Reviews

Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

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kschuster's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

samwescott's review against another edition

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informative lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

So, it turns out that the Dildorks podcast that recommended this book to me had also pretty much taught me all that the parts that were really gonna rock my world (mainly the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire), so the experience of reading this was a little bit of disappointment at the 101 feeling of a lot of the content. But I had the luck to be taught sex ed mostly through intense self-directed study of reputable sources to combat my religious upbringing in my late teens. I also grew up on sex-positive tumblr, so the ethics of sex and pleasure were more expansively discussed than in my childhood, so I don’t want to blame the book for covering ground that so many people need. And that so many people may not even know they need. I can think of a lot of older acquaintances and people who shared my religious upbringing who might greatly benefit from a book like this.

Similar to how it didn’t quite meet me where I was with content, it didn’t quite meet me where I am with tone. I found the chattiness of the writing to feel a little bit infantilizing and the constant warnings that some “big nerdy sex geek science” was coming to be unnecessary and very exaggerative. There was nothing difficult to understand in here, so the very noticeable hand-holding was a little insulting.

But again, I can see someone like my mom really warming up to that tone and it being super helpful to carry her through an embarrassing (to her) topic, so again, I think this is more a mismatch between the book and myself than an inherent flaw.

It is certainly a book about cis anatomy and experiences specifically, which the author acknowledges. But she also explained that she wanted to pull from evidence-based scientific consensus and that just is not available about trans and gender-expansive folks in any volume. It sucks, but I don’t blame the author for it and am glad she made an effort to note the lack.

Highly recommend for people who need the info and will like the tone, which is difficult to tell before you dive in! I would recommend getting it from the library first to see if it will be helpful for you.