Sexuality

"In this connection we may refer to fornicatory acts effected with artificial imitations of the human body, or of individual parts of that body. There exist true Vaucansons in this province of pornographic technology, clever mechanics who, from rubber and other plastic materials, prepare entire male or female bodies, which, as hommes or dames de voyage, subserve fornicatory purposes. More especially are the genital organs represented in a manner true to nature. Even the secretion of Bartholin's glans is imitated, by means of a "pneumatic tube" filled with oil. Similarly, by means of fluid and suitable apparatus, the ejaculation of the semen is imitated. Such artificial human beings are actually offered for sale in the catalogue of certain manufacturers of "Parisian rubber articles.""

"Pornographic sex is a kind of sex that can be described. Which told you something, he felt, about pornography, and about sex. During Keith's time, sex divorced itself from feeling. Pornography was the industrialization of that rift."

"I once stole a pornographic book that was printed in Braille. I used to rub the dirty parts."

"In discussions on pornography, a lot depends on the very definition of what is considered to be “pornographic” material. Pornography may be defined as (a) a moral wrong, (b) a moral good or (c) a non-moral issue. Thus, “the right to pornography” (as a “liberty”, not as a “claim-right”) may either be argued “because” it is amoral or non-moral good, or “although” it is a moral wrong. But whether one relates the notion of pornography intrinsically to (the showing/describing of) sexual acts, considered to be morally reprehensible, or uses a morally neutral or positive definition, one cannot escape the task of arguing what exactly makes (some or all) pornography a moral wrong or good."

"If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?"

"If I were to send you flowers... No wait, let me rephrase: If I were to let you suck on my tongue, would you be grateful?"

"Give me a kiss or I’ll sock you."

"Let’s go somewhere we can be alone. Ah, there doesn’t seem to be anyone on this couch."

"Was that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?"

"Do you love as good as you look?"

"Self improvement is masturbation."

"Among all types of sexual activity, masturbation is, however, the one in which the female most frequently reaches orgasm."

"In this room, right now, each of you, in your own lives, has agonized over the fact that you have masturbated. Masturbation isn't sinful. If it feels good — do it. You have my blessing, and you yourself know how it relaxes you."

"We know that more than seventy to eighty percent of women masturbate, and ninety percent of men masturbate, and the rest lie."

"When scolded for masturbating in public, he said "I wish it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.""

"I would masturbate in a red speedo."

"You're gonna be pleasing each other, and if he already knows what pleases him, and he's gonna please himself, then why am I in the picture?"

"If God had intended us not to masturbate, he would've made our arms shorter."

"As for the part of sexuality which can mix with anxiety, it is indeed an observable fact (...) I pointed out how frequent onanism is among children rejected by those around them and who usually live in the constraint and apprehension."

"To intervene in this personal, secret activity, which masturbation was, does not represent something neutral for the parents. It is not only a matter of power, or authority, or ethics; it's also a pleasure"

"Venereal orgasm can help resolve anxious tone. Masturbation is a common reaction of melancholic people. Anxious waiting often results in erotic needs."

"Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love."

"Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure."

"Masturbation is the thinking man's television."

"Onanism sometimes gives way to pederasty and tribadism. There is clearly, in all these cases, emotional excitement. It results in irritability and also in the taste for caresses, zoophilia (2 - need for animal caresses) and even the need for affection. It is not unrelated to a state of boredom, vague, nostalgic appetite, emotional insufficiency and worry, which are very often the germ of perverse behavior. Anxiety without object, disgust, painful impression of moral anesthesia, search for appropriate stimulation, desire for risk, adventure, subterfuges of imagination or sensitivity are at the origin of running away, wandering, theft, lies, niches, teasing, acts of cruelty, of which this category of children is predilection guilty."

"The accusation of onanism does not appear any more than that of running away to result from the sole desire to burden the child, in order to obtain his internment. Most often, she responds well to her appearance as a repulsed, sad and shy little being. Humiliation, the feeling of abandonment and loneliness clearly encourage the child to masturbate. If it is in adolescents or adults that this habit is found, it seems linked to the evocation of situations or scenes related to the genital complexion of the subject: most often a jealous or a masochist, who therefore further combines sexual excitement with depressive dispositions. His reaction is of the conditional type, like all those that arise from emotion. Local excitement is only an adjuvant, of which the subject rather seeks to divert his thoughts, far from being attentive to it as to stimulations of a sensory and truly tactile nature."

"This is the type of emotional condition that appears to govern the habits of onanism in children who are otherwise very unlikely to suspect sexual precocity."

"Another man is tempted by evil thoughts at night. Let him be directed to cross his arm upon his breast, and extend himself as if he were lying in his coffin. Let him endeavor to think of himself as he will be one day stretched in death. If such solemn thoughts do not drive away evil imaginings, let him rise from his bed and lie on the floor."

"Insanity among masturbators is more apt to develop in those whose intellectual capacity is below the average, and in cases where loss of memory occurs as a prominent feature in the early stages of the vice. Persistent loss of memory is always a precursor of serious mental disease."

"the effects of masturbation or excessive sexual congress present this peculiar change in the shape of the organ."

"I would further instruct a youth that this degrading practice obtains such a hold upon any one indulging in it that he seems unable to free himself from its grasp. Again and again he yields to its importunity, and life ebbs away from him. It is a sad and melancholy truth that many whose childhood has been most pure and spotless have fallen most deeply when their passions have been awakened through absence of all warning on the subject and in ignorance of the self-destruction they were committing."

"If the pupil has exhibited signs of unusual sexual precocity, it would be well to point out the results of all unhealthy familiarity with the genitals before discoursing upon their uses in the accomplishment of a most beneficent plan of nature, to imbue the mind with that laudable sense of fear which should invariably accompany any infringement of the law."

"In the summer of [18]'79 while sojourning in the Adirondacks, I was asked to visit a gentleman at a hotel....and thus relieved him of the greater part of his suffering. He afterwards said to me, "Dr. I know now that if that operation had been performed when I was a boy, and I had been told anything about the normal condition of my genital organs, I would now be in good health, I would not now be dying from consumption. I blame it all on my parents. When I was a mere lad, I had every night a very painful erection which kept me awake the best part of the night. Again and again I went to my father and begged him to tell me where to go for relief, but he only laughed, and said it was all right. Like appeals to others had a similar result. Finally the irritation became so great that without any instruction I commenced to masturbate, and finally went frequently with loose women to such an extent that my health broke down, my lungs gave out, and now I am dying. I never knew until too late what was the cause of my frequent erections, and I was never told that any relief could be afforded by an operation.""

"Homer, in the second book of the Iliad says with fine enthusiasm, "Give me masturbation or give me death." Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, "To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor. They that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion." In another place this experienced observer has said, "There are times when I prefer it to sodomy." Robinson Crusoe says, "I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art." Queen Elizabeth said, "It is the bulwark of virginity." Cetewayo, the Zulu hero, remarked, "A jerk in the hand is worth two in the bush." The immortal Franklin has said, "Masturbation is the best policy." Michelangelo and all of the other old masters--"old masters," I will remark, is an abbreviation, a contraction--have used similar language. Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II, "Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse." Mr. Brown, here, in one of his latest and most graceful poems, refers to it in an eloquent line which is destined to live to the end of time--"None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise."

"Frighted she wakes, and waking frigs: Nature thus kindly eased In dreams raised by her grunting pigs And her own thumb betwixt her legs, She’s innocent and pleased."

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted. To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature."

"But I wonder why he the heretic Jovinianus set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother his seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?"

"It's a lot of work and it gets you nowhere; I was never big into that world."

"I have touched filth. Only with the finger tip I touched it, inquisitive of the taste of it. But it creeps. It has spread over my body a slime, and into my soul a stupor."

"I didn't get to masturbate this morning, and I've been dying to, so I've gotta go."

"watch carefully over the young man; he can protect himself from all other foes, but it is for you to protect him against himself. Never leave him night or day, or at least share his room; never let him go to bed till he is sleepy, and let him rise as soon as he wakes. Distrust instinct as soon as you cease to rely altogether upon it. Instinct was good while he acted under its guidance only; now that he is in the midst of human institutions, instinct is not to be trusted; it must not be destroyed, it must be controlled, which is perhaps a more difficult matter. It would be a dangerous matter if instinct taught your pupil to abuse his senses; if once he acquires this dangerous habit he is ruined. From that time forward, body and soul will be enervated; he will carry to the grave the sad effects of this habit, the most fatal habit which a young man can acquire. If you cannot attain to the mastery of your passions, dear Emile, I pity you; but I shall not hesitate for a moment, I will not permit the purposes of nature to be evaded. If you must be a slave, I prefer to surrender you to a tyrant from whom I may deliver you; whatever happens, I can free you more easily from the slavery of women than from yourself."

"This is a strange -- and rather alarming -- realisation. For it clearly implies that masturbation is one of our highest faculties that human beings have developed. Many animals masturbate -- but never without the presence of another animal, or some similar stimulus. A human being can masturbate in an empty room: a triumph of pure imagination."

"Sex is for pleasure, a complete and worthwhile goal in and of itself. People have sex because it feels very good, and then they feel good about themselves."

"[Wilhelm] Reich theorized that without the suppression of sexuality and the imposition of anti-sexual morality, you could not have an authoritarian government, because people would be free from shame, and would trust their own sense of right and wrong. Such people are unlikely to march to war against their wishes, and we would like to think they would be unlikely to agree to operate the death camps too."

"When both genders feel free to answer 'yes' or 'no' with no concern for anything but their own desires, a truer understanding, and a more positive sexuality, can be achieved. Dossie tells the story of a woman friend of hers back in the '70s who, as an experiment, sat patiently in a singles' bar one night, being approached by many men, until finally one to whom she felt attracted came along and began to flirt. She asked him nicely if he would like to come back to her place and fuck. He swallowed his ice. It took the poor fellow a couple of minutes before he could talk coherently again, and when they actually got to her place he found himself impotent. That's how deeply ingrained some of these cultural stereotypes can be."

"We've ... been called "indiscriminate" in our sexuality, which we resent: we can always tell our lovers apart."

"We see ourselves surrounded by the 'walking wounded' — by people who have been deeply, if not irrevocably, injured by fear, shame, and hatred of their own sexual selves. We believe that happy connected sex is the cure for these wounds, that it is important, possibly even essential, to most people's sense of self-worth, to their belief that life is good. We have never met anyone who had low self-esteem at the moment of orgasm."

"We measure the ethics of a good slut not by the number of his partners, but by the respect and care with which he treats them."

"We have been taught by our culture that when our partner has sex with another, we have lost something. Not to sound dumb, but we are confused. What have we lost?"

"To believe that God doesn't like sex is like believing that God doesn't like you: we all wind up carrying a secret shame for our own perfectly natural sexual desires and fulfillments. We prefer the beliefs of a woman we met who is a devoted churchgoer. She told us that when she was about five years old, she discovered the joys of masturbation in the back seat of the family car, tucked under a warm blanket on a long trip. It felt so wonderful that she concluded that the existence of her clitoris was proof positive that God loved her."