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
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
Sex between a man and a woman can be wonderful, provided you can get between the right man and the right woman.
WOODY ALLEN
attributed, The Seven Deadly Sins: A Companion
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
We settle for so-so sex because most of us don't know how sexual we could be; we know only how sexual we are. How sexual we are has been shaped by decades of indoctrination by ... family and friends, teachers, religious leaders, and romantic partners, not to mention a society that worships a bewildering fusion of childlike sexual innocence and cynical, nihilistic hedonism.... So what is normal? It all depends on what's normal for you.
ANITA H. CLAYTON
Satisfaction: Women, Sex, and the Quest for Intimacy
Seduction ... was both a science and art -- a blend of skill, discipline, proximity, and opportunity. Mostly proximity.
DAN SIMMONS
Ilium
The earthly consummation of Love is either the passing bell that precedes and announces his funeral, or the trumpet that calls him to immortality.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
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"
It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married.
ANONYMOUS
Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.
JOHN BARRYMORE
attributed, The Quotable Intellectual: 1,417 Bon Mots, Ripostes, and Witticisms for Aspiring Academics, Armchair Philosophers ... And Anyone Else Who Wants to Sound Really Smart
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 attempt to possess a woman through an act of sex is as frustrating as trying to possess the scent of a rose by cooking and eating it.
COLIN WILSON
The Corpse Garden
Sexual union is a holy moment in which a part of Heaven flows into the Earth.
JAMES REDFIELD
The Celestine Prophecy
I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
Tallulah, Darling
Sex is interesting but not totally important. I mean, it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. a man can go 70 years without a piece of ass but he can die in a week without a bowel movement.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Sex ... or lack thereof ... is at the center of everyone's identity, and once you've cracked someone's desires, you understand them in full.
ARIANNE COHEN
Marie Claire, March 2008
I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
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
In America, sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it is a fact.
MARLENE DIETRICH
attributed, Wise Women: Wit and Wisdom from Some of the World's Most Extraordinary Women
Sex makes you get real.
PAMELA ANDERSON
Playboy, July 1992