Read: Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D.

Even when clients are coming into therapy for a multitude of other reasons, sex is one theme that tends to inevitably arise. Sex shows up with my clients who are recovering from their eating disorders and rediscovering their bodies in new ways. Sex comes up with clients who have lived through rape and sexual assault and are working to untangle pleasure from trauma. Sex arises up in couples sessions and individual sessions and across ages. Because it is such a centrally human theme, I am always on the lookout for good resources to share with my clients and Emily Nagoski’s book is currently the top of my list.

She uses research as her primary method of exploration and yet captures these dense findings in beautifully approachable metaphors. She touches on attachment theory, advanced biology, social constructs, feminist theory, Health At Every Size and cutting edge trauma research to name just a few of her lenses. Emily weaves in workbook-like activities to guide the reader through the content as it applies to oneself.

Throughout her book, the thesis remains front and center, “you are normal.” The fear that there is something irreparably wrong or damaged when it comes to sexual response and arousal is one that I hear women echo frequently. There are many reasons behind this pervasive and nagging fear, not the least of which is the vast difference between how things are portrayed in the media and what is real and true for most women. Among many other common concerns, she addresses the concepts of nonconcordance, arousal vs desire, spontaneous vs responsive desire and scientifically sound strategies for arriving at orgasm.

All of these themes I hear in my practice are usually blanketed under a deep layer of shame. While this book tackles sexual experience from a mainly biological perspective, her psychological theory and explanation is invaluable and truly shame busting. One of my favorite examples of this is where she makes it a point to explain how meta-emotions impact sexual experience. While she goes into depths explaining the science behind this concept, this quote sums it up beautifully,

“feeling okay about how you feel-even when it’s not what you expected- is the key to extraordinary sex.”

I’ll end with one of my other favorite quotes, both biologically accurate and psychologically freeing,

“sex is not a drive, like hunger. It’s an incentive motivation system, like curiosity…so stay curious.”

Read: Mating In Captivity by Esther Perel

Entering into Valentine’s Week, it seemed only appropriate to do a little dedication to a woman who I feel is a true therapeutic master in the world of sex and intimacy with couples therapy, Esther Perel. You have likely already heard of her one way or another, her TED Talks, podcasts and books have become widely known and desperately clung to in a world where sexual intimacy and satisfaction seems to be waning at a rapid pace. I enjoy her writing not only for the therapeutic skills and philosophical musings but for her way with language which tackles complex psychological themes with true poetic aplomb.

Her first book has a very simple thesis behind the declining rates of stated satisfaction in long-term partnerships, “…today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning and continuity.” This is perhaps the first flaw in our modern culture, the wide tangle of expectations heaped onto one single individual. The second fatal flaw occurs, “in the course of establishing security, many couples confuse love with merging.” Perel expounds on the value of separation (meaning lack of enmeshment more than literal space) between the individuals in a romantic partnership, the need for distance in order to maintain space for sexual and romantic drawing back to occur. If this sounds easier said than done, you’re not alone. The book examines real couples and their varying challenges navigating toward a more satisfying dynamic with Perel’s expert eye witness observations along the way. I think many readers will find themselves among peers in these pages and that alone can offer great relief.

In the multitude of writings on the subject, I find Perel’s words to be rare in their ability to normalize and carve out clear space for hope where other outlooks would likely begin encouraging couples towards surrender and separation. She calls out the flaw in these more common fatalistic perspectives on love, intimacy and partnership and locates their varying flawed roots. One of them being the glossy fairy tale belief in one singular perfect partner as a static entity. Perel alludes to this flawed but all too common belief structure in referencing psychologist Eric Fromm, saying, “we think it’s easy to love, but hard to find the right person. Once we’ve found “the one,” we will need no one else.” This more fluid look on love and intimacy as something effortfully co-created, fostered and resurrected, is one that brings relief to the majority of my couples therapy sessions where folks have come in sadly assuming the lack of pulse between them means things are too late.

Perel invites us to get more familiar with the constructs quietly informing our insurmountable romantic expectations and offers us beautifully illustrated logic to defend against them and their ensnaring limitations. If cramming this book in before Valentine’s Day seems lofty, I’d suggest starting with her TED Talk which is a wonderful sampling of these themes.

https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship?language=en