Sexuality

"Some people consider any form of sex education to be child abuse, and many do not feel that children should have any information at all about adult sexual activities. ...How are we to teach our children to say 'no' to an abusive adult if we are not frank about what it is that they should say no to?"

"So we are proud to reclaim the word "slut" as a term of approval, even endearment. To us, a slut is a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you."

"Myth #3: Loving someone makes it OK to control his behavior."

"Joe was very possessive. I was perfectly faithful. He would beat me, screaming imprecations, 'You slut!' when another man looked at me. After I left, I decided he was right — I am a slut, I want to be a slut, I will never promise monogamy again. After all, why would anyone care who I fucked? I will never be a piece of property again, no matter how valuable that property is considered. Joe made a feminist of me. A feminist slut."

"It is amazing to us to think ... that most people in our culture have never had a chance to watch another person enjoy sex. No wonder we worry so much about our appearance."

""Easy": Is there, we wonder, some virtue in being difficult?"

"A slut shares their sexuality the way philanthropists shares their money: because they have a lot of it to share, because it makes them happy to share it, because sharing makes the world a better place."

"A ring around the finger does not cause a nerve block to the genitals."

"We believe that it is fundamentally a radical political act to deprivatize sex. So much oppression in our culture is based on shame about sex: the oppression of women, of cultural minorities, oppression in the name of the (presumably asexual) family, oppression of sexual minorities. We are all oppressed. We have all been taught, one way or another, that our desires, our bodies, our sexualities, are shameful. What better way to defeat oppression than to get together in communities and celebrate the wonders of sex?"

"We are particularly in favor of multiple partners having a chance to meet each other, or at least hear about each other, to dispel our self-created mythology that the other person is younger, thinner, sexier, etc. You might be surprised, when you meet your lover's lover, to find the experience downright reassuring."

"The dilemma of traditional sex research lay in the unconscious, but unquestiongly assumed division into opposing drives and hereditary factors. . . The division into heterosexuality and homosexuality, into hetersexuals and homosexuals, is also an artefact that rests on a grave error, namely, on the assumption that a fundamentally different model is necessary to explain heterosexual and homosexual behavior. The entire investigation of etiology was ideologically loaded beforehand because it separated a segment of the sexual contiuum and attempted to make analyses with the help of fundamentally different concepts."

"And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

"[Long] live the difference!"

"Vive la différence!"

"It would encourage clearer thinking on these matters if persons were not characterized as hetereosexual or homosexual, but as individuals who have had certain amounts of heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds."

"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex."

"Heterosexuality: The term describing emotional, affectional, sexual, or physical attraction to members of the opposite sex."

"Heterosexism: Describes the biases and prejudices that favor heterosexual people or relationships."

"Heteronormativity: Naturalizes the heterosexual identity, or privileges it as timeless and universal."

"Compulsory heterosexuality: The idea that heterosexuality is preserved by gender and sexual binaries and other social forces. This concept battles the idea that we choose to be heterosexual and instead says that heterosexuality is a compulsory (or enforced) state of being."

"After the repast is ended, we return to the dance, and, when the hour of repose arrives, we draw from a kind of lottery, in which every one is sure of a prize; that is, a young girl as his companion for the night. They are allotted thus by chance, in order to avoid jealousy, and to prevent exclusive attachments. Thus ends the day, and gives place to a night of delights, which we sanctify by enjoying with due relish that sweetest of all pleasures, which Faraki has so wisely attached to the reproduction of our species. We reverently admire the wisdom and the goodness of Faraki, who, desiring to secure to the world a continued population, has implanted in the sexes an invincible mutual attraction, which constantly draws them towards each other. Fecundity is the end he proposes, and he rewards with intoxicating delights those who contribute to the fulfilment of his designs."

"A decade and a half on, I know the certainty of myself. Bisexual. Sometimes a partner, often a lover, always a friend, refusing to discriminate along gender lines. It keeps my brain ticking over. I'll never get bored. If this is a phase, I don't want it to end."

"Nick Nelson: Mum. Sarah Nelson: Mm-hm? Nick Nelson: You know Charlie's like my best friend. Sarah Nelson: If you're going to ask if he can come along on holiday this year, the answer's no, 'cause I've already booked the ticket. Nick Nelson: No, that's, um, that's not what I was gonna say. [stops, hesitates] He's my boyfriend. Charlie's my boyfriend. I... I still like girls, but, um... We... I like boys too. And me and Charlie, we're... We're going out. And I just... wanted you to know. Sarah Nelson: Oh, baby. [hugs Nick] Oh, thank you for telling me. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn't tell me that. You don't have to say you like girls if you don't. Nick Nelson: No, I, um... It's definitely not just girls. It-it's called bisexuality, if you've heard of that. Sarah Nelson: [laughs] I have heard of that. I wasn't born in the 18th century. How long've you known? Nick Nelson: Well, um, me and Charlie started going out, couple months ago. But I started liking him way before that. Sarah Nelson: [hugs Nick] Oh, I love you."

"The dilemma of traditional sex research lay in the unconscious, but unquestiongly assumed division into opposing drives and hereditary factors. . . The division into heterosexuality and homosexuality, into heterosexuals and homosexuals, is also an artefact that rests on a grave error, namely, on the assumption that a fundamentally different model is necessary to explain heteorsexual and homosexual behavior. The entire investigation of etiology was ideologically loaded beforehand because it separated a segment of the sexual contiuum and attempted to make analyses with the help of fundamentally different concepts."

"Appropriate patterns of reproductive, gender, and sexual conduct are all products of specific cultures and all can be viewed as examples of socially scripted conduct. Western societies now have a system of gender and sexual learning in which gender differential scripts are learned prior to sexual scripts, but take their origins in part from the previously learned gender scripts... There are two important points: The first is that both gender and sexuality are learned forms of social practice, and the second is that looking to "natural differences" between women and men for lessons about sexual conduct is an error."

"And now, the main thing! As far as I can see, my next work will be called "Human Bisexuality." It will go to the root of the problem and say the last word it may be granted to say--the last and the most profound."

"I do not in the least underestimate bisexuality. . . I expect it to provide all further enlightenment."

"Even though adult homosexuals have fought hard to win rights and liberties... too many people are still scandalized by the mere idea that youth discovering their gay orientation could be given the same liberties and possibilities as straight ones. Whereas the discovery of heterosexual desire is celebrated as the sign that "he's becoming a man" and therefore largely encouraged, without anyone seeing any sort of proselytizing in it, it's a completely different story when it's homosexual desire that's surfacing. Everything happens as if gays and bisexuals under 18 didn't exist, or at least shouldn't exist.’"

"Heard she bisexual; she fuck what that girl. But boy, oh boy, fucking with me is a whole 'nother world."

"Could you imagine wanting to fuck everybody you meet? Think of all the phone numbers you'd accumulate! You might as well just walk around the White Pages under your arm."

"He has told me he likes men as well as he likes women, which seems only natural, he says, since he is the offspring of two sexes as well as two races. No one is surprised he is biracial; why should they be surprised he is bisexual? This is an explanation I have never heard and cannot entirely grasp; it seems too logical for my brain."

"I have a dick and it gets hard then that's good. I walk down the street and if I see a girl and my dick gets hard that's good and if I see a boy that's good too and same with seeing a chicken. If my dick gets hard and I want to fuck it then that's good. People like to attach labels to themselves, straight, gay, S&M, it's just so simple. It doesn't matter what you do whether its horrible or mainstream or boring, you know what turns you on. So why the big brouhaha?"

"Oh my GOD, you are NOT bisexual! Don't be stupid! I mean, I went to a bar mitzvah once, that doesn't make me Jewish!"

"I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree."

"Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality."

"The time has come, I think, when we must recognize bisexuality as a normal form of human behavior. . . we shall not really succeed in discarding the straitjacket of our cultural beliefs about sexual choice if we fail to come to terms with the well-documented, normal human capacity to love members of both sexes."

"When you lie with a woman, at least so girls say, You shit the same moment you come. But what do you do, Polycharmus, I pray, When a lovers stiff prick stops your bum?"

"It is my opinion that while the word bisexual may have its uses as an adjective, . . . it is not only useless but mendacious when used as a noun."

"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex."

"The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species."

"Queerness...[is] more a posture of opposition than a simple statement about sexuality. It [is] about principles, not particularities. 'To me,' explained [Queer Nation/San Francisco activist Karl] Knapper, 'queerness is about acknowledging and celebrating difference, embracing wha sets you apart. A straight person can't be gay, but a straight person can be queer."

"Thomas, Calvin, ed. (2000). "Introduction: Identification, Appropriation, Proliferation", Straight with a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality. University of Illinois Press. ."

"while Michael Warner (1993) defines queer as "resistance to regimes of the normal.""

"As the essence of queer, I think of Tim Dean's work on being queer and queer not as being about who you're having sex with—that can be a dimension of it—but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and it has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live."

""'Queer' derives its force precisely through the repeated invocation by which it has become linked to accusation, pathologization, insult. This is an invocation by which a social bond among homophobic communities is formed through time. The interpellation echoes past interpellations, and binds the speakers, as if they spoke in unison across time. In this sense, it is always an imaginary chorus that taunts 'queer'"."

"Queer has become "the discursive rallying point for younger lesbians and gay men and, in yet other contexts, for lesbian interventions and, in yet other contexts, for bisexuals and straights for whom the term expresses an affiliation with antihomophobic politics. That it can become such a discursive site whose uses are not fully constrained in advance ought to be safe-guarded not only for the purposes of continuing to democratize queer politics, but also to expose, affirm, and rework the specific historicity of the term.""

"Queer" involves "the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning [that occur] when the consituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signifying monolithically... [including] drags, clones, leatherfolk...fantasists...feminist men...masturbators...people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such." She praises, "work around 'queer' [which] spins the term outward along dimensions that can't be subsumed under gender and sexuality at all." However, queer must denote "almost simply, same-sex sexual object choice, lesbian or gay...given the historical and contemporary force of the prohibitions against every same-sex sexual expression, for anyone to disavow those meanings, or to displace them from the term's definitional center, would be to dematerialize any possiblity of queerness itself."

"The preference for 'queer' represents, among other things, an aggressive impulse of generalizations; it rejects a minoritizing logic of toleration or simple political interest-representation in favor of a more thorough resistance to regimes of the normal. For academics, being interested in queer theory is a way to mess up the desexualized spaces of the academy, exude some rut, reimaging the public from and for which academic intellectuals write, dress, and perform....For both academics and activists, 'queer' gets a critical edge by defining itself against the normal rather than the heterosexual....The insistence on 'queer'...has the effect of pointing out a wide field of normalization, rather than simple intolerance, as the site of violence."

"[There are] cases of straight queerness, and of other forms of queerness that might not be contained within existing categories or have reference to only one established category...new queer spaces open up (or are revealed) whenever someone moves away from using only one specific sexual identity category--gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight--to understand and to describe mass culture, and recognizes that texts and people's responses to them are more sexually transmutable than any one category could signify--excepting, perhaps, that of 'queer.'"

"Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner (1995) suggest that participation in "queer publics," is, "more a matter of aspiration than it is the expression of an identity or a history,""