The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that sexual intimacy should be rooted in friendship rather than mere physicality.
Heinlein emphasizes the importance of emotional connection in sexual relationships, arguing that purely physical encounters lack the depth and satisfaction that come from a friendship-based approach. By suggesting alternative 'mechanical toys' for those who prefer to keep intimacy superficial, he critiques the detachment often found in casual sexual encounters and champions the idea that meaningful relationships enhance physical intimacy.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the benefits of emotional intimacy in sexual relationships.
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.
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