April Book Details - Come As You Are

April Book - Come As You Are by Dr. Emily Nagoski

It's like Dr. Nagoski knew we would be breaking this book down into a month long book club read!  It is sectioned into four parts, so we will strive to read one part per week. I am planning on posting questions/discussion topics on Sunday evenings.  Feel free to post your thoughts and responses at any time for any of the threads created.  I know life gets crazy, so my only directive is to not feel any pressure to keep up or slow down depending on what the group is doing.  I would envision us always having virtual book discussions, but if it ever works out to add in-person book club meetings too I think that could be pretty fun!

April Reading & Discussion Timeline

April 5 - Posting of Discussion Topics for Introduction & Part One: The (Not-So-Basic) Basics

April 12 - Posting of Discussion Topics for Part Two: Sex In Context

April 19 - Posting of Discussion Topics for Part Three: Sex In Action

April 26 - Posting of Discussion Topics for Part Four: Ecstasy for Everybody

I would also like to add scheduled live discussion times either in the chat function here on this forum, on FB or through some other medium.  I'm hoping once we get the ball rolling it will become more apparent how to make that happen, so I am just saying for now I would like to make that happen later this month but the time, date and virtual meeting location are TBD.

Does anyone have any other questions right now?  Are there any glaring omissions I am blissfully unaware of?

Read on!      

So hi there to anyone who is coming as you are and having Dr. Emily Nagoski sort out your sexual composition.  I'm going to take liberties and refer to her as Em.  She seems like an Em to me.  And there are probably too many geeks in Vagestic to refer to her as The Doctor without some confusion.  I like Em's writing style.  She makes a pretty dense subject easy to read for non-sciencey people like me, without crossing the line into trite or pulpy. It was easy to fantasize about how cool it would have been to have her as a professor at some point and get this information in person rather than have her apparent humor and wit translated through the written page.  Do you all find it hard to get through a book if you don't like the author's writing voice, or have you honed your concentration enough to make it past that and suck up the information rather than fixate on how much you despise their crafted style?

Other random thoughts (though organized sequentially as the book progresses) while reading Part One:

The introduction got me pondering the question "Does one's sex life always have room for improvement? Does anyone feel their sex life is already a 10 out of 10?" I guess since one of Em's main points is that our sex lives inevitably change you may have a perfect-for-you sex life at some point and then things change, leaving room for improvement.  Part of me though thinks that no matter how hard Em tries to drive home the point of "you are not broken!" a majority of the population won't read this book as "understanding the biology of what drives your sexual desires" and will instead fixate on the message of "improve your sex life in these easy steps!" and it will just become more fodder for the self-improvement economy, trying to sell you on their version of The Holy Grail.

"Culture adopts a random act of biology and tries to make it meaningful, with a capital 'Mmmh.'" (Page 17)

Who didn't love the factoid about the nipple-less platypus that nurses its young by leaking milk from its abdomen?!?!?


"The Vagina - The First Gated Community" (Page 29)

Does the dual control model resonate with you? I know she says there is no way around this - her assertion is it is a biological fact - but does it feel "wrong" to anyone?  Can you explain why it doesn't work for you?

I did her little Sexual Temperament Questionnaire.  As I fully expected, I was within the mid-range that most folks fall into.  I was a 13 on SIS (Inhibitors/Brakes) and 17 on SES (Excitors/Accelerator).  Did anyone have any unexpected results in this area?

"There appears to be almost no innate sexual stimuli.  What turns us on (or off) is learned from culture."  (Page 61)  This could be such an interesting topic of discussion if we could get a cross-culture group of folks together!

I think I absorbed the surface level of her explanation on the Three E's: Expectation, Enjoyment and Eagerness.  This is where I think they folks with more biological, chemical or social science backgrounds would really benefit from their prior knowledge while reading this book.  She does a fairly good job of breaking it down and using examples though (I kinda felt like her "one ring" analogy was a bit of a groaner but maybe I'm just not a big enough LOTR fan), and I'm hoping I can follow when it comes up again later in the book.

[Of the Three E's] "There is no deliberate intention - and often not even any awareness - accompanying the activation of these brain systems."

In conclusion ladies and jellyspoons, Em's off to a strong start.  I hope the rest of the book continues in the same vein and that by the end of it I learn a little bit of something that is useful and translate-able to real sexy times rather than just fun brainy sex info to mull over at my desk and chat about with Vagestic ladies but doesn't work while with a partner.  Is anyone reading this with a partner or planning to have a partner read it after you finish?

Til next week, Read On!

So a gentleman friend just answered the SIS/SES Sexual Temperament Questionaire!  I thought I would share because I was so surprised (not exactly sure why) by the results. 3 SIS and 16 SES

And his reflections on the results "I think what it communicates to me is that it's a)very easy for me to get aroused and b) once I get aroused, it's a bit difficult for anything to break the spell.  It isn't to say I don't have any insecurities, just that they don't seem to affect my arousal any".  So there you have it - same parts, organized in different ways.

I am discontinuing posts on this book since no one else is reading along.  Sex at Dawn is still the May book - look for a new thread on that if you plan on reading it.

Read on!