Book Description
An essential exploration of the unique and contextual nature of women's sexuality.
If You Just Remember One Thing
Sexual desire can be categorized into spontaneous, responsive, or a mix of both. Spontaneous desire happens out of the blue. Most men ar... More
Bullet Point Summary and Quotes
- As a sex educator fielding countless questions, the author realized a central concern for women: "Am I normal?" The answer is almost always yes.
- Women's sexual responses are normal and healthy even when they differ from men's.
- Approximately 70% of women don't orgasm reliably through intercourse alone, many experience arousal nonconcordance (where physical arousal doesn't match mental arousal), and many experience responsive rather than spontaneous desire.
- Female genitals, in all their diverse shapes, sizes, and colors, are completely normal and healthy. If
you're experiencing genital pain, then talk to a doctor.
- Olivia noticed her clitoris was comparatively large and interpreted this as making her more "masculine" due to higher testosterone -- this is a common myth in our culture. Genital variation is normal and doesn't dictate one's sexuality.
- Our sexuality at birth is like a unique garden plot, initially cultivated by family and culture who plant seeds of sexual attitudes and knowledge. As adults, we become gardeners while inheriting a mix of healthy and toxic elements. Even though the underlying "soil" (our innate biology) is less changeable, we can manage our garden by altering our environment and mindset to cultivate a fulfilling sex life.
- The genitals in pornography are altered to appear more “tucked-in.” Not all vulvas look that way.
- Female and male genitals are actually homologous, meaning that they develop from the same basic
structures.
- “If you look closely at a scrotum, you'll notice a seam running up the center -- the scrotal raphe. That's where his scrotum would have split into labia if he had developed female genitals instead.”
- “Find a mirror (or use the self-portrait camera on your phone) and actually look at your clitoris. Knowing where the clitoris is, is important, but knowing where your clitoris is, is power.”
- The Dual Control Model explains sexual response through two interacting brain systems: the Sexual Excitation
System (SES), the "accelerator," and the Sexual Inhibition System (SIS), the "brakes." Accelerators are senses
that induce sexual arousal (e.g., what you see, touch, smell, etc.). Breaks are threats that reduce sexual arousal
(e.g., potential of STDs and unwanted pregnancy, relationship issues, stress, social reputation, etc.).
- While the sensitivity of these systems varies between individuals and tends to differ between men and women on average (men typically have more sensitive accelerators, women more sensitive brakes), what these systems respond to is learned through experience rather than innate.
- Studies have trained rats to be sexually aroused by the scent of lemons, as well as rats fitted with a jacket.
- Most sexual difficulties stem not from insufficient stimulation of the accelerator but from too much activation of the brakes. This explains why medications like Viagra that work for men often don't help women -- they only address the accelerator when the issue is usually the brakes.
- Laurie realized her lack of sexual desire wasn't a personal failing, but rather an overactive "brake" system in her brain, responding to stress from motherhood, work, and body image issues. She recognized that while she was trying to activate her "accelerator" with novelty from toys and games, numerous life stressors were simultaneously slamming on her "brakes."
- While you can't easily change your SES or SIS sensitivity, you can minimize brakes and maximize accelerators through adjustments to your environment and mindset.
- Women's sexual desire hinges on context. Context includes the external circumstances/setting and internal states/mood. The same sensation can be perceived completely differently depending on factors like stress levels, trust, and relationship dynamics.
- Changes in sexual desire or arousal are often reflections of shifting contexts, not personal dysfunction.
- “Expecting (anticipating), eagerness (wanting), and enjoying (liking) are separate functions in your brain. You can want without liking (craving), anticipate without wanting (dread), or any other combination.”
- Stress reduces sexual interest and sexual pleasure.
- "When you're stressed out, your brain interprets just about everything as a potential threat. When you're turned on, your brain could interpret just about anything as sexually appealing."
- Physical activity is the most effective way to reduce stress.
- Trauma survivors' brains may associate sexual stimuli with threats. Mindfulness is an evidence-based method
for breaking this link.
- Mindfulness is practiced by focusing on your breath, noticing when your mind wanders without judgment, and gently redirecting attention back to your breath. This trains you to control your focus and emotions.
- In the right context, sex can emotionally attach us to partners or strengthen bonds in unstable relationships. To have better and more meaningful sex, find a compelling reason and a shared goal to work toward.
- Our sex-negative culture bombards women with harmful and contradictory messages about morality (“you are
evil”), medicine (“you are diseased”), and media (“you are sick”) that lead to self-criticism, body shame, and
sexual disgust that impede their wellbeing. However, women can actively unlearn these harmful patterns by
cultivating self-love, challenging negative self-perceptions, and being mindful of media influence.
- “You're too fat and too thin; your breasts are too big and too small. Your body is wrong. If you're not trying to change it, you're lazy. If you're satisfied with yourself as you are, you're settling. And if you dare to actively like yourself, you're a conceited bitch. In short, you are doing it wrong. Do it differently. No, that's wrong too, try something else. Forever.”
- “Sometimes people resist letting go of self-criticism -- ‘I suck!' -- because it can feel like giving up hope that you could become a better person, but that's the opposite of how it works. How it really works is that when you stop beating yourself up, you begin to heal, and then you grow like never before.”
- "Sexual disgust hits the brakes. This response is learned, not innate, and can be unlearned. Begin to notice your ‘yuck' responses and ask yourself if those responses are making your sex life better or worse."
- Arousal nonconcordance reveals that genital response is not a direct indicator of sexual arousal,
particularly for women. Genitals respond to sexually relevant stimuli automatically, while feeling "turned on" is
a separate mental experience influenced by context.
- Equating genital response with true enjoyment or seeing nonconcordance as a problem are harmful myths that deny women's agency and excuse assault. In reality, context, not physiology, drives sexual arousal.
- Research shows men have about a 50% overlap between genital response and arousal, while women have only a 10% overlap.
- “This difference between women and men doesn't mean women are broken; it means they're women.”
- Nonconcordance is normal and not a dysfunction. Focus on creating a positive sexual context is more important for women's sexual wellbeing than relying on physiological cues. Communication and attention to a partner's words and overall experience are more reliable indicators of desire than genital response.
- "The best way to tell if a woman is aroused is not to notice what her genitals are doing but to listen to her words."
- Sexual desire can be spontaneous, responsive, or a mix of both. Spontaneous desire happens out of the blue. 75% of men and 15% of women are spontaneous. Responsive desire happens when the context is correct. 30% of women and 5% of men are responsive. The rest experience a mix of both. All types are normal and healthy.
- Sexual desire is not a “drive,” it's an “incentive motivation” to “thrive.”
- “If sex were a drive, like food appetite, then the 30 percent of women who rarely or never experience spontaneous desire for sex are... well, what would we call a person who never experienced spontaneous hunger for food, even if she hadn't eaten in days or weeks or months? That person is definitely sick! If sex is a hunger and you never get hungry, then there's Something Wrong With You. And when you believe there's something wrong with you, your stress response kicks in. And when your stress response kicks in, your interest in sex evaporates (for most people). Insisting that sex is a drive is telling a healthy person with responsive desire that she's sick -- say it often enough and eventually she'll believe you. And when she believes you, suddenly it's true. The worry makes people sick.”
- “A far worse consequence is that when sex is conceptualized as a need, it creates an environment that fosters men's sense of sexual entitlement... If you think of sex as a drive, like hunger or thirst, that has to be fed for survival, if you think that men in particular—with their 75 percent spontaneous desire—need to relieve their pent-up sexual energy, then you can invent justifications for any strategy a man might use to relieve himself. Because if sex is a drive, like hunger, then potential partners are like food. Or like animals to be hunted for food. And that's both factually incorrect and just wrong. This matters. If we think sex is a drive, like hunger, then we might start giving it privilege it doesn't deserve. But if, on the other hand, we treat it like the incentive motivation system it is, might not the culture change? Might the culture be less tolerant of the suffering of girls, if that suffering isn't to feed boys' hunger but only feeds their interest? Maybe not, I don't know. But I do know that men's sexual entitlement is a primary reason they sexually assault women.”
- “To increase sexual desire in a relationship, increase novelty, pleasure, ambiguity, and intensity.”
- Research shows only 30% of women reliably orgasm from vaginal penetration, yet men-as-default cultural biases overemphasize this mode. 70% of women sometimes, rarely, or never orgrasm from penetration alone.
- Most orgasms happen with clitoris stimulation and when all motivational systems -- stress, attachment, body image -- align correctly in a sex-positive context.
- “Orgasm is not an evolutionary adaptation, necessary for survival. It's a fantastic bonus!”
- Meta-emotions, or how you feel about your sexuality, are more crucial to sexual well-being than sexuality itself. It is often shaped by inaccurate cultural scripts that lead to negative feelings like inadequacy when women's experiences don't align with the "ideal." To achieve sex positivity, it's essential to trust your own body's experience over societal expectations and practice non-judgment towards your feelings.
- “Context-free spontaneous desire is just the man-as-default standard, and screw that. Don't use somebody else's standard to measure the quality of your sex life.”
- Women's sexuality is diverse and all of which are normal. The "secret ingredient" to a fulfilling sex life is the woman herself -- her unique experiences and self-perception.
- “I wrote it because I am done living in a world where women are lied to about their bodies; where women are objects of sexual desire but not subjects of sexual pleasure; where sex is used as a weapon against women; and where women believe their bodies are broken, simply because those bodies are not male. And I am done living in a world where women are trained from birth to treat their bodies as the enemy. I wrote this book to teach women to live with confidence and joy.”
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