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Claire Dederer

Claire Dederer Quotes

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Famous Claire Dederer Quotes

“When the subject was 14, late in the year of 1980, she began to pursue male attention, like the cartoon cat who turns around and begins to chase the dog. From there on out, her pursuit was dedicated, the subject was never without a boyfriend, or several. She seemed to need to stack them, like cordwood, for winter. Sexual activity was ongoing, occasionally fervent, but usually desultory, or mechanical, or dutiful. What this study is attempting to ascertain is why. Why did she do this?”

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Book:Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning
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“Jess herself seemed resolutely asexual, though I later of torrid affairs, and complex intrigues. This quality of holding back was very important for me to see. She'd held herself apart a little. She didn't pretend she wasn't beautiful, there was nothing coy in her, but she wasn't very interested in using her beauty's power. That fascinated me. I had never thought of that as an option. Just letting your beauty lie around, unused. She was a model of a different way of being.”

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Book:Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning
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“Whatever your opinion of frequent sexual congress, let us assume for the purpose of this study that sensual sex should provide an increase in personal happiness, which was a widely held belief during the era we are discussing. A visual expression of the data we compiled regarding the subject's sexual activity shows happiness decreasing as sexual activity increases.”

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Book:Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning
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“Don't worry about your orgasm. Don't care about it. You've had a million orgasms in your life. Want only this. Want only total obliteration. In this way too, you are returning to the girl you were -- the girl who didn't care about orgasms, but just wanted to fuck, and fuck, and fuck, without even knowing why. Those adult years of dutifully chasing clitoral orgasms -- they seem alien in retrospect. Now you just want sensation, less definable than orgasm, and weirdly more satisfying, more total.”

SexWomenRelationshipsAging
Book:Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning
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