How Desire Actually Works

For some people, sexual desire shows up totally spontaneously and out of the blue. But that’s not the case for this week’s listener, who wants to have sex with their girlfriend, but isn't feeling the same excitement as they did at beginning of the relationship. Emily introduces the science of responsive desire, which is not only totally normal and healthy, but also a more common way of experiencing desire.

You can take Petra Zebroff's Questionnaire for Turn-on Initiation Preferences here.

 If you have a question for Emily, call the Come As You Are hotline at [phone]‬ or send a voice memo to [e-mail]. Tell us your pronouns and pseudonym (pick a name, any name!) Your question might be answered on the show. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, and I'm going in I have a question for you.
I still want to want it. It's not that I
don't want her. I do intellectually, but I don't know

(00:35):
if I'm just having trouble getting myself excited about sex
and my partner wants to have it and it's making
both of us sad. Yes, this question, it is the question, right,
It's the question I get from people in long term
relationships of any structure. And the answer is, there's nothing wrong.

(00:59):
If you want to want your partner. You want your partner,
You're all set. Everything you need now is just knowing
how to get from wanting your partner to a context
where sexy times seems like the best idea you could
be having right now. And I have some science that
will help with that. I'm Emmilinagaski and this is the

(01:23):
Come as you Are podcast where our I answer questions
about sex with science. In this episode, I'm going to
explain another mind blowing fundamental lesson in the science of
sex desire. What even is it? How does it actually work?
Why does it sometimes change? And why does it sometimes

(01:46):
feel like we lose touch with it? It turns out
the narrative we've been sold from TV and movies where
two people are suddenly struck with a spontaneous and simultaneous
desire for sex out of the blue. It doesn't usually
work that way, particularly in a long term relationships. I mean, yes,

(02:06):
it absolutely is one of the normal, healthy ways to
sperience sexual desire. But there is another very common way
to experience desire that we don't usually see in the media.
It's called responsive desire. And when I describe how it
works in relationships, it might sound really familiar. Let's get

(02:28):
into the science of how and when we feel sexual
desire and when we don't. I'm answering a listener question
today and as always bringing me today's listener question is
my producer, mo Hi, mo Hey, Emily. How are you doing?
How's it going? I'm doing great? How are you you know?

(02:50):
I'm doing all right. How are you feeling now that
the show is out in the world where a few
episodes in? How does it feel? You know? It's when
you write a book, like you spend all this time
by yourself with your editor, just like writing a book,
and then it's out there and people can read it,
and that's sort of it. But with a podcast. You
put it out there and people can respond, and then

(03:11):
you make some more podcasts and people can respond. So
it's a dynamic and I'm enjoying that. Yeah, it's like
more of a conversation with the listeners. Yeah, it reminds
me of when I wrote a blog. I often say
we're like in the blog spot era of podcasting, like
we're in such a wild West era that it feels
like we're in blog spotting. Yeah. Well, so I chose

(03:32):
today's question because we've gotten a lot of questions like
this one, and basically I'm calling it that I want
to want it question, Like, ah, I wish that I
had more desire for my partner. I really love being
in the relationship. I'm happy with them. I want to
be with them long term, but right I just don't
want it like I used to. And that is a

(03:53):
question that I have seen come up again and again
in the listener mailbox. So I wanted to get your
take on this one, like really early on in this series,
because whether someone's experiencing it right now or not, it
is the kind of question that I think a lot
of us who are in long term sexual romantic relationships
will encounter yes, any relationship that lasts long enough, you're

(04:16):
going to experience this. Okay, So are you ready to
hear the full question? Yes, Hi, Emily. My name is Taylor.
I use they then pronouns, and I have a question
about sex, drive or libido. So I have this incredible,
beautiful girlfriend, and when we first met, we had this
extreme sexual attraction. We wanted to have sex all the time.

(04:38):
We couldn't keep our hands off each other. But since
we moved in together this year, I'm just wanting sex less.
I don't know what it is. I know my feelings
for her haven't changed. I still feel attracted to her,
so that's not the problem. Maybe it's that I'm stressed
out about money and my job, but I still want

(05:00):
to want it. It's not that I don't want her.
I do intellectually, but I don't know if I'm just
having trouble getting mysel excited about sex and my partner
wants to have it and it's making both of us sad.
So I don't know what's wrong with me? Is there
something I can do about it? Thanks? Oh, Taylor, there's

(05:26):
nothing wrong with you, and yes there is things you
can do about it. This is a perfect question. Honestly,
the book I'm working on right now about sex and
long term relationships was born out of me having the
same experience. Really, yeah, you're this is very much on
the top of your mind. Absolutely. I think about it
all the time, and I have done a lot of

(05:48):
work to understand what people can do when they find
themselves in this situation in order to make their sex
lives still just as delightful as when they were super
hot and heavy horny for each other. So in our
second episode, Emily, you talked about the science of horniness,
and you talked about the dual control model, which is

(06:10):
like the one oh one of how sexual response works.
We have the breaks and the accelerator and those all
come together in a unique way inside all of us
to form our sexual response. But today we're talking about
the experience of desire. Can you talk about the difference
between horniness and desire? Like, why do you think of

(06:34):
these as separate categories and what's the difference? Well, ultimately,
any question about sexual response is a question about the
dual control model. But when researchers and therapists study and
talk about sexual response, they break it down into four pieces.
One is the arousal piece, which is the activation of

(06:54):
your brain's accelerator and the deactivation of the breaks, which
in turn results in the activation of the body. Right,
that's the arousal process. There's orgasm, which is the specific
experience of releasing all the tension in your body that's
been generated by that arousal. There's pleasure, which is the

(07:15):
foundation of everything. It's your brain's interpretation of your body
sensations as positive. Right. So tickling the one we talk
about all the time. Pleasure is when tickling feels good
versus if someone tickles you and it doesn't feel good.
It's the same sensation, but it doesn't feel good because
the context is different. That's the science of the pleasure part.

(07:36):
And then there's desire. So where pleasure is about liking
a sensation, desire is about wanting those sensations. So all
four pieces arousal, orgasm, pleasure, desire, these are all parts
of the sexual response. And you know what the one
people worry about the most desire. It is the number

(07:59):
one reason why couples seek sex therapy is for a
desire differential or a change in desire. Interesting, So, what
science do we need to understand about desire. To answer
Taylor's question, Okay, so the story we are usually told
about desire, The way I thought desire worked until I

(08:21):
got to grad school is that it just arrives out
of the blue, spontaneous. Here walking down the street, and
suddenly you just are interested in sex, or you're thinking
about sex and you would like to have some sex,
and you go home to your partner and you really
hope that your partner also is interested in some sex.
Right now, that's spontaneous desire. It is absolutely one of

(08:42):
the normal, healthy ways to experience desire. And there is
another normal, healthy way to experience desire. It's called responsive desire.
Where that spontaneous desire emerges in anticipation of the pleasure
of sex. Responsive desire emerges in response to the pleasure

(09:02):
of sex. So instead of it being just like, out
of the blue, woo, I would like sex now, it's
that you show up regardless of how you feel in
the moment. There's a quick analogy that I learned from
a sex therapist named Christine Hyde. She talking to her clients, says,
if you imagine your best friend invite you to a party,

(09:23):
of course you say yes because it's your best friend
and a party. But you know, as that data approaches,
you start going, I don't know how to find childcare.
Traffic is going to be heavy. I'm not really going
to want to put on my party clothes at the
end of a long week. But you know what you
said you would go, So you put on your party clothes,
you drive through the traffic, and you show up to

(09:43):
the party. And what happens then a lot of the
time you have fun at the party right, And if
you are having fun at the party, you are doing
it right. That's responsive desire and it's normal, and that
is the way a lot of couples and long term
relationships structure their whole sex lives. Most of the time,

(10:06):
you were not doing it wrong if that's how you're
doing it, as long as you like what is happening.
And the caveat here is that if you show up
to the party and it is not fun, there is
no amount of looking forward to that party that's going
to make that party worth going to. That makes a
lot of sense. Also been to that party metaphorically and literally.

(10:30):
And can you just describe how is responsive desire working
in the brain, Like what is going on in the
brain during responsive and spontaneous desire. Yeah, so the cool
thing is the same thing is happening fundamentally in both
spontaneous and responsive desire. There's very little difference. So your

(10:51):
breaks are noticing all the good reasons not to be
turned on, and they're staying on, or else they're turning
off because those reasons are going away. And your accelerator
is noticing all the sex related stimuli in the environment
and is either sending a turn on signal or not.
And as your context changes, the amount of stimulation to
those brain functions changes, and at a certain point, the

(11:14):
balance of accelerator being hit and breaks releasing crosses a
threshold into your awareness of being motivated to pursue sex.
Huh does that make sense. It's a simple sort of
like addition subtraction problem, like turn on more of the ons,

(11:34):
turn off more of the offs, and eventually you get
to a point when you're like, oh, would be very
interested in having sex. The only difference between spontaneous versus
responsive desire is the point at which you get there
is a lower level of stimulation for spontaneous desire. You're
interested in sex before you're aware of being aroused and

(11:55):
before you're actually in a sexy scenario. Whereas responsive desire
it takes more explicit stimulation, more explicit arousal, before you
have that awareness of like, oh oh yes, please this
m okay. Maybe I'm like slow just to get this concept.

(12:17):
But I need to stop for a clarification about responsive desire,
because every time you're talking about it responsive desire starting
in response to pleasure. I basically imagine that somebody doesn't
have any desire until they actually start having sex, and

(12:37):
then they're like, oh now I want it. Now I'm
feeling into it, like now that I'm being literally genitally stimulated,
now I'm feeling desire, Like that's what I hear sometimes
when you're describing responsive desire. But I feel like that
can't be right. Okay, yeah, no, it can't be right.
And it's so important that you asked that question. I'm sorry,

(13:00):
and okay, I'm going to tell you a story about
a couple that I spoke with. Both of them had PhDs.
Both of them had read the book. They understood everything
that I had written. Unfortunately, Okay, so it's the pandemic.
They have a young child, married husband and wife two
sis gender heterosexual people. And she puts the child to bed.

(13:23):
She comes and sits down next to him on the
couch and they're gonna watch something they have both read,
Come as you are. He has read about responsive desire.
And he literally puts his hand down her pants. Oh,
when she has just finished a long day and put
their child to bed, He's like right to the clit.
And she's like, no, no, thank you, I don't want

(13:45):
this right now. And he says, he says, oh gosh,
he says, but you will. Oh no, okay, right, See
that is my concern. Yeah. I was mortified when I
heard the story, and I clarified, like, pleasure first, not
just stimulation. Pleasure first. The advice is not to just

(14:07):
like go do it. It's to create a context where
it is easy for your brain to interpret these sensations
as pleasurable. Create a context that makes pleasure easy, right right.
So my problem in understanding this is that my definition
of pleasure is so narrow that it's like clatoral stimulation.
But actually I need to like build out the whole

(14:29):
world of what could be pleasurable, including just like a
good conversation, etc. Yeah. No, I will never give the
advice to just do it. The advice is to create
a context that makes pleasure easy. Yeah. Context, Context is

(14:52):
one of your favorite things to talk about. I'm learning
and I feel like so much of good sex is
about setting the right context. Okay, I want to take
a break, and when we get back, I want to
talk about how Taylor and all of us can make
contexts in our lives that make pleasure easy. So, Emily,

(15:26):
we are talking today about a I want to want
my partner question about a desire differential between a couple
that seems to be really happy, really in love, they
want to be together for a long time, but they're
experiencing a change in the frequency of their sex. Yeah,
where Taylor, who called into the hotline, is not feeling

(15:47):
that super out of the blue, spontaneous desire like they
used to when they first started dating their girlfriend. So
I know this question is one that you get maybe
more than any other as a sex educator. And because
of that, I followed up with Taylor and I talk
to them about what contexts get them in the mood.

(16:10):
I was asking, what do you and your partner do
that does make you feel really good and comfortable and
is pleasurable, not necessarily sexually, And they said they really
liked laying in bed together with their girlfriend and just
like talking about their day and getting words of affirmation
like I'm really proud of you. I think you're doing great,

(16:33):
I am so happy to be with you. You're a
great partner. Like they almost feel like they need that
before they can get turned on. There's another sex therapist
named Petro Zebroff who studies initiation styles essentially, and it
sounds like Taylor is a sentimental, emotional style. They want

(16:56):
to feel that sense of connection with the partner, being
really present and listening to each other with your hearts
and affirming your pleasure in being in the relationship. That's
not everyone's style, but that absolutely is one of the
styles that people prefer in sexual initiation. You're telling me,
you know how there's like love languages, there's like an

(17:19):
initiation style of like you're one of these four styles.
That's a real thing. Yeah, So the research has been
evolving over the years. I actually included it in the
Come as you Are workbook when it was seven styles,
but in the following years it has simplified down to
four different styles. I'm sure we can put the questionnaire
into the show notes. It's the questionnaire for turn on

(17:40):
initiation preference or q TIP, which is just as adorable
as it could possibly be. And that sentimental emotional style
is one of them. Another is sensation style, where this
person might want you to just go for the genitals,
or they might want to be touched somewhere else a
shoulder rub or an embrace or a kiss. We're experiencing

(18:02):
that physical sensation is the way to open the door
for them. It's actually really promising news to hear that
Taylor might be in that sentimental emotional style, because those
folks transition really well to embracing responsive desire, creating a
context that makes pleasure easy, recognizing that there is this

(18:23):
intermediate step between not having sex and having sex. One
of the places people get stuck with normalizing, accepting, embracing
responsive desire in their lives is that they feel like, oh,
but it should be easy. I shouldn't have to put
in all this work. There shouldn't be like a transition period.

(18:44):
I shouldn't have to work so hard for it, you know.
But if you think about what was happening in a
dating relationship, like don't you spend time planning and transitioning
into that sexy state of mind. Don't you spend time
grooming your body to get ready. Don't you spend time
planning the date and fantasizing about it and imagining what's

(19:07):
going to happen. Don't you spend time texting each other
back and forth all kinds of things all day about
how much you're looking forward to things. It's really not
more work to understand the things that come before the
sex right in order to create a context that makes
the sex worth wanting. So I know people love black

(19:28):
and white thinking about identity categories. So I think when
people hear you talking about responsive and spontaneous desire and saying, oh,
I'm a responsive desire person, my partner is a spontaneous
desire person, and sort of putting themselves in that box
and treating their relationship like they are a responsive desire person.

(19:48):
Does it work like that for some people? It is?
And oh do people love to be in a category.
And it is the case that there are some people
who experience exclusively responsive desire in their lives and people
who experience exclusively spontaneous desire in their lives, But most
of us it's not about a trade that's stable like

(20:10):
introversion extraversion. That is actually a trait that's pretty stable
across your lifetime, right, But desire style isn't like that.
It is very responsive to context. So there will be
some contexts. For example, in the early hot and heavy,
fallen in love stage of a relationship, you're in the
kitchen cooking dinner and your partner comes over and kisses

(20:32):
you in some certain special place, and your knees melt
and you let dinner burn because all it took was
that to get you going. Ten years later and maybe
some kids, you're in the same kitchen cooking the same meal,
and the same partner comes in and kisses you in
the same certain special way, and your response is not
knees melting, let dinner burn, It is could you please

(20:53):
go set the table? Nothing is wrong there, nobody got broken,
it's just the context is different. So you're saying, like,
the same people that experience spontaneous desire in the past
could experience sponsive desire nail. And it doesn't mean that
they have gotten worse at connecting or worse at having sex,

(21:14):
or that their sexual connection has degraded in some way. Yeah, No,
it's just that the contact and when I say context,
I'm talking both about your external circumstances and your internal state.
Like when you're in that like early new relationship energy situation,
your brain's emotional systems are firing on all cylinders and

(21:35):
the sparks of that, it's easy for them to catch
over into sexuality and make it easy to experience what
feels like spontaneous desire for sex when you've been in
a relationship for a long time. It is normal that
that like huge fire burns down to a smolder and
it takes a little stoking of the fire to let

(21:58):
it burst into flame. There's nothing wrong with that. Yes,
And on that note, I would love to get to
some specific practical tips for Taylor. I want to break
down Taylor's question further and make sure that when they
hear this episode they're satisfied with like real take home
assignments that they can YEA, they know what to do. Yes,

(22:19):
they know what to do, and it's not just like
a theoretical change. I think we've already talked about the
great framework of responsive desire and also initiation styles, which
I think is so interesting and seems like they're an emotional,
sentimental initiation style person. So let's break down some specific
parts of the question that we heard, and I want

(22:40):
to just play it again for you so we can
talk about these specifics. When we first met, we had
this extreme sexual attraction. We wanted to have sex all
the time. We couldn't keep our hands off each other.
But since we moved in together this year, I'm just
wanting sex less. I don't know what it is. I
know my feelings for her haven't changed. I still feel

(23:02):
attracted to her, so that's not the problem. Maybe it's
that I'm stressed out about any and my job, but
I still want to want it. It's not that I
don't want her. I do intellectually. So the first thing
that has changed in the context is that Taylor is

(23:22):
feeling critical of their own sexual desire. There are also
a couple of other explicit context changes that we know
could potentially be changing the response of the accelerator. In
the breaks, there's a stress about money and jobs. Do
we think that could possibly be hitting the brakes? Yeah? Yeah, right,

(23:44):
So stress is a physiological response. Is not like just stress,
it's like an idea. It's a physical response that happens
in your body. The fight or flight response is there
to help us survive something like being chased by a lion,
and for a lot of us, eighty to ninety percent
of people, stress can really hit the brakes because if
you're being chased by a lion, is that a good

(24:06):
time to decide to have sex? Not so much? Right right.
A second thing that changed is that they moved in together.
Relationship transitions are significant and have a lot of meaning.
So now their relationship is happening in a context where
they're sharing householding responsibilities. Maybe it does not enhance their

(24:31):
sense of erotic connection with their partner to need their
partner to clean the toilet because it's their turn, or
whose job is it to take out the recycling this week?
Those kinds of negotiations may not necessarily enhance spontaneous desire
for someone. This makes so much sense because when I

(24:53):
was following up with Taylor, they said, you know, in
my early relationship, we would text, you know, we basically
had a hook up relationship, and I would text her
and be like, do you want to meet up later?
You know winky face, and she would be like yes,
And as soon as they saw each other, like Taylor
would go over to her apartment and as soon as

(25:13):
they saw each other, it was like hot and heavy.
And then as they have gotten to be more of
a partnered couple and like doing life together and moving
in together, there's less of that every time I see you,
we're going to have sex energy, and it's more of
like we gotta take care of the car today and

(25:35):
we have to bring the dog todaycare except somebody has
to do the dishes. Yeah, the context changed. The context changed, okay,
And it is so easy because we have all been
trained to think that spontaneous desire is the normal, good desire,
and we like it because it's fun and it's easy.
We think that it is the right way. When you

(25:55):
ask where did that go? Under that like where did
that go? Is like why am I broken? Now? And
no one is broken. Nothing is wrong. This is just
a different context, and these individual's brains happen to be
wired in a way such that when they're living together,
the desire shifts into a more responsive style where it

(26:17):
takes intentional effort to create the hot and heavy fallen
in love. You had also mentioned self criticism. Yes, and
I had noticed that when I was first hearing their question,
what do you mean by that? Yeah, they end the
question with I don't know what's wrong with me, and
I just want to like a hug tailor and be like,
there's nothing wrong with you. You are totally fine. But

(26:40):
self criticism that like worry that you might be broken.
Is that going to activate the accelerator or is that
self critical thought gonna hit the brakes. It's like you're
being chased by the lion, but the lion is your
own thoughts. Oh God Jesus, that's not going to make
it easier to want and like the sex. It's available
to you, right right, So it is normal that your

(27:02):
experience of desire has changed, and then you focus on pleasure.
Do I like the sex that I am having the
sex it's available to me? Do I know what the
transition is like to get me out of my stressed,
mundane state of mind into a sexy state of mind?
Can I talk with my partner about the context that

(27:23):
help with that transition for her? When you've got those
kinds of conversations happening, you are opening up the door
to the kind of erotic connection that just is not
accessible with simple spontaneous out of the blue desire because
you're collaborating to create something entirely individual and unique, which

(27:45):
can carry you to places in your body and your
emotions that you can't get from quick can't wait to
fuck you. I love the idea of collaborating to create
sex as a creative person. That makes me like, almost
emotional about the idea of collaborating. Oh good, because I
sometimes people are like, it's a whole lot of work,

(28:06):
and I'm like, it's a hobby. It's something you do
because you enjoy it. After the break, I'm going to
give you a little spoiler, Emily blows my mind with
a theory about why we are so obsessed with sexual desire,
and she offers kind of an alternative for what we
can focus on instead that might lead to better sex.

(28:40):
All right, we're back. We're doing this thing. So Emily,
I love that you're like breaking down all these potential
things hitting the brakes in Taylor's question and maybe things
getting in the way of them experiencing desire at all.
But obviously, if you're in a stress about money or
health or something like that, that's not just something that
can just go away. So how do you deal with that?

(29:02):
With that's just the state of your life right now.
So the first simple solution is whatever else is happening
in your life when you put your body in the
bed with your partner, do you like it? If yes,
you're all ready most of the way there. Now, there's

(29:22):
other things that are less controllable, like the money part.
Like if we could just have their business already be
a massive success and they sell it and are a
billionaire and they never have to worry about money ever. Again. Cool,
But the reality is that most of us are going
to stay stressed most of the time, and there are
things you can do to reduce the stress even when

(29:43):
your life stress or is still present. I know most
of us are taught that the way to deal with
the stress in your body is to deal with the
stress or in the outside. That's not true. See chapter
one of Burnout for that. But it is possible to
process the stress and calm the central nervous system so
that the body feels nice and relaxed and that stress
is not hitting the brakes, which frees up the accelerator

(30:06):
to do its job. Why do you think society values
spontaneous desire so much more than responsive desire, like why
has response, the experience of responsive desire been just erased. Yeah,
there's not a scientific answer that I can give you,
but my opinion is obviously it's the patriarchy a little bit,

(30:29):
which so that's for sure a part of it. Yeah,
But I think there's another level. I think we live
in a culture that says that wanting sex is good
as long as you don't want it too much, of course,
and not wanting sex is bad, and it means you're
a failure if you're not constantly ready for it. Like
wop was a super hit and a great song, Yeah,

(30:52):
but would people be as into a song that's just
as much of a bop? Or what is it the
kids saying about a good song? It's just as good
as song, but the lyrics are like I am too
damn tired, and that's okay, too right. I love that
women can be confident about their sexuality, but I want
a world where we can be just as confident about
our sexuality when it does not conform to the dominant narratives.

(31:17):
I think you're talking about a top a tired ass pussy, yeah,
or a mop a menopausal ass pussy. Beautiful. But also
I think it's capitalism. Right. We're encouraged to want things,
to want all kinds of things, to want that new toy,

(31:38):
to want the new brand, extension flavor of orioles. Right,
we just you're supposed to want things. And if we
pause in our wanting to enjoy, well, we have to
experience pleasure, then we stop striving to get new stuff.
And how can we take pleasure in what we already
have in this economy? Get out there and want something
you don't have. I think, just think how bizarre this is.

(32:04):
We seem to define our sexual well being in terms
of desire, right, in terms of how dissatisfied we are
with the amount of sex we're having right now, right,
because wanting is wanting something you don't have and maybe
trying to get that thing, whereas liking sex is about

(32:26):
liking what you have and enjoying that. And if we
put pleasure instead of desire at the center of our
definition of sexual well being, all the other pieces fall
into place. We stop being dissatisfied and begin to enjoy
the sex we are having. Holy shit, So you're basically

(32:47):
saying our entire society, okay, let's blow my mind. Our
entire society is set up to prioritize wanting over liking,
because wanting is a functional capitalism, And so we're doing
all this, We're putting all this priority on wanting stuff

(33:08):
instead of liking what we already have. And that also
has impacted our sex how we think about sex and desire.
I think so. I can't prove it, but I think so.
That's a really hot take, Emily Nagowski. I like that
a lot. All right, Emily, let's end with a TLDR. Yeah,

(33:33):
let's do the recap. First of all, spontaneous desire emerges
in anticipation of pleasure. Responsive desire emerges in response to pleasure.
Both of these are normal, and most people experience both
at different times in their lives. Neither is better than
the other, but one is more reliably associated with a

(33:57):
satisfying sex life in a long term relationship. Which desire
style is more associated with a satisfying sex life and
a long term relationship? Responsive desire is the one second
thing to know. Judging your experience of responsive desire as
inferior or a lot of work instead of normal and

(34:18):
a fun hobby is a great way to hit the brakes.
Judging responsive desire can even make it more difficult to
want or like the sext you might otherwise be having.
Whereas when you embrace responsive desire, you create an opportunity
to enjoy the experience of creating a context that makes

(34:39):
it easy to feel pleasure, and from pleasure, desire will follow.
Three create that context, whether you put your body in
the bed and let your skin touch your partner's skin,
or you have that deeply connected conversation, or you put
on your most enticing underpants and serve dinner that way.

(35:01):
There is no right or wrong way to create a context.
There's only pleasure with everyone's consent. And finally, for when
you put pleasure at the center of your definition of
sexual well being, desire will follow every time. Next week

(35:27):
we are going to talk about, drum roll please, orgasms. Hmm.
If this was Cosmo magazine, it would be the big
O issue, the big oh show, Baby, We're doing it, okay.
People love a conversation about orgasm. People love a science fact.

(35:48):
Oh the science facts you have about orgasms. Emily, I'm
gonna say one thing about the orgasm episodes. I always
thought that there were different kinds of orgasms because some
of them feel different, like you know, the internal vaginal orgasm,
the clatoral orgasm, the ascasm, etc. But I learned in

(36:09):
the next episode that there is only one kind of
work as m Yeah. Come As You Are is a
production of Pushkin Industries and Madison Wells. It's hosted by

(36:32):
Emily Nagowski. You can find Emily on Instagram at e
Nagowski and on Twitter at Emily Nagowski. You can also
sign up for her newsletter at Emily Nagowski dot com,
where she writes about everything from the clitteriest in your
mind to orgasm after having hysterectomy. It's an incredible newsletter.
Highly recommended. This show is co hosted and lead produced

(36:55):
by me Mola Board. You can find me online at
Mola Board and on TikTok at podcast dot slut, Sorry
mom My. Co producer on this show is the fabulous
Brittany Brown. Our editor is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Sound design
and mix by Anne Pope. Executive producers are Mia LaBelle
and Lee taal Mallad at Pushkin. Thanks to Heather Faine,

(37:19):
Carly Migliori, Sophie Crane, Courtney Guarino, Jason Gambrel Julia Barton,
John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg at Madison Wells. Thanks to
Kylie Williams, Elizabeth Goodstein and Gg Pritzker. Additional thanks to
Rich Stevens, Lindsay Edgecombe, Frolick Media, and Peter Acker at

(37:42):
Armadillo Audio Group. Original music for this series was composed
by Ameliagosky and arranged and recorded by Alexandra Kalinovsky. Additional
music from Epidemic Sound. You can find Pushkin on all
social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign up
for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm. If you love

(38:04):
this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to
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(38:26):
other Pushkin shows add free very nice, and you'll get
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(38:48):
Make sure you subscribe so you can get the next
episode and learn about how a schasm isn't its own
kind of orgasm? How is that? Emily? Do you like that?
That was fully unnecessary and I'm here for it.