“I think when I work with actors it's all about a process of learning to be private in public, instead of performing in public. Which is what women do: we perform, especially our sexuality.” ThinkingSexualityPerforming Author:Deborah Kampmeier
“I think that sexuality is the part of human beings that is closest to nature. And nature is dangerous somehow, yes, if you put nature against civilisation, nature is definitely a threat.” ThinkingDangerousThreatSexuality Author:Lars von Trier
“The violence and sexuality on TV today is exhilarating. You can explore every aspect of society. People's sexual orientations, the violence that goes within that... there are no holds barred.” TodayViolenceSexualityExhilarating Author:Pierce Brosnan
“Reading about feminism when I was a teenager and seeing it as a young woman, I realized that feminism really hadn't dealt with sexuality; it really hadn't dealt with transgender or gay women.” ReadingFeminismGaySexualityI RealizedTeenagerYoung WomenTransgender Author:Lorna Simpson
“if I could tell my very-younger self something, I would tell him to let loose more often. I think it all roots in sexuality, but because of that, I became so worried about everything — worried about what people thought. I was afraid to be creative and charismatic and eccentric. Just to do things to do things, like dancing. I was afraid of looking too flamboyant or something. I would tell myself to stop being so stressed about what other people are thinking. Stop being so afraid that something may not come off the right way.” PeopleThinkingCreativeDancingSexualityWorriedBe CreativeStressedCharismatic Author:Connor Franta
“The world, the way we look at women and sexuality, is what needs to change - not our behavior, not who we are, not what we say. It's the intentions that should change. It's the mind-set. Otherwise, we're just going to be a completely confused society with not knowing what to say to one another. The mind-set of when you meet a woman is that you should try and get to know her.” WorldTryingBehaviorIntentionSexualityConfused Author:Priyanka Chopra
“I think it's important to let kids be kids and be cautious about accelerated sexuality as pressure to mature too quickly. My hackles go up when I see a teacher making kids feel like they are older, special, mature. Let kids be kids.” ThinkingImportantKidsTeacherSpecialSexualityMatureCautiousBe Cautious Author:Jessica Valenti
“Lately, I'm thinking a lot about, in parenting and in my writing, how to create a language about sexism in a way that is attractive and approachable to this age group. I can teach my daughter about not talking to strangers but I can't teach her about how to succeed in a sexist world or even how to exist as a body in a sexist world. I want to begin by asking girls what they want and why they want it? Interrogating that. If this is the sex life you want, what makes you think you want that? I imagine the only way to authentically get at sexuality is by asking those questions.” ThinkingWorldWritingAgeGirlLanguageTeachImagineSucceedDaughterStrangerSexualityAttractiveMy DaughterSexismMake You ThinkSexist Author:Jessica Valenti
“The patchwork nature of the forms are a reflection of sexuality itself.” ReflectionSexuality Author:Claire Dederer
“The book Love and Trouble is asserting that sexuality lives inside us, and in the culture, and in the people who do things to us - and the forms reflect that.” PeopleBookCultureTroubleSexuality Author:Claire Dederer
“Your sexuality belongs to you, and think about your own desire.” ThinkingDesireSexuality Author:Claire Dederer
“Brazil obviously connotes something in my mind to do with desire, sexuality and freedom. In fantasy, in mythology, Rio is the iconography of the imagination. In essence, we're all sex tourists. I've never been to Rio and I've never been to a psychoanalytic convention, but in a sense, Rio is symbolic of desire, some sort of ultimate ecstasy.” MindDesireImaginationFantasyUltimateSexualityMythologyEcstasyPsychoanalytic Author:Francis Levy
“I think men are still very loath to talk about their sexuality. Yet, I am so ashamed about my imperfection as a human being that I tell everything.” ThinkingMenSexualityAshamedImperfection Author:Francis Levy
“I was not a popular girl, so being able to create punk who didn't have to be beautiful in the mainstream way helped me to get in touch with sexuality and become comfortable with the idea that I didn't have to look like Farrah Fawcett to feel attractive, to feel sexual power.” BeautifulGirlSexualityAttractivePunkPopular Girl Author:Alice Bag
“Virtual reality is a truly immersive medium and the level of graphics, already quite strong, will only continue to get better and better. You really feel like you are someplace else...and what you see, what you experience, it impacts your brain. So there are major implications here, to societal structure, to democracy to the way in which we interact with each other. To the nature of love, to the nature of sexuality.” RealityStrongBrainDemocracyLike YouSexualityGet BetterVirtual RealityStrong Will Author:Brett Leonard
“The medieval ideas of the "wild wood" was like a cupboard into which they stuffed everything they were afraid of - Wodwose, Green Men, demons, strange creatures - and of course the most fearful thing of all- wild women and their sexuality!” MenStrangeSexualityDemonFearfulMedieval Author:John Matthews
“There was a criticism that stuck with me a little bit, which is that somebody said that I was jumping on a bandwagon by talking about sexuality. Obviously that's not a massive takedown, but I found that personally quite offensive because it's something that I've been living with and dealing with my whole life, and just because I decided to speak about it now is not me jumping on a bandwagon; it's a reflection of how I feel within this industry and how I've grown in the past five years.” PastSpeakReflectionCriticismSexualityWhole LifeStuckOffensive Author:Marika Hackman
“We live in a funny time, a funny era, when desire, to be adult desire, has to be conceived as sexual. And that didn't used to be the case. Sexuality is a social construction as much as anything else and I think the realities of sexuality don't always fit into the social constructions that we have, and we live in a goal-oriented time - on all fronts.” ThinkingRealityDesireFitSexualityConstruction Author:Claire Messud
“Sexuality is a place where people are very vulnerable and can be experiencing and embodying very raw forces that they don't really understand and there's a question of how much you should control and how much you should play with those and what those forces really are, how you really feel about them. That's perennial.” PeopleSexualityVulnerable Author:Mary Gaitskill
“Women's sexuality is something that is a very touchy subject for a lot of women...I had to free my body from all of the binding, all the shutting down, and all of the censorship I had already put on it. When I did that, everything in my life changed. My relationship with my husband changed. My relationship to the world changed. My relationship to my body changed. My relationship to my female friends changed in huge ways.” WorldChangedHusbandFemaleSexualityLife ChangingMy HusbandCensorship Author:Sheila Kelley
“I think women in our global patriarchal culture are told to shut their body down. And when we don't know why, we start to cut our body off. You cut off your curves. You cut off your breasts. You cut off the curve of your tush. You cut off your sexuality... and it's relegated to the bedroom.” ThinkingCultureCuttingSexualityBedroom Author:Sheila Kelley
“I think women don't see themselves and their sexuality as wholesome. And yet men's sexuality is everywhere. We experience it as a culture in stadiums, thousands of raging fans of male sexuality, screaming, "Kick the ball over the goal post. Get the ball in the hoop. Score a home run." Male sexuality lives in that prowess of the scoring, of conquering, of getting, of that beautiful male energy of domination, aggression, and the competition.” ThinkingHomeRunningBeautifulCultureEnergyGoalCompetitionSexualityRageConquerAggressionDominationHome Run Author:Sheila Kelley
“When women start to bond over their sexuality, it's very similar to the way that men bond over their sexuality in sports. Men bond over their sexual prowess - their strength, their agility, their power. Women bond over their undulation, their curves, their sensuality - things that are innately feminine. Once you do that, there is no turning back.” MenSportsSexualitySensualityFeminine Author:Sheila Kelley
“Making photographs that dealt with the understanding of who I am as a gay man and dealt with the process of accepting that, and also accepting what I'm into sexually, what sexually arouses me. So I was making these images not necessarily knowing what they were about, but just putting it out there - that mode of thinking or consideration of my own desires, and also the much larger conversation around images that deal with ideas of sexuality and how those images are distributed and then accepted or understood by whoever is viewing those images.” ThinkingMenDesireUnderstandingAcceptingGayPhotographSexualityAcceptedConsiderationSexuallyGay Men Author:Wardell Milan
“Sex work is a completely unregulated industry and to make the affront even worse, the product and the labourers are the same thing! The product is the sexuality of the actual labourers: flesh. I think in that sense, the exploitative nature of unencumbered capitalism is made even more dramatic.” ThinkingCapitalismSexualityDramatic Author:David Simon
“When we were kids coming up, if you stole your dad's Playboy magazine, that was about as much of an education as you were gonna get. You finish looking at the centrefold and you read 'The Playboy Adviser' that told you about what stereo to buy and something about sex which you didn't quite understand, and you were still just as confused. Now if you're ten the entire world of human sexuality, and a very misogynistic version of that, is available to you on a laptop after a couple of key strokes. I think it's changed the vernacular in the way men address women.” ThinkingMenWorldKidsChangedCoupleSexualityConfusedPlayboyYour Dad Author:David Simon
“The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform.” ActionSexSexualityPerformingProfessorsMaking LoveUnnaturalGreat Sex Author:Alfred Kinsey
“Since I first started acting, I never separated a character's sexuality from what they eat for breakfast. I just think it's sort of silly. If I can be a part of helping to overcome that puritanical thing in our culture, so be it. I'm happy about it.” ThinkingHelpingCultureActingOvercomingSexualitySilly Author:Maria Bello
“The first idea of Young and Beautiful was to have a young boy and to explore the sexuality of boys. But, I realized, with a boy doing prostitution, of course it has to deal with homosexuality. And I had a feeling it was too much for the film, you know, sexuality, prostitution, adolescence ... there were too many films for one film.” FeelingsBeautifulFilmBoysSexualityI RealizedAdolescenceHomosexualityYoung And Beautiful Author:Francois Ozon
“I think our society is fragmented. Messages regarding human sexuality have always been mixed in America. We are a schizophrenic nation. We were founded initially by Puritans, who escaped repression only to establish their own. Then the founding fathers gave us the Constitution to separate church and state. But the one thing that got left out of all those laws was human sexuality.” ThinkingFatherChurchConstitutionSexualityChurch And StateLeft OutPuritanSchizophrenic Author:Hugh Hefner
“Americans are fascinated by our sexuality and frightened by it. And during the Reagan and Bush era you got an entire decade of anti-sex government. Sex is not the enemy. It is the beginning of civilization, family and tribe. Sex can be twisted and exploited, but in its most essential form, it's the best part of who we are. And it frightens us.” EnemySexualityTwisted Author:Hugh Hefner
“My life has been devoted to trying to bring a little more understanding to human sexuality - not just in society, but also inside myself. The struggle has been internal as well as external. One of the reasons that I have such tremendous satisfaction at this point in my life is because I know I've made a difference. I've made a difference in a way that really matters to me. I see a lot of terrible things going on in the world, but there are some good things going on too, and I feel I've been a part of that. I really do feel I have been on the side of the angels.” WorldTryingReasonUnderstandingStruggleTerribleAngelGood ThingsSexuality Author:Hugh Hefner
“Capitalism, in the realm of sexuality, I figure, thinks that we behave in specific ways, like a breast is always going to produce a hard-on for some product, whereas the truth is that sexuality is always a continuum, which can be characterized by reversals.” ThinkingTruth IsCapitalismSexualityBehave Author:Rick Moody
“Right now everything is pumped up. Cars look like someone took an air pump and pumped them up. They look engorged. Lips pumped up, breasts pumped up, everything is pumped up. And it's also kind of off-putting. It's sexual but in such a hard way that it's, for me, not sexual at all. Whereas the 1970s, breasts were smaller. People were not wearing bras. Farrah Fawcett's sexuality and sensuality was a very touchable sexuality. She was kissable. She was friendly.” PeopleKindCarSexualitySensualityFriendly Author:Tom Ford
“Many couples have never had a conversation about sexuality and sexual boundaries. The presence or lack of sex, the quality of it, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the unmet needs. An affair upsets the status quo by not only bringing the subject of sexuality to the forefront but every other aspect of their relationship as well. An affair yields conversation that should have happened in the beginning, but that people were afraid to have because, well, what would that mean about their relationship?” PeopleMeanQualityCoupleAffairSexualityBoundariesUpsetStatus QuoDissatisfaction Author:Esther Perel
“People grow up learning to be silent about their sexuality, so where are they going to learn to talk about it when they are in a relationship? Shame, guilt, ignorance, reservation, prudishness, all kinds of different cultural systems and social stereotypes shroud sexuality in secrecy and in silence. And there's the romantic notion. "If I say in the beginning, that I am missing something, you are instantly going to think that means you are not enough."” PeopleThinkingKindMeanDifferentEnoughSilenceGrowing UpMissingIgnoranceShameGuiltSilentSexualityAll KindsStereotypeSecrecy Author:Esther Perel
“Real sexual conversations are enormously intimate and beautiful because they reveal so much about who we are and what we want. What are the emotional needs we bring to our sexuality and how do we connect to ourselves and connect to a partner? There's such a rich tapestry that can be revealed, but the vast majority of couples have never had those talks.” RealBeautifulRichEmotionalCoupleSexualityIntimateTapestry Author:Esther Perel
“One of the big misconceptions is that affairs or trysts are flings about sex. And sometimes they are, but much more often they are about desire. And that is very different. The desire to feel special, to feel seen, to feel appreciated, to be laughed at or with. The desire to be desired. That does not manifest in a sexual act per se. Affairs make you feel alive. Alchemy means it's not about the actual sex, but the sexuality, the energy, the aura. It's the imagination and anticipation of it as much or instead of the actual experience of it.” MeanDifferentSometimesDesireEnergyImaginationSpecialAffairSexualityManifestAnticipationAppreciatedAlchemyMisconceptionFling Author:Esther Perel
“Secrecy fuels erotic intensity because it makes you feel like you're doing something that is entirely yours. It gives you the sense of autonomy, the sense of freedom, and the sense of sovereignty. And then you add to that the sexual energy. In many affairs, people will tell you they slept with the person three or four times, but the story went on for months. That's an important thing because many people who have affairs often have very good sexual relationships at home. It's not necessarily a compensation story. But affairs offer a different sexuality with a different context.” PeopleGivingImportantDifferentHomeEnergyLike YouVery GoodAffairSexualitySovereigntyAutonomySecrecyCompensation Author:Esther Perel
“I say no to a double standard that men can roam and women must stay put at home. I say no to the fact that men are allowed to claim their sexuality and women just have to pretend that it doesn't matter to them. It's resisting poor relational arrangements. An affair is a way of saying, "No. I'm not playing by the rules." And sometimes betrayal is part of that because you deceive somebody else but you feel like you are, for the first time, being honest with yourself. Sometimes when people have affairs, they feel like they have been lying to themselves for years.” PeopleMenSometimesHomeLyingPoorHonestLike YouFirst TimeAffairBetrayalSexualityBeing HonestDeceivingDouble StandardHonest With YourselfBe Honest With Yourself Author:Esther Perel
“For some people, the experience of sexuality is that they are entirely inside their body, but others feel they have totally transcended the physical boundaries of their body. Transcendence is the ability to no longer feel you are contained within the physical world. For many people, the definition of spiritual is a sense of complete abdication of the self. For some people, it's union with another that transcends the borders between where one stops and where the other person starts and creates a sense of infiniteness and timelessness.” PeopleWorldSpiritualAbilitySexualityBoundariesTimelessness Author:Esther Perel
“One of the most amazing abilities of sexuality is to momentarily transcend the borders of Self into something that is no longer defined by physical property and that is utterly unique. It's really what many call a religious experience.” ReligiousAbilityUniquePropertySexualityMost Amazing Author:Esther Perel
“There are students whose religious upbringing is going to make them feel uncomfortable in a class where certain kinds of secular ideas are presented. There are students whose ideas about history or sexuality are going to be similarly challenged to question, to affirm or to change those ideas. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be exposed to them; that's why they're at school. That's why they come to university: to be taught how to think well and critically about material that they're being presented with. But it's the teacher who is certified to teach them how to do that.” ThinkingKindMeanSchoolReligiousTeachTeacherStudentsSexualityUncomfortableSecularUpbringing Author:Joan Wallach Scott
“One of the central challenges for global conversation today is to find ways of getting to understand very different views about gender and sexuality. But we should start by recognizing that these issues are subjct to disputation within every society as well as across societies. We need a global conversation that recognizes that we have these very different views. Next, try to agree on fundamental rights: things we think every person is entitled to. Finally, if we're convinced that what a government or a society elsewhere is doing to some people is badly wrong and the conversation gets nowhere.” PeopleThinkingTryingDifferentTodayChallengesAgreeGenderSexualityElsewhere Author:Kwame Anthony Appiah
“We, hijras, are not hypocrites. We live our sexuality openly, being truthful to our souls and our bodies. Science and doctors assigned something else to us when we were born - which they didn't have the authority to - but we choose what we are and we are very truthful about it.” SoulAuthoritySexualityTruthfulHypocriteBeing Truthful Author:Laxmi Narayan Tripathi
“The value we're all raised with, that women don't have the capacity to make moral decisions for themselves, particularly around their sexuality. That if they make the wrong decisions they are ruined for life. That someone more powerful, a man or even a more powerful woman, should be responsible for them. That's the value animating all of this. It's incredibly racialized as well.” MenValuesDecisionPowerfulMoralResponsibleSexualityBeing ResponsiblePowerful WomenWrong Decision Author:Melissa Gira Grant
“I think sex work gets over-mystified and overcomplicated because it's about sexuality, and women's sexuality in general. What strikes me when I look at sex worker organizations and sex worker movements, in the US especially, is that they're so in alignment with other longstanding progressive causes. If anything, sex workers have been at the forefront of some of these causes. There have always been sex workers at the forefront of social movements.” ThinkingSexualityProgressiveAlignment Author:Melissa Gira Grant
“For pragmatic reasons, for lessening of violence and for allowing people to live better lives, I think that the march forward for GLBTQ+ rights is a worthwhile one. But for me, hopefully the frontier is alliance-making across all the social issues, whereby people can get over whatever prejudices they're holding in order to keep their eyes on making livable lives for people in all states of vulnerability, no matter what their gender, sexuality, race, class, origin, whatever.” PeopleThinkingReasonEyeViolencePrejudiceGenderSexualityHopefullyVulnerabilityMarchBetter LifeSocial IssuesPragmatic Author:Maggie Nelson
“You could say I don't want for me be seen primarily as a gay writer. I've never hidden my sexuality. It matters that I'm gay, it matters that I'm white, it matters that I'm male, it matters that I'm American. But basically it's just less and less of a big deal.” GaySexuality Author:Michael Cunningham
“I'm having to do a lot to keep my clothes on and not be cast in girlfriend roles. Some women will say, "I don't want to be a man - I want the opportunities I can get as a woman." Women have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful and I'm not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent - just like there's a side of me that's vulgar and violent.” ThinkingMenBeautifulFilmOpportunitySexualityViolentGirlfriendEmbarrassedVulgar Author:Angelina Jolie