summary ofLove Worth MakingBook by Stephen Snyder, MD

second KEY POINT

Your sexual self is honest

Snyder calls the part of you that shows up in those moments your sexual self. To understand it, he often starts with people whose sense of it has been disturbed.Years ago, a young woman came to Snyder trying to end an unhappy love affair she couldn't seem to walk away from. The self she became with her lover was nothing like her usual self. Confident and expressive in everyday life, she turned passive and sullen in his presence.As they worked together, she began to remember being sexually abused as a child. For her, sex had become something she did for other people, while a frightened, voiceless part of her stood apart from her own body. As she began to put words to that experience, she also began to take ownership of her arousal in a new way.Spend any time with someone who has survived sexual abuse, and you'll never doubt for a moment that sex and the self are deeply, inextricably bound. Your sexual self is sincere, but it doesn't always know how to express itself the way the rest of you does.Understanding where sexual sensation comes from is what makes the rest make sense, why sex is so intensely emotional, and why no other urge carries that kind of charge. The emotional depth of great sex draws on the same attachment wiring we first knew as infants, the intensity of being completely present with another person.That first caregiver who held us, rocked us to sleep, and delighted in our presence shaped how we'd later experience real intimacy. It's why sex can feel so wildly emotional, and why few other things in life can make you feel so wonderful, or so terrible, about who you are.

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