‘DESIRE IS NOT WHAT MATTERS’

Emily Nagoski wrote the book on women and desire – literally. And then her own sex life dried up. Here’s what a prolonged sex drought (and a load of research) taught her about maintaining intimacy in a long-term relationship.

LIESL ROBERTSON

Back in 2014, as sex educator Emily Nagoski was researching, writing and promoting her first book, Come As You Are – a soon-to-be best-selling guide to sex and desire – her own sex life screeched to a halt. ‘Ironically, the process of thinking, reading and writing every day about sex made me so stressed that I had zero interest in actually having any sex,’ she writes. ‘For months, nothing.’ The book was published, she went on a book tour, travelled, did talks – and when she came home to her husband, cartoonist Rich Stevens, ‘more months! Of nothing! It went on for so long that eventually I became distanced from my partner and from my own erotic self, knocked down and carried away by the fatigue, overwhelm, health issues and…

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Fairlady South Africa (Digital) - 1 Issue, Jul/Aug 2024

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