Emily Nagoski

A NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER. An essential exploration of women's sexuality that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy. After all the books that have been written about sex, all the blogs and TV shows and radio Q&As, how can it be that we all still have so many questions? The frustrating reality is that we've been lied to -- not deliberately, it's no one's fault, but still. We were told the wrong story. Come as You Arereveals the true story behind female sexuality, uncovering the little-known science of what makes us tick and, more importantly, how and why. Sex educator Dr Emily Nagoski debunks the common sexual myths that are making women (and some men!) feel inadequate between the sheets. Underlying almost all of the questions we still have about sex is the common worry: 'Am I normal?' This book answers with a resounding Yes! We are all different, but we are all normal -- and once we learn this, we can create for ourselves better sex and more profound pleasure than we ever thought possible.

The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

Come as You Are

***A NEW YORK TIMES BESTELLER*** An essential exploration of why and how women’s sexuality works—based on groundbreaking research and brain science—that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy. Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill” for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never be the answer—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all. The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal. Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm. Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible. And Emily Nagoski can prove it.

The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

I love a book that ends with a Kung Fu Panda reference. 😂 The secret ingredient … is you! ❤️

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

When Po first looks at the scroll, he is disappointed to find that there is nothing written on it. It's a mirror—it reflects his own face.

And then comes his epiphany: "There is no secret ingredient. It's just you. 

Yes, you are normal. In fact, you're not just normal. You're amazing.

Like any good nonfiction book that seeks to impress itself upon its readers, Come As You Are has a lot of repetition. Sometimes that can make the book a slog, but it WORKS here; I know each of these ideas, and I feel helped by each understanding. It's like adding knowledge to my toolbox, it’s not a fix-all. But it helps to have the words!

I wrote this book to teach people to live with confidence and joy.

If you can remember even one of the ideas in this book — no two alike, brakes and accelerator, context, nonconcordant arousal, responsive desire, any of them — and use it to improve your relationship with your own sexuality, you'll be helping me with that goal.

Florian Schindler

„Home" is the place-physical and emotional--where we can discharge stress without being judged or shamed or told we just need to relax or forget about it. "Home" is where we receive our partner‘s „loving presence. 

Sexual response is the process of both turning on the ons and turning off the offs. Context, your environment and your mental state-influences how and when the ons and offs activate. Desire can be spontaneous or responsive, and both are normal. Sex life is characterized by confidence and joy. Learning, liking and wanting. You are normal.

Samantha Mochrie 

Annabelle Kortum

Emily Burns

Disclaimer: I have a graduate degree in Gender Studies and am a total nerd for this stuff. 

I was first introduced to Emily Nagoski when she was interviewed on the Nerdist podcast Sex Nerd Sandra, and I have been waiting to get my hands on Come As You Are since the first sentence she uttered on that show. I was so excited to find that her voice moved easily from radio to page, and I have to tell you, I have never recommended anything to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD more strongly. Yes. Literally everyone. This is not your average, run of the mill self-help book. This is a beautifully researched compendium by a PhD'd sex educator. Her voice is a fun, millennial-friendly one full of nerdy Tumblr-esque references and fantastic analogies that will have you exclaiming 'that makes so much sense!' every few pages. Nagoski also acknowledges the experience of all kinds of women, including survivors of trauma. She addresses but peels away all of the judgement strewn about in our culture about women's bodies and sexualities, in all its diversity. She is sex-positive and body-positive. I am a changed person for reading this book, and if I won the lottery tomorrow I would probably buy a copy for every single person I know. Yes. You read that right. /endfangirlrant

Bria

There were so many people saying that you HAVE to read this as a women but this book didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know

Lisa Wright

An important book

Ignore the racy cover - this book about sex was mostly about a woman’s most important sex organ, the brain. This book is a massive, well-researched volume on female sexuality and undoing the negative messages society delivers to women around sex, body image, etc. some might dislike the repetition around a few concepts, but I found it helpful as some explanations work better than others and you’ll find a few great metaphors for understanding scientific concepts.

Elisavet Rozaki 

Very nice, but the metaphors had me laughing.

Heiki Riesenkampf

I had high hopes for the book due to the high rating. However, I felt it fell flat on describing some common problems why women have a hard time reaching orgasm. Also, the book would have been more actionable with slightly less body-optimism wrap around every topic.

Interesting but has way too many examples/stories. I learnt a couple of things but not as much as I expected.

Eneko Uruñuela

An essential exploration of why and how women’s sexuality works—based on groundbreaking research and brain science—that will radically transform your sex life into one filled with confidence and joy. Researchers have spent the last decade trying to develop a “pink pill” for women to function like Viagra does for men. So where is it? Well, for reasons this book makes crystal clear, that pill will never be the answer—but as a result of the research that’s gone into it, scientists in the last few years have learned more about how women’s sexuality works than we ever thought possible, and Come as You Are explains it all. The first lesson in this essential, transformative book by Dr. Emily Nagoski is that every woman has her own unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and that women vary more than men in our anatomy, our sexual response mechanisms, and the way our bodies respond to the sexual world. So we never need to judge ourselves based on others’ experiences. Because women vary, and that’s normal. Second lesson: sex happens in a context. And all the complications of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm. Cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines tells us that the most important factor for women in creating and sustaining a fulfilling sex life, is not what you do in bed or how you do it, but how you feel about it. Which means that stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it. Once you understand these factors, and how to influence them, you can create for yourself better sex and more profound pleasure than you ever thought possible. And Emily Nagoski can prove it.

This is a must read for absolutely everyone. There are so, so many things I didn't know and this book brings the knowledge to you in a clear, concise, yet fun way. Can't wait to read the updated version!

(Bre)anne✨

TW to be added later

This is a must read for absolutely everyone. There are so, so many things I didn't know and this book brings the knowledge to you in a clear, concise, yet fun way. Can't wait to read the updated version!

Savanah Tujague

Horrible. First off not science. This should be marketed as self help. Then it claims it has all this “new science” nothing about this was new. She also gives percentages of men being victims of SA and DV and they were EXTREMELY inaccurate. Also it feels very “preteen partners teaching you about sex” when using metaphors that reference fruits and flowers. As someone who cannot DNF a book I did finish it but I 100% do not recommend.

Charlotte Dann

I want to give this book to all my friends and all their partners. It was easy to get frustrated with the abundance of mixed metaphors, and the writing style was too casual for my tastes BUT WOW what a primer on female sexuality and all the falsehoods we are taught about our desire and our bodies. I feel like all the pleasure in the world is mine for the taking. Read it.

Belle

Everyone of every gender and sexuality should read this book. it felt a bit slow and tedious by the end, but overall I learned a lot about the science of sexuality and the physiology of sex.

Mundy Otto Reimer

TL;DR - More psychology (therapy-style) than biology. Reads like a slightly more informative Psychology Today article.

Some things to note:

* While this book was quite comprehensive, going over everything from the biology to the psychology of the sexual experience, in my opinion, the latter took center stage for the majority of the book. This might prove especially helpful to those people dealing with certain cognitive hiccups for themselves or their partners. For those seeking more information on the anatomical, physiological, microbial, and other general biological perspectives, I would instead recommend that you spend your time with The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Jennifer Gunter (Seriously, that book is pretty great so far!)

* I did prefer the informal style of this over She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman by Ian Kerner. The latter read more like one long magazine article disguised as Science Proper, with use of pop trivia, tons of secondary sources and quotes from other magazines or books, and much of it opinion-based and from the author's personal experiences. This book got the tone + audience matched a bit better (probably because I went in with much lower expectations), though it still reads like a magazine article you'd skim through at the grocery market checkout aisles or some slightly more informative Psychology Today piece online. 

Conclusion - 2/5 stars. I would instead checkout The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina—Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Jennifer Gunter.

Irene Alegre

Very good book on female sexuality – or sexuality in general. I liked the approach, not so much because it's based on science and research but rather on human experience, and on the premise that everyone's 'normal'. 

You won't find tips & tricks to improve your sexy moves here – there's no advice like that. Rather, you'll find an analysis on how we are all shown – from an early age – a series of myths around sex, and how, when those myths don't align with our own experience, we feel inadequate and weird. 

My final thoughts are that we should all talk more about sex – but honestly. Not with boasting, not joking or making sexy allusions, but rather sharing our experiences with transparency. Meet a close friend for coffee and share some of your doubts with them, share your fears, your "Am I normal? Is this normal? Has this ever happened to you?", because you'll probably discover that, yes, that's happened to them, or maybe something else, something that you find a bit strange, has happened to them instead. 

We are all exposed to a limited amount of information on sexuality and what bodies look like. In fact, men are more exposed – through personal experience, through amateur porn, etc, – to women's bodies and sexuality than women themselves. Men have seen many types of vulvas, many types of breasts, many types of sexual attitudes and responses. Women, however, usually only experience their own sexuality and body. They believe no other woman has uneven breasts, or flabby stomachs, or strange-looking vulvas, or that no other woman struggles with orgasm, or desire itself. But that's of course not true. And this book brings light to that, to the whole range of experiences available, and how they are all normal.

If there's one thing that bothered me, however, was the metaphors the author used, as well as the sometimes too conversational tone, and jokes that were really not that funny. I found those bits a tad condescending and I thought it could have done without those. But otherwise good.

A much needed book, I would say.

Madeleine Winterich

Cariena

Dit is hoe ik seksuele voorlichting had willen krijgen. Het boek is luchtig en grappig geschreven, met als duidelijke boodschap: je bent normaal. De media, de voorlichting op school en de cultuur waarin je opgroeit geeft meestal een verkeerd beeld over hoe je seksualiteit zal moeten zijn. Emily Nagoski weet je opnieuw te informeren, gebaseerd op wetenschappelijke studies en haar werk als seksueel opvoeder.

Flavia Louise

This is a damn good book that I can very much recommend to people you want to learn more about pleasure and sex as it pertains to cisgender women but also other people that have a vulva and vagina. This book talks about these issues using very gendered terms, so if that makes you uncomfortable you should maybe skip this one.
This book did a lot for me and I cried because I would have needed it a lot a few months ago....

Morgan K

A refreshing perspective considering modern culture. I recommend it to all my girlfriends. It uses a science based approach with anecdotal experiences from real women.

Summer Stanley

EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS
yes, I am yelling! 

The number of times I said “REALLY? How did I not already know this?” and also “duh, that makes complete sense, but wow” is astounding.

Louise 

4,5 sterren voor de inhoud. 1 ster voor de afschuwelijke vertaling in het Nederlands in combinatie met de Amerikaanse goednieuwsshowstijl waar ik een hekel aan heb, die maakte het soms een beetje een worsteling. 'kom als jezelf', ik ben het al een paar weken op de melodie van het Nirvananummer aan het zingen in mijn living.

Olivera Mitić

Michelle Xu

Okay, so... technically this is a DNF around 70 or 80% back in 2018, BUT that doesn't stop me from giving it 4 stars.

I started listening to the audiobook back when I was taking a Sexuality and Public Health class in 2018 for my master's program. It was something a classmate had recommended. I would listen to the audiobook on my walk to school and back throughout the semester. I never finished it because I didn't feel motivated to pick up this book again after my classes ended... too much time went on, and at this point in my life, I don't think I will pick it up again.

I think that for me since I had a background in public health and medicine, and as someone with an interest in women's health and sexual health, I knew a lot of what the author discussed. I still learned some new things, and I really really enjoyed the author's discussion of real patients and cases that she had seen. However, I agree with another review that I saw that stated this book felt a bit more like sex therapy than it did a scientific nonfiction book about research in sex.

I think this book is really for anyone who wants to feel empowered about their sex life and want to learn a bit more about their vaginas, hormones, and the how our psychosocial wellbeing plays a part in our sex drive. Or, it can be a book for those who may be frustrated that sex isn't all that they thought it would be. If something is frustrating you regarding your sex life, some of the chapters in here can be really really insightful. Lastly, I definitely recommend all cishet men to read this ;) Help ya girl out and see how you can make her the most comfortable, learn to communicate better, and understand any differences you may have in your sex drives.

Paulina 

CUDOWNA!
polecam każdemu, bez względu na to jak ocenia jakość swojego życia seksualnego. aby zrozumieć siebie, zrozumieć siebie lepiej, zrozumieć partnerkę, obalić mity.

Laura Mitchell Hutchinson

The cover and title of this makes it look like it's all about sex, but it is primarily a book about behavioural psychology, mindfulness and stress management. This is fantastic as an audiobook – Dr Emily's voice is like a warm hug. She makes science and therapy sound really conversational and easily digestible, you can hear the smile and care in her voice. SO good. There were times where I teared up because I just felt so seen. I really recommend this to absolutely everyone – men and women – and I just purchased the paperback copy as well to read it again.

Come as You Are The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life

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