Off-Site: COME TOGETHER by Emily Nagoski - A Benefit for Scarleteen

Women & Children First is thrilled to present Emily Nagoski in conversation with Heather Corinna to celebrate the release of Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connection. This ticketed, off-site event will be held as a benefit for Scarleteen.

This ticketed event will be held off-site at Chicago Waldorf School (5200 N Ashland Ave). Masks are required.

About the event:

This event will include a reading and conversation between Emily and Heather. Update in February 2024: There will not be a book signing at this event. The general admission ticket includes entry to the event, with all proceeds to benefit Scarleteen. Copies of Come Together, as well as Emily's other works, will be available to purchase at the event. You can also add a copy of Come Together to your order via Eventbrite.

About Scarleteen:

Scarleteen is a progressive, independent sexuality and relationships education media and support organization and website. Founded in 1998, as of 2022, Scarleteen.com is visited by a few million diverse people each year -- thousands of whom we speak with directly in our direct services and in-person outreach each year -- most between the ages of 15 and 30. It is often the most popular and most widely used site specifically providing sex and relationships information and support for young people worldwide and has been so through most of its tenure.

About Come Together:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Come as You Are and co-author of Burnout comes an illuminating exploration of how to maintain a happy sex life in a long-term relationship.

In Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, PhD, revolutionized the way we think about women’s sexuality. Now, in Come Together, Nagoski takes on a fundamentally misunderstood subject: sex in long-term relationships.

Most of us struggle at some point to maintain a sexual connection with our partner/s or spouse. And many of us are given not-very-good advice on what to do about it. In this book, Nagoski dispels the myths we’ve been taught about sex—for instance, the belief that sexual satisfaction and desire are highest at the beginning of a relationship and that they inevitably decline the longer that relationship lasts. Nagoski assures us that’s not true.

So, what is true? Come Together isn’t about how much we want sex, or how often we’re having it; it’s about whether we like the sex we’re having. Nagoski breaks down the obstacles that impede us from enjoying sex—from stress and body image to relationship difficulties and gendered beliefs about how sex “should” be—and presents the best ways to overcome them. You’ll learn:

• that “spontaneous desire” is not the kind of desire to strive for if you want to have great sex for decades
• vocabulary for talking with partners about ways to get in “the mood” and how to not take it personally when “the mood” is nowhere to be found
• how to understand your own and your partner’s “emotional floorplan,” so that you have a blueprint for how to get to a sexy state of mind

Written with scientific rigor, humor, and compassion, Nagoski shows us what great sex can look like, how to create it in our own lives, and what to do when struggles arise.

EMILY NAGOSKI is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling Come As You Are and The Come As You Are Workbook, and coauthor, with her sister, Amelia, of New York Times bestseller Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, and Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections.

Emily earned an M.S. in counseling and a Ph.D. in health behavior, both from Indiana University, with clinical and research training at the Kinsey Institute. Now she combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. She lives in Massachusetts with two dogs, a cat, and a cartoonist.

HEATHER CORINNA is a dedicated queer feminist activist, author, educator, artist, teacher, organizer and innovator. They are the founder and director of Scarleteen (http://www.scarleteen.com), the first inclusive and comprehensive sex, sexuality and relationships education online clearinghouse for young people, founded in 1998. Heather is also the author of S.E.X: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties, now in its second edition, Wait, What? A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies and Growing Up with Isabella Rotman, and was a contributing editor for the last edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Their award-winning work in sex and health education has received acclaim from The Woodhull Foundation, Ms. Magazine, BUST, Bitch, On Our Backs, The New York Times, The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the ACLU, and has appeared in publications ranging from Teen Vogue to Rewire News Group to The Guardian.

Accessibility: This event will be held at Chicago Waldorf School, which has an accessible entrance. Masks are required for the entire duration of the event. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.