Q&A: Books and research for couples in long term relationships
Plus midwest tour dates!
Thank you to everyone who came out for the launch of Come Together! It’s positively overwhelming to have met so many kind, supportive people.
I’ve got two great questions this week, but first a little tour news. I’m coming to Chicago, Green Bay and Milwaukee!
• Chicago, IL - February 29 at 7pm
A benefit for Scarleteen in association with Women and Children First. It’ll be held at the Chicago Waldorf School. Tickets available here.
• Green Bay, WI - March 01 at 6pm
In-store at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore. Free event with books available for purchase. More info here.
• Milwaukee, WI - March 02 at 7pm
Sponsored by Tool Shed and held at Daync Academy. Tickets are free, but registration is required.
And on to the newsletter…
Q: Hey Emily- do you have a couples version of “come as you are” or one focused on men “he comes too” or “we come together”. Just wondering as your book is great and I’m working to read it with my wife but I haven’t had luck finding something that talks to the things that men and women struggle with as we look to develop in our marriages. I loved your couples therapy comments and just wondering where’s that book or research focused on this?
A: Well as a matter of fact, I just wrote a book about sex in long term relationships and it’s called “Come Together!” It just came out and there is an entire chapter focused specifically on heterosexual-type relationships (it’s chapter 11).
In addition, here are some books about relationships, sex, and straight couples that I found helpful in writing about the issues faced by men and women in long-term sexual relationships.
Johnson, S. (2008). Hold me tight: Seven conversations for a lifetime of love. Little, Brown Spark.
Mangino, Kate. 2022. Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home. St. Martin's Press.
Manne, Kate. Down girl: The logic of misogyny. Oxford University Press, 2017.
McCarthy, Barry, and Emily McCarthy. (2020). Contemporary male sexuality: Confronting myths and promoting change. Routledge.
McCarthy, Barry and Emily McCarthy. (2021). Couple Sexuality After 60: Intimate, Pleasurable, and Satisfying. Routledge.
Real, Terrence. (2010). How can i get through to you?: Closing the intimacy gap between men and women. Simon and Schuster
Q: Hello! I am a medical doctor specialized in Family Medicine. [further details redacted]
On a podcast, you had to different statements I really liked, but that I strive to find published scientific articles to back up. And if I am going to use these statements in my lecturing, I have to know that I can back it up.
So now I turn to you for help.
The statements were:
1. There are three characteristics to couples having good sex over time: a healthy relationship (friendship, trust and admiration), they prioritize sex, and they experiment a bit and are not bound to traditional gender roles.
2. What most people want to have when they want to have sex with their partner, is intimacy and connection.
I would be more than happy if you could help me find some references to these statements.
A: I love this question because, as a matter of fact, these two statements happen to be original conclusions of my own, based on a combination of my review of the existing research and a little bit of not-at-all-scientific survey information that I collected. If you like these ideas, you’ll love the news book!
The first statement is based on everything I learned in the process of writing my new book; I conclude that couples who sustain a strong sexual connection over the long term have these three things in common:
They are friends who admire and trust each other.
They prioritize sex—that is, they decide sex matters for their relationship, at least in some seasons of their shared life.
They reject other people’s opinions about who they’re supposed to be as sexual people and how they’re supposed to do sex in their partnership.
The citation for that is:
Nagoski, Emily. (2024) Come Together: The Science (And Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections. Ballentine: New York City.
I encourage you to check out the original research yourself (list of a few key articles and books below) and see how your own summary lines up with mine! I’d love to know what you think!
I want to clarify one detail: I wouldn’t say they “experiment a bit.” Peggy Kleinplatz’s team’s research on Optimal Sexual Experiences (OSE) showed that people who have extraordinary sex lives do explore together and have sexual experiences that are, as she puts it, “just safe enough,” but to me that’s very different from the usual advice to “experiment” or “try new things.” OSE sex isn’t about trying something they saw in porn and thought looked interesting; it’s more focused on personal, emotional exploration, vulnerability, authenticity, and deep empathy.
But maybe you’ll come to a different conclusion! Here are a few of the recent and/or most relevant citations:
Frederick, D. A., Gillespie, B. J., Lever, J., Berardi, V., & Garcia, J. R. (2021). Debunking Lesbian Bed Death: Using Coarsened Exact Matching to Compare Sexual Practices and Satisfaction of Lesbian and Heterosexual Women. Archives of sexual behavior, 50(8), 3601-3619.
Kleinplatz, Peggy J., and A. Dana Ménard. Magnificent sex: Lessons from extraordinary lovers. Routledge, 2020.
Muise, Amy, Elaine Giang, and Emily A. Impett. "Post sex affectionate exchanges promote sexual and relationship satisfaction." Archives of Sexual Behavior 43 (2014): 1391-1402.
Wise, Nan. Why good sex matters: Understanding the neuroscience of pleasure for a smarter, happier, and more purpose-filled life. Houghton Mifflin, 2020.
van Anders, Sari M., Debby Herbenick, Lori A. Brotto, Emily A. Harris, and Sara B. Chadwick. “The heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men." Archives of Sexual Behavior 51, no. 1 (2022): 391-415.
Schoenfeld, E. A., Loving, T. J., Pope, M. T., Huston, T. L., & Štulhofer, A. (2017). “Does sex really matter? Examining the connections between spouses’ nonsexual behaviors, sexual frequency, sexual satisfaction, and marital satisfaction.” Archives of sexual behavior, 46(2), 489-501.
The second statement is much less sciencey. It comes from my own multi-year but entirely not scientific online survey where I asked people what they wanted when they want sex.
I started asking people what they want and like, when they want and like sex, because I’m so often asked about problems of desire in long-term relationships, and I couldn’t gain any helpful insight from the existing research. Even the research assumed that everyone understood what people wanted when they wanted sex. So I started asking people.
I can’t stress enough how unscientific my survey was; a few hundred strangers on the internet, who happened to follow me on social media, filled out some open-ended questions, and then I read all their answers and sorted the answers into groups. I found that there were four big categories of things people wanted and liked, when they wanted and/or liked sex, which paralleled the things they didn’t want or like, when they didn’t want and/or like sex.
The the most common group of answers were those that said “connection” (though not necessarily intimacy). In this group, I put responses like these:
Feeling close to my partner. Feeling listened to and taken care of. Connection.
When I crave sex in the abstract I mostly want closeness. I want to hold and be held and make out and explore each other’s bodies. When I crave sex with a particular person it often feels like I want to devour them. I want to give them all of me and take all of them.
Connection at a physical level
I want connection and validation
To share something bigger than ourselves
To look somebody in their eyeballs and know this is a good thing, and I like their eyeballs to roll back in their head, like YES this is a good thing.
Engagement with my partner(s), usually some form of subtle or overt power exchange, opportunities for reciprocity in touch and pleasure giving.
Closeness. I often feel my desire for sex as both sexual and a craving for intimacy. I want to be with my partner with no distractions where I can love on them and they can do the same for me. (Writing this out is making me want that now!)
While I’m explaining the results, I’ll mention that the other three groups of responses are...
PLEASURE
Quick, hard, pleasurable for both of us. Someone caring much about my pleasure.
Physical pleasure. Focus on my partner’s body—her movements and tastes and sounds and smells.
My answer before—to get my husband off my back. My answer now—I want to enjoy pleasure with my husband.
FEELING or BEING WANTED or SEXY
To be led by my partner. To be wanted. My partner enjoying themselves by pleasing me.
Approval and acceptance. Wanting my partner to desire me physically because I feel undesirable.
I want to feel wanted and connected to my partner.
I want to feel like he loves and appreciates every aspect of my body and mind, even the flaws. I want to show him the same thing. I want to be close to him, body and soul.
I want to feel open and desirable in my body. I also want to connect to some of my more primal impulses.
I want to feel sexy and I want to see my partner in a sexy light as well.
I want it to be at least pleasant for me and my partner; I want to feel attractive; I want to be able to give/get feedback.
And last but not least, a group I called FREEDOM
To clear my head and stop thinking. To be so into my partner that the world falls away.
To relax and relinquish control and be completely present. Like if I can hit the point where my thoughts stop spinning on other things.
To feel free. To feel present. To feel comfortable with my sexuality. To be able to relax. To focus on the feelings and the whole experience and not just an end result.
So my conclusion that the most common thing people want, when they want sex, is connection, does not come from peer-reviewed science but from my unscientific experience as a sex educator soliciting feedback from students across continents and generations. You can hedge by saying, “Sex educator Emily Nagoski suggests that...” Alternatively, you could cite the Muise, et al (2014) study that found that post-sex affection is a better predictor of sexual and relationship satisfaction than anything that happens during the sex.
Hope some of that is helpful!
Emily
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
Feel free to say hello on 📷 Instagram and 🤖 Facebook – I don't always reply but I read everything.
Signed copies of Come As You Are and Come Together can be obtained from my amazing local bookseller, Book Moon Books.
Stay safe and see you next time.
