Caroline Hood grew up in a religious family and religious school, learning virtually nothing about sexuality except that it was something to be ashamed of. What stayed with her was a nagging suspicion that it couldn't be right: something so universal couldn't also be shameful. That suspicion became a career, a book, and a practice she calls Desire in Real Life, dedicated to the conversations women wish they could have with a trusted friend who happens to be a sex therapist.

In Sex Begets Sex: Reclaiming Desire, Power, and Pleasure in Long-Term Love, Caroline challenges the assumption that desire must precede sex. Drawing on Emily Nagoski's research into spontaneous and responsive desire, she argues that physical and emotional intimacy form a loop, not a hierarchy, and that maintaining physical closeness is itself a buffer against the drift  ...