quotations about sex
We have inherited the term "sexual revolution" from those who first coined it in the 1960s, and in adopting their phrase we have perpetuated some of the confusions of that era. We continue to hear echoes of danger in the word "revolution." We continue to conflate very different impulses and outcomes. This received language to revolution has made it much more difficult for us to understand and discuss the roles and meanings of sex in contemporary America.
BETH BAILEY
Sex in the Heartland
Sex is so taboo, but we know we're all f***ing like rabbits.
AMAKA OSAKWE
"West Africa's Most Daring Designer", New Yorker, September 25, 2017
I like sex for breakfast, kid. I eat early and often.
KAREN MARIE MONING
Iced
Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do -- like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy.
MARTIN AMIS
interview, Washington Post, November 7, 2003
"Sex" is a great, rich, complicated word. Metaphorically, it is a descriptive adjective that defines who we are; a noun that describes an endless array of people, places, and things; and a verb that conjures up activities that people all over the world find pleasurable. More than a word, it is a topic sentence for dissent and political posturing. It is a plot for complicated stories of interaction and intrigue, sometimes in our own families. It is a hypothesis for experimentation and curiosity. It is the grist of advertising copywriters, poets, and novelists. We desire sex, we deplore it, we regret it, or we do it, but whatever our stance, it remains on our minds.
SUSAN LIEBERMAN
Venus in Blue Jeans
The sexual life of adult women is a "dark continent" for psychology.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Question of Lay Analysis
If two people loved, they slept together; it was a mathematical formula, tested and proved by human experience.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
Sex makes you get real.
PAMELA ANDERSON
Playboy, July 1992
What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
Last time I was inside a woman was when I visited the Statue of Liberty.
WOODY ALLEN
Crimes and Misdemeanors
So if you can manage it, you shouldn't touch your partner, except for the sake of having children.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Sermons
As a person, therefore, would have no enjoyment of drinking, if he had not previously known thirst, so he who is unacquainted with the longings of love has no experience of the most ravishing pleasures.
XENOPHON
Hiero
For wisest ends this universal Power
Gave appetites, from whose quick impulse life
Subsists, by which we only live, all life
Insipid else, unactive, unenjoy'd.
Hence to this peopled earth, which, that extinct,
That flame for propagation, soon would roll
A lifeless mass, and vainly cumber heaven.
JOHN ARMSTRONG
"The Oeconomy Of Love"
There is a no man's land between sex and love, and it alters in the night. We go to sleep convinced we are in one state, we awaken in the other, and murderous emotions patrol the ever-changing border.
NORMAN MAILER
The Deer Park
Seduction ... was both a science and art -- a blend of skill, discipline, proximity, and opportunity. Mostly proximity.
DAN SIMMONS
Ilium
It's such a massive double edged sword. It makes no sense to me, and that's why I'm so outspoken about my sexuality. I think that women are entitled to sexual pleasure. I don't understand what is wrong with it. It's something that's good, and it makes you feel positive and happy and relieved. It's so funny because I watch these entertainment shows and they're talking about how Lindsay Lohan dates another man and she's a whore or whatever ... and a million other women. They lay into these girls because they're actually having a good time and being open about it. Then they do a report on George Clooney, who's a 'playboy' and looked up to by everybody and how sexy he is, and how he can date all these women and he'll never get married. It makes me want to vomit.
JENNA JAMESON
interview, May 17, 2007
It's been a long day. I need one of those hugs that turns into sex.
ANONYMOUS
I have no objection to anyone's sex life as long as they don't practice it in the street and frighten the horses.
MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL
attributed, The Duchess of Jermyn Street
The original sexual revolution was a tour de force, a huge success that came from what at first glance looks like a bad idea. Why bad? Because it risked losing valuable information. A successful bacterium, reproducing asexually, passes on its exact genetic makeup (absent the occasional mutation) to its offspring. But if an organism reproduces sexually, its genes are scrambled with those of its mate in order to produce the offspring's genes, a process called recombination. Because each half of this offspring's genes came from a different parent, and because of the scrambling process, no matter how successful either parent's unique combination of genes, the offspring's genome will not be the same as that parent's. Sexual reproduction has never passed on a full winning combination intact. Sex messes with success.
SETH LLOYD
Programming the Universe
If sex is dignified it's not being done right.
J. D. ROBB
Indulgence in Death