Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life

On her website, EmilyNagoski.com, Dr. Emily Nagoski describes herself as “writer. educator. researcher. activist. nerd.” Dr. Nagoski holds a PhD in health behavior with a concentration in human sexuality from Indiana University. She also obtained a Master of Science in counseling psychology from Indiana University and completed a clinical internship at the Kinsey Institute sexual health clinic. In 1995, Dr. Nagoski took a position as a peer health educator at the University of Delaware. There she taught undergraduates about all aspects of health—including sex. As she added to her educational repertoire in areas like sexual-violence prevention, her position transitioned to that of sex educator.

Dr. Nagoski worked for eight years at Smith College as a professor of women’s sexuality and director of wellness education. She then left Smith College to work as a full-time writer and lecturer. Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life was published in 2015. Dr. Nagoski armed herself with the stories of those she worked with over the years and extensive neuroscience research to address the persistent cultural mythology of sex. In 2022, Pushkin Industries enlisted Dr. Nagoski to lead a Come as You Are podcast—an eight-part series in which Dr. Nagoski answers common questions about sex and anatomy.

In 2020, Dr. Nagoski released her second book, cowritten with her twin sister, Amelia Nagoski, entitled Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. While Amelia was in school and getting her doctorate in musical arts, she found herself in the hospital with abdominal pain. The doctors determined that her pain was a result of stress, so they sent her home and told her to “relax.” Amelia had not realized that stress could manifest physiologically, so she turned to her sister, Emily. Together, the sisters researched the biological stress cycle and how it affects women. The book offers worksheets and advice for addressing burnout and combatting the obstacles that women face every day.

In addition to Come as You Are and Burnout, Dr. Nagoski has written and coauthored multiple articles that address several topics in the field of sexual research and mental health. In 2019, Emily and Amelia published a controversial article titled “The Answer Is Not Self-Care.” In the piece, the sisters fight back against the prevalence of “self-care” in popular culture as a means of combating mental illness and burnout. They argue that self-care places an unrealistic expectation on women to manage their own emotional state in a system that repeatedly diminishes them.

In a 2022 interview with Caroline Mimbs Nyce in The Atlantic titled “The Cure for Burnout Is Not Self-Care,” Dr. Nagoski explains her position against self-care: “The psychological space we give work is not just a choice we make as individuals or even just in our minds. It’s a cultural shift that must be impelled and supported by legislative support." Dr. Nagoski rejects the version of self-care that involves applying a face mask and taking a long walk. Instead, she argues that it requires a systemic change to how we think about, and the expectations we place upon, work. Dr. Nagoski’s works on sex and mental illness continue to challenge cultural and societal norms that perpetuate false narratives about women, including their bodies, desires, and minds.