Quotes on Sexuality

When women's sexuality is imagined to be passive or "dirty," it also means that men's sexuality is automatically positioned as aggressive and right-no matter what form it takes. And when one of the conditions of masculinity, a concept that is already so fragile in men's minds, is that men dissociate from women and prove their manliness through aggression, we're encouraging a culture of violence and sexuality that's detrimental to both men and women.

Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.

It is a good thing to be rich and strong, but it is a better thing to be loved.

By deafening ourselves to the emotional consequences of violence we have become confused by its relationship to sex. We have come to believe that violence equals aggression, and we have come to base our model of sexuality on our model of violence... converting an act of aggression into an act of consensual sexuality.

The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!

Perhaps the great renewal of the world will consist of this, that man and woman, freed of all confused feelings and desires, shall no longer seek each other as opposites, but simply as members of a family and neighbors, and will unite as human beings, in order to simply, earnestly, patiently, and jointly bear the heavy responsibility of sexuality that has been entrusted to them.

I can't tell you how many doctors try to sell me a facelift. I've even gone as far as having someone talk me into it, but when I went over and looked at pictures of myself, I thought 'What are they going to lift?' . . Frankly, I think that in the art of aging well there's this sexuality to having those imperfections. It's sensual.

I'm trying to illuminate how perilously narrow we draw the concepts of masculinity and sexuality in our male culture - particularly in black male culture - and to help people to see that there's room enough for everyone.

Trying to exhaust himself, Vaughan devised an endless almanac of terrifying wounds and insane collisions: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse.

Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

It is very, very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his sexuality. And even more difficult for a woman if she's lesbian. It`s very distressing to me that that should be the case. The film industry is very old fashioned in California.

Existence permeates sexuality and vice versa, so that it is impossible to determine, in a given decision or action, the proportion of sexual to other motivations, impossible to label a decision or act ‘sexual’ or ‘non-sexual’ . There is no outstripping of sexuality any more than there is sexuality enclosed within itself. No one is saved and no one is totally lost.

Even in the lust of knowledge I feel only my will's delight in begetting and becoming; and if there be innocence in my knowledge it is because my procreative will is in it.

We put this 15-year old girl on the cover of a fashion magazine, and tell everyone she is the epitome of sexual perfection, but we jail anyone who touches her for another three years.

Who would not want an illness that has among its symptoms elevated and expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, abundance of energy, less need for sleep, intensified sexuality, and- most germane to our argument here-"sharpened and unusually creative thinking" and "increased productivity"?

She wore her sexuality with an older woman's ease, and not like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it, or when to just put it down.

I'm proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It's just another part of me.