We may say that many, if not all, of the personality traits which we have called masculine or feminine are as lightly linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of headdress that a society at a given period assigns to either sex.
Nothing is either all masculine or all feminine except having sex.
My father's death has given me a lot. It has given me a lifelong love of women, of their grittiness and hardness - traits that we are not supposed to value as feminine. It has also given me a love of men, of their vulnerability and tenderness - traits that we do not foster as masculine or allow ourselves to associate with masculinity.
Sex is hard to write about because you lose the universal and succumb to the particular. We all have our different favorites. Good sex is impossible to write about. Lawrence and Updike have given it their all, and the result is still uneasy and unsure. It may be that good sex is something fiction just can't do - like dreams. Most of the sex in my novels is absolutely disastrous. Sex can be funny, but not very sexy.
If you had a daily printout from the brain of an average twenty-four-year-old male, it would probably go like this: sex, need coffee, sex, traffic, sex, sex, what an asshole, sex, ham sandwich, sex, sex, etc
When you peel back the layers of the anti-choice motivation, it always comes back to two things: What is the nature and purpose of human sexuality? And second, what is the role of women in the world? Sex and the role of women are inextricably linked, because if you can separate sex from procreation, you have given women the ability to participate in society on an equal basis with men.
A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.
In your thirties, you're much more comfortable with sex. First of all, sex is something you've done more. You know you can have sex just to have sex; you can have sex with friends; you can have sex with people you love; you can have sex with people you don't like, but the sex is good. And you can joke about sex much more.
The terms 'male' and 'female' must be understood as representing no mere primitive opposition of sex to sex; but as defining two worlds of differing quality, in either of which men and women may jointly move and live.
I was groomed as a so-called sex symbol, a rival to Marilyn Monroe, and from then on, whenever my picture appeared in paper, it was 'sex kitten,' 'sex symbol,' 'sex goddess,' 'sex pot.' I've accepted it, and I'm flattered, but in some ways, it's been a hindrance to me because I haven't been able to be taken seriously as an actress.
If we keep on talking about masculine and feminine and following those stereotypes, then we will make women suppress and despise their so called masculine qualities and men suppress and despise their so called feminine ones, and that's where all the trouble starts.
It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary. The contrary would be to say that sex creates oppression, or to say that the cause (origin) of oppression is to be found in sex itself, in a natural division of the sexes preexisting (or outside of) society.
Why are sex and violence always linked? I'm afraid they'll blur together in people's minds - sexandviolence - until we can't tell them apart. I expect to hear a newscaster say, "The mob became unruly and the police were forced to resort to sex."
Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind and spirit — qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected.
Love is the creative refinement of sex energy. And so, when love reaches perfection, the absence of sex automatically follows. A life of love, an abstinence from physical pleasures is called brahmacharya, and anyone who wishes to be free from sex must develop his capacity to love. Freedom from sex cannot be achieved through supersession. Liberation from sex is only possible through love.
What is sex addiction? I asked a doctor and the guys goes, Sex addiction... People will end up doing something they don't want to do just for sex. Isn't that called a first date, man? If sex was the result of something I wanted to do, there'd be condoms all over my PlayStation.
War to me is very much like sex. You can develop a theory that says sex is primarily for the exchange of genetic material, or that it's a celebration of life, or you can make up 50,000 theories about why human beings have sex, all of which are in some sense true, all of which by themselves miss the point. Because the answer is extraordinarily complex. It may be for fun, it may be for reproduction, for financial reasons, any number of things.