Sexual Health Quotes

“There has been a recent rash of authors and individuals fudging evidence in an attempt to argue that women have a higher sex drive than men. We find it bizarre that someone would want to misrepresent data merely to assert that women are hornier than men. Do those concerned with this difference equate low sex drives with disempowerment? Are their missions to somehow prove that women are super frisky carried out in an effort to empower women? This would be odd, as the belief that women’s sex drives were higher than men’s sex drives used to be a mainstream opinion in Western society—during the Victorian period, an age in which women were clearly disempowered. At this time, women were seen as dominated by their sexuality as they were supposedly more irrational and sensitive—this was such a mainstream opinion that when Freud suggested a core drive behind female self-identity, he settled on a desire to have a penis, and that somehow seemed reasonable to people. (See Sex and Suffrage in Britain by Susan Kent for more information on this.)

If the data doesn’t suggest that women have a higher sex drive, and if arguing that women have a higher sex drive doesn’t serve an ideological agenda, why are people so dead set on this idea that women are just as keen on sex—if not more—as male counterparts?

In the abovementioned study, female variability in sex drive was found to be much greater than male variability. Hidden by the claim, “men have higher sex drives in general” is the fun reality that, in general, those with the very highest sex drives are women.

To put it simply, some studies show that while the average woman has a much lower sex drive than the average man, a woman with a high sex drive has a much higher sex drive than a man with a high sex drive. Perhaps women who exist in the outlier group on this spectrum become so incensed by the normalization of the idea that women have low sex drives they feel driven to twist the facts to argue that all women have higher sex drives than men. “If I feel this high sex drive,” we imagine them reasoning, “it must mean most women secretly feel this high sex drive as well, but are socialized to hide it—I just need the data to show this to the world so they don’t have to be ashamed anymore.”

We suppose we can understand this sentiment. It would be very hard to live in a world in which few people believe that someone like you exists and people always prefer to assume that everyone is secretly like them rather than think that they are atypical.”
― Malcolm Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality: What Turns People On, Why, and What That Tells Us About Our Species

“There has been a recent rash of authors and individuals fudging evidence in an attempt to argue that women have a higher sex drive than men. We find it bizarre that someone would want to misrepresent data merely to assert that women are hornier than men. Do those concerned with this difference equate low sex drives with disempowerment? Are their missions to somehow prove that women are super frisky carried out in an effort to empower women? This would be odd, as the belief that women’s sex drives were higher than men’s sex drives used to be a mainstream opinion in Western society—during the Victorian period, an age in which women were clearly disempowered. At this time, women were seen as dominated by their sexuality as they were supposedly more irrational and sensitive—this was such a mainstream opinion that when Freud suggested a core drive behind female self-identity, he settled on a desire to have a penis, and that somehow seemed reasonable to people. (See Sex and Suffrage in Britain by Susan Kent for more information on this.)

If the data doesn’t suggest that women have a higher sex drive, and if arguing that women have a higher sex drive doesn’t serve an ideological agenda, why are people so dead set on this idea that women are just as keen on sex—if not more—as male counterparts?

In the abovementioned study, female variability in sex drive was found to be much greater than male variability. Hidden by the claim, “men have higher sex drives in general” is the fun reality that, in general, those with the very highest sex drives are women.
We suppose we can understand this sentiment. It would be very hard to live in a world in which few people believe that someone like you exists and people always prefer to assume that everyone is secretly like them rather than think that they are atypical.”
― Malcolm Collins

“The role of dominance and submission in human sexuality cannot be overstated. Our survey suggests that the majority (over 50%) of humans are very aroused by either acting out or witnessing dominance or submission. But it gets crazier than that: While 45% of women taking our survey said they found the naked male form to be very arousing and 48% said they found the sight of a penis to very arousing, a heftier 53% said they found their partner acting dominant in a sexual context to be very arousing. Dominance is literally more likely to be very arousing to the average female than naked men or penises. To say: “Dominance and submission are tied to human arousal patterns” is more of an understatement than saying: “Penises are tied to human arousal patterns.”

We have a delectable theory about what is going on here: If you look at all the emotional states that frequently get tied to arousal pathways, the vast majority of them seem to be proxies for behaviors that would have been associated with our pre-human ancestors’ and early humans’ dominance and submission displays. For example, things like humiliation, being taken advantage of, chains, being used, being useful, being constrained, a lack of freedom, being prey, and a lack of free will may all have been concepts and emotions important in early human submission displays.

We posit that most of the time when a human is turned on by a strange emotional concept—being bound for instance—their brain is just using that concept as a proxy for a pre-human submission display and lighting up the neural pathways associated with it, creating a situation in which it looks like a large number of random emotional states are turning humans on, when in reality they all boil down to just a fuzzy outline of dominance and submission. Heck, speaking of binding as a submission display, there were similar ritualized submission displays in the early middle ages, in which a vassal would present their hands clasped in front of their lord and allow the lord to hold their clasped hands in a way that rendered them unable to unclasp them (this submission display to one’s lord is where the symbolism of the Christian kneeling and hands together during prayer ritual comes from). We suspect the concept of binding and defenselessness have played important roles in human submission displays well into pre-history. Should all this be the case, why on earth have our brains been hardwired to bind (hehe) our recognition of dominance and submission displays to our sexual arousal systems?!?”
― Malcolm Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality: What Turns People On, Why, and What That Tells Us About Our Species

“This distorted lens may lead someone studying human sexuality to ask: “Where are you on a spectrum from straight to gay?” This question would miss a pattern we found in our data suggesting that people's arousal systems are not bundled by the gender of whatever it is that turns them on: 4.5% of men find the naked male form aversive but penises arousing, while 6.7% of women find the female form arousing, but vaginas aversive. Using simplified community identifications like the gay-straight spectrum to investigate how and why arousal patterns develop is akin to studying historic human migration patterns by distributing a research survey asking respondents to report their position on a spectrum from “white” to “person of color.” Yes, “person of color,” like the concept of “gay,” is a useful moniker to understand the life experiences of a person, but a person’s place on a “white” to “person of color” spectrum tells us little about their ethnicity, just as a person’s place on a scale of gay to straight tells us little about their underlying arousal patterns.

The old way of looking at arousal limits our ability to describe sexuality to a grey scale. We miss that there is no such thing as attraction to just “females,” but rather a vast array of arousal systems that react to stimuli our society typically associates with “females” including things like vaginas, breasts, the female form, a gait associated with a wider hip bone, soft skin, a higher tone of voice, the gender identity of female, a person dressed in “female” clothing, and female gender roles. Arousal from any one of these things correlates with the others, but this correlation is lighter than a gay-straight spectrum would imply. Our data shows it is the norm for a person to derive arousal from only a few of these stimuli sets and not others. Given this reality, human sexuality is not well captured by a single sexual spectrum.

Moreover, contextualizing sexuality as a contrast between these communities and a societal “default” can obscure otherwise-glaring data points. Because we contrast “default” female sexuality against “other” groups, such as the gay community and the BDSM community, it is natural to assume that a “typical” woman is most likely to be very turned on by the sight of male genitalia or the naked male form and that she will be generally disinterested in dominance displays (because being gay and/or into BDSM would be considered atypical, a typical woman must be defined as the opposite of these “other,” atypical groups).

Our data shows this is simply not the case. The average female is more likely to be very turned on by seeing a person act dominant in a sexual context than she is to be aroused by either male genitalia or the naked male form. The average woman is not defined by male-focused sexual attraction, but rather dominance-focused sexual attraction. This is one of those things that would have been blindingly obvious to anyone who ran a simple survey of arousal pathways in the general American population, but has been overlooked because society has come to define “default” sexuality not by what actually turns people on, but rather in contrast to that which groups historically thought of as “other.”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality: What Turns People On, Why, and What That Tells Us About Our Species

“No amount of talking about sex is going to diminish the mystery of the experience of it. Sex is Sacred, Not Secret.”
― Christine Laplante, LMHC

“To fight against these falsehoods, though, one needed to be able to see past the present-day and very male-oriented distortion lens to the underlying truth. Beyond question, Molly Valle could do this. A woman whose surface appearance, eyeglasses and conservative clothes, fit the schoolmarm stereotype to a T. Yet she had sloughed off that exterior and society’s restrictions as effortlessly as she had her clothes, and during their lovemaking, she had not only kept up with him but often passed ahead of him. With other women, he had seen the embers of passion but never the flame. Tonight, he had witnessed the bonfire.”
― Ray Smith, The Magnolia That Bloomed Unseen

“Our sexuality affects everything we do, and everything affects our sexuality. The same is true of our spirituality -- that which is most deeply meaningful to us. We can deny both. But denying them does not mean they are not both alive in every breath and heartbeat of life.”
― Tina Schermer Sellers, Sex, God, and the Conservative Church

“How do we reclaim the use of language? Can we get to a point where in SeSotho or isiXhosa women can speak about their genitals without offense given or taken based on the experience of how such words are used & weaponized against us”
― Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure

“The journey was brutal, the results were glorious.”
― Bruce Lengeman, To Kill A Lion

“Safe sex is an act of self love.”
― Miya Yamanouchi, Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women

“[Kinsey's studies included] stutterers, amputees, paraplegics, even those with cerebral palsy were observed. Kinsey wanted to document the full spectrum of human sexuality, but it was more than that. He believed these people might have things to teach us about the physiology of sex. And he was right. These groups alerted Kinsey--and the scientific community as a whole--to the complicated and crucial role of the central nervous system in sex and reproduction. Kinsey had noted that a stutterer in the throes of sexual abandon may temporarily lose his stutter. Similarly, the phantom limb pain some amputees feel temporarily disappears. Even the muscle spasticity of cerebral palsy may be briefly quieted. The body's limiting factors seem to get shut off. The organism is driven toward nature's singular goal--conception, the passing on of one's genes--and anything that stands in the way is pushed into the background.”
― Mary Roach, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

“If you are where I was before my process began, you can't imagine the place of victory, the place you can be free from the dominating desire for sexual stimuli. I am here to tell you that there is a place of freedom that you can know--a place where your desire for purity will subdue the lust of the flesh.”
― Bruce Lengeman, To Kill A Lion

“Sexual health is as achievable and reasonable a goal for patients in palliative care and hospice care as pain relief, but few hospice and palliative care professionals include sexual health within their assessment and plan of care. Given that
sexuality is a central aspect of being human, sexual health should be part of the assessment and plan for every patient
receiving palliative care and hospice care.”
― Kimberly D. Acquaviva, LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice

“Each of our bodies is unique. We may share the same basic make-up as men and women, but we certainly don't feel everything the same. What feels good on your body may not always feel good on someone else's
body and that is absolutely natural.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“So it is with sexual pleasure. Sure, I can show you the positions that work best if you’re a plus-size woman, but none of it will help you enjoy sex if you don’t know how to perceive and extract pleasure from your own body . . . and I’m not just talking about orgasm. The first step to experiencing sexual pleasure is knowing how our bodies are built to give us pleasure so we can take advantage of all they have to offer!”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“Using lube has been known to make penetrative sex last longer, and even a drop in the well of a condom can make wearing one a lot more comfy.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“For the curvy gal, a wand like the Original Magic Wand, is essential because of its length and strength; it can navigate over a large stomach to reach the clit with ease. Another reason a wand is a fantastic tool to keep close is that girls with big tummies can tuck the handle of the wand under their soft belly to hold it in place during missionary-style sex.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“When it comes to getting down, I look at sex like food, and sensuality is its flavor. Like food, sex can be satiating. It feeds our hunger and nourishes our body—you might even argue we need it to live. But if you think about it, making food delicious to eat and crave-worthy relies on flavor. Flavor is unique to the chef preparing the food and then interpreted by the palate of the taster. A food’s flavor, and thus sensuality, can be simple or it can be sweet or spicy, or it can open up a variety of senses. Everyone is his or her own chef—with diners who crave their dishes.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“Vaginal tissue does not stretch out with use, no matter how much you use it or how large the penis or toy is that it’s used with. For comparison, think of your mouth and how it is stretched and manipulated every day, yet it retains its shape—the same goes for your vagina. But like any muscle, the PC muscles that surround the vaginal canal can get weaker with age and after giving birth. Doing Kegel exercises regularly can help keep the PC muscles from losing their grip and might make your vagina feel “tighter” around a penis if clenched during sex.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life

“Your vagina is a self-cleansing machine, meaning that there is no need to use soaps or detergents. Dr T at LadyBits March 2015.”
― Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, Dr T: A Guide to Sexual Health and Pleasure

“The Wishbone in Your Pants
What the head of the penis is to a man, the clitoris is to a woman—literally. We all start out the same in the womb until biology decides whether our erectile tissue covers a penis or is made into a nub with a set of legs and bulbs.”
― Elle Chase, Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body-Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life