This episode of The Shift first aired in June 2024.

I first came across today’s guest, Dr Emily Nagoski, on this very podcast, when my then guest Sarah Knight (creator of the NoFucks Given franchise) raved about the transformational power of her runaway bestseller, Come As You Are.

I hunted it down and, like millions of women the world over, I was blown away. A sex expert speaking our language? Taking the pressure off, rather than piling it on? Never!

So when I heard that the Kinsey-educated sex educator had turned her attention to long term relationships in her new book, Come Together, I was obsessed. Not least because it turns out that sex experts are human too and Emily had experienced her own fallow period.

But instead of wallowing in it or panicking or buying uncomfortable knickers, Emily used her own story of sexual disconnection and reconnection as an opportunity to look at what makes and breaks sexual connections.

And guess what: it’s not what you think.

Emily joined me from her home in New England to discuss coming out as a sex expert who lost her sex drive, taking the shoulds out of your sex life, why passion is overrated, how to get the weeds out of your sexual garden! being told she no longer had a “young vagina” And why she only has one inarguable piece of advice: lube is good!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Come As You Are and Come Together as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

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• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and this episode was edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.

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Emily Nagoski knows the surprising secret to long term intimacy - THE SHIFT REVISITED