Quotes About Sexuality

Listen. You're a hell of a good guy, and I'm fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn't tell you that in New York. It'd mean I was a faggot. That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. The Dred Scott case was framed by the Anti-Saloon League. Sex explains it all. The Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady are Lesbians under their skin. (101)

He hated injustice as he hated cruelty and he lay in his rage that blinded his mind until gradually the anger died down and the red, black, blinding, killing anger was all gone and his mind now as quiet, empty-calm and sharp, cold-seeing as a man is after he has had sexual intercourse with a woman that he does not love.

Today, our sexuality is an open-ended personal project; it is part of who we are, an identity, and no longer merely something we do.

As long as men completely dominate business and political life, as long as women are economically dependent on men, as long as the burden of child care falls wholly on women's shoulders (toppling even the most egalitarian couples), you cannot speak of a liberated female sexuality.

While much has been written about the aggressive manifestations of male sexuality, it is not sufficiently appreciated that the erotic realm also offers men a restorative experience for their more tender side. The body is our original mother tongue, and for a lot of men it remains the only language of closeness that hasn't been spoiled. Through sex, men can recapture the pure pleasure of connection without having to compress their hard-to-articulate needs into the prison of words.

Eventually, if desire withers, monogamy too easily slides downward into celibacy. When this happens, fidelity becomes a weakness rather than a virtue.

Despite living in a time of unprecedented sexual freedom in America, the practice of policing sexuality has continued unabated since the days of the Puritans.

But when we reduce sex to a function, we also invoke the idea of dysfunction. We are no longer talking about the art of sex; rather, we are talking about the mechanics of sex. Science has replaced religion as the authority; and science is a more formidable arbiter. Medicine knows how to scare even those who scoff at religion. Compared with a diagnosis, what's a mere sin? We used to moralize; today we normalize, and performance anxiety is the secular version of our old religious guilt.

A woman's sexuality depends on her authenticity and self-nurturance," she writes. Yet marriage and motherhood demand a level of selflessness that is at odds with the inherent selfishness of desire.

When you love someone, how does it feel? And when you desire someone, how is it different? Does good intimacy always lead to good sex?

Now that these men and women and the generations who have followed can have as much sex as they want, they seem to have lost their desire for it.

In London alone, there are 80,000 prostitutes. What are they but . . . human sacrifices offered up on the altar of monogamy? —Arthur Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism

When we cordon off our erotic interiors, we are left with sex that is truncated, devoid of vibrancy, and not particularly intimate. What people fail to see is that dull, boring sexual relationships are often a consequence of shutting down the imagination in just this way.

These couples, in their own ways, have chosen to acknowledge the possibility of the third: the recognition that our partner has his or her own sexuality, replete with fantasies and desires that aren't necessarily about us. When we validate one another's freedom within the relationship, we're less inclined to search for it elsewhere.

Rather than looking at sex as an exclusive outgrowth of the emotional relationship, I've come to see it as a separate entity. Sexuality is more than a metaphor for the relationship—it stands on its own as a parallel narrative.

Acknowledging the third has to do with validating the erotic separateness of our partner. It follows that our partner's sexuality does not belong to us. It isn't just for and about us, and we should not assume that it rightfully falls within our jurisdiction. It doesn't.

What does sex mean for you?" "How was sex treated in your family?" "What are the important events that shaped your sexuality?" "What would you like to experience most with me sexually, and what are you most afraid of?" They spark conversations that are provocative and inspiring, that focus on possibilities rather than on problems.

We interpret the lack of sexual interest as proof that women's sexual drive is inherently less strong. Perhaps it would be more accurate to think that it is a drive that needs to be stoked more intensely and more imaginatively—and first and foremost by her, not only by her partner.

The permanence and stability that we seek in our intimate connections can stifle their sexual spark, leading to what Mitchell calls "expressions of exuberant defiance,"3 otherwise known as affairs. Adulterers

I've been a sexual underachiever my whole life, and I resent Warren for feeling entitled to something that I won't allow for myself!

First, the institutionalization of relationships—a passage from freedom and independence to commitment and responsibility. Second, the overfamiliarity that develops when intimacy and closeness replace individuality and mystery. And lastly, the desexualizing nature of certain roles—mother, wife, and house manager all promote the de-eroticization of the self.

Over the years, the thinking in the field has evolved, so that we now look at fantasy as a natural component of healthy adult sexuality.

By talking about sexual alchemy, I want to clarify that affairs sometimes involve sex and sometimes not, but they are always erotic.

All these discussions inevitably raise the thorny question of the nature of our erotic freedom. Do we expect our partners' erotic selves to belong entirely to us? I'm talking about thoughts, fantasies, dreams, and memories, and also turn-ons, attractions, and self-pleasure. These aspects of sexuality can be personal, and part of our sovereign selfhood—existing in our own secret garden.