Quotes from Gay Talese

While the moral force of Judeo-Christian tradition and the law have sought to purify the penis, and to restrict its seed to the sanctified institution of matrimony, the penis is not by nature a monogamous organ. It knows no moral code. It was designed by nature for waste, it craves variety, and nothing less than castration will eliminate the allure of prostitution, fornication adultery, or pornography.

Interestingly, the historic case of 1868 in England that first defined obscenity-known among lawyers as the Hicklin decision- evolved out of the prosecution of a pamphlet describing how priests were often so sexually aroused while hearing women's confessions that they sometimes masturbated and even copulated with their repentant subjects in the confessional.

The average married man, if he had the energy, could have sex with several women without diminishing the affection and desire he felt for his wife. But women like Judith- unlike truly liberated females like Barbara and Arlene- could not simply accept a man as a temporary instrument of pleasure; they wanted soft lights and promises, not just a penis but the man attached to it.

One way to hold a woman is not to hold her.

Men admitted to being endlessly fascinated with the naked female form; they appreciated women in a detached, impersonal way that women, even those women who were flattered by such attention, rarely understood.

Too many people were obsessed with their heads and were alienated from their bodies, Perls believed, adding: "We have to lose our minds and come to our senses.

in a male-dominated world, Reich suggested, there was an "economic interest" in the continued role of women as "the provider of children for the state" and the performer of household chores without pay.

And so there is nothing new in Thy Neighbor's Wife. Nor is there anything old.

While the quest for adventure that had long plagued him now tempted him to remove his clothes, an even more persuasive force within him prevented him from doing so, mainly because he feared revealing for the first time in front of so many people that unpredictable organ he assumed was everyman's burden- although, as he was apparent from the number of flaccid phalli he saw around him, no man seemed burdened tonight except himself.

In Connecticut the crime of oral sex could be punishable by a thirty-year jail term. In Ohio it was one to twenty years. In Georgia such a "crime against nature" could lead a practitioner to life imprisonment at hard labor- a penalty far more severe than having sex with animals, which in Georgia was punishable by only five years.

Many couples in the room merely watched the proceedings in wonderment, and to them the visit to Sandstone was a learning experience, a biology class, an opportunity to become increasingly knowledgeable about sex in the way that people traditionally learned about almost everything except sex, through the observation and imitation of other people.

In his parochial school, the nuns had advised him and his classmates that they should sleep each night on their backs with their arms crossed on their chests, hands on opposite shoulders- a presumably holy posture that, not incidentally, made masturbation impossible.

Many male habitues of massage parlors, like Talese, did not like solitary masturbation; in the parlance of the younger generation, it was a "downer." And yet to be masturbated by an appealing masseuse, to be in the physical presence of a woman with whom there was some communication and understanding, if not love, was gratifying and fun.

As the months went by, Talese began to see the masseuse as a kind of unlicensed therapist. Just as thousands of people each day paid psychiatrists money to be heard, the massage man paid money to be touched.

It seemed that the penis per se, except to male homosexuals, was not a very salable commodity in the sexual marketplace of America. Few women could be aroused by the sight of an erect penis unless they were warmly disposed to the man who was attached to it.

Jessica DuLong's elegantly written "My River Chronicles" brings the past of the Hudson River into the vivid present, and carries forward the craft of literary non-fiction with grace and energy.

The penis, often regarded as a weapon, is also a burden, the male curse.

In New York the Fifth Avenue Lingerie Shop is on Madison Avenue, the Madison Pet Shop is on Lexington Avenue, the Park Avenue Florist is on Madison Avenue, and the Lexington Hand Laundry is on Third Avenue. New York is the home of 120 pawnbrokers, and it is where Bishop Sheen's brother, Dr. Sheen, shares an office with one Dr. Bishop.

Group nudity could also be personally beneficial, according to psychologist Abraham M. Maslow, who believed that nudist camps or parks might be places where people can emerge from hiding behind their clothes and armor, and become more self-accepting, revealing, and honest.

Departing from Freud's exclusively verbal analysis, Reich studied the body as well as the mind, and he concluded after years of clinical observation and social work that signs of disturbed behavior could be detected in a patient's musculature, the slope of his posture, the shape of his jaw and mouth, his tight muscles, rigid bones, and other physical traits of a defensive or inhibiting nature. Reich identified this body rigidity as "armor.

Whatever influence Bullaro's normally cautious character might have exerted over the passions of his penis were now nonexistent, and he unhesitatingly followed her and quickly undressed.

Gerald Foos's explanation in his journal--he was 'only an observer and not a reporter,' and he 'really didn't exist as far as the male and female subjects were concerned'--were explanations that didn't surprise me because of his often-expressed notion that he was a fractured individual, a hybridized combination of the Voyeur and Gerald Foos

When a bridge fails, the engineer who designed it is as good as dead.

It's true what they say - all the good men are married. But it's marriage that makes them good.