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

She began talking about how much she loved him, how she relied on him for her sanity in a life that seemed specifically designed to make her crazy, how she wanted to show him, not just tell him, how important he is to her, but every time she considered initiating sex, she just felt swamped and overwhelmed and her body shut down on her. Undifferenti

“This is a drug that will relax you,” not only feel more relaxed compared to those who got the drug but not the information, they also have more of the drug in their blood plasma.11

“It sounds like your body is opting for the ‘freeze’ stress response, where it just shuts down instead of trying to escape or fight,” I said. “It’s what happens when a person

And in a culture where women have to spend so much time with the brakes on, saying no, it’s no wonder we have fantasies about abandoning all control, relaxing into absolute trust (turning off the brakes) and allowing ourselves to experience sensation.

“Don’t yuck anybody’s yum.”

We build walls for a lot of reasons. To protect vulnerable parts of ourselves. To hide things we don’t want others to see. To keep people out. To keep ourselves in. But a wall is a wall is a wall—it’s an indiscriminate barrier. If you hide behind a wall to protect yourself from the pain of rejection, then you also block out joy. If you never let ot

has either long-term, high-intensity stress, or is in the process of healing after trauma.