Sexed Up, Rethinking Desire, Shame, and the Stories We Tell About Sexuality

Rethinking Desire, Shame, and the Stories We Tell About Sexuality

By Julia Serano (Read 2026)

One of the things I love most about being in a book club is that it regularly pushes me toward books I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own. Sexed Up was one of those books.

I've been a fan of Julia Serano's writing for years and have read several of her other books. One of the things I appreciate most about her work is that she has a remarkable ability to blend personal experience, research, philosophy, and cultural critique into something that's both intellectually rigorous and deeply compassionate. Even when I don't agree with every conclusion she reaches, I almost always come away thinking differently than I did before I opened the book.

Sexed Up was no exception, in fact, it may be my favorite so far.

Like many of Serano's books, it isn't really about finding simple answers. Instead, it invites readers to become curious about the assumptions we often don't realize we're making about sex, gender, attraction, and desire.

The Stories We Treat as Facts

One of the things Serano does particularly well is point out that many of the beliefs we treat as obvious truths are actually cultural stories we've inherited. Because we've heard them so many times, they begin to feel natural. The context and conditions of our lives shape how we experience life. But that doesn't necessarily make these stories true.

Throughout the book she describes several common ways of thinking that quietly shape how many of us understand sexuality and gender.

The straight assumption is the idea that heterosexuality is the default until someone tells us otherwise. Sometimes spoken about as compulsive heterosexuality in other spaces.

The filing cabinet mindset assumes that everyone fits neatly into one of two clearly defined gender categories, with little room for complexity or variation.

Gender constancy is the belief that gender is fixed, permanent, and unchanging across a person's life.

And what Serano describes as the opposites or predator/prey model suggests that people should behave according to the gender others perceive them to be, reinforcing narrow expectations about masculinity, femininity, attraction, and relationships.

Reading these ideas together, I found myself thinking less about whether individual assumptions are "correct" and more about how often we stop noticing the assumptions we're making at all.

Attraction Isn't the Same as Objectification

One section that especially stayed with me explored the difference between attraction and objectification. Those two ideas are often treated as though they're interchangeable. Serano argues that they aren't. (Obviously)

Feeling attracted to another person isn't inherently objectifying. The problem arises when someone's full humanity disappears and they're reduced to a body, a role, or an idea that exists only for someone else's benefit.

I appreciated this distinction because conversations about sexuality can sometimes become very polarized. It's easy to slide toward the belief that desire itself is somehow problematic. Or toward the opposite belief that any expression of desire should automatically be celebrated. I don't think either position leaves much room for the complexity of real people.

Most of us humans aren't that simple.

Thinking Beyond "Normal" Sex

Another idea I found myself returning to was Serano's critique of the way cultures try to divide sex into categories of "good" and "bad." Throughout history, different groups have drawn those lines in different places. I have read many other books on this subject. Sometimes psychology has attempted to separate "normal" sexuality from "paraphilic" sexuality. Sometimes religions have focused on reproductive versus non-reproductive sex. Some political movements have debated egalitarian versus hierarchical sexuality. Other conversations have divided sex into respectable and shameful, healthy and unhealthy, acceptable and deviant. All these conversations assume there is one correct way to experience sexuality. (Which is just not the truth of the world)

Human sexuality is remarkably diverse. (Beautiful, wild and weird)

People vary enormously in what they enjoy, what feels meaningful, what feels safe, and what kinds of relationships they want to build. As long as those experiences are consensual and respectful, I'm generally much more interested in understanding someone's relationship with their sexuality than judging whether it fits someone else's expectations.

Shame Doesn't Develop in a Vacuum

One of the broader themes running through the book is the idea of sexual stigma. Serano describes the ways stigma often behaves almost like contamination. Once a person or group is labeled as sexually "deviant," that label has a way of spreading into people's perceptions of everything else about them.

Historically we've seen this happen repeatedly. People have feared that queerness is somehow contagious. Women's sexuality has often been treated as dangerous, shameful, or in need of control. (She hysterical!) Entire communities have been judged through stereotypes about sexual behavior rather than recognized as fully human. Those ideas don't simply disappear because society becomes more accepting.

Many people continue carrying those messages internally long after the culture around them has begun to change. Shame and out relationship to sex seems built into the society that we currently swim in. Shame isn't something we invent ourselves, it's something we've learned.

What I've Been Thinking About

Reading Sexed Up reminded me how often therapy involves untangling inherited stories.

Stories about what relationships should look like. Stories about attraction. Stories about masculinity and femininity. Stories about whose desires are acceptable and whose are shameful. Stories about what kinds of intimacy are considered "normal."

Sometimes those stories fit who we are. They can be, shifted, celebrated and embraced.

Sometimes these stories never did. One of the things I value most in therapy is making space for people to become curious about those inherited narratives without assuming there's one right answer waiting at the end.

I don't think my role is to tell someone how they should experience sexuality or relationships. It's to help them understand their own experiences with honesty, consent, compassion, and curiosity.

A Personal Reflection

One of the reasons I continue returning to Julia Serano's writing is that she consistently invites me to be curious I don't always agree with every argument she makes, but that’s not the point of reading books like this. The point is that she asks thoughtful questions, she encourages readers to notice assumptions that have become invisible through familiarity. And I enjoy her wr

As a therapist, I think that's valuable.

As a human being, I think it's valuable too.

Because curiosity has a way of creating space where shame used to live.

Digging Deeper

If this post resonated with you, you might also enjoy exploring:

Come As You Are – Understanding the science of desire, sexuality, and why people experience intimacy so differently.

Magnificent Sex – A thoughtful exploration of intimacy, connection, and creating meaningful sexual experiences.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex – Expanding conversations about attraction, relationships, and the diversity of human experience.

Culture, Power & Belonging – Looking at how systems and cultural narratives shape identity and mental health.

Kink-Affirming Therapy – Exploring sexuality without assuming one "right" way to experience consensual intimacy.

LGBTQIA+ Affirming Therapy – Creating space to explore identity, relationships, and belonging with curiosity rather than assumptions.

Narrative Therapy – Understanding how inherited stories influence the way we think about ourselves, our bodies, and our relationships.

Contact Me – If you'd like to explore these ideas together, I'd be happy to connect.