Sexuality

"When a woman in a lonely place bends down, as if to pick up something, and pierces, as it were, a man sitting or standing, with her breasts, and the man in return takes hold of them, it is called a "piercing embrace.""

"When a man places his breast between the breasts of a woman, and presses her with it, it is called the "embrace of the breasts.""

"Mammelles, quoy! toutes retraictes; Telles les hanches que les tettes."

"My breasts were lordlier than bright swans."

"The wanton Maidens him espying, stood Gazing a while at his unwonted guise; Then th’one her selfe low duckèd in the flood, Abasht, that her a straunger did avise: But th’other rather higher did arise, And her two lilly paps aloft displayd, And all, that might his melting hart entise To her delights, she unto him bewrayd: The rest hid underneath, him more desirous made."

"Her brest like to a bowle of creame uncrudded, Her paps lyke lyllies budded."

"If a man is pictured chopping off a woman's breast, it only gets an R rating; but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman's breast, it gets an X rating. Why is violence more acceptable than tenderness?"

"Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality. Nipples are taboo because they are quite literally, physically, functionally undecidable in the split between motherhood and sexuality. One of the most subversive things feminism can do is affirm this undecidability of motherhood and sexuality."

"A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts."

"Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."

"Of her there bred A thousand yong ones, which she dayly fed, Sucking upon her poisonous dugs."

"I need not tell thee of the lily white, ... Nor of thy paps where Love himself doth dwell, Which like two hills of violets appear."

"In the nine heavens are eight Paradises; Where is the ninth one? In the human breast. Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises, But blessedness dwells in the human breast."

"The flower that I would pluck And put between my breasts, O, then but beginning To swell about the blossom—she would long Till she had such another, and commit it To the like innocent cradle, where, phœnix-like, They died in perfume."

"Ladies, I guarantee you if you take a shower with your boyfriend by the time you step out of that shower your breasts will be sparkling clean."

"Some were so from their source endu’d, By great dame nature, from whose fruitful pap, Their well-heads spring."

"Her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue, A pair of maiden worlds unconquerèd, Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew, And him by oath they truly honourèd. These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred; Who, like a foul usurper, went about From this fair throne to heave the owner out."

"Let not the virgin’s cheek Make soft thy trenchant sword, for those milk paps That through the window-bars bore at men’s eyes, Are not within the leaf of pity writ, But set them down horrible traitors."

"Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall."

"I can’t get past the fact that food is coming out of my wife’s breasts. What was once essentially an entertainment center has now become a juice bar."

"Her breasts were higher than any woman's he had ever seen, placed almost parallel with the shoulder line, and they were absolutely round and big. It was these breasts which had first attracted him. Their being placed so provocatively, so near the mouth, pointing upwards, somehow awakened in him a direct response. It was as if his sex had a peculiar affinity with these breasts, and as soon as they showed themselves in the whorehouse where he had found her, his sex raised itself to challenge them on equal terms."

"Breasts like ripe red cabbage; they bobble a little when she leans forward."

"And then he describes... how he bent down and kissed her breasts, and how, after he had kissed them fervidly, he stuffed them back into her corsage, or whatever it is they call these things."

"The breasts of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier Than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood At Grecian sword, contemning."

"But I love slenderness. I love virginal breasts."

"I want to laugh because I have already forgotten about the Renoir bodies, the virginal breasts."

"He says I am breeding a little giant. I see him looking at my more aggressive breasts."

"Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop."

"Daughter of Jove, relentless power, Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour The bad affright, afflict the best!"

"As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time That from the seedness the bare fallow brings To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry."

": Wilt dine with me, Apemantus? : No, I eat not lords. : An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies. : O, they eat lords. So they come by great bellies. : That's a lascivious apprehension. : So thou apprehend'st it, take it for thy labour."

"And since a man can't make one He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one."

"She's quick; the child brags in her belly already."

"I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie."

"He ploughed her, and she cropped."

"You become like a vampire when you're pregnant: your senses are so sensitive and your emotions are so heightened – that helps with performance because you really feel things. Any stories about something happening to little girls killed me. Put it this way: I did not find Inside Out uplifting."

"It's all very well for a man. He doesn't have to go through this sort of thing, and he knows he never will have to. How can he understand? He may mean as well as a saint, but he's always on the outside. He can never know what it's like, even in a normal way — so what sort of an idea can he have of this? Of how it feels to lie awake at night with the humiliating knowledge that one is simply being used? — As if one were not a person at all, but just a kind of mechanism, a sort of incubator."

"So Fanfare for the Makers: ... As mothers sit up late night after night Moulding a life."

"In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her."

"The question is not 'Can a man do it?' It's 'If a man does have a successful pregnancy, can he survive it?'"

"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."

"And Venus, thou, with timely seed, Which may their after-comforts breed, Inform the gentle womb; Nor let it prove a tomb."

"Pregnancy seemed like a tremendous abdication of control. Something growing inside you which would eventually usurp your life."

"Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy."

"I found that being pregnant was different from how I thought it would be...It shares a lot in common with writing in a way. You have an imaginary version of yourself pregnant, and an imaginary baby, an imaginary idea of yourself as a mother."

"A ship under sail and a big-bellied woman, are the handsomest two things that can be seen common."

"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth."

"There was a time when doctors recommended alcohol to pregnant women for relaxation and pain relief, or even prescribed it intravenously as a tocolytic — meaning it stopped premature labor. One doctor who trained me spoke of a 1960s prenatal ward full of intoxicated women "swearing like sailors." Things began to change in 1973, when fetal alcohol syndrome, or F.A.S., was formally recognized after a seminal article was published in The Lancet, a medical journal. F.A.S. is a constellation of findings that includes changes in growth, distinctive facial features and a negative impact on the developing brain. We now know that alcohol is a teratogen, meaning it can cause birth defects. With that knowledge, the pendulum swung hard. In 1988, Congress passed the Alcoholic Beverage Labeling Act, which would add the well-known "women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects" label to alcoholic beverages for sale or distribution in the United States. (A warning about drinking and driving was also added.) Many people unfortunately took this as an opportunity to police pregnant women in public."

"The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy—a pregnant woman."

"They did not understand how my world had shrunk. They couldn't see that the bigger I got, the smaller I became, and they didn't understand that once the baby came, I would be gone!"