Book Review: Come as You Are

[osprey_archer]

Emily Nagoski’s Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science of Women’s Sexual Wellbeing is sort of a reread: I read parts of it years ago, but I was too embarrassed to check it out of the library. However, if you get an ebook no one can ogle your checkouts, so this time I did check it out and read it the whole way through.

There’s a lot of stuff in this book, but Nagoski’s basic thesis is that American society tends to treat women’s sexuality as Men’s Sexuality Lite: just like men’s sexuality, but not as good. For instance, men are more likely than women to feel spontaneous desire (you see an attractive person in the street and go “I’d like to lick that person like a lollipop”), so spontaneous desire is treated as the only real desire. Women are more likely to feel responsive desire (you weren’t thinking about sex till your spouse kisses the back of your neck, and then you’re like “Yeah! Sex sounds amazing!”), and this tends to be considered second-rate, if it’s counted as desire at all.

(But this is definitely a double bind situation: although spontaneous desire is considered the superior form of desire, women who experience too much of it are apt to be viewed as sluts/nymphomaniacs/etc, while women who are too far on the responsive desire end of the spectrum are called frigid. You just can’t win.)

As Nagoski points out, these are statistical tendencies, not universal truths. Enough men experience spontaneous desire that it has become enshrined as The Manly Way to Lust and therefore The Proper Way to Experience Desire, but there’s huge individual variation, men who don’t experience spontaneous desire and women who do etc., and also many people have the capacity to experience either type of desire depending on circumstances.

The book talks about a lot of other things - arousal non-concordance, attachment styles and sex, sexual trauma, orgasm, etc; responsive vs. spontaneous desire is the one I’ve been mulling over, because I feel like it’s got potential to add an exciting new vector of angst to romance novels if the characters’ experiences of desire don’t line up with what is culturally expected.

Although upon further reflection, I feel like spontaneous desire is something that readers expect from romance novels right now? That “Oh my GOD I want to lick you like a lollipop” moment. Hmmm.

Comments

[kore]

Yeah, I see that in the big influx of soulmate tropes in romance novels (which I think is being carried over partly from fanfic?) -- that's almost both reactions in one, the spontaneous bam "DAMN you're hot" and "now we are bonded and I must care for you!" (The trope squicks me out personally, but it's interesting.) I think it was sort of implicit in romance novels before -- the heroine is Not Like The Other Trollops the hero seduced (Mr Rochester, &c &c) -- but the fantasy soulmate trope makes it explicit and somewhat essentialist -- it can't be questioned, or denied.

[osprey_archer]

Soulmate tropes give you spontaneous desire AND spontaneous attachment, all in one go! I've never been big on soulmate stories either, but they do seem to be having a moment, particular in fanfic - you can't scroll through AO3 without stubbing your toe on a soulmate AU.

[asakiyume]

I'm laughing at the notion of stubbing your toe on a soulmate: "Ouch, damn! Oh! ... Oh. You .... me .... we're destined to be."

[osprey_archer]

The soulmates in question are CONVINCED this is a beautiful and romantic "how I met your mother" story and don't understand why it makes people laugh.

[sovay]

pontaneous desire (you see an attractive person in the street and go “I’d like to lick that person like a lollipop”)

I'd never seen a distinction drawn between spontaneous and responsive desire before. That's really interesting.

(I absolutely agree that spontaneous desire is treated as desire, no qualifications, the real thing, full stop. It's one of my major arguments with the terminology of demisexuality and its folding into the ace spectrum, as if only "I want to lick that like a lollipop on no prior acquaintance" counts as full sexuality.)

[osprey_archer]

Yes, it seems to me that a lot of people think spontaneous desire is the only real desire, and responsive desire is at best a mere echo or isn't even really desire at all. It's definitely something that shows up in discussions of demisexuality and asexuality and also sometimes in discussions of consent, as in, is it REALLY enthusiastic consent if both parties aren't feeling "I want to lick that like a lollipop" levels of desire?

[ancientreader]

I rarely discover myself in nonfiction dealing with women's sexuality, I guess because I'm way over on the bell curve -- in Nagoski's terms, I'd be high in spontaneous desire even at my advanced age. Anyway, her book sounds as if it's well worth reading.

Personally, I eat up love stories in which one partner experiences sexual desire but has to work through some trauma in order to be able to fully enjoy actual sex or to be a real partner to someone (*cough* Reciprocity *cough* -- and obviously more is going on there, but Bucky's fucked-up love-and-sex head is a big part of what draws me to that series).

[osprey_archer]

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting information in there! She covers a ton of material in a very accessible way.

Reciprocity!Bucky, God bless him, is a bundle of issues wrapped in a mystery inside an abrasive shell. Obviously if love HAS to be part of this whole love-and-sex thing, then Steve ought to be the one to supply it, right??

[staranise]

I don't experience spontaneous desire that often, and I lately figured out that the common thread in all the romance novels that "should" be perfect for me, but are actually totally aversive, is spontaneous desire, or the character's primary feelings about the other person being entirely "Oh huh wow they're hot". Cat Sebastian should theoretically be my cup of tea--queer Regencies!--but her plots usually feature lust overwhelming good sense, and I'm totally like "Hm can't relate". (Meanwhile I'm reading Martha Wells' Network Effect and totally craving the Murderbot version of porn, which is, "Normally all human contact is indescribably gross, but this one person seems to be less aversive to me? I may at some point indicate the desire to hug them? Idk that would be revealing a lot about myself though." Just like... an exploration of sensuality, attraction, and sexuality, when none of these things are simple, easy, or unambiguously pleasant.)

Anyway, I should give Nagoski's book a look.

[osprey_archer]

Yeah, I don't usually click with books where the characters overwhelming physical attraction is the main thing pulling them together. Maybe you guys should worry a little more about the consequences of having sex in the drawing room when anyone might walk in at any time??? Instead I just end up worrying for them.

[staranise]

And there’s no premeditation. It’s never “bae come over all my servants are out on errands.”

[osprey_archer]

The servants might be back at any moment! WHY AM I MORE STRESSED ABOUT THIS THAN YOU ARE, FICTIONAL CHARACTERS??

[staranise]

The funnier thing might be a heroIne who inherits her estranged aunt Lady Harlot’s estate, and all the servants are weirdly enthusiastic helping to arrange her affairs.

[asakiyume]

Sexuality keeps on having way, way more nuance than I ever saw represented when I was a kid, and the real-life people I know seem to really fall all over the place on so many different axes.

[osprey_archer]

It's so complicated! And pop culture is so bad at it! And I guess pop culture is bad at representing a lot of things, but I feel like the vision it gives of sexuality is particularly flat and static in comparison to the real thing.

[holyschist]

I feel like spontaneous desire is something that readers expect from romance novels right now? That “Oh my GOD I want to lick you like a lollipop” moment.

Definitely a trope of the romance genre, and I'm honestly kind of alienated by it - I'd really like to read a het or f/f romance where at least one of the characters isn't struck by instant lust, but desire grows after getting to know the other character. I think this is one of the things I turn to fanfic for - the slow burn and slow discovery of what people want. (I've also noticed pro m/m and f/f romance seems to have characters who are almost always 100% aware they're gay and have perfect gaydar, which I also find kind of unrelateable, especially in historical settings). But I still have to look for it.

I didn't manage to finish Come As You Are, but I should give it another go one of these days.

[osprey_archer]

I sometimes find the perfect gaydar in historical romance unbelievable, too, although I guess it might also get tiresome for every single book to spend half its length with both leads moaning, "But he would never love me, for alas, he probably loves ladies!!" But still! A little variety. Allow the characters some confusion. And it's okay if characters' identities don't map perfectly onto sexual identities as we understand them in the 21st century! Really, that's allowed!

[holyschist]

Yeah, I don't so much want endless pining or anxiety, but maybe more initial caution, rather than just instant "well, my gaydar is going off, better turn on the flirting regardless of the fact that this is the 19th century and the consequences of my being wrong could be Very Bad." I mean, I don't think gaydar works that perfectly in the 21st century (mine sure doesn't, but maybe as a filthy bi I only got the discount version, idk). Then a sort of gradual series of hints or something, or some historical methods of signaling kinship rather than just a Feeling He's Gay, Must Be Right. Variety!

The historical F/F romance I've read has tended to address the expectations of compulsory heterosexuality more and unfold a bit more gradually, but it's even harder to find competently written historical F/F.

And it's okay if characters' identities don't map perfectly onto sexual identities as we understand them in the 21st century!

Ha, man, I wish, but that may be asking too much...