Book Review: Come As You Are

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life, by Emily Nagoski, is not the usual fare for this blog, but... given how often autistic people miss out on proper sex education, the sections about the stress cycle (which are sadly highly relevant to autistic people), the importance of the subject overall, and the excellence of this particular book, I'm making an exception.  

Fair warning: this is a book about sex.  If the subject makes you uncomfortable, you may feel you should skip this book.  Quite frankly, I strongly suggest you don't.  This book contains information you would typically need to pay a therapist thousands of dollars to obtain over a very long period of time, and only after you're literally at your wits' end (because that's typically the point at which people stop putting off getting help for this sort of thing).  

Also, while the book's cover suggests it mainly covers sex from women's point of view, the information therein is useful for all sexes (intersex people exist) and all genders (hi, I'm agender!).  My spouse and I read this book together, and it cleared up a lot of falling down points we'd had around the subject, as well as improving communication between us overall.  It'll take time to improve our actual sex life, since the book revealed some serious issues we have to work through, but I fully expect positive changes and a better relationship as a result.  

One of the key points that's stuck with me?  Sex is not a drive.  "Sex drive" is a common phrase to refer to peoples' desire to have sex, but the phrase is wrong, and worse, it's harmful.  Drives, you see, are things your body demands in order to live.  Food, air, and water, for example.  However, there are zero cases of someone dying because they didn't have sex for X years.  (There are cases of people believing they're owed sex, and because of inadequately supported mental illness and access to deadly weapons they definitely didn't need, killing people and/or committing suicide over it... but that's significantly different).   

Pop culture and media teach us that the hero always gets the girl (and the kiss, and the sex, etc).  And somewhere between that expectation that women throw themselves at the hero as soon as the hero succeeds, and the stigmatization of men who haven't had sex and/or aren't some kind of sexual genius with dozens of partners, this idea that sex is a physical need came into play.   

However, the research shows us this is wrong.  Sex can be pretty great, but it's merely an incentive-reward system, not a physical need.  Another thing that fall into this category is "tasty food" or snacks, which you might find yourself wanting even when you're not hungry.  

There are a lot of really helpful insights in this book regarding how much context matters (a lot!), your physical parts (are normal!), and how stress affects everything (also a lot!).  Shoutouts to the parts that talk about brakes and accelerators, which was easy language for my spouse and me to adopt in our discussions.  

I found the sections on the stress cycle especially helpful.  Autistic people like myself are often under a great deal of stress.  The Japanese saying is, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."  Meaning, roughly, the person that doesn't fit in is going to get a lot of abuse until they do.  You can probably guess how I feel about that, but the point is that this book will teach you, broadly, how to allow your system to let go of that stress.  The specifics are up to you, since you have to find what works best for you.  

I could probably go on and on about the insights in this book, but in all honesty, the author will do a better job of explaining them than I would.  There are six copies of this book in my local library system and another seven (including two eBooks) in the neighboring library system.  Go get one.  

Please note: this book is not specifically written for autistic people.  It contains broad and highly useful explanations of our best (current) understanding of how sexuality works, especially as pertaining to physically female people.  Things like sensory sensitivities, communication difficulties, and consent are not covered.  You may want to refer to the resources listed here for information on these subjects.  

Read This Book

No If.  You, yes you, should read this book.  The only exception is I guess if you're 100% certain you don't want a sex life and you either don't have a partner or that partner is just as onboard with that certainty.  And even so, I'd suggest you still read the book, simply because there's a massive sea of misunderstandings around sexuality and just by existing you're subject to them.  Even if you don't expect to be having sex anytime soon, knowing the toxic garbage, myths, and flat out misunderstandings in popular culture is important.  Especially for women, but as stated above: my spouse and I read this book together, and we are both better people for it.