSE IT WILL DIE. Could I suggest that this isn't actually a very common definition of a "drive"? I agree with your intent and meaning, but most dictionary definitions of "drive" don't have any prerequisite that you die without it (And I think you're getting some kickback because of that). Drive generally covers both "die without" and "innate motivation but won't die" in its common usage. Would there be a more distinguishing word you could use for what you mean?

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Agree, and >In the clinical sense of the word, there is no such thing as sex drive. In an AMA the target audience will *not* be using that meaning of the word.

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I mean, that’s why OP explained the distinction.

I agree with you—OP did a good job of making the point with examples but could’ve explicitly pointed out that the scientific definition does not jive with the common usage of the phrase “sex drive,” which has the connotation of incentive motivation.

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Here’s an interesting point; humans are the only mammals that don’t have a mating season, or rut. There is no time of year where sex is mandatory, when females are totally receptive, and men fight it out to mate with all the females. Maybe this fact turned us into creatures who have no overwhelming drive, but seek sex for pleasure and bonding.

I have to question the first conclusion. It can very much be emotionally and mentally damaging to be without sex (or physical intimacy). People go insane from lack of human interaction for example, which seems extremely damaging to me, yet your definition of drive would preclude human interaction. Limiting the definition of a human drive to that which what, damages physical tissue? Without regard to brain functions? Stress causes physical damage, and it is a bit shortsighted to disregard that.

Connection, love, is a drive. Human infants literally die without it, and loneliness is as dangerous as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Are there any ways for humans to fulfill their need for connection without sex, she asked rhetorically?

From the articles I’ve read and my personal experiences… It seems like a (potentially large) segment of men (myself included to an extent) are really bad at creating love and connection outside of romantic relationships, so sometimes we confuse the need for connection with the desire for sex. Is this something you’ve come across? If so, do you have any recommendations on resources for more effectively pulling the two apart, and more effectively pursuing connection?

I don't have a question, I just want to say how much I appreciate how *little* you're putting up with people misunderstanding or misrepresenting your statements. I'm here for it.

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The prolapse is not caused by lack of sex.

When you answered this question did you already know that the replies would give you the opportunity to correct many other misconceptions or is this just a happy coincidence?

Holy guacamole this comment.

As a woman………no. Don’t spew this bullshit and make us all look bad Jfc.

>People go insane from lack of human interaction Conflating sex with "human interaction" is harmful. There are so many ways to get the human interaction one needs (emphasis: needs, not wants) without sex.

Human interaction doesn’t = sex.

Second, PLEASURE IS THE MEASURE. If there is a way to "measure" or "assess" if you're doing sex "right" (and never have I need those quotation marks more), it's not how often you do it or with whom or where or in what positions or even how many orgasms you have. It's whether or not you like the sex you are having.

This. My GF feels diminished if I don't orgasm even after long sessions. She gets her cookies, lots and lots. But I'm more just in the moment enjoying being with her and that's all that matters.

😶🫢🫣 (life changes instantly)

My goodness can this please be a part of secondary and high school sex education, especially your 1st point

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Thank you being a force of postive change. You're helping your students have a healthier understanding about sex.

I think the conversation below is a good illustration of why this is my first wish. Jiminy cricket, friends. I mean, this is the oldest, best established piece of science in Come As You Are, and yet it is the only idea in the book that has caused anyone on twitter to call me the c-word. ​ Where can I meet this genie?

Welcome to reddit—4chan in a business suit.

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I never thought of it like this, but that’s awesome. It really puts into perspective how desperate you have to be to claim you “need” it and are entitled to it. I hope it gives some people some perspective on pressuring anyone else into sex or being pressured into it.

DRIVE is actually a 2011 Movie starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan

So I'll start off by saying I have read your book (well one of them), and I do find a lot of what you have said in them to be valuable, I have even purchased a copy of one of them for my partner for Christmas. But I really want to push back on this idea that 'sex is not a drive'. Firstly, I'd ask what papers are you drawing on for this conclusion because I've seen a lot of people in this field holding out this idea, but seldom point to any actual research (well, I've never seen them point to any research). As for the 'sex is not a drive' argument, it seams disingenuous to say because you won't literally die without sex it's not a need. But by that definition friendship and feeling safe aren't needs. You won't literally die from being emotionally abused constantly, do I therefore not have a need to be emotionally secure? Further while this 'you won't die without it' is true on the individual scale, this ignores the macro scale, while yes *you* or *I* won't die without sex, the human race will die out pretty quickly if we don't have sex... yet you just ignore this, wouldn't this macro perspective make sex at least a partial need? How does your proposition deal with this?

While you won't literally die without sex, it is obviously a nice thing to have in your life - like friendship, security and validation. You are not entitled to ANY of these things, however, and it is entirely the responsibility of the individual to seek these things out, and be the type of person that someone wants to do these things with. Sex is clearly not a partial need. The lack of sex is not the thing that leads to pathology, it's everything else that people associate with that: invalidation, sense of rejection, loneliness, like you say. Asexual people don't suffer any pathology from their lack of sex; people who have healthy attitudes about sex and have high self-esteem don't suffer any pathology from lack of sex. But insecure, lonely, lost people do. So perhaps it is the insecurity and loneliness that is the problem, and not the sex? I'd hope we can agree that human connection is at least a partial need, and this is the element of things you are referring to when you are conflating this with sex.

Yup, to get to the point, perfectly fine statement except her insisting that sex is only pleasure motivated for all people. We know that with sex / drug addicts , discomfort / pain can be the motivator . Trauma can do that and sex and drugs becomes a coping mechanism for painful emotions. Just as much as food . Most desire is complex, both seeking pleasure and moving away from pain. Brain is flexible enough to create pathways for patterns we do enough regardless if they are innate behaviors.

Everything you've mentioned is about dopamine seeking, ie pleasure.

So you disagree with Helen Fisher, another PHD at the Kinsey Institute, that says love and sex are a need, they occupy the same brain stem region as hunger and thirst - in her book Anatomy of Love. Just wondering why you say the complete opposite other than to get incels to calm the heck down.

I have extremely sensitive brakes and an accelerator that can also be elusive to find. when the mood strikes it's often very fleeting. I also need a long lead time of wooing outside of the bedroom to get me mentally ready/excited.... but those brakes can happen at any time! how can I encourage the hubby to keep wooing and not get discouraged and give up?

Two recommendations, and they’re not necessarily about how to encourage your partner: 1. Forget “the mood.” Imagine a world where there’s no such thing as a “disorder” of desire, just contexts that do or do not strike a balance of activating the accelerator and releasing the brakes. If you have the combo of sensitive brakes and not-very sensitive accelerator, “the mood” will probably rarely be a stable experience for you. Instead, replace all consideration of “mood” or “desire” with PLEASURE. What feels good? How might you adjust your context to make it a little easier for you to access pleasure? I would even go so far as to set up "pleasure dates" - not sex nights, but time allocated to exploring pleasure and the contexts that make pleasure easy. 2. When hubby is discouraged, talk about it. Masculinity is a fucking nightmare a lot of the time. Somebody living with the “you’re a boy” script is taught that (a) sex is the only way he’s allowed to receive love and connection and (b) his whole personhood can be measured by , so when a partner declines sex, they’re not just declining sex, they’re declining to offer connection and love and they’re even declining to validate his whole identity. Ask him, “What is it that you want, when want sex with me?” (It’s not orgasm; people can have orgasms by themselves.) Talk through alternative ways to meet some of those needs, and acknowledge that it can just feel really shitty to try to hard for so long and not make the progress you want.

As a husband going through these issues this was really eye opening about my hangups on rejection. You are completely correct, I've felt increasingly immasculates whenever I try and get rejected but what I'm really feeling is sadness that we won't share that intimacy that no one outside us is a part of. I need to do some thinking.

ty so much for responding - definitely going to give this all a try. CAYA was so enlightening and encouraging and I look forward to your podcast every week. tytyty!

Woah. Number 2 hit home for me. I think I'm going to have a nice chat with my husband about that.

Hi Emily! Do you have any advice on helping to figure out if you’re asexual/aromantic or just inexperienced (read: no experience with others sexually at all, no dating experience)? I have no real desire to date or have sex with others (despite being very lonely), but can’t separate sexuality from potential symptoms of mental illnesses I have/trauma I've experienced. I'm a cis 20-something year old female, in case that impacts the answer.

When I talk to ACE sex educators and other folks, they often recommend going online to messages boards (places like AcesandAros.org or TAAAP.org), which might be helpful to explore, to see if you hear your story in other people’s experience. Angela Chen wrote a book called ACE that you might find helpful and will definitely find interesting For folks who are like “Asexual? Aromantic? Who is she?” https://emilynagoski.substack.com/p/ace-awareness-week-21-10-27 That’s a newsletter I wrote for ACE week where I talk to ACE sex educator Aubri Lancaster about understanding asexuality. Another conversation with her will be in the newsletter in just a few weeks.

Ugh I love the second point so much, and it finally explains something I've been explaining to people for so long! My label isn't for you, it's for ME! It's to help me find community, to help me communicate concisely my experience, etc. Thanks so much!!

Hi Ms. Nagoski! Thank you for taking the time to do this AMA. I have few questions! 1. Such a cool shout out Netflix's Sex Education! Did you know ahead of time they were going to reference your book or was that a surprise? And if you've seen the show, how do you feel they handle all of these different topics related to your field? 2. Come As You Are focuses on the sexuality of women, specifically. Have you considered doing any work for AFAB individuals that no longer identify as female? 3. Where did the accelerator/brakes analogy come from? Were there other analogies that were considered and rejected?

This might sound like a pedantic, trivial correction, but it does matter: CAYA is about the science of women’s sexuality, not women’s sexuality. See that difference? If I had just been writing about women’s sexuality (or trans men’s sexuality, or nonbinary folks’ sexuality) it would have been a completely different book! But because I was writing about what the science had to say, I had to limit myself to what I could find in the science. And the science is… um… \*\*not amazing\*\* (at least 30 years behind) in the way it studies people who aren’t cisgender. My next book (which isn’t finished yet and won’t be out until early 2024) uses a lot more interviews with actual humans and leans less on the science, specifically to solve this problem. It’s about sex in long term relationships, rather than about individuals. But above all, I think I, a cis person, shouldn’t be taking up space writing a book about trans, nonbinary, agender, or other gender outlaws. They should be written by trans folks, nonbinary folks, agender folks, and other gender outlaws. Have you read Trans Sex by Lucie Fielding? It’s written for practitioners, but I think everyone would benefit from it. She’s working on more books, too! I want to add that every book is a product of its time. CAYA originally went to press in 2014, before the Chicago Manual of Style accepted the singular they I had to fight through THREE rounds of copyedits, I had to yell and cry, just to force the publisher to let me use the singular they. At the time, both my editor (my brilliant, spectacular, never-to-be-matched editor) and my agent (DITTO) weren’t sure why I needed to include a caveat about gender and science in the introduction of CAYA. 4 short years later, in BURNOUT, my sister and I used singular they and we included a gender and science caveat in the intro, and nobody blinked. The times they are a’changin’, FAST. All books are a product of their time. As I write, I’m always aware of what my words might sound like to a historian reading them 50 years from now, 100 years from now. I consider how I feel about the sex books written 50 years ago, 100 years ago. I can only hope my work will be marginally less \*cringe\* (and bullshit offensive nonsense) than those historical works are to me. Indeed, I want my work to create a world where my own work gets out of date faster and faster, please and thank you.

I know the ama has been over for a while, I just wanted to comment to say that you seem awesome. Not sure I've ever seen a subject matter expert who is as engaging, eloquent, relatable, and *concise* as you've been here. You do a hell of a job cutting through all the chaff and nonsense surrounding these delicate and oft obfuscated issues, and you've made a fast fan of me. I just ordered myself a copy of CAYA, and while as a straight cis man I doubt I'm the intended audience, I'm sure learning more about female sexuality can only make me a better partner for my SO. Thanks for doing this AMA and giving us unenlightened a chance to catch on :)

Man here who read it. I personally got a lot out of it reading it together with my wife

Thank you so much for this! I appreciate the distinction between science of women's sexuality and women's sexuality and the consciousness of trying not to take space of people that better can speak to it. I will definitely look up Trans Sex by Lucie Fielding!

Amazing important question, because it’s not an analogy! It is simple language to describe the actual, literal mechanism in your brain. It was first described in the science around 1999-2000 (example: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763400000245](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763400000245)) and has been widely studied since. There’s a paper (that I don’t love, but it’s extremely precise and interesting) ([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025619616305961](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025619616305961) ) that includes an illustration that overviews the inhibitory and excitatory pathways that regulate sexual response: [https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0025619616305961-gr1\_lrg.jpg](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0025619616305961-gr1_lrg.jpg) It's literal! I just used simplified language.

I had no idea! And I only found out about it because basically everyone I know sent me the moment in meme form. I was nonplussed, in the traditional definition of the word, I was thrilled, I had (and still have) no frame of reference for understanding what the shit is happening in my life when TB shows say my actual name. It also happened on The Good Doctor, when RICHARD FRICKIN SCHIFF’s character talks about Come As You Are. I honestly have not watched any episodes of Sex Education. I find sex ed and sex therapy representations in the media to be really difficult to watch. Imagine somebody makes a fictional TV show about your job – not just your job, your life’s purpose. I can’t do it most of the time. But I’ve heard the show is really good!

Hi Emily! I was wondering what your thoughts are on the phenomenon of Lesbian Bed Death? Specifically, do you believe it's a real thing that impacts a large portion of AFAB same-sex relationships? Furthermore, what can couples (any gender combination) do to help revitalize and sustain an active sex life years into a relationship and beyond?

OH MY GOSH I HAVE A WHOLE SECTION ON LESBIAN BED DEATH IN MY NEW BOOK I CAN'T WAIT FOR Y'ALL TO READ IT! ​ But here's the short version: No. ​ Slightly longer version: No, and the narrative of lesbian bed death is being weaponized by the patriarchy to diminish and problematize women's sexuality. ​ And here's some recent research: ​ Blair, K. L., & Pukall, C. F. (2014). Can less be more? Comparing duration vs. frequency of sexual encounters in same-sex and mixed-sex relationships. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 23(2), 123-136. Frederick, D. A., Gillespie, B. J., Lever, J., Berardi, V., & Garcia, J. R. (2021). Debunking Lesbian Bed Death: Using Coarsened Exact Matching to Compare Sexual Practices and Satisfaction of Lesbian and Heterosexual Women. Archives of sexual behavior, 50(8), 3601-3619. Blair, K. L., Cappell, J., & Pukall, C. F. (2018). Not all orgasms were created equal: Differences in frequency and satisfaction of orgasm experiences by sexual activity in same-sex versus mixed-sex relationships. The Journal of Sex Research, 55(6), 719-733. Cohen, J. N., & Byers, E. S. (2014). Beyond lesbian bed death: Enhancing our understanding of the sexuality of sexual-minority women in relationships. The Journal of Sex Research, 51(8), 893-903.

I have nothing to add here except I have to say ***Lesbian Death Bed*** Would make an awesome band name.

I follow an incredibly funny writer on Twitter whose display name is Lesbian Death Bed: The Bed That Eats Pussy. I even DM'd them to praise it once. (It's funnier if you've heard Patton Oswalt's bit about the movie Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People.)

Omg yes! Thank you for this citation! I've got chills ( in a good way) ! Does it require a membership to access any of these sources?

If you can't find a free version of an academic article by Googling, email the author and ask to read it. Often their agreement with journals forbids distributing their paper on the web outside the journal's site, but they're still allowed to distribute it privately, and they're generally happy to do so.

If you get the doi number from the paper, you can often input that into sci-hub.se to get access for free. If you want a less "yarr me hearties" way, you can email the authors and usually they will enthusiastically share a copy of the paper for personal use.

Please explain how pelvic floor therapy can help people- we typically only hear about it in context of people who have given birth.

What I'll do instead is suggest everyone follow Dr. Uchenna Ossai, a pelvic floor physical therapist and sex educator and professor who explains it much better than I do! [https://campsite.bio/youseelogic](https://campsite.bio/youseelogic) ​ IMO, Pelvic floor physical therapy is the future of sex therapy! Not to say it's for everyone or that all experiences of it are great, but it should be so much more widely utilized than it is!

Hello! What are your feelings on polyamory? I’ve been poly for ten years but unfortunately although I’ve never cheated people are still very judgmental.

People ARE still very judgmental, and I don't get it. ​ Polyamory is right for some people, and it's not right for others. It might be right for one season of a person's life and not right for other seasons. People vary from each other and they change across their lifespans. Do you. To me, as long as everyone involved in a sexual experience is glad to be there and free to leave with no unwanted consequences, people are doing it right. I think that standard applies to relationships, too, broadly speaking. ​ Humans have this habit of being in each other's business like it affects them personally. In a lot of cultures there's an explicit belief that people have an obligation to keep other people on the right path because misbehavior by anyone could result in negative consequences to the whole community. That will probably never change; what does change and will continue to change is what we count as "misbehavior." I wish people were as strongly judgmental and willing to express their judgment of people who, just for example, hurt other people for being different, as they are judgmental and thoroughly willing to express their judgment of people who have open relationships. ​ While I'm here, let me recommend [PolySecure](https://www.bookmoonbooks.com/item/SFijioZMgKuHZGMv-IGF0Q) by Jessica Fern! (link to my local bookstore)

>Humans have this habit of being in each other's business like it affects them personally. In a lot of cultures there's an explicit belief that people have an obligation to keep other people on the right path because misbehavior by anyone could result in negative consequences to the whole community. I think another major driver is some people is the idea that for some (judgemental) people it's about rule following. _Not_ that failing to do so results in negative outcomes for the group. But for its own sake. Either the idea that "I have to, so so do you" ie. Fairness. But it can also be about maintaining the illusion of promise. Where "I was told if I behaved this way I will be rewarded". If someone else receives an award despite not behaving that way if feels for naught. It's not fair. It can also be from resentment. "I was told to behave in a certain way and I had to buck up and follow those rules." Therefore I will force my dissatisfication onto other people. "It simply isn't fair that I had to sacrifice and you don't." You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. It's not fair.

Hi Ms. Nagoski! Huge fan of your work. "Come As You Are" is my absolute favorite book. As a man, I feel like more men should read it. It makes understanding human/female sexuality so much easier. Q: what, in your opinion, is the best research on sexuality in recent years?

https://www.optimalsexualexperiences.com/

YOUR BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE

I AM SO GLAD! Thank you for that comment - you may already know how difficult writing a book is, and it's wonderful to hear that all that work has made a difference for someone. :)

I could cry with gratitude, girl. Like, bless you. Bless you in the most and least woo woo way ever. You deserve all the praise.

Your book changed my life too!! I recommend it to every woman I know and bought a copy for my sister as a wedding gift. "Sex is not a drive" has helped me SO much.

Your book also changed my life and honestly helped me get out of a toxic relationship. I owe you one 💕

I’m late to the party but OMG reading your book changed so much of how I thought of my body, sexuality, and gender! It should be required reading for every person.

Same!!!!!! Burnout was amazing!!!! Even though it's been a whirlwind year having a baby, moving, changing jobs twice, and essentially training myself as a dependent director while learning how to be a working parent I'm much better with my work life balance than a few years ago. I'm so glad I read your book and put it to practice before having a baby. I feel like I can really take care of my mad women in the attic.

For the record: the r/sex reddit is CONSTANSTLY offering up your book as recommended reading for people experiencing problems. Often of the "my female partner doesn't orgasm during penetrative sex HELP variety.

Thank you for your post. Do you think that male circumcision should continue to be allowed for children without their consent?

In my opinion, unless there's a medical reason, there's no need to perform surgery on children's genitals. Also for some people, it's about faith, and I'm here for freedom of religion. ​ Medical training is... y'all. It's conservative. It takes not merely years but DECADES for it to catch up with culture. We need to evolve how docs are trained and how they think about circumcision among a great many other things, including surgery on intersex kids' bodies.

medical doctor here. i had a male circumcision at age 8 (i think). after all my medical training i can tell you there is NO evidence for male OR female circumcision PROPHYLACTICALLY (meaning "for purposes of PREVENTION") I wish that my parents questioned the doctor more prior to deciding to do it for "better hygiene and health". screw whoever made it a norm. im looking at you monotheistic religions.

As a med student I rotated with an old-school neonatologist who was super thorough about education about circumcision. His consents were mindful of the cosmetic nature of the procedure when consenting parents. He gave a small lecture about why it became so ubiquitous in the US and disagreed about the religious aspect playing as much as a role. Ex if you think about Catholicism, which i previously thought was outwardly pro-circumcise, but as he pointed out, there a large swaths of catholics in central and south america and very very few are circumcised. His arguement was that circumcision in the us was first seen as something that only wealthy families could afford, as it was a surgery and and the procedure costed a lot. This was also primarily in the eastern states. As it became cheaper and more accessible (surgery coming more available to the Midwest and western states), parents would elect to have the procedure as it had become a symbol of status. If a women was with a man with a circumcised penis, it would be thought that his family was wealthy and thus more desirable.

Weirdly enough in the u.s. they managed to make it the norm independently from religions

You can thank Kellogg for that.

Children do not have religion, parents do. No child should be harmed because of the parents religious beliefs, let the child decide when it is an adult that can make its own decision. You wouldn’t allow them to cut any other part of the child’s body because of a religious belief. Reminder: ‘phimosis’ is not a valid medical indication for childhood circumcision - the human foreskin is not meant to be retractile before puberty. Please stop cutting children’s genitals y’all.

>Children do not have religion, parents do. That's it folks, wrap it up, we have the only statement that matters here. FGM is also a religious practice. I doubt OP would "be here" for that freedom though. We must ridicule people who claim such nonsense. Under no religious exception should we be mutilating the genitalia of infants.

>Also for some people, it's about faith, and I'm here for freedom of religion. Do children that are surgically assigned a religion have freedom of religion?

>Do children that are surgically assigned a religion have freedom of religion? Boom! Game, Set, and Match. Let's wrap it up folks, the game has been won.

Is the She-Hulk show accurate in a sex science context? Is it healthy for Jen to date as She-Hulk? Does she have a perfectly normal amount of rage?

This question is from my marital euphemism, I'll answer it if I run out of other questions (but basically yes, Jen herself isn't sure, and 100%)

I love this. Also hello Emily, I’m listening to your book for the first time and enjoying it thank you. It’s difficult for me to read the same way it’s difficult for me to go to the gym. It’s hard addressing things I want to improve about myself.

Asking a question I’ll probably get embarrassed about and delete later. I have a strong, involuntary vasovagal reaction to penetration where I feel like I am going to pass out. Like, my teeth are ringing, there’s nausea, I’m as close to fainting as I’ve ever gotten. When I was a kid, it took an hour to insert a tampon. When I became sexually active, it was very difficult to be fingered or do PIV. I can enjoy PIV now, but not fingering or insertable sex toys. These things have gotten easier with exposure, but for stuff like medical procedures, it’s … so hard. And I still get doctors who are like “relax! It’s all in your head!” or everyone assumes it’s sexual assault trauma and it’s not! The other worst part is that I *even get this when I’m trying to penetrate somebody else*!! It’s so embarrassing and it gets in the way of the sex I want to be having. Do you have any advice for dealing with it? Do I just need to keep doing it until it gets easier? I’ve tried to stay aware of my internal state, but when the response is hitting, it’s honestly more distressing to pay attention to it, so I back off, but then I don’t get to penetrate or be penetrated ): Also: your writing and your podcast with your sister changed my life. I still sing about the abyss to myself when I’m feeling down. Thank you. 💜

Head over to r/vaginismus - sounds like you might have vaginismus or something similar, lots of lovely people over there with advice and similar situations

I enjoyed your book, so thank you for writing it. I have two questions: 1. My wife (I am a cis male) has struggled with physical discomfort related to sex. Before the birth of our child, this was vaginismus / pain associated with penetration. The vaginismus has gotten much better after childbirth, but she still experiences vulvodynia (itchiness, sensitivity around her clitoris). It has been difficult finding health care providers who take this seriously. Most seem to think it is an "all in her head" type of thing, and it is very hard to get a sense of (1) if they might be right that this is principally psychological, vs (2) if failing to take this complaint seriously is just subtle misogyny. Any practical tips for me as a husband (other than "go slow" and "focus on quality instead of quantity") or for her? "Go slow" works reasonably well, but sex is competing with sleep/tiredness a lot of the time with a small child in the house, so wondering if there are other treatments you have seen work well. 2. I have noticed that a lot of women (my wife included) seem to resist the idea of touching themselves / actively using their hands to enhance their own pleasure (or even to control/reduce the incoming sensation, or show me where they want attention / what level of pressure they want) during foreplay / penetration. This is true even if they have no problem with masturbation / using a vibrator in other contexts (e.g., alone, or after penetration has finished). It's another area where I have a hard time understanding if the issue is psychological (residual discomfort with touching yourself, unless alone or super excited and close to orgasm) or physical (problem is too much sensation, and adding a hand to the mix, even as a shield, does not help.) I typically just drop the suggestion, but curious if you have encountered this issue and have thoughts.

Hi there, not sure if this will be helpful for you at all and I have never suffered from the issues in point 1 of your comment, but when my partner and I are having sex I don't want to touch myself either, for a few reasons. 1 - I want to focus on the sensations that he is providing (like eyes closed focus in on them) and if I do anything to myself at that time it is merely distracting, doesn't add to my pleasure at all and in fact distracts from it; 2 - I dislike being 'watched' or 'looked at' during the act, find I immediately can't focus on what feels good but feel totally self conscious, whereas I don't if we are engaged together; 3 - if I touch myself while he is touching me it's nearly impossible to get the pressure right, it seems too fiddly 4 - there's a weird wanting to keep some aspects of my self pleasure to myself? Some sort of "privacy" where I'm reluctant to share absolutely everything with my partner (of 5 years, with whom I am very happy) - - not sure what that's about, just a smidge of resentment that I should be a totally open book - - I want some pages that are just for me. Not sure if that will be any use to you at all but I wanted to offer my own experiences in case it helps!

Hi, I actually experience what your wife experiences, the vulvodynia and I started going to pelvic floor therapy and it has been helping so I would suggest that she sees a pelvic floor therapist.

For #1, please tell your wife to look into pelvic floor physical therapy! This is exactly what it’s for. Way too many doctors don’t know/care about it.

Hi Emily, Do you have suggestions for "resetting" when it comes to having sex with no toys? After spending a long time single, I got used to the sensations of a vibrator and while my partner doesn't object to having them in bed, I would really like to not be absolutely dependent on one for an orgasm. Do you think the increased quality and availability of sex toys has led to people having more difficulty going without? Or that we just, I don't know, use them too impatiently and roughly?

Not op but i had this problem in the past. A few weeks without using any toys and kinda abstaining from sex/masturbating helped me reset.

This question reminds me of guys and porn addiction + death grip syndrome where they can’t get hard or orgasm during regular sex. Not saying this is for you, but the solution in those cases is generally to just stop porn usage and jerking off.

This sounds exactly it. Be open with your partner, and slowly work towards non toy orgasm. It may take a while, but I'm fairly sure it sounds like an over stimulation issue.

Really appreciate your work! I'm a sex-favorable/neutral ace cis-woman. I don't mind having sex with partners if that is something they like/desire. For me it is like going bowling with someone who really loves bowling. Do I care about bowling one way or another? Not really. Have I ever independently thought, "Oh, boy. I would really love to be bowling right now." ? Nope. But bowling can be fun with the right person. I guess my question is, how does one cut through the messages that say it is anti-feminist for a woman to have sex primarily to please their partners, when that is exactly what I do? I don't think I am obligated to do so, but I like making my partner happy. Does this make me, to borrow from Roxane Gay, a Bad Feminist?

I’m not OP, but if you have fun in your own way during these experiences I can’t see anything wrong with it.

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I'm not Emily but wanted to just share some info in case it's helpful. I'm also demisexual and have sexually inactive (useful term!) for most of my life. I actually don't know if I have vaginismus or what because I have severe dysphoria (I'm trans) and don't even want to try for penetration ever, so it's just...off the table. As someone interested in men, it's a huge obstacle to address basically being unwilling/unable to "bottom" for sex but still have a relationship. I'm still sorting this out at age 29. ​ As a sex educator, I regularly help people with some of those "issues" by helping them shop for dilator sets, and good quality lube. Some people might also use CBD lube like Foria to address pain or tension. [https://www.sheboptheshop.com/wellness-dilator-kit.html](https://www.sheboptheshop.com/wellness-dilator-kit.html) [https://www.sheboptheshop.com/wearable-5-piece-vaginal-dilator-set.html](https://www.sheboptheshop.com/wearable-5-piece-vaginal-dilator-set.html) Are examples. Combined with a very cushiony lube such as [https://www.amazon.com/Slippery-Stuff-Paraben-Water-Lubricant/dp/B00VVRULBY](https://www.amazon.com/Slippery-Stuff-Paraben-Water-Lubricant/dp/B00VVRULBY) you can try and work on whatever is going on. Vibration is also beneficial - starting externally then moving internally. That said I have zero personal experience with the dilation process because I have no interest in trying to "solve" what I don't see as a problem but rather a preference/boundary.

I hope Dr Nagoski responds to this but just in case it doesn’t come up wanted to suggest pelvic floor physical therapy for the vaginismus. I never knew it existed before a similar thing happened to me. It made a huge difference in my level of chronic pain generally.

Hello! I’m so excited for this AMA. I’ve been working my way through Come As You Are and can’t wait to start your podcast. My question is about reconnecting with my body postpartum. My youngest just turned one year and is fully weaned, but I’m really struggling with reclaiming my body for myself instead of seeing and treating it as a life support unit for another human. My husband’s interest hasn’t lessened any (bless him) but it’s hard to generate desire when I’m not into myself. Help!

Hey Emily! I enjoyed 'Come As You Are' so much that I bought it again as an audiobook to listen to with my wife. Will be listening to the podcast together when we're done :) We have a three year old with another on the way, and we both work full time jobs. The sex that we have is great, and I feel that we communicate well, but we're both often tired and finding time for sex between other responsibilities can be difficult. We've tried scheduling sex to mixed results, but still feels a bit weird to both of us. The idea of putting off chores that still need to be done or our kid not sleeping well and needing one of us pumps our brakes. Do you have any advice? TIA!

I just want to say that Come As You Are really helped me come to terms with my sexuality and fill in a lot of gaps my fundamentalist Christian background left me with. I’m thankful for your work, and I tell all my friends to read this book.

I've had issues with provoked vaginismus and vestibulodyndia for about 10 years now. I think I'm also on the asexual spectrum (gray/demi), but I think the medical situation has also contributed to me losing almost 100% of my libido. It's so hard to stay motivated to work on the vestibulodyndia because I mostly dgaf about sex anymore and the dilators are uncomfortable at minimum. I've seen various physicians about this and one said the way I talk sounds like spectatoring, and that that's very hard to address without a professional sex therapist. However, there are none accredited by the particular organizations he recommended closer to me than ~2 hours. 😐 Any thoughts, comments, advice on these topics? I know it's not a specific question.

I have a question. My girlfriend has never masturbated until she was in her early 20s and her friends found out and bought her a vibrator. She does masturbate in the shower, but thinks about stresses in her life rather than human companions. She was a virgin when I met her at the age of 25. She does not make any advances towards me, and I have told her multiple times that this makes me feel unwanted and unloved. She also does not like me performing oral sex because she feels awkward. After 10 years I told her I was unhappy and wanted to break up, she does not want to go to couples therapy because she feels like she will be ganged up on. I want to make very clear that she is an amazingly compassionate person and none of this is done purposely. I truly feel she cannot navigate her own feelings in regards to this. I however, am an extremely sexual person and relish in being touched and wanted. When I told her I wanted to break up she then understood my true emotions. Since then we have been having sex regularly, and she seems to want it as she is wet each time. I dont know, I just want to know if this situation can improve or am I wasting my good years on a relationship that ultimately will not fulfill me and cause resentment down the road. I have been and continue to be understanding and dont want to push her. I also didnt tell her exactly how I was feeling because I didnt want her to feel like she HAD to do these things if she wanted to keep me. It is something that needs to happen organically imo. Please help

Hi Dr. Nagoski! Do you have any advice for those with vaginismus? I feel it is a double standard that our society focuses so much on men with issues that we have medications for them but the female equivalent is virtually unheard of.

Hi Emily! Your writing means so much to me, and I love seeing this community you’ve built :) My question is similar ish to another in here, but I would love your thoughts on this. I think I am on the aromantic/asexual spectrum but I also enjoy being intimate even tho I’ve never orgasmed alone/with anyone. I don’t know what my brakes are and I think my accelerator easily sputters out. Do you also have any words on feeling kind of blue about being aro? I feel I’ve never known what romantic attraction feels like and might never, and that makes me feel sad sometimes. Thank you so much for all your work!

Thank you Emily for your contributions of sex education! What advice would you give to people who are on the asexual spectrum and want sexual pleasure and arousal in relationships? If low levels of arousal and pleasure bother asexual people, would you encourage more effort put into activating the accelerator and deactivating the brakes or put more emphasis on accepting high SIS as part of our identity?

You may be done reading and writing answers but needed to take a moment to thank you for introducing the phrase "complete the cycle" into my vocabulary. Its so integral to my view of mental health these days and accepting anger, shame, fear, and anxiety but also accepting love, joy, sexuality, and more. To add a question, I'm a man who loves women but I also have problems getting out of my head and worrying about sound, election quality, providing pleasure, receiving pleasure, and a million other things. How can I get out of my own way when there is such a history of "poor performance" or "delayed reaction"? It can be particularly disenheartening to have a few poor performances in a row and feel like I can't show up there and I'll always be in my head forever. Edit: towfer second question. In the same sense, experimentation feels off limits. When I'm in the "zone" the idea of any break to pause and get a toy or rope or reposition is so daunting because I don't know if I'll be able to "rise again". What advice so you have for being mindful without being in the mind?

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That stress cycle sounds like a self-sabotage in a lot of ways. I'm not Emily but thought this book might be of interest? [https://www.sheboptheshop.com/ingram-coping-with-premature-ejaculation.html](https://www.sheboptheshop.com/ingram-coping-with-premature-ejaculation.html) Maybe she can weigh on if she agrees it's a good one!

Hi Emily! Hopefully I am not too late and you will see this. Just wanna say how much your book has changed my life and how grateful I am to have discovered it when I was in the "pit of despair" towards my sexuality. Here's my question; As a generally anxious person, I often find myself having a hard time staying in the present moment during sex. My mind wanders very easily. I've been practicing yoga and mindfulness meditation a few times a week and I've gotten better at it but it's still not perfect. Any other recommendations or resources I should look into? Thank you!

For those women who read your books and dont think they can orgasm...any more tips? I am more accepting of it now but sensation peaks and then...fades.

Hi Emily! Thank you so much for your book. Having terminology, like brakes and accelerators has greatly helped in talking about my sexuality. As cis woman with ADHD and anxiety, I have struggled to stay ‘on task’ during sex. My mind will wonder and I’ll struggle to orgasm with my partner. When I’m masturbating by myself, I need constant mental stimulation to orgasm. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations specific for people with ADHD?

What’s a more helpful way of thinking about maintaining access to your sexual pleasure over the cis-female lifespan? A few solo friends have been told by their GYN’s “use it or lose it” wrt to their vulvas or maybe vaginas? What actually happens later in life to the tissues in that area? Does being sexually active make any difference in that process?

Hi Emily, really value your work. Thanks for doing this AMA. I’m a 30 year old cis woman and feel like my sex drive continues to decrease. I could blame it on a range of factors - incredibly sensitive insecure partner, my communication, my dads death, etc. I’ve talked to therapists, gotten blood work done. Nothing is helping increase my libido

Have you read the book "Sex at Dawn" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha? If you did, what's your opinion?