Sexually Stimulating Quotes

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Ah, lust. It makes us forget anything we want to. The greatest relaxant, the greatest stimulant.
James Lusarde (The Apartment of Sex)
Is the beauty myth good to men? It hurts them by teaching them how to avoid loving women. It prevents men from actually seeing women. It does not, contrary to its own professed ideology, stimulate and gratify sexual longing. In suggesting a vision in place of a woman, it has a numbing effect, reducing all senses but the visual, and impairing even that.
Naomi Wolf
When certain parts of our bodies are touched, certain enzymes and chemicals that trigger sexual desire are released into our system. The more our bodies are stimulated, the more chemicals are released and the greater our sexual desire grows until it becomes a virtually unstoppable flood.
Myles Munroe (Waiting and Dating: A Sensible Guide to a Fulfilling Love Relationship)
Stimulating a woman’s imaginings is the single most potent talent you can develop in any context of a relationship.
Rollo Tomassi (The Rational Male)
Most sexually adventurous women want a man who regards cunnilingus as a basic woman right.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Physical attraction was about aesthetics, not sexual performance, not mental stimulation. Without a mental connection, a remarkable sexual performance yielded no lifelong guarantees. It was only lust. And lust was not love.
Eric Jerome Dickey (Pleasure (Nia #1))
Proust so titillates my own desire for expression that I can hardly set out the sentence. Oh if I could write like that! I cry. And at the moment such is the astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification that he procures—there’s something sexual in it—that I feel I can write like that, and seize my pen and then I can’t write like that. Scarcely anyone so stimulates the nerves of language in me: it becomes an obsession. But I must return to Swann. My great adventure is really Proust. Well—what remains to be written after that? I’m only in the first volume, and there are, I suppose, faults to be found, but I am in a state of amazement; as if a miracle were being done before my eyes. How, at last, has someone solidified what has always escaped—and made it too into this beautiful and perfectly enduring substance? One has to put the book down and gasp. The pleasure becomes physical—like sun and wine and grapes and perfect serenity and intense vitality combined. Jacques Raverat...sent me a letter about Mrs Dalloway which gave me one of the happiest moments days of my life. I wonder if this time I have achieved something? Well, nothing anyhow compared with Proust, in whom I am embedded now. The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut & as evanescent as a butterfly's bloom. And he will I suppose both influence me & make out of temper with every sentence of my own.
Virginia Woolf
Breast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.
Ina May Gaskin (Ina May's Guide to Childbirth: Updated With New Material)
Pornography causes release of adrenaline from an area in the brain called the locus coeruleus, and this makes the heart race in those who view, or even anticipate, viewing pornography. The sexual pleasure of pornography may be partially caused by release of dopamine from the ventral tegmental area, and this stimulates the nucleus accumbens, one of the key pleasure centers of the brain.
Donald L. Hilton Jr. (He Restoreth my Soul)
I feel like there’s a genuine hole in me. The little death, almost. I need stimulation. I used to need physical stimulation constantly, whether that be from listening to the sound of my own voice, or flirting with guys or girls. I’m not bisexual, but that moment when you realise someone likes you – it’s the best feeling in the world. If you could bottle it..
Matt Healy
I don't think I could ever live with either a man or a woman for a long time. Male and female are attractive to my mind, but when it comes to the sexual act I am afraid. In every situation I need a lot of stimulation before I am conquered by the forces of passion and lust. But confusion, before and after, is the dominant factor. I dreamed many times about a mature man with experience who would have the vigour of a boy but an adult's polished methods. Strangely enough, I also dreamed about women of my mother's age who were ideal lovers. These dreams came superimposed on one another. Sometimes the masculine element was dominant, sometimes the feminine one. At other times I wasn't sure. I saw a female body with male organs or a male body with female ones. These pictures, blended together in my mind, occasionally brought pleasure but more often pain.
Adam Thirlwell (Politics)
Most men are more interested in their erection, and what they will get afterwards to be focused enough to stay in tune with their woman’s needs while pleasuring them,” I explained. “Because women are stimulated so differently, and because their arousal and release begins at a different place to a man’s, the man needs to be totally committed and patient. This is not a miracle solution for millions of frustrated women – it’s just common sense. But with the right attitude a man who knows this technique has within him the ability to sexual enslave a woman. It’s been my experience that once a woman has enjoyed this kind of an orgasm, they become desperate for more of the same.
Jason Luke (In Love with a Master (Interview with a Master, #2))
Outside the school's walls the Swinging Sixties are in full cry, but inside them the band of Empire plays on. Twice-daily chapel services praise the school's war dead to the detriment of its living, value the white man above lesser breeds, and preach chastity to boys who can find sexual stimulation in a Times editorial.
John le Carré (Absolute Friends)
Persons Are Turned against Themselves Evil also turns a person against herself so that self is used against self. The case of the woman who received a dismissal letter from her pastor comes to mind again. The psychological decompensation she suffered was successfully used by her husband to intercede with a psychiatrist of his choosing to commit her to the mental unit of a hospital for an extended involuntary stay, which further worsened her condition. Additional examples abound. Some patients report cults using induced hypnotic states to encourage a subject's dissociated hands and arms to do something hurtful to someone else. In such cases, the subject is encouraged to watch the hand that is hers but not hers (because it is dissociated from her). The end result is often extreme guilt. self-loathing, and distrust of one's self and motives.An incestuous parent may use a child's own natural bodily responses to repeated sexual stimulation to make the point that the child really "wants and enjoys“ what is being forced upon her.
J. Jeffrey Means (Trauma and Evil: Healing the Wounded Soul)
When you feel sexual lust or desire for any woman, breathe deeply and allow the feeling of desire to magnify. And allow it to magnify more. Don’t let the energy become lodged in your head or genitals, but circulate it throughout your body. Using your breath as the instrument of circulation, bathe every cell in the stimulated energy. Inhale it into your heart, and then feel outward from your heart, feeling the world as if it were your lover. With an exhale, move into the world and penetrate it, skillfully and spontaneously, opening it into love.
David Deida (The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire)
I have never seen a place like Paris for varieties of sexual provender. as soon as a woman loses a front tooth or an eye or a leg she goes on the lose. In America she'd starve to death if she had nothing to recommend her but a mutilation. Here it is different. A missing tooth or a nose eaten away or a fallen womb, any misfortune that aggravates the natural homeliness of the female, seems to be regarded as an added spice, a stimulant for the jaded appetites of the male.
Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer (Tropic, #1))
Sometimes life is intensely interesting and meaningful, and this meaning seems to be an objective fact, like sunlight. At other times it's as meaningless and futile as the wind. We accept this eclipse of meaning as we accept changes in the weather. If I wake up with a bad cold or a headache, I seem to be deaf to meaning. Now if I woke up physically deaf or half-blind, I'd feel there was something wrong and consult a doctor. But when I'm deaf to meaning, I accept it as something natural. Esmond didn't accept it as natural. And he also noticed that every time we're sexually stimulated, meaning returns. We can hear again. So he pursued sex as a way of recovering meaning.
Colin Wilson
Pornography, in my opinion, has been much misunderstood, for it doesn't develop sex fiends and send them roaming alleyways - it is an anodyne for the sexually oppressed and unrequited, for what is the aim of pornography if not to stimulate masturbation? And surely masturbation is the pleasanter alternative for men "on the muscle," as they say in horse-breeding circles.
Truman Capote (Answered Prayers)
The reactionary of any kind condemns sexual pleasure because it stimulates and repulses him at the same time. He is unable to solve the conflict within him between sexual demands and moralistic inhibitions. The revolutionary refutes the perverse, unhealthy kind of pleasure, because it is not his kind of pleasure, because it is not the sexuality of the future, but the sexuality which results from the conflict between instinct and morals, the sexuality of authoritarian society, a debased, smutty, pathological sexuality.
Wilhelm Reich (The Mass Psychology of Fascism)
Sex becomes less and less pleasurable in a relationship over time. Your brain gets habituated to the sensual stimulation from your specific partner as you are exposed to it repeatedly. It doesn’t mean that the love is gone from the relationship. Love still exists beyond the barriers of time, in the form of attachment, which becomes independent of sexual intimacy after the euphoric stage of mad love.
Abhijit Naskar (What is Mind?)
The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business. The feasts of consumption sustain the economy, keep up the volume in the stock markets, employ the unemployable, excite the fevers of speculation and stimulate the passion for political and sexual novelty.
Lewis H. Lapham
Kings have always boasted that their slightest wishes were commands. The classic proof of their power and their success was their command of limitless amounts of food and drink, limitless quantities of clothes and jewels: the services of innumerable slaves, servants, and officials: limitless sensual stimulations, and not least, limitless opportunities for sexual intercourse, for even here erotic delight was measured in gross quantitative terms. The affluence that once was monopolized by the king and his court is now being held up as the ultimate gift of the power system to mankind at large.
Lewis Mumford (The Pentagon of Power (The Myth of the Machine, Vol 2))
In the American way of life pleasure involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. Pleasure, so defined, has little to do with the past and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. The reduction of individuals to objects of pleasure is especially evident in the culture industries--television, radio, video, music. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort. These images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values--love, care, service to others--handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward of self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.
Cornel West
In both cases, women are expected to sacrifice their comfort and freedom to service the requirements of male sexuality: either to repress or to stimulate the male sex urge.
Geraldine Brooks (Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women)
It was his first understanding that physical attraction, even sexual desire, was stimulated by more than the perfection of a body, or the beauty of a face.
John Irving (Until I Find You)
Both men and women today want a marriage in which they can receive emotional and sexual satisfaction from someone who will simply let them “be themselves.” They want a spouse who is fun, intellectually stimulating, sexually attractive, with many common interests, and who, on top of it all, is supportive of their personal goals and of the way they are living now.
Timothy J. Keller (The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God)
Physical attraction was about aesthetics, not sexual performance, not mental stimulation. Without a mental connection, a remarkable sexual performance yielded no lifelong guarantees.
Eric Jerome Dickey (Pleasure (Nia #1))
Do human females get sexual pleasure from stimulating the expulsion port?” Troy asked, his mouth gaping as the female’s body subconsciously began to rock in response to Tralec’s finger against her bottom.
Breanna Hayse (Skylar's Guardians)
Winning the love of a higher-status person is a widespread strategy for stimulating serotonin. Of course, we don’t consciously equate love with status. But when a highstatus person of the right gender notices you, your brain lights up. Your neurochemistry screams “Go toward this. It is very good for your survival. ” Even bonobos, the apes known for their sexual dynamism, compete vigorously for high-status partners
Anonymous
The explains why basal levels of testosterone have little to do with subsequent aggression, and why increases in testosterone due to puberty, sexual stimulation, or the start of mating season don’t increase aggression either.
Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
When he wrote back, he pretended to be his old self, he lied his way into sanity. For fear of his psychiatrist who was also their censor, they could never be sensual, or even emotional. His was considered a modern, enlightened prison, despite its Victorian chill. He had been diagnosed, with clinical precision, as morbidly oversexed, and in need of help as well as correction. He was not to be stimulated. Some letters—both his and hers—were confiscated for some timid expression of affection. So they wrote about literature, and used characters as codes. All those books, those happy or tragic couples they had never met to discuss! Tristan and Isolde the Duke Orsino and Olivia (and Malvolio too), Troilus and Criseyde, Once, in despair, he referred to Prometheus, chained to a rock, his liver devoured daily by a vulture. Sometimes she was patient Griselde. Mention of “a quiet corner in a library” was a code for sexual ecstasy. They charted the daily round too, in boring, loving detail. He described the prison routine in every aspect, but he never told her of its stupidity. That was plain enough. He never told her that he feared he might go under. That too was clear. She never wrote that she loved him, though she would have if she thought it would get through. But he knew it. She told him she had cut herself off from her family. She would never speak to her parents, brother or sister again. He followed closely all her steps along the way toward her nurse’s qualification. When she wrote, “I went to the library today to get the anatomy book I told you about. I found a quiet corner and pretended to read,” he knew she was feeding on the same memories that consumed him “They sat down, looked at each other, smiled and looked away. Robbie and Cecilia had been making love for years—by post. In their coded exchanges they had drawn close, but how artificial that closeness seemed now as they embarked on their small talk, their helpless catechism of polite query and response. As the distance opened up between them, they understood how far they had run ahead of themselves in their letters. This moment had been imagined and desired for too long, and could not measure up. He had been out of the world, and lacked the confidence to step back and reach for the larger thought. I love you, and you saved my life. He asked about her lodgings. She told him. “And do you get along all right with your landlady?” He could think of nothing better, and feared the silence that might come down, and the awkwardness that would be a prelude to her telling him that it had been nice to meet up again. Now she must be getting back to work. Everything they had, rested on a few minutes in a library years ago. Was it too frail? She could easily slip back into being a kind of sister. Was she disappointed? He had lost weight. He had shrunk in every sense. Prison made him despise himself, while she looked as adorable as he remembered her, especially in a nurse’s uniform. But she was miserably nervous too, incapable of stepping around the inanities. Instead, she was trying to be lighthearted about her landlady’s temper. After a few more such exchanges, she really was looking at the little watch that hung above her left breast, and telling him that her lunch break would soon be over.
Ian McEwan (Atonement)
It is noteworthy, however, that this areas also contains neurons which when stimulated can trigger female sexual posturing (Benson, 1988; Rose, 1990); i.e. the lordosis (or "doggie") position. These latter neurons are interconnected with the amygdala and ventromedial hypothalamus--nuclei
R. Joseph (Brain: Neuroscience. Neuropsychology, Neuropsychiatry, Mind: Introduction, Primer, Overview)
Mephistopheles' contentious, often ambiguous relationship to Faustus is a reference to tantra just as it is to alchemy. It resembles the shifting tactics of a guru who varies his approach to his pupil in order to dissolve his resistances and prepare him for wider states of consciousness. Both Faustus and the tantric aspirant stimulate and indulge their senses under the guidance of their teachers who encourage them to have sexual encounters with women in their dreams. Both work with magical diagrams or yantras, exhibit extraordinary will, "fly" on visionary journeys, acquire powers of teleportation, invisibility, prophecy, and healing, and have ritual intercourse with women whom they visualize as goddesses. The tantrist [sic] is said to become omniscient as a result of his sacred "marriage," and Faustus produces an omniscient child in his union with the visualized Helen, or Sophia.
Ramona Fradon (The Gnostic Faustus)
I thought to do something good by giving an interview to People, which was exceedingly foolish of me. I asked Aaron [Asher] to tell you that the Good Intentions Paving Company had fucked up again. The young interviewer turned my opinions inside out, cut out the praises and made it all sound like disavowal, denunciation and excommunication. Well, we're both used to this kind of thing, and beyond shock. In agreeing to take the call, and make a statement I was simply muddle-headed. But if I had been interviewed by an angel for the Seraphim and Cherubim Weekly I'd have said, as I actually did say to the crooked little slut, that you were one of our very best and most interesting writers. I would have added that I was greatly stimulated and entertained by your last novel, and that of course after three decades I understood perfectly well what you were saying about the writer's trade - how could I not understand, or miss suffering the same pains. Still our diagrams are different, and the briefest description of the differences would be that you seem to have accepted the Freudian explanation: A writer is motivated by his desire for fame, money and sexual opportunities. Whereas I have never taken this trinity of motives seriously. But this is an explanatory note and I don't intend to make a rabbinic occasion of it. Please accept my regrets and apologies, also my best wishes. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about the journalists; we can only hope that they will die off as the deerflies do towards the end of August.
Saul Bellow
EXERCISE Creating Authentic Relationships The questions below deal with issues most people take for granted and let society define for them. You can start with a blank canvas and create your own definitions. • How do you define intimacy and closeness? • What constitutes a relationship for you? • Are there different types of relationships you wish you could have? • How long should a significant relationship last? • What is sex? Is it intercourse? Is it more specific: penis-in-vagina or penis-in-ass intercourse? What about manual stimulation and penetration, oral sex, sex toys, BDSM play? • What kinds of things do you consider intimate? Sex, sexual touch, genital contact, a BDSM scene with no sexual aspect? • Must you live near a partner for a relationship to be important? • How do you define fidelity? • What constitutes loving, affectionate, sexual, and romantic behavior? Where do things like flirting, kissing, love letters, gift giving, dating, courting, phone calls, emails, and instant messages fit into your definitions? • What does commitment mean to you? How do you define a committed relationship? • What are the most important things you need in a relationship? • How important is it for you to live with a partner? • Realistically , how much time and energy do you have to give to a relationship?  
Tristan Taormino (Opening Up: A Guide To Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships)
One of the best ways to understand how filters shape our individual experience is to think in terms of our information diet. As sociologist danah boyd said in a speech at the 2009 Web 2.0 Expo: Our bodies are programmed to consume fat and sugars because they’re rare in nature.... In the same way, we’re biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we’re not careful, we’re going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We’ll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole.
Eli Pariser (The Filter Bubble)
Woman is only sexual, man is partly sexual, and this difference reveals itself in various ways. The parts of the male body by stimulation of which sexuality is excited are limited in area, and are strongly localised, whilst in the case of the woman, they are diffused over her whole body, so that stimulation may take place almost from any part. When in the second chapter of Part I., I explained that sexuality is distributed over the whole body of both sexes, I did not mean that, therefore, the sense organs, through which the definite impulses are stimulated, were equally distributed. There are, certainly, areas of greater excitability, even in the case of the woman, but there is not, as in the man, a sharp division between the sexual areas and the body generally. The morphological isolation of the sexual area from the rest of the body in the case of man, may be taken as symbolical of the relation of sex to his whole nature. Just as there is a contrast between the sexual and the sexless parts of a man's body, so there is a time-change in his sexuality. The female is always sexual, the male is sexual only intermittently. The sexual instinct is always active in woman (as to the apparent exceptions to this sexuality of women, I shall have to speak later on), whilst in man it is at rest from time to time. And thus it happens that the sexual impulse of the male is eruptive in character and so appears stronger. The real difference between the sexes is that in the male the desire is periodical, in the female continuous.
Otto Weininger (Sex and Character: An Investigation of Fundamental Principles)
The orgasm is an explosion of energy that escapes from the conductors that should manage it. That overcharge spills out of the sexual organs, out of the chakras, and into the surrounding ganglia, into the nadis. This is why people experience tremors, shaking, vibrations, involuntary shudders, shouts, screams, etc: the energy of Eden is racing thorugh the nervous systems. We think it is "pleasurable," because the root energy is from Eden (bliss), but what we do not realize is that a short circuit destroys the conductor. That is, the orgasm destroys the nervous system, gradually. This is why people who have a lot of sex, gradually lose their sexual power. People who repeat the orgasm gradually lose the ability to have it. They become impotent or become indifferent to sex because their energetic centers become burned out. Now, this is why everybody takes chemicals to stimulate their sex drive. This is why pornography became so popular, because it is an artificial stimulation for the sexual energy. This is also why people move towards more and more extreme sexual interests, because the areas that stimulated them previously become "burned out.
Samael Aun Weor
Another dynamic aspect of the sexual conversion of basic needs is the pleasure of sexual orgasm itself. When one is shamed through abandonment, the pain is deep and profound. One feels worthless; one feels painfully diminished and exposed. When one experiences sexual stimulation and climax, one has available an all-encompassing and powerful pleasure. This pleasure can take the place of any other need. In a poignant passage, Kaufman sums up the process of converting all needs into sexuality. He writes: A young boy who learns never to need anything emotionally from his parents is . . . faced with a dilemma whenever he feels young, needy or otherwise insecure. If masturbating has been his principle source of good feeling . . . he may resort to masturbation in order to restore good feelings about self at times when he is experiencing needs quite unrelated to sexuality.
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
It is recognised now that Freud never gave proper attention, even in man, to growth of the ego or self: 'the impulse to master, control or come to self-fulfilling terms with the environment'. Analysts who have freed themselves from Freud's bias and joined other behavioural scientists in studying the human need, and that interference with it, in any dimension, is the source of psychic trouble. The sexual is only one dimension of the human potential. Freud saw women only in terms of their sexual relationship with men. But in all those women in whom he saw sexual problems, there must have been very severe problems of blocked growth, growth short of full human identity -- an immature, incomplete self. Society as it was then, by explicit denial of education and independence, prevented women from realising their full potential, or from attaining those interests and ideals that might stimulated their growth. Freud reported these deficiencies, but could only explain them as the toll of 'penis envy'. He saw that women who secretly hungered to be man's equal would not enjoy being his object; and in this, he seemed to be describing a fact. But when he dismissed woman's yearning for equality as 'penis envy', was he not merely stating his own view that woman could never really be man's equal, any more than she could wear his penis?
Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique)
Perhaps discipline will be restored in our civilization through the military training required by the challenges of war. The freedom of the part varies with the security of the whole; individualism will diminish in America and England as geographical protection ceases. Sexual license may cure itself through its own excess; our unmoored children may live to see order and modesty become fashionable; clothing will be more stimulating than nudity.
Will Durant (The Lessons of History)
Since the end of the postwar economic boom, certain strategies have been intensified to stimulate consumption, especially strategies aimed at American youth that project sexual activity as instant fulfillment and violence as the locus of machismo identity. This market activity has contributed greatly to the disorientation and confusion of American youth, and those with less education and fewer opportunities bear the brunt of this cultural chaos.
Cornel West
It has been found to possess antibiotic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic, expectorant, antifungal, immune-stimulating, antiallergenic, laxative, antianemic, and tonic properties. Because honey increases calcium absorption in the body, it is also recommended for women in menopause to help prevent osteoporosis. In clinical trials, honey has been found to be especially effective in treating stomach ulceration (especially if caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria), infected wounds, severe skin ulceration, and respiratory illnesses.
Stephen Harrod Buhner (The Natural Testosterone Plan: For Sexual Health and Energy)
Just as there are substances that increase androgen levels and androgenic activity in men, there are also substances that can significantly lower or suppress them. If you are having trouble with your levels of testosterone or your androgen/estrogen ratio, you should especially avoid consuming any quantity of licorice, black cohosh, and hops. Each of these plants contains substances that are either potent estrogens, act as androgen antagonists, or interfere with the conversion of prohormones into androgens, or stimulate the conversion of androgens into estrogens.
Stephen Harrod Buhner (The Natural Testosterone Plan: For Sexual Health and Energy)
Libido, in Freud’s account, begins as inwardly (narcissistically) directed, and is only secondarily directed toward objects. Freud used this pattern as a template for understanding the aggressive drive as well. Thus he suggested that aggression also begins as inwardly directed, derived from a death instinct. The baby begins life with both self-directed love and self-directed destructiveness. This revised Freudian infant, now infused with both sexual and aggressive energies, is often in a state of heightened tension, within which she may be indiscriminately aroused, stimulated by both libidinal and aggressive feelings, pleasure and pain. From
Stephen A. Mitchell (Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought)
The women’s bladders filled remarkably fast during sexual stimulation. There was urine before orgasm and their bladders were empty after squirting. The squirted fluid was identified in the lab as urine. Why does this happen? It is possible when women report squirting that they are simply having an orgasm strong enough for the pelvic floor muscles to empty their bladder, which is why it is associated with heightened pleasure. It is also possible that a more intense sexual response could result in a faster filling of the bladder. It is also possible that some women have a lot of transudate—meaning they get very wet—during sex. When they orgasm, that fluid could come out all at once.
Jennifer Gunter (The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine)
Though diagnosis is unquestionably critical in treatment considerations for many severe conditions with a biological substrate (for example, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, major affective disorders, temporal lobe epilepsy, drug toxicity, organic or brain disease from toxins, degenerative causes, or infectious agents), diagnosis is often counterproductive in the everyday psychotherapy of less severely impaired patients. Why? For one thing, psychotherapy consists of a gradual unfolding process wherein the therapist attempts to know the patient as fully as possible. A diagnosis limits vision; it diminishes ability to relate to the other as a person. Once we make a diagnosis, we tend to selectively inattend to aspects of the patient that do not fit into that particular diagnosis, and correspondingly overattend to subtle features that appear to confirm an initial diagnosis. What’s more, a diagnosis may act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Relating to a patient as a “borderline” or a “hysteric” may serve to stimulate and perpetuate those very traits. Indeed, there is a long history of iatrogenic influence on the shape of clinical entities, including the current controversy about multiple-personality disorder and repressed memories of sexual abuse. And keep in mind, too, the low reliability of the DSM personality disorder category (the very patients often engaging in longer-term psychotherapy).
Irvin D. Yalom (The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients)
I wrote an article once about the color pink. I interviewed Dr. Windfree Bennet, a psychiatrist and New Age Colour Therapist. Dr. Bennet theorized that women who prefer the color pink over other colors are sexually repressed and therefore hypersexual. He said pink does not appear on the color spectrum. It is actually made up of several other colors, including red, which arouses base sexual instincts, and orange, which stimulates internal sexual organs. Who knew I was stimulating my internal sexual organs just by looking at my shirt? All this time I thought I liked the color pink because of some desire to recapture my childhood, when in reality I am just some perv secretly stimulating my internal sexual organs.
Leah Marie Brown (Faking It (It Girls, #1))
(b) Boundary Violation. This involves children witnessing parents in sexual behavior. They may walk in on it because parents don’t provide closed or locked doors. It also involves the children being allowed no privacy. They are walked in on in the bathroom. They are not taught to lock their doors or given permission to lock their doors. Parents need to model appropriate nudity, i.e., need to be clothed appropriately after a certain age. Children are sexually curious. Beginning at around age three or between ages three and six, children start noticing parents’ bodies. They are often obsessed with nudity. Mom and Dad need to be careful walking around nude with young children. If Mom is not being stimulated sexually, the nudity is not sexual misconduct. She simply is acting in a dysfunctional way. She is not setting sexual boundaries.
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
Man is the first product of evolution to be capable of controlling evolutionary destiny.'" Endowed as he is with reasoning powers, he must independently decide up on his own behavior, without the compelling guidance by instinct. Supplied with mind, he is expected to cooperate consciously with nature in her further evolutionary program. Unfortunately humanity has arrantly failed to make a serious effort to promote its own further progress. Instead of using the power of the mind to understand the responsibilities which freedom from blind obedience to instinct entails, mankind has refused to listen whenever it was reminded of the requirements of the evolutionary law. It was so much easier to lend an ear to the promptings of desire, which was an unknown element up to the human stage. It must have been very soon after the acquisition of mental self-consciousness and his becoming aware of stirrings of primitive impulses, that man began to use the mind to stimulate the desires of the body. In this way he has indulged the almost negligible sexual impulse which he inherited from the animal kingdom, until it has become a desire so strong that he has difficulty to control it. Overstimulated by this unnaturally strong desire of his own making, man has looked for arbitrary ways in which to gratify it. Although reducing actual reproduction, he has discovered ways of unreproductive sexual action. But every such act, whatever form it takes, is a misuse of sex and uses up some of the life force that should be utilized for the support and the development of higher faculties. "The record of our race progress clearly shows how our upward movement has been checked ... by that misuse.
C.J. Van Vliet (The Coiled Serpent: A Philosophy Of Conservation And Transmutation Of Reproductive Energy)
Some writers have even argued that it may be possible to wean sex offenders away from their criminal activities through the use of pornography - with pornography acting as a substitute for sexual acts rather than a stimulant. This ties in with the argument that the pro-censorship lobby fails to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and to recognise that many people - including feminists! - can behave in perfectly decent, moral and non-abusive ways whilst enjoying `politically incorrect’ sexual fantasies. The assumption that fantasy leads to crimes of abuse is both highly contentious and inevitably seems to ‘criminalise’ sexual fantasy. Moreover, the argument that exposure to pornography causes men to act in a violent or abusive way towards women is surely undermined by even a casual look at human history and at the contemporary world.
Richard Dunphy (Sexual Politics: An Introduction)
Treating Abuse Today 3(4) pp. 26-33 The national discussion regarding the veridical truth of memories of childhood abuse will have a beneficial effect. Therapists will be reminded that dire consequences can ensue from poor practice, careless technique, and unchecked countertransference and parallel process. Hopefully, it will also stimulate legitimate research into the nature of traumatic memory. Unfortunately, the polemic often has been hysterical, scapegoating, accusatory, speculative, rumor driven, biased and antiempirical. Since many members of the FMSF, Inc. Scientific Advisory Board are frequent professional witnesses for the defense in cases of alleged sexual abuse, we questioned whether the organization was acting more as an advocate for a previously determined position or whether it was truly taking a scientific approach to determining the veridical truth of recollections of child abuse.
David L. Calof
Many ancient teachings tell us that we have the capacity to gain extraordinary powers through grit or grace. Techniques used to achieve these supernormal abilities, known as siddhis in the yoga tradition (from the Sanskrit, meaning “perfection”2, 5), include meditation, ecstatic dancing, drumming, praying, chanting, sexual practices, fasting, or ingesting psychedelic plants and mushrooms. In modern times, techniques also include participation in extreme sports, floating in isolation tanks, use of transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation, listening to binaural-beat audio tones, and neurofeedback. Most of these techniques are ways of transcending the mundane. Those who yearn to escape from suffering or boredom may dive into a cornucopia of sedatives and narcotics. Others, drawn to the promise of a more meaningful reality, or a healthier mind and body, are attracted to yoga, meditation, or other mind-expanding or mind-body integrating techniques.
Dean Radin (Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence for Extraordinary Psychic Abilities)
SATANIC SEX The prevalence of deviant and/or fetishistic behavior in our society would stagger the imagination of the sexually naïve. There are more sexual variants than the unenlightened individual can perceive: transvestism, sadism, masochism, urolagnia, exhibitionism - to name only a few of the more predominate. Everyone has some form of fetish, but because they are unaware of the preponderance of fetishistic activity in our society, they feel they are depraved if they submit to their "unnatural yearnings. * *Fetishism is not only practiced by human beings, but by animals, as well. The fetish is an integral ingredient in the sex-lives of animals. The sexual odor, for example, is necessary for one animal to become sexually aroused by another. Laboratory tests have shown that when an animal is scientifically deodorized, it loses sexual attractiveness to the other animals. The stimulation provided by sexual odor is also enjoyed by man, although he will often deny it.
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
Pornography can be harmful to sexual healing in many ways. It conveys the idea of unlimited sexual access to women, children, and men. Pornography exploits the people who act in it as well as the public who buys it. It uses sexual stimulation to make money, reinforcing the commodity view of sex. Pornography evokes strong emotions, such as fear and shame, and encourages sexual arousal to abusive ideas and images. Pornography often depicts sex from the perspective of someone who has unsafe, impulsive, compulsive, and extreme sexual interests. It frequently perpetuates destructive and false impressions about sex. People are reduced to objects that are used for stimulation and that can be controlled by other people. Staged scenes in porn can make sexual violence and humiliation appear pleasurable, increasing our tolerance of coercion in sexual relationships. The sex in porn is typically devoid of genuine affection, respect, responsibility, and connection. And without these pillars of healthy sex, it tends to reinforce a type of sex that can never fully satisfy.
Wendy Maltz (The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse)
Blaine: THE HAND-SCAN SPECTRUM MAGNIFIER IS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL ALSO CAPABLE OF ADMINISTERING MINOR FIRST AID, SUCH AS I HAVE PERFORMED ON YOU. IT IS ALSO A NUTRIENT DELIVERY SYSTEM, A BRAIN-PATTERN RECORDING DEVICE, A STRESS-ANALYZER, AND AN EMOTION-ENHANCER WHICH CAN NATURALLY STIMULATE THE PRODUCTION OF ENDORPHINS. HAND-SCAN IS ALSO CAPABLE OF CREATING VERY BELIEVABLE ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS. WOULD YOU CARE TO HAVE YOUR FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCE WITH A NOTED SEX-GODDESS FROM YOUR LEVEL OF THE TOWER, JAKE OF NEW YORK? PERHAPS MARILYN MONROE, RAQUEL WELCH, OR EDITH BUNKER? Jake: (laughter; guessing that laughing at Blaine might be risky, but this time he cannot help it) There IS no Edith Bunker. She's just a character on a TV show. The actress's name is, um, Jean Stapleton. Also, she looks like Mrs. Shaw. She's our housekeeper. Nice, but not--you know--a babe. Blaine: (silence) I CRY YOUR PARDON, JAKE OF NEW YORK. I ALSO WITHDRAW MY OFFER OF A SEXUAL EXPERIENCE. Jake: (sounding suitably humble hopefully) That's okay, Blaine. I think I'm still a little young for that, anyway.
Stephen King (Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4))
FROM THE WAVERLEY KITCHEN JOURNAL Angelica - Will shape its meaning to your need, but it is particularly good for calming hyper children at your table. Anise Hyssop - Eases frustration and confusion. Bachelor’s Button - Aids in finding things that were previously hidden. A clarifying flower. Chicory - Conceals bitterness. Gives the eater a sense that all is well. A cloaking flower. Chive Blossom - Ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings. Dandelion - A stimulant encouraging faithfulness. Frequent side effects are blindness to flaws and spontaneous apologies. Honeysuckle - For seeing in the dark, but only if you use honeysuckle from a brush of vines at least two feet thick. A clarifying flower. Hyacinth Bulb - Causes melancholy and thoughts of past regrets. Use only dried bulbs. A time-travel flower. Lavender - Raises spirits. Prevents bad decisions resulting from fatigue or depression. Lemon Balm - Upon consumption, for a brief period of time the eater will think and feel as he did in his youth. Please note if you have any former hellions at your table before serving. A time-travel flower. Lemon Verbena - Produces a lull in conversation with a mysterious lack of awkwardness. Helpful when you have nervous, overly talkative guests. Lilac - When a certain amount of humility is in order. Gives confidence that humbling yourself to another will not be used against you. Marigold - Causes affection, but sometimes accompanied by jealousy. Nasturtium - Promotes appetite in men. Makes women secretive. Secret sexual liaisons sometimes occur in mixed company. Do not let your guests out of your sight. Pansy - Encourages the eater to give compliments and surprise gifts. Peppermint - A clever method of concealment. When used with other edible flowers, it confuses the eater, thus concealing the true nature of what you are doing. A cloaking flower. Rose Geranium - Produces memories of past good times. Opposite of Hyacinth Bulb. A time-travel flower. Rose Petal - Encourages love. Snapdragon - Wards off the undue influences of others, particularly those with magical sensibilities. Squash and Zucchini Blossoms - Serve when you need to be understood. Clarifying flowers. Tulip - Gives the eater a sense of sexual perfection. A possible side effect is being susceptible to the opinions of others. Violet - A wonderful finish to a meal. Induces calm, brings on happiness, and always assures a good night’s sleep.
Sarah Addison Allen (Garden Spells (Waverly Family #1))
We tell the patient about the possibilities of other instinctual conflicts, and we arouse his expectation that such conflicts may occur in him. What we hope is that this information and this warning will have the effect of activating in him one of the conflicts we have indicated, in a modest degree and yet sufficiently for treatment. [...] The expected result does not come about. The patient hears our message, but there is no response. He may think to himself: 'This is very interesting, but I feel no trace of it.' We have increased his knowledge, but altered nothing else in him. The situation is much the same as when people read psycho-analytic writings. The reader is 'stimulated' only by those passages which he feels apply to himself — that is, which concern conflicts that are active in him at the time. Everything else leaves him cold. We can have analogous experiences, I think, when we give children sexual enlightenment. I am far from maintaining that this is a harmful or unnecessary thing to do, but it is clear that the prophylactic effect of this liberal measure has been greatly over-estimated. After such enlightenment, children know something they did not know before, but they make no use of the new knowledge that has been presented to them.
Sigmund Freud (Análisis terminable e interminable)
are out of balance, your life quality diminishes substantially. The hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone make us men and women. Every woman and man has different hormonal requirements. That’s why there is no “one pill fits all” solution. Your hormonal requirements are unique. What you need is different from what I need. This is what hormones “do”; now you might be wondering what they are made of—what they are exactly? A hormone is a chemical substance produced in your body by your glands. They are a complex combination of chemical keys that turn important metabolic locks in our cells, tissues, and organs. All the approximately sixty to ninety trillion cells in our bodies are influenced to some degree by these amazing hormonal keys. The turning on of these “locks” stimulates activity within the cells of our brain, intestines, muscles, genital organs, and skin. As such, hormones determine the rate at which our cells burn up nutrients and other food substances, release energy, and determine whether our cells should produce milk, hair, secretions, enzymes, or some other metabolic (life) product. Hormones affect virtually every function in your body. They affect your mood, how you cope, your sexuality, your sex drive. We all have hormones and without them
Suzanne Somers (I'm Too Young for This!: The Natural Hormone Solution to Enjoy Perimenopause)
In the material world, opulences are achieved by materialistic persons by dint of their labor. One cannot enjoy material prosperity unless he works very hard to achieve it. But the devotees of the Lord who are residents of Vaikuṇṭha have the opportunity to enjoy a transcendental situation of jewels and emeralds. Ornaments made of gold bedecked with jewels are achieved not by working hard but by the benediction of the Lord. In other words, devotees in the Vaikuṇṭha world, or even in this material world, cannot be poverty-stricken, as is sometimes supposed. They have ample opulences for enjoyment, but they need not labor to achieve them. It is also stated that in the Vaikuṇṭha world the consorts of the residents are many, many times more beautiful than we can find in this material world, even in the higher planets. It is specifically mentioned here that a woman’s large hips are very attractive and they stimulate man’s passion, but the wonderful feature of Vaikuṇṭha is that although the women have large hips and beautiful faces and are decorated with ornaments of emeralds and jewels, the men are so absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness that the beautiful bodies of the women cannot attract them. In other words, there is enjoyment of the association of the opposite sex, but there is no sexual relationship. The residents of Vaikuṇṭha have a better standard of pleasure, so there is no need of sex pleasure.
A.C. Prabhupāda (Srimad-Bhagavatam, Third Canto)
The fact is that the individual, though its genotypic sex is fixed at fertilisation, can be profoundly affected by the environment in which it develops. In the ants, bees, and termites the larval nutrition determines whether the genotypic female individual will become a fully developed female (‘queen’) or a sexually retarded worker. In these cases the whole organism is affected; but the gonads do not play a part in establishing the sexual differences of the body, or soma. In the vertebrates, however, the hormones secreted by the gonads are the essential regulators. Numerous experiments show that by varying the hormonal (endocrine) situation, sex can be profoundly affected. Grafting and castration experiments on adult animals and man have contributed to the modern theory of sexuality, according to which the soma is in a way identical in male and female vertebrates. It may be regarded as a kind of neutral element upon which the influence of the gonad imposes the sexual characteristics. Some of the hormones secreted by the gonad act as stimulators, others as inhibitors. Even the genital tract itself is somatic, and embryological investigations show that it develops in the male or female direction from an indifferent and in some respects hermaphroditic condition under the hormonal influence. Intersexuality may result when the hormones are abnormal and hence neither one of the two sexual potentialities is exclusively realised.
Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
Television’s greatest appeal is that it is engaging without being at all demanding. One can rest while undergoing stimulation. Receive without giving. It’s the same in all low art that has as goal continued attention and patronage: it’s appealing precisely because it’s at once fun and easy. And the entrenchment of a culture built on Appeal helps explain a dark and curious thing: at a time when there are more decent and good and very good serious fiction writers at work in America than ever before, an American public enjoying unprecedented literacy and disposable income spends the vast bulk of its reading time and book dollar on fiction that is, by any fair standard, trash. Trash fiction is, by design and appeal, most like televised narrative: engaging without being demanding. But trash, in terms of both quality and popularity, is a much more sinister phenomenon. For while television has from its beginnings been openly motivated by — has been about—considerations of mass appeal and L.C.D. and profit, our own history is chock-full of evidence that readers and societies may properly expect important, lasting contributions from a narrative art that understands itself as being about considerations more important than popularity and balance sheets. Entertainers can divert and engage and maybe even console; only artists can transfigure. Today’s trash writers are entertainers working artists’ turf. This in itself is nothing new. But television aesthetics, and television-like economics, have clearly made their unprecedented popularity and reward possible. And there seems to me to be a real danger that not only the forms but the norms of televised art will begin to supplant the standards of all narrative art. This would be a disaster. [...] Even the snottiest young artiste, of course, probably isn’t going to bear personal ill will toward writers of trash; just as, while everybody agrees that prostitution is a bad thing for everyone involved, few are apt to blame prostitutes themselves, or wish them harm. If this seems like a non sequitur, I’m going to claim the analogy is all too apt. A prostitute is someone who, in exchange for money, affords someone else the form and sensation of sexual intimacy without any of the complex emotions or responsibilities that make intimacy between two people a valuable or meaningful human enterprise. The prostitute “gives,” but — demanding nothing of comparable value in return — perverts the giving, helps render what is supposed to be a revelation a transaction. The writer of trash fiction, often with admirable craft, affords his customer a narrative structure and movement, and content that engages the reader — titillates, repulses, excites, transports him — without demanding of him any of the intellectual or spiritual or artistic responses that render verbal intercourse between writer and reader an important or even real activity." - from "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young
David Foster Wallace (Both Flesh and Not: Essays)
This transmutation of the reproductive energy gives great vitality to those practicing it. They will be filled with great vital force, which will radiate from them and will manifest in what has been called "personal magnetism." The energy thus transmuted may be turned into new channels and used to great advantage. Nature has condensed one of its most powerful manifestations of prana into reproductive energy, as its purpose is to create. The greatest amount of vital force is concentrated in the smallest area. The reproductive organism is the most powerful storage battery in animal life, and its force can be drawn upward and used, as well as expended in the ordinary functions of reproduction, or wasted in riotous lust. The majority of our students know something of the theories of regeneration; and we can do little more than to state the above facts, without attempting to prove them. The Yogi exercise for transmuting reproductive energy is simple. It is coupled with rhythmic breathing, and can be easily performed. It may be practiced at any time, but is specially recommended when one feels the instinct most strongly, at which time the reproductive energy is manifesting and may be most easily transmuted for regenerative purposes. The exercise is as follows: Keep the mind fixed on the idea of Energy, and away from ordinary sexual thoughts or imaginings. If these thoughts come into the mind do not be discouraged, but regard them as manifestations of a force which you intend using for the purposes of strengthening the body and mind. Lie passively or sit erect, and fix your mind on the idea of drawing the reproductive energy upward to the Solar Plexus, where it will be transmuted and stored away as a reserve force of vital energy. Then breathe rhythmically, forming the mental image of drawing up the reproductive energy with each inhalation. With each inhalation make a command of the Will that the energy be drawn upward from the reproductive organization to the Solar Plexus. If the rhythm is fairly established and the mental image is clear, you will be conscious of the upward passage of the energy, and will feel its stimulating effect. If you desire an increase in mental force, you may draw it up to the brain instead of to the Solar Plexus, by giving the mental command and holding the mental image of the transmission to the brain. The man or woman doing metal creative work, or bodily creative work, will be able to use this creative energy in their work by following the above exercise, drawing up the energy with the inhalation and sending it forth with the exhalation. In this last form of exercise, only such portions as are needed in the work will pass into the work being done, the balance remaining stored up in the Solar Plexus. You will understand, of course, that it is not the reproductive fluids which are drawn up and used, but the etheripranic energy which animates the latter, the soul of the reproductive organism, as it were. It is usual to allow the head to bend forward easily and naturally during the transmuting exercise.
William Walker Atkinson (The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath)
Auto-Zoomar. Talbert knelt in the a tergo posture, his palms touching the wing-like shoulder blades of the young woman. A conceptual flight. At ten-second intervals the Polaroid projected a photograph on to the screen beside the bed. He watched the auto-zoom close in on the union of their thighs and hips. Details of the face and body of the film actress appeared on the screen, mimetized elements of the planetarium they had visited that morning. Soon the parallax would close, establishing the equivalent geometry of the sexual act with the junctions of this wall and ceiling. ‘Not in the Literal Sense.’Conscious of Catherine Austin’s nervous hips as she stood beside him, Dr Nathan studied the photograph of the young woman. ‘Karen Novotny,’ he read off the caption. ‘Dr Austin, may I assure you that the prognosis is hardly favourable for Miss Novotny. As far as Talbert is concerned the young woman is a mere modulus in his union with the film actress.’ With kindly eyes he looked up at Catherine Austin. ‘Surely it’s self-evident - Talbert’s intention is to have intercourse with Miss Taylor, though needless to say not in the literal sense of that term.’ Action Sequence. Hiding among the traffic in the near-side lane, Koester followed the white Pontiac along the highway. When they turned into the studio entrance he left his car among the pines and climbed through the perimeter fence. In the shooting stage Talbert was staring through a series of colour transparencies. Karen Novotny waited passively beside him, her hands held like limp birds. As they grappled he could feel the exploding musculature of Talbert’s shoulders. A flurry of heavy blows beat him to the floor. Vomiting through his bloodied lips, he saw Talbert run after the young woman as she darted towards the car. The Sex Kit.‘In a sense,’ Dr Nathan explained to Koester, ‘one may regard this as a kit, which Talbert has devised, entitled “Karen Novotny” - it might even be feasible to market it commercially. It contains the following items: (1) Pad of pubic hair, (2) a latex face mask, (3) six detachable mouths, (4) a set of smiles, (5) a pair of breasts, left nipple marked by a small ulcer, (6) a set of non-chafe orifices, (7) photo cut-outs of a number of narrative situations - the girl doing this and that, (8) a list of dialogue samples, of inane chatter, (9) a set of noise levels, (10) descriptive techniques for a variety of sex acts, (11) a torn anal detrusor muscle, (12) a glossary of idioms and catch phrases, (13) an analysis of odour traces (from various vents), mostly purines, etc., (14) a chart of body temperatures (axillary, buccal, rectal), (15) slides of vaginal smears, chiefly Ortho-Gynol jelly, (16) a set of blood pressures, systolic 120, diastolic 70 rising to 200/150 at onset of orgasm . . . ’ Deferring to Koester, Dr Nathan put down the typescript. ‘There are one or two other bits and pieces, but together the inventory is an adequate picture of a woman, who could easily be reconstituted from it. In fact, such a list may well be more stimulating than the real thing. Now that sex is becoming more and more a conceptual act, an intellectualization divorced from affect and physiology alike, one has to bear in mind the positive merits of the sexual perversions. Talbert’s library of cheap photo-pornography is in fact a vital literature, a kindling of the few taste buds left in the jaded palates of our so-called sexuality.
J.G. Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition)
The ritual performance of Eucharist, and the communal memory on which it rests, in large measure generated the profound theological insights that unfolded in the first few centuries of Christian traditions. Early Christian worship orbited around a remarkable insight: God makes God’s own self vulnerable to the ecstasies and foibles of bodily human intimacy. “Take, eat,” Jesus says; “this is my body given for you” (Matthew 26:26). He says this with no guarantee whatsoever that this offering will be received well if at all. Notably, God initiates this moment of self-giving, and not in response to any request from God’s creatures but instead from God’s own desire for intimacy and union with us and indeed the rest of God’s creation. The audacity of Christian faith shimmers most vividly there, in a liturgical act routinely performed weekly by the vast majority of worldwide Christians and sometimes daily. Perhaps the rite’s repetition has blunted our collective awareness of the extravagance of that ostensibly simple act. Gathering to share a meal of bread and wine offers a profound declaration at the core of Christian faith: the meaning of human life and of the whole creation derives from the hope for communion. This is first and foremost God’s desire, which is only then the hope of God’s creatures. More audaciously still, this desire and this hope for communion constitutes the one story of the cosmos, of God’s own creation, to which Christian faith bears witness and in which Christians participate every time we celebrate the Eucharist. One further step remains to bring this theological audacity more fully into view: we can refresh our Christian witness to this profound story by turning to human sexual intimacy as a poignant instance of divine desire. Christians might readily imagine turning there when we experience such intimacy as ecstatically fulfilling; but we can also reflect on sexual intimacy, and perhaps especially so, when it leaves residual disappointment or even trauma in its wake. In all its delicate rhythms and relational frustrations, this bodily signpost in spiritual practice can stimulate Christian witness to the One Story—the deep desire and abiding hope for divine communion.7
Jay Emerson Emerson (Divine Communion: A Eucharistic Theology of Sexual Intimacy)
The ritual performance of Eucharist, and the communal memory on which it rests, in large measure generated the profound theological insights that unfolded in the first few centuries of Christian traditions. Early Christian worship orbited around a remarkable insight: God makes God’s own self vulnerable to the ecstasies and foibles of bodily human intimacy. “Take, eat,” Jesus says; “this is my body given for you” (Matthew 26:26). He says this with no guarantee whatsoever that this offering will be received well if at all. Notably, God initiates this moment of self-giving, and not in response to any request from God’s creatures but instead from God’s own desire for intimacy and union with us and indeed the rest of God’s creation. The audacity of Christian faith shimmers most vividly there, in a liturgical act routinely performed weekly by the vast majority of worldwide Christians and sometimes daily. Perhaps the rite’s repetition has blunted our collective awareness of the extravagance of that ostensibly simple act. Gathering to share a meal of bread and wine offers a profound declaration at the core of Christian faith: the meaning of human life and of the whole creation derives from the hope for communion. This is first and foremost God’s desire, which is only then the hope of God’s creatures. More audaciously still, this desire and this hope for communion constitutes the one story of the cosmos, of God’s own creation, to which Christian faith bears witness and in which Christians participate every time we celebrate the Eucharist. One further step remains to bring this theological audacity more fully into view: we can refresh our Christian witness to this profound story by turning to human sexual intimacy as a poignant instance of divine desire. Christians might readily imagine turning there when we experience such intimacy as ecstatically fulfilling; but we can also reflect on sexual intimacy, and perhaps especially so, when it leaves residual disappointment or even trauma in its wake. In all its delicate rhythms and relational frustrations, this bodily signpost in spiritual practice can stimulate Christian witness to the One Story—the deep desire and abiding hope for divine communion.
Jay Emerson Emerson (Divine Communion: A Eucharistic Theology of Sexual Intimacy)
Sexual plotting on the part of one player is in fact stimulated by disinterest or fear or loathing on the part of the other. A Master Player of finite sexuality chooses not to take these attitudes as a way of refusing the sexual game, but takes them to be part of the game. Thus my indifference or revulsion to your sexuality becomes in your masterful play a sexual indifference, a sexual revulsion. Suddenly I am no longer indifferent to your game, but indifferent to you within your game, and have ipso facto made myself your opponent. This is the plot of the classic pulp novel and of Hollywood romance: indifferent girl won by ardent boy.
James P. Carse (Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility)
The focus on self has led our society into a fascination with pleasure, emotional and sexual stimulation, and “personal fulfillment.” America’s compulsion for “maximum personhood” is evidenced everywhere.
Billy Graham (Billy graham in quotes)
Another dynamic aspect of the sexual conversion of basic needs is the pleasure of sexual orgasm itself. When one is shamed through abandonment, the pain is deep and profound. One feels worthless; one feels painfully diminished and exposed. When one experiences sexual stimulation and climax, one has available an all-encompassing and powerful pleasure. This pleasure can take the place of any other need. In a poignant passage, Kaufman sums up the process of converting all needs into sexuality. He writes: A young boy who learns never to need anything emotionally from his parents is . . . faced with a dilemma whenever he feels young, needy or otherwise insecure. If masturbating has been his principle source of good feeling . . . he may resort to masturbation in order to restore good feelings about self at times when he is experiencing needs quite unrelated to sexuality. The ego defense of conversion transforms developmental needs into the need for something else. This could be food, money or excessive attention. In
John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You)
Normal people redirect their sexual energy all the time, but religion takes that skill and hijacks it. Religion says, "No, you cannot do that, that is sinful. Direct energy toward god." Sexual desire does not disappear with increased religiosity and activity. Instead, it gets redirected but the thoughts and incoming stimulation continue.
Darrel Ray (Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality)
Doctor, you mentioned the ration of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?" "Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature
General Buck Turgidson Dr Strangelove
Sigmund Freud: You know your paper led to one of the more stimulating discussions we’ve ever had at our psychoanalysis society. Do you really think the sexual drive is a demonic and destructive force? Sabina Spielrein: Yes, at the same time as being a creative force. In the sense that it can produce out of the destruction of two individualities a new being, but the individual must always overcome resistance because of the self annihilating nature of the sexual act.
Christopher Hampton
There are other ways to create this 'moment of emptiness' besides having to 'hit bottom.' One method would be to perform physical exercise till a state of exhaustion is achieved. Another technique is through sexual stimulation to the point of orgasm, when the mind suddenly goes blank, and we experience what the French call the 'petit mort,' or little death.
Laurence Galian (Beyond Duality: The Art of Transcendence)
Traditionally Christian good manners outlawed all expression of pleasure in the satisfaction of physical appetites. “You may love the screeching owl, but you must not love the roasted fowl.” Such was the rhyme on which children were brought up in nurseries on of only fifty years ago. Today the young unceasingly proclaim how much they “love” and “adore” different kinds of food and drink; adolescents and adults talk about the “thrills” they derive from the stimulation of their sexuality. The popular philosophy of life has ceased to be based on the classics of devotion and rules of aristocratic good breeding, and is molded by writers and advertising copy, whose one idea is to persuade everybody to be as extraverted and uninhibitedly greedy as possible, since of course it is only the possessive, the restless, the distracted, who spend money on things advertisers want to sell.
Aldous Huxley (The Perennial Philosophy)
Human penises evolved as tactile stimulators for use in copulatory courtship.
Geoffrey Miller (The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature)
If a woman enjoys having her cervix stimulated during sexual intercourse, then size can matter. For most women, it is going to take a good five or six inches in length to reach the cervix when a woman is sexually aroused.
David M. Buss (Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations - From Adventure to Revenge)
In nearly a quarter of all animals in which homosexuality has been observed and analyzed, the behavior has been classified as some other form of nonsexual activity besides (or in addition to) dominance. Reluctant to ascribe sexual motivations to activities that occur between animals of the same gender, scientists in many cases have been formed to come up with alternative "functions". These include some rather far-fetched suggestions, such as the idea that fellatio with male orang-utans is a "nutritive" behavior, or that episodes of cavorting and genital stimulation between male West Indian manatees are "contests of stamina". At various times, homosexuality has been classified as a form of aggression (not necessarily related to dominance), appeasement or placation, play, tension reduction, greeting or social bonding, reassurance or reconciliation, coalition or alliance formations, and "barter" for food or other "favors". It is striking that virtually all of these functions are in fact reasonable and possible components of sexuality - as any reflection on the nature of sexual interactions in humans will reveal - and indeed in some species homosexual interactions do bear characteristics of some or all of these activities. However, in the vast majority of cases these functions are ascribed to a behavior *instead of*, rather than *along with*, a sexual component - and only when the behavior occurs between two males or two females. According to Paul L. Vasey, "While homosexual behavior may serve some social roles, these are often interpreted by zoologists as the primary reason for such interactions and usually seen as negating any sexual component to this behavior. By contrast, heterosexual interactions are invariably seen as being primarily sexual with some possible secondary social functions.
Bruce Bagemihl (Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity)
What man had ever been presented such an enticing feast? She was a mature virgin, primed and ready for sexual initiation. If he acceded, he could excite and stimulate her, teach and disclose to her the sexual methods he enjoyed. A devoted, zealous pupil, she would wield her distinct skills with lethal precision for his exclusive benefit and delectation.
Cheryl Holt (Total Surrender)
Forensic psychiatrists have often pointed to this period in Dahmer’s development—a time when adolescent boys start to sort out their sexuality and what is attractive to them—as when Dahmer began to confuse and combine his feelings of attraction with his interest in the insides of animals. While experimenting with deceased animals, this became intermingled with his sexual development. He may have known at a young age that he was gay, but for fear of upsetting his family, he did his best to repress those feelings. Dahmer may have also realized from an early age that his sexual interests involving viscera were deviant, and that what stimulated him was unusual and likely not what others around him found arousing. At an age when young men are stimulated by sexually graphic photographs or films, dating, and developing an early-stage sex life, Dahmer was dismembering road kill, watching horror movies, and fantasizing about sex with incapacitated men.
Patrick Kennedy (GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation Of "The Milwaukee Cannibal")
I think this early interest was the beginning of my obsession. My sexual interests and cutting up dead animals slowly merged. I don’t remember being sexually stimulated as a kid when I was engaged in this behavior, but I do know that it gave me great pleasure and that it consumed a lot of my time and thoughts. At any rate, the two thoughts became one, and I couldn’t think about sex with a man without also having thoughts of cutting open his human body and examining the insides.
Patrick Kennedy (GRILLING DAHMER: The Interrogation Of "The Milwaukee Cannibal")
Some people don’t have real love for bananas; they only eat it because of the wonders they believe it performs.
Michael Bassey Johnson (Song of a Nature Lover)
Sexual abuse is any contact or interaction--visual, verbal, or psychological--between a child/adolescent and an adult when the child/adolescent is being used for the sexual stimulation of the perpetrator, or any other person.
Dan B. Allender (The Wounded Heart)
In many ways, this chemical medium behaves like the human sexual response. Sexual arousal and recovery depend on the properties of nerve tissue, which, like Zhabotinsky soup, belongs to a general class of systems called excitable media. A neuron has three states: quiescent, excited, and refractory. Normally a neuron is quiescent. With inadequate stimulation, it shows little response and returns to rest. But a sufficiently provocative stimulus will excite the neuron and cause it to fire. Next it becomes refractory (incapable of being excited for a while) and finally returns to quiescence. The parallels with chemical waves extend to action potentials, the electrical waves that propagate along nerve axons. They too travel without attenuation, and when two of them collide, they annihilate each other. In fact, all of these statements are equally true of electrical waves in another excitable medium: the heart. That’s the beauty of this abstraction—the qualitative properties of one excitable medium hold for them all. They can all be studied in one stroke.
Steven H. Strogatz (Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life)
This book is a compilation of interesting ideas that have strongly influenced my thoughts and I want to share them in a compressed form. That ideas can change your worldview and bring inspiration and the excitement of discovering something new. The emphasis is not on the technology because it is constantly changing. It is much more difficult to change the accompanying circumstances that affect the way technological solutions are realized. The chef did not invent salt, pepper and other spices. He just chooses good ingredients and uses them skilfully, so others can enjoy his art. If I’ve been successful, the book creates a new perspective for which the selection of ingredients is important, as well as the way they are smoothly and efficiently arranged together. In the first part of the book, we follow the natural flow needed to create the stimulating environment necessary for the survival of a modern company. It begins with challenges that corporations are facing, changes they are, more or less successfully, trying to make, and the culture they are trying to establish. After that, we discuss how to be creative, as well as what to look for in the innovation process. The book continues with a chapter that talks about importance of inclusion and purpose. This idea of inclusion – across ages, genders, geographies, cultures, sexual orientation, and all the other areas in which new ways of thinking can manifest – is essential for solving new problems as well as integral in finding new solutions to old problems. Purpose motivates people for reaching their full potential. This is The second and third parts of the book describes the areas that are important to support what is expressed in the first part. A flexible organization is based on IT alignment with business strategy. As a result of acceleration in the rate of innovation and technological changes, markets evolve rapidly, products’ life cycles get shorter and innovation becomes the main source of competitive advantage. Business Process Management (BPM) goes from task-based automation, to process-based automation, so automating a number of tasks in a process, and then to functional automation across multiple processes andeven moves towards automation at the business ecosystem level. Analytics brought us information and insight; AI turns that insight into superhuman knowledge and real-time action, unleashing new business models, new ways to build, dream, and experience the world, and new geniuses to advance humanity faster than ever before. Companies and industries are transforming our everyday experiences and the services we depend upon, from self-driving cars, to healthcare, to personal assistants. It is a central tenet for the disruptive changes of the 4th Industrial Revolution; a revolution that will likely challenge our ideas about what it means to be a human and just might be more transformative than any other industrial revolution we have seen yet. Another important disruptor is the blockchain - a distributed decentralized digital ledger of transactions with the promise of liberating information and making the economy more democratic. You no longer need to trust anyone but an algorithm. It brings reliability, transparency, and security to all manner of data exchanges: financial transactions, contractual and legal agreements, changes of ownership, and certifications. A quantum computer can simulate efficiently any physical process that occurs in Nature. Potential (long-term) applications include pharmaceuticals, solar power collection, efficient power transmission, catalysts for nitrogen fixation, carbon capture, etc. Perhaps we can build quantum algorithms for improving computational tasks within artificial intelligence, including sub-fields like machine learning. Perhaps a quantum deep learning network can be trained more efficiently, e.g. using a smaller training set. This is still in conceptual research domain.
Tomislav Milinović
In the 1950s,” she began, “James Olds and Peter Milner implanted electrodes in rats. In the nucleus accumbens. Which has also been called the pleasure center of the brain. This region plays a role in sexual arousal and the high people get from certain drugs. In later versions of this experiment, rats could cause this region to be stimulated by pressing down on a lever.” She shuddered involuntarily. “Turns out the rats would repeatedly hit the lever, as many as seven hundred times an hour, ignoring food and water. Until they died from exhaustion.” Fyfe
Douglas E. Richards (Mind's Eye (Nick Hall, #1))
Several studies have demonstrated men’s preference for symmetrical women. In one study, asymmetry was found to be inversely related to male judgments of attractiveness (Singh, 1995). Compared to women, men rate women’s facial attractiveness as rapidly and harshly declining with age (Henss, 1991). In addition, older men more than younger men have been found to prefer the scent of symmetrical women when the women are at high risk of conception (as measured by timing of their ovulatory cycle) (Thornhill et al., 2003). It is known that chemicals similar to estrogen stimulate hypothalamic responses in men but not in women, suggesting that males may have an evolved mechanism to specifically detect ovulatory cues (Savic, Berglund, Gulyas, & Roland., 2001). Other studies suggest that men show olfactory sexual responses to couplins (sex pheromones) that may be present in the vaginal secretions of fertile women (Grammer & Jutte, 1997). However, these results are attenuated by other studies that have not found a relationship between the “scent of symmetry” among women’s and men’s mate preference (Thornhill et al., 2003; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1999). Other physiological measures such as neuroimaging techniques have found that “attractive” (symmetrical) women’s faces stimulated reward-areas of the brains of male subjects, whereas average women and men’s faces did not, suggesting that symmetrical is pleasing (Aharon, Etcoff, Ariely, Chabris, O’Connor, & Breiter, 2001). Taken together, such findings suggest that men’s partner-evaluation mechanisms are tuned to facial symmetry, which declines with age. That symmetry increases when women are most fertile also supports the notion that symmetry is tied to male mate-choice and that women signal their fitness through symmetry.
Jon A. Sefcek
Sex toys can offer a wide range of benefits, both physical and emotional. Here are some of the most commonly cited benefits: Increased pleasure: Sex toys can provide additional stimulation and enhance sexual pleasure. Improved sexual health: Regular use of sex toys can help to improve pelvic floor muscles, reduce pain and increase vaginal lubrication. Stress relief: Using sex toys can provide a safe and effective way to release tension and reduce stress. Exploration: Sex toys can be used to explore different sexual desires and fantasies in a safe and non-judgmental way. Increased intimacy: Incorporating sex toys into your sex life can help to increase intimacy and communication with your partner. Variety: Sex toys offer a variety of options to enhance sexual experiences and keep things exciting. Sexual confidence: Using sex toys can help to increase sexual confidence and self-esteem. Solo pleasure: Sex toys can provide a satisfying sexual experience for individuals who are not in a relationship or have a partner who is unavailable. Improved sleep: Orgasm can improve sleep quality and using sex toys can help achieve this. Enhanced masturbation: Sex toys can improve masturbation experiences, making them more enjoyable and satisfying.
Anjali R
For a long, long time in Western science and medicine, women’s sexuality was viewed as Men’s Sexuality Lite—basically the same but not quite as good. For instance, it was just sort of assumed that since men have orgasms during penis-in-vagina sex (intercourse), women should have orgasms with intercourse too, and if they don’t, it’s because they’re broken. In reality, about 30 percent of women orgasm reliably with intercourse. The other 70 percent sometimes, rarely, or never orgasm with intercourse, and they’re all healthy and normal. A woman might orgasm lots of other ways—manual sex, oral sex, vibrators, breast stimulation, toe sucking, pretty much any way you can imagine—and still not orgasm during intercourse. That’s normal.
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
Inflamed libido is not due to a physical surplus in the body. It is often due to oversensitivity to stimulating cues. Unconsciously, the sufferer may actually be seeking relief from withdrawal symptoms—and the comfort of a pair-bond.
Marnia Robinson (Cupid's Poisoned Arrow: From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships)
Pornographic literature depicts sex in explicit or bizarre or even intentionally degrading and dehumanizing detail. Designed by the author and used by the reader specifically for sexual stimulation, it serves no literary end. It commodifies sex. It is a product, not literature, and the person who uses it is primarily a consumer, not a reader. In its baser forms the pornographic appeals to the baser instincts, the selfish, the violent in us. In its milder forms, pornography presents the physical/sexual to appeal only to the physical/sexual in us, and hence tells less than half the story of being human. And we are left with a world in which, contrary to a spirituality that finds God in all things, including sex, nothing is sacred, everything is profane.
Nancy M. Malone (Walking a Literary Labyrinth)
But efficient sex was not amazing sex. The best sex going on in Masters and Johnson’s lab was the sex being had by the committed gay and lesbian couples. Not because they were practicing special secret homosexual sex techniques, but because they “took their time.” They lost themselves—in each other, and in sex. They “tended to move slowly…and to linger at…[each] stage of stimulative response, making each step in tension increment something to be appreciated….” They teased each other “in an obvious effort to prolong the stimulatee’s high levels of sexual excitation.
Mary Roach (Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex)
However, when it comes to unrestricted access to super-stimulating versions of natural rewards, such as junk food,[170] the answer is no,[171] although certainly not every consumer gets hooked. The reason that highly stimulating versions of food and sexual arousal can hook us – even if we’re not otherwise susceptible to addiction – is that our reward circuitry evolved to drive us toward food and sex, not drugs or alcohol. Today’s high fat[172]/sugar foods[173] have hooked far more people into destructive patterns of behaviour than have illegal drugs. 70% of American adults are overweight, 37.7% obese.
Gary Wilson (Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction)
Exercise: What Are Your Needs? Look through the following list of basic human needs. This list isn’t exhaustive, just a starting point to help build self-awareness and see what might need more attention in your life. Remember, when you live a life that includes taking care of yourself, your child learns from your example. In your Raising Good Humans journal, write down which of your needs requires more attention. affection air appreciation beauty choice communication community companionship ease empathy equality food freedom growth harmony humor inclusion independence intimacy joy learning love mourning movement/exercise order purpose respect/self-respect rest/sleep safety self-expression sexual expression shelter space stability stimulation support touch trust warmth water Now, think about how you can better meet the needs that have been neglected. What is one concrete action you can take—like scheduling a coffee date or booking childcare—this week? Write down your intention in your Raising Good Humans journal, then take action!
Hunter Clarke-Fields (Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids)
Your brain has a sexual “accelerator” that responds to “sex-related” stimulation—anything you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or imagine that your brain has learned to associate with sexual arousal. Your brain also has sexual “brakes” that respond to “potential threats”—anything you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or imagine that your brain interprets as a good reason not to be turned on right now. These can be anything from STIs and unwanted pregnancy to relationship issues or social reputation. There’s virtually no “innate” sex-related stimulus or threat; our accelerators and brakes learn when to respond through experience. People vary in how sensitive their brakes and accelerator are. Take the little quiz on page 54 to find out how sensitive yours are—and remember that most people score in the medium range, and all scores are normal.
Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life)
Low SE (0–6) You’re not so sensitive to sex-related stimuli and need to make a more deliberate effort to tune your attention in that direction. Novel situations are less likely to be sexy to you than familiar ones. You’re a person whose sexual functioning will benefit from adding a greater intensity of stimulation (like a vibrator) and daily practice of paying attention to sensations. Lower SE is also associated with asexuality, so if you’re very low SE, you might resonate with some components of the asexual identity. The women I ask are probably higher SE than the overall population—they’re women who are interested enough in sex to take a class, attend a workshop, or read a sex blog—but still about 8 percent of those women fall into this range. Medium SE (7–13) You’re right in the middle, so whether or not you’re sensitive to sexual stimuli probably depends on the context. In situations of high romance or eroticism, you tune in readily to sexual stimuli; and in situations of low romance or eroticism, it may be pretty challenging to move your attention to sexual things. Recognize the role that context plays in your arousal and pleasure, and take steps to increase the sexiness of your life’s contexts. Seventy percent of the women I’ve asked fall into this range. High SE (14–20) You’re pretty sensitive to sex-related stimuli, maybe even to things humans aren’t generally very sensitive to, like smell and taste. A fairly wide range of contexts can be sexual for you, and novelty may be really exciting. You may be a person who likes having sex as a way to de-stress.Your sexual functioning may benefit from making sure you create lots of time and space for your partner; because you’re sensitive, you can derive intense satisfaction from your partner’s pleasure, so you’ll both benefit! About 16 percent of the women I ask fall into this group.
Emily Nagoski (Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life)
Conscious indifference in a marriage—by which I mean partnering on tax forms, greeting cards, and at cocktail parties, while seeking emotional connection, intellectual stimulation, and sexual solace elsewhere—dangerously undermines our sense of integrity, pawns our honor, siphons our creative energy, and buries both partners alive with resentment. It’s not the illicit love affair that should seem so shocking; it’s the fact that your authentic and unmet needs are so ignored, discounted, and disregarded by both of you that the soul feels compelled to search for something more in secret. This is the crying shame.
Sarah Ban Breathnach (Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self)
Sexual pleasure is a great blessing and gift from God, of course. But it is meant to be the fruit of loving as he loves, not an end in itself. When pleasure becomes the main goal of sex, society becomes utilitarian. You're valued if you're useful. And, in this case, you're useful if you stimulate my lusts.
Christopher West (Theology Of The Body For Beginners)
Elizabeth Phelps, a neuroscientist at New York University, stated that while it is correct that the amygdala is affected by a state of anxiety, the same holds true for strong odors, sexually stimulating images, and so on. It is rash and misleading to claim, on these grounds alone, that a candidate like Mitt Romney throws the electorate into a state of anxiety (Legrenzi 63).
Paolo Legrenzi (Neuromania: On the limits of brain science)
You’ve manipulated my body by touching it in ways that stimulate it to the point of arousal,” she says. “From there, it’s only a matter of continuously doing the same thing until the body reaches its peak of sexual pleasure. You’re using a basic part of biology to gain a reaction from me physically. So the answer is my sex is lubricating itself in preparation for penetration, a way to ensure the coitus between myself and another can be without too much, or no, discomfort. Arousal is also a way to encourage intercourse between a male and female, since her libido may not be as high. I believe this to be true of us.
Morgan Bridges (A Match Made in Hatred (Down & Dirty Vows, #1))
By living outside India, Gandhi had been able to free himself from custom and convention, and forge friendships across the gender divide. In his years in the diaspora he was close to three women in particular: his long-time secretary in South Africa, Sonja Schlesin; Henry Polak’s wife, Millie, since the Polaks and the Gandhis shared a home in Johannesburg; and Polak’s sister, Maud, whom he had met in London. Maud Polak was in love with Gandhi—this was not reciprocated. With Millie and Sonja the friendship was entirely platonic. He liked and respected them—indeed, they were among the few colleagues who dared challenge or criticize him. Saraladevi was Gandhi’s first woman friend in India, and also his first Indian woman friend. Their relationship was shot through with passion and romance. He found her stimulating, interesting, even glamorous. He was possessive about her, he wished to be with her as much as possible. The relationship between Gandhi and Saraladevi was never consummated sexually. But it seems it came very close to doing so. Years later, in an exchange with a Gujarati colleague about the merits of brahmacharya, Gandhi remarked: ‘I myself am a proof before you that sex does not discriminate between the young and the old. Even today I have to erect all sorts of walls around me for the sake of safety.’ Then he continued: ‘Despite this, I was in danger of succumbing a few years ago'.
Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)