like in chapter 6 we’ll learn that genital response is learning while the conscious experience of being “turned on” is learning + liking.

Sexual Inhibition System (SI). Your sexual brakes. “Inhibition” here doesn’t mean “shyness” but rather neurological “off” signals. Research has found that there are actually two brakes, reflecting the different functions of an inhibitory system. One brake works in much the same way as the accelerator. It notices all the potential threats in the

Desire is pleasure in context.

The rats in chapter 2 linked lemons or jackets with sex because of the learning system.

You know that almost nothing your accelerator and brakes respond to is innate; your brain learned to associate particular stimuli with excitation or inhibition. Through a process of “tuning” your context—both your brain and your environment—you can maximize your sexual potential.

Liking is perhaps the closest to what we generally think of as “reward.” The liking mechanism is the “Yes!” or “No!” in your brain—it assesses the “hedonic impact” of a stimulus: Does it feel good? How good? Does it feel bad? How bad? When you put a drop of sugar water on the tongue of a newborn, their liking system sets off fireworks; sugar is

If the only change you make after reading this book is to reduce your body self-criticism,

“All I can tell you,” I said, “is that everything you’re experiencing, all the contradictory feelings and all the pain, is a normal part of the healing process. Everyone goes through it differently, and there’s no way to know how long it will last. It sucks for a while, and then gradually it gets better. But I can tell you this for sure: Every

It’s the same sensation, but because the context is different, your perception of that sensation is different.