Come As You Are: Audio Preface Part 2

In this second episode of the audio preface to the revised edition of Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski unpacks one of the most misunderstood concepts in sexuality research: responsive desire.

Responding to a listener question about “arousal first, then desire,” Emily explores how scientific language around sex can easily be misunderstood — and why pleasure, consent, desire, and arousal are not the same thing.

Through personal stories, research, and candid reflection, this episode examines the importance of context, emotional safety, and communication in intimate relationships, while challenging harmful cultural myths about sex and desire. A thoughtful and compassionate conversation about what it really means to want — and enjoy — sexual connection.

Transcript

Greetings, Feminist Survival Project listeners. Emily here. Not Amelia because she gets understandably a little skeeved out when she hears me talking about sex. This is a very special addition to the Feminist Survival Project feed. In March, I have an updated and revised edition of my first book, Come As You Are, Being published. And I have created this three-episode series as a preface to the changes that I've made in the new edition. I'm really proud of it, And I hope you enjoy it. When you say arousal first, Then desire, Isn't that the same thing as the idea that you can just start having sex with someone and they won't be able to help liking it? Well, Hello. I'm Emily Nagoski. I'm a sex educator and the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller, Come As You Are, The surprising new science that will transform your sex life. I call it QIA. It came out in 2015 originally, And in March of 2021, Six years from its original publication, It will be re-released with updated and revised science and other content to make it even better. I'm making this three-part audio preface to the new Come As You Are so that we can talk about three of the most important questions readers asked me over the years that motivated me to adapt Come As You Are to offer the very best answers that I could. Here we are at the second extremely important question, And it might be the most important question for anyone who has argued with a partner about the best way to initiate sex, Anyone who has wondered about the value of scheduling sex. That's a big conversation. I could do a whole episode on that. Or anyone who has experienced unwanted sexual contact, Which is a very large proportion, Particularly of people born in bodies that make everybody go, It's a girl. I'll put a notice here that this episode does include a discussion of unwanted sex and sexual violence. I'll let you know ahead of time before anything that's explicit, But if you do not want to be in the house next door to that stuff, Please feel free to skip ahead to the next episode, Which is about expansive, Delicious pleasure. So, Second question. When you say arousal first, Then desire, Isn't that the same thing as the idea that you can just start having sex with someone and they won't be able to help liking it? Okay, Let me tell you about one of the times that this question came to me. It was the fall of 2015. Come As You Are had only been out for a few months, But it's chugging along and I'm in a city doing some book promotion stuff and I get an email, Would you be willing to have coffee with this journalist writing a piece about sex for her publication? Of course I would. I will talk to anyone who will listen about the science of sex. It's my favorite thing. My sister Amelia happened to be in the city with me, So she came along to coffee because at this point we had already decided to write our next book, Burnout, And I wanted her to have the experience of talking to a journalist about a book. It's a very specific way of interacting and it was a skill that she was going to need to learn eventually anyway. And I ended up being so glad that she was there with me because without her to help me have this conversation, I might have been completely stuck. So the journalist questions were mostly about desire, Specifically what to do when at least one partner in the relationship has responsive desire. Now, If you've listened to the first episode, You know that responsive desire is sexual desire that emerges in response to pleasure as opposed to spontaneous desire, Which emerges in anticipation of pleasure. But in 2015, That is language I did not have yet. Instead, Come as you are, Use the language that was in the research itself. What the research says was arousal comes first, And that leads to desire, Not pleasure first, Then desire. So this journalist begins the conversation arousal first, Then desire. She says, That's right, I say. That's what it says in the science. So she goes, Women should just start having sex when they don't want it. And this sounded like an opportunity to talk about a big idea to me. So I said, If they're interested in creating more sex in their relationship, What they can do is look at the context. And here I went on my usual set piece about the dual control model. People who are familiar with the work will be able to recite this with me. Those who aren't are about to have their minds blown. So the idea is that the mechanism in your brain that controls your sexual response is parallel to the mechanism in your brain that controls sort of anything, Which is to say that it is a coupling of two processes. There's this, Why it's called the dual control model. There's two parts. There's the sexual accelerator or gas pedal, Which notices all the sex-related information in the environment. That's everything that your brain perceives, Everything you see, Hear, Smell, Touch, Taste, Think, Believe, Or imagine that seems sex-related. And when your brain receives that kind of stimulation, It sends the turn on signal that many of us are familiar with. And it functions all the time, Including at a low level right now your brain is receiving. Here we are talking about sex, Which is it's just a tiny bit of sex-related information. So you've got a tiny bit of accelerator turn on signal happening. At the same time in parallel, Your brake is noticing all the very good reasons not to be turned on right now. Everything that you see, Hear, Smell, Touch, Taste, Think, Believe, Or imagine that your brain considers a potential threat. When it notices any of these things, It sends the turn off signal. And it's functioning all the time, Including right now, Noticing all the very good reasons not to be turned on. And so the process of arousal is actually the dual process of turning on the ons and turning off the offs. Now, I would love it if it were as simple as you can figure out exactly what kind of touch in what location of your body feels right and just train your partner to do that thing or figure out what happens for your partner and just do that thing over and over. Period. No matter what, It's gonna work. That's not how it works. Unfortunately, The mechanism, Well, Fortunately, Because our brains are amazing and it is so cool that they can adapt to different situations, Our brains, This mechanism, Are sensitive to context. The simplest way to explain this is to talk about something like tickling. I know tickling is not everybody's favorite, But you can imagine a situation, Even hypothetically, Where you're already in a pretty turned on, Erotic, Sexy, Playful state of mind, And your certain special someone starts to tickle you. That could feel really erotic and pleasurable and lead to more things, Right? But if that exact same certain special someone tries to tickle you when you're in the middle of an argument and you're really pissed off at them, Does that feel really erotic and pleasurable and lead to other things? Or does it make you kind of want to punch them in the face, Right? The way our brains perceive a sensation changes depending on the context. So when I say that if people are interested in creating more sex in their relationship, What they can do is look at their context. What I mean is that they can look at the ways the world is activating their accelerator and their brake and the way the context is shaping the extent to which their brain interprets things as sexy versus threats. And there's chapters about this. Chapter 2 is about the dual control model. Chapters 3, 4, And 5 are about how this whole context situation works. So it's a really big deal, The idea that context shapes what our brains respond to. So I say all this to this journalist. And so, I conclude grandly, It's not about making yourself start to have sex so much as it is about creating a context that allows your body to activate the accelerator and release the brake. It didn't help her at all. She was not convinced. She goes, But still, You're saying that women should just have sex if their partner wants it. And if she does, She'll just start wanting it. And that is kind of what I was saying, But I didn't mean it the way it sounded when she said it. Women should just have sex and eventually they'll start wanting it. I couldn't figure out where this misunderstanding was so that I could clarify. She says things like, How is a woman supposed to have sex she doesn't want first? It should be desire first. And let me be clear that the whole point of the chapter is that we've been taught all our lives that desire comes first and then comes the being turned on. And that is exactly what she's been taught her whole life. And she's struggling to adjust her thinking to arousal first than desire. She's like, Even if you want to want sex with your partner, How do you get to the just wanting of it? Now here, This is an extremely common question. Like, I want to want to have sex with my partner, But I just don't want sex with my partner. And come as you are, It's full of suggestions about that. But this is the point where Amelia broke in. Amelia, Let me add, This is my identical twin sister. She is like many women. She has a predominantly responsive desire style, Like most people do. And learning how to make responsive desire work in her life made her life better. So she was protective of the concept of responsive desire. She could feel that some kind of misunderstanding was happening in the conversation, And she wanted to step in on behalf of responsive desire. So she, And let me also say that Amelia is a very no-nonsense kind of person who is like, This is not as complicated as you think it is. So she says to the journalist, If you want to want to have sex with your partner, You want to have sex with your partner. So have the sex. Which was also what I was trying to say, And it even sounded the way I meant it when I said it. Responsive desire is desire in response to sex you want. If you want the sex, You want it. So dive right in there, Friend. Assuming everyone involved is glad to be there and free to leave whenever you like, You're all set. You have everything you need. I looked at the journalist hopefully thinking this might clarify the situation. It did not. We talked for an hour and we never got to a place where I felt like we had understood each other. I could not help this writer get to a place where it was okay for arousal to come first and then desire. On the way back to the hotel, I was talking with Amelia and I was like, There was something missing in that conversation. There was some crossed wire that I never found. Amelia, Again, Promoter of responsive desire is like, I just think she's addicted to the idea that the only right state of mind for initiating sex is being horny. Which is a common misconception, One of the things I try hardest to bust in Come As You Are. So I thought about it some more, Feeling continually dissatisfied. And it wasn't until days later that something clicked in my head and I realized what the crossed wires were. Okay, Here's what it was. When I said arousal first then desire, What this journalist heard was if sex happens for a woman, She won't be able to help liking it. The pieces clicked into place because this idea, This narrative of she won't be able to help it is common, Longstanding, And dangerous rape myth that shows up in everything from 1970s era romance novels to antique porn as far back as I can find. And to clarify, I'm gonna read a passage here. If you would rather not hear an ill-written, Eroticized description of sexual assault, Please feel free to skip ahead the next 30 seconds or so. You'll know it's over when the music has stopped. So in this passage, A woman accidentally walks in on two men, Charlie and the nameless narrator, Doing something sexual that we needn't go into. Here we go. Charlie seized her in his arms and swore he would do as much to her to prevent her telling. She was horrified and fled to her own room, But had not time to shut him out. He forced the door open. She ran to her bed, Intending to ring for the servant. He caught her as she had one knee up on the bed and was into her from behind. Before she could accomplish her purpose, She cried out to me to pull him away. I went but told her Charlie was right, As it would prevent her splitting upon us. Telling on us is what that means. I rather think Charlie's large proportions gave her much pleasure, For soon she ceased to struggle. Indeed, She had her back to him and his strong arms around her waist, Preventing her using her hands. She cried much afterwards and talked about the greatness of the crime. She had then got into bed. Charlie followed to coax and console her and of course got into her again. I thought she enjoyed the second, For her bottom heaved to meet him. And then, On another occasion in the book with a different woman, She was much distressed in mind at the first horror of it, But being a ripe woman of hot lubricity could not feel a fine prick deliciously belaboring her cunt without having her lust excited in spite of herself. Okay, That is more than enough of that. Who needs a drink? Let's pause, Friends. Yikes. It is not always fun being a sex educator. Okay, Look, You see the problem, Right? The myth is if you just grab a lady and start fucking her, It doesn't matter about her consent or her desire, She won't be able to help getting into it. That is what this journalist heard me saying. Yikes. Whoops. I had replicated the language of the research, Arousal first, Then desire, But when that language hit the ears of non-scientists, It transformed into a rape myth. As soon as I realized the problem, I changed the language from the research to the language that readers would understand, Not arousal first, Then desire, But pleasure first, Then desire and pleasure. As we discussed, I spend three full chapters in Come As You Are Explaining. It's what happens when you create a context that allows your brain to interpret the world as safe, Fun, Sexy, And pleasurable, Which is necessarily a place of consent. Whoo! Okay. Before you can pay attention to the genitals, Which is what readers hear when they hear arousal, Pay attention to the genitals, Arousal, You have to pay attention to the context first, And the context is both the external circumstances and the person's internal state, Their consent being just one of the very important factors that have to be borne in mind. Oh boy, I got a lot of feelings about this one. Wow! So I made this change within a matter of months of Come As You Are being published, And I know that the change was noticeable because a sex therapist and researcher noticed. During a conference where each of us first presented separately and then sat together on a panel answering questions from the audience and from each other, The question this therapist had for me was, I noticed today you said pleasure first, Then desire, When the research says arousal first, Then desire. Why is that? And I told the story of how I realized that when researchers say arousal, They mean excitation of the relevant pathways in the central nervous system. But when readers of Come As You Are and when presumably her clients and other therapist clients read the word arousal, They are not thinking excitation of the relevant pathways of the central nervous system, They're thinking genital response. And so when they read desire, What they hear very often is pleasure and consent, When desire is neither of those things. Oh, I was so glad to have this conversation with this therapist right there in front of all these other sex nerds like me because it made us all get really concrete and specific about the fact that we need to be really precise and specific in differentiating the meanings of these four words, Desire, Arousal, Pleasure, And consent. Each of these concepts has a relationship with the others for sure, But they each exist in their own right and they are not interchangeable. So throughout the new Come As You Are, I practice exquisite precision in when and where I use words like pleasure and liking it versus desire and wanting it. One can exist without the other. I really wish that this journalist and her questions were the only example of someone misunderstanding the nature of responsive desire and how to make it work in a relationship, But I know for sure that the problem isn't just this one person asking the question. This was just the first time I was presented with this and let me be clear, It was just a few months after Come As You Are came out, So I have been living with this problem for six years now and it's about to get fixed and I could not be happier. The book had barely begun existing in the world when I realized I needed to change how I talked about the relationship between arousal and desire and the relationship between desire and pleasure. As recently as 2020, I heard from someone whose husband had read Come As You Are and learned a lot from it. And to be clear, Both of these people have PhDs. They both definitely super smart humans who understood all of the words I had written. So here is the story that she told me. She put the kid to bed. It's during the pandemic, So they're like trapped in the house together with their child for hours and days and weeks and months at a time. So they're sitting together on the sofa watching some TV and husband, Super smart, Just puts his hand down her pants and she tells him, No, I'm not in the mood. And he says, But you will be. Yikes! Whoops! Shit! For the record, This interaction is the literal opposite of everything in Come As You Are. I spent three whole chapters on the importance of context and shaping how our brain perceives sensation and how you have to pay attention to context before you pay attention to the genitals. Oh my God, I am so sorry. Lovely, Nice woman who told me this story. Shit, Shit, Shit. The best news about this story is I had already written the new Come As You Are correcting this misunderstanding so I could send her some pages to help her husband understand why it's not great to just stick your hand down the pants of your exhaustive pandemic fatigued wife who just finished putting your child to bed. Oh, France. Oh, France. The new edition of Come As You Are fixes this problem. It is as meticulous as I could be about where and when it uses the ideas, The separable concepts of pleasure, Desire, Arousal, And consent. Using definitions for those words that don't contradict the scientific definitions but also make intuitive sense to readers who don't have medical degrees. It was, It was a fine line to walk and I'll probably make some scientists unhappy but making some scientists unhappy is a small price to pay for preventing one more person from stuffing their hand down their partner's pants and telling them you're going to want this eventually. Yikes. Whoops. Shit. And that does it for the second episode of this three-part audio preface for the new edition of Come As You Are, The surprising new science that will transform your sex life. Stay tuned for the next episode which is about how to maximize access to ecstatic pleasure. The new book is available for pre-order wherever books are sold and as always I recommend supporting your local bookseller whenever you can. I am starting a newsletter type thing. If you'd like to read a sex-related Q&A once a month or so you'll find a subscription link in the episode notes. If you have questions yourself you can email kayapod at gmail. Com c-a-y-a-p-o-d kayapod at gmail. Com and I might answer it in a newsletter Q&A. In the meantime, I hope this helped and thank you so much for listening. The Feminist Survival Project 2020 is a part of the Frolic podcast network. Find more podcasts you'll love at frolic. Media slash podcasts.