Come As You Are Paperback – January 1, 2015

Anyone who has a vulva or wants to sleep with someone who does needs to read this book. Nagoski demystifies how the female body works and helps you understand what turns you on or off, and how to improve overall personal and partner sexual satisfaction. I recommend this to female and straight male clients all the time.

Puts all the things you need to know or want to know or would be worried about plainly and simply.

I love this book, it helped me understand the accelerator/brake arousal model which has helped me understand myself and my partner so much better. I recommend this to all of my friends.

I ended up writing to the author of this book to hopefully get a response before writing a review here so I could comment appropriately. Apparently, she must be too busy (or unwilling) to reply to her readers, so I'm going to post the email I sent her so that anyone buying this book can have this in mind while reading it. Before doing so though, I would stress that the book is a good book on its topic. The author has fallen victim to some modern non-sense that she mentions a few times in the book. You be the judge though! Here's the email I sent:Good afternoon! First let me say that I read your "Come as you are book" and I would highly recommend this to any reader, male or female. It is really well researched and written.I am a man and read a fairly large amount of books, a lot dealing with sexual themes. I have also observed after these last several years that the media, educators, and others (whom you point out in your book) have been working on pointing the figure at men (patriarchy) as a scapegoat for many things nowadays. This is absolutely untrue in modern times.Looking in your book on page 201, you state:"So what gives? Why does it feel so new, when every other year a book comes out that talk about it?When I asked this question in my class, a student raised her hand and said with comic sourness: 'Patriarchy.'Totally.For centuries, men's sexuality has been the 'default' sexuality, so that where women differ from men, women get labeled 'broken'."Ironically, if you skip to page 213, you actually nail who is currently actually responsible for all this mis-, and disinformation:"Tell them calmly, joyfully, and confidently. No need to be defensive or aggressive - it's not their fault they don't know about nonconcordance. Actually, it's more my fault and the fault of all the other sex educators and researchers. We have failed to communicate this idea clearly to the world, and now you're stuck with the job of fixing our mistake. Sorry about that."You also nail "patriarchy" again on 259. Again, this reference is as false as the one listed above. If this was not modern times, then I may agree with you that men would be responsible for disseminating false or misleading information since that was the patriarchy and women weren't allowed in these types of roles. However, as long as women have been able to write books, teach in schools, be journalists, etc, you can no longer point the finger at men for the wrong information getting out to our youth (both boys and girls) and thus getting propagated in a way that hurts women. Women are AT LEAST equal to this problem since they too are spreading the same information - per your own words (and anyone who can clearly think).At this point, and although I still say it is a good book, your "Come as you are" is also passing misinformation along to its readers by pointing the finger at 50% of the population that is, at best, only 50% responsible! I would argue less than that because that would mean 100% of the male population would have to agree with your assessment that men "want it this way" because it "makes them superior" in some way or some other rationale. I would counter that most men actually love women and want to do what's best and most pleasurable for them. Do some men fit the profile your presenting? Yup! Do some women also fit that against men? Yup! You can't point the finger at one without it pointing back at you.I hate to call for an update to your book to address this issue, but you really should consider it so that you aren't another source of more false information being propagate to others that I and other men will have to "clean up" - as you apologized for in your quote above. There are other places in it too (e.g. 312), so a thorough review might be in order...

Got it for an 18yo looking to learn the ins and outs of sex in it’s entirety beyond just how-to. This was something she reported “she needed” after reluctantly opening; and is now reading and learning important things that will empower her moving forward; give her control, and to know herself best before letting someone explore on their own. Powerful, wonderful. I’ll get it for any young adult transitioning to adulthood. It’s a mission of mine to empower young woman and make it normal to have important conversations that have historically been taboo.

Great insights as to what women go through regarding their sexuality. I learned a lot.

I am a pelvic floor therapist, and this is a common recommendation to many patients-it’s a great resource!

A must read for any guy.