Come As You Are:
The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life
Written by Emily Nagoski
About 315 pages
Originally published in 2015
Rate 4.5/5
One of my roommates recommend Come As You Are to me towards the beginning of the semester; I am really glad she did. Come As You Are focuses on women's experiences with sex, but I think everyone can learn something from reading it. Majority of the time, Emily Nagoski doesn't talk about the actual act of having sex, rather she talks about what goes into having good sex.
Emily Nagoski starts off with a slightly brief anatomy lesson then she gets into the mental aspect of sex. Nagoski talks about the stress cycle, attachment styles, cultural views about sex, lube, desire, orgasm, and learning how to avoid judgment in the bedroom. The idea she pushes throughout the entire book is the fact that everyone is normal. We are all made of the same parts just arranged in different ways.
"I am done living in a world where women are lied to about their bodies; where women are objects of sexual desire... and where women believe their bodies are broken, simply because those bodies are not male. I am done living in a world where women are trained from birth to treat their bodies as the enemy." (Nagoski, 312)
My thoughts on Come As You Are
Having (mostly) everything about this topic all in one place is incredibly helpful. There were some topics that I already knew about within this book and having them there was nice because it helped me find a connection between the all the different topics.
I had a lot of "wow" moments while reading this book because of the way Emily Nagoski writes. I really liked how, for the most part, Nagoski was very explicit with her word choices. However, sometimes she spoke in metaphors too often. I feel as though I would have understood the content better without them.
I notice that a lot of self-help books really milk out the page number by being super repetitive. It didn't feel like Come As You Are did that until the last 20 pages. Of course Nagoski restated some ideas throughout the book, but it felt more like connecting ideas rather than milking it out.
Overall, the ideas within this book are important for everyone to learn about. I really enjoyed marking and tabbing this book because I felt seen reading it. I tabbed and marked parts of Come As You Are when there were facts/statistics, terms/explanations, wow moments, encouraging statements, and sad moments. This is the type of book I want to look through many times.
The topics within Come As You Are might be a little taboo to talk about for some and that's okay. However, I would encourage everyone to get educated on these topics in some way.