Sexual quotation

[oggbashan]

Today I bought a book (not a real surprise for Og former secondhand bookdealer) that is quotations about sex.

I thought that extracts might be interesting.

To start, here are a few about adultery:

Somerset Maugham 1930: You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.

Ovid: Ars Amatoria 1st Century AD: All this hocus-pocus such as... magic herbs, formulae of exorcism, and love potions have no effect, as the example of Medea and Circe shows; both were famous enchantresses, and yet their black art did not avail to prevent the unfaithfulness of their husbands, Jason and Odysseus.

Carol Clewlow: A Woman's Guide to Adultery 1984: Moses comes down from the mountain after getting the ten commandments from God. At the bottom he sees the Children of Israel waiting. He says, "Look. I've got some good news and some bad news. There's only ten. And now the bad news. Adultery's in."

Martial: Epigrams 1st Century AD:
Promiscuous girls, you've had your fun:
Now marry and 'cleave unto one'
Lawfully. What a hope!

Lady Mary Wortley Montague, letter to friend 1716: 'Tis the established custom in Vienna for every lady to have two husbands, one that bears the name, and another that performs the duties.

Og

 

[buxxxom]

I wish there was a like button for this, as there is on Facebook. I'll give it a big grin, instead.

 

[oggbashan]

More adultery

Lord Byron: Don Juan 1819-24:

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is more common where the climate's sultry.

Thomas Moore 19th Cent:

"Come, Come" said Tom's father "at your time of life
There's no longer excuse for this playing the rake -
It's time you should think, boy, of taking a wife" -
"Why so it is, father - whose wife shall I take?"

Duc de Richelieu, on discovering his wife with her lover (18th Century)

Madam, you must really be more careful. Suppose it had been someone else who found you like this.

John of Salisbury (12th Century);

Thys is now a common synne
For almost hyt is every-where
A gentyle man hath a wife and a hore,
And wyves have now comunly
Here husbands and a ludby. (a lover)

Ovid: Ars Amatoria (again)

The crops are more abundant in fields belonging to others.
The neighbour's herd has richer udders.

Og

 

[sr71plt]

Great posts, Og. Thanks. More please. Would love to see some from Oscar Wilde or Gore Vidal or Dorothy Parker, who has the following classic one:

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Here's one from Mark Twain:

Of the delights of this world man cares most for sexual intercourse, yet he has left it out of his heaven.

 

[NoJo]

Yes thanks for the posts, Og, if only for "ludby"

 

[oggbashan]

Monogamy and polygamy

Anon (19th Century) quoted by Erica Jong:

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.

Flavius Josephus: Antiquitates Judicae (c.70 AD):

It is an ancestral custom of ours to have several wives at one time.

Geoffrey Parrinder: Mysticism in the World's Religions (1976):

Only between the age of fifty and his death at sixty-two did Muhammad take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons. Certainly the Prophet's record was better than that Head of the Church of England, Henry VIII.

Chaucer: Wife of Bath's Tale (late 14th Century):

Take wise Solomon of long ago;
We hear he had a thousand wives or so.
And would to God it were allowed to me
To be refreshed, aye, half as much as he!

Timothy Leary Neuropolitics (1977):

The US has evolved from a culture of traditional monogamy to one of consecutive marriage or serial polygamy.

And for sr71plt -

Dorothy Parker: Reuben's Children (1937)

Accursed from birth they be
Who seek to find monogamy,
Pursuing it from bed to bed -
I think they would be better dead.

Og

 

[Handley_Page]

Thanks, Og.
Keep looking for them please.

 

[oggbashan]

Incest

Gratian: Adulterii Malum (11th Century):

The evil of adultery surpasses fornication, but is surpassed by incest; for it is worse to sleep with one's mother than with another man's wife.

Bruno Bettelheim: The Uses of Enchantment (1976):

It is not all that long since, in certain peasant cultures, when the mother died, the oldest daughter took her place in all respects.

Edward A Westermarck: The History of Human Marriage (1921):

Among the Sinhalese, a father could claim the right of deflowering his own daughter before marriage, asserting a right to the first-fruit of the tree he had planted.

James Oliver: Who Should Be Sleeping In Your Bed - And Why (1988):

There'd be no need for an incest taboo if people didn't want to perform incest.

Robert Briffault: The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions (1927):

Among the tribes of British Central Africa there is a curious notion that a man who commits incest with his sister or his mother is thereby rendered bullet-proof.

Sigmund Freud: Totem and Taboo (1919):

The most widespread and strictest avoidance, which is perhaps the most interesting one for civilised races, is that which restricts the social relations between a man and his mother-in-law.

Casanova: Histoire de ma vie (18th Cent published 1830):

I have never been able to understand how a father could tenderly love his charming daughter without havoing slept with her at least once.

Marquis de Sade: Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795):

There is nothing more exquisite than carnal connection within the family.

Og

 

[cloudy]

“By the time you swear you are his, shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is infinite and undying- Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying” ~ Dorothy Parker

 

[McKenna]

Timothy Leary Neuropolitics (1977):

The US has evolved from a culture of traditional monogamy to one of consecutive marriage or serial polygamy.

This one made more sense to me when I read it first as "serial monogomy." Still, good one.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That only works if you find you can't get along with your mate. I don't want to discard this one just to try out another. Why can't we have a selection?

 

[NoJo]

This one made more sense to me when I read it first as "serial monogomy." Still, good one.

"Serial Monogamy", though far more prevalent in usage, is actually a corruption of the term above. "Serial Monogamy", strictly speaking, would imply a contrast with "Parallel Monogamy", which is a meaningless phrase. But the phrase "Serial Polygamy", meaning more than one partner, but only in a series, has a more natural contrast with "Parallel Polygamy". However, the term "Serial Monogamy" has pretty much taken over general usage, and its meaning is perfectly clear.

 

[sr71plt]

*bump*

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think the term Serial Monogamy is stupid. It really is Serial Polygamy and it's both polyandrous and polygamous. What could be fairer than that?


I still don't understand why it has to be serial . . .