“He loved the way women, clothed, had a bosom, a single entity, but when unclothed, it cleaved into two discrete parts, two breasts, like the way you could separate an orange into halves by hooking thumbs into it.”
“My bisexuality is part of the expression of the flexibility, the changeability of my spirit that feels essential and precious to the center of my life. My bisexuality is a part of my desire to remain an outsider, to be able to pass into polarized worlds, to abandon expectation, to honor the mystery of being. My bisexuality is a celebration of the ever-opening flesh, the expansive, fluid mirror of social discourse.”
“Anyone who doesn t want you to be happy with who you are is an asshole. Fuck pleasing everyone else. You only live once. Who are you gonna do it for?”
“Man cannot be homophobic without having concerned himself with another’s sex life.”
“Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?”
“I don t think wood was discovered in Britain until the 1970 s. That s when I discovered it anyway.”
“The interior life expands and fills; it approaches the edge of skin; it thickens with its own vivid story; it even begins to hear rumors, from beyond the horizon skin’s rim, of nations and wars. You wake one day and discover your grandmother; you wake another day and notice, like any curious naturalist, the boys.”
“Yes, sex is troublesome and beautiful. And only when we drop our expectations, and know that we ll have moments of great sex and moments when our sexuality confounds, pains, or infuriates us, will we be liberated to enjoy it in a way that s true to ourselves.”
“The film was heavy on oral sex. Each time there came a scene with fellatio or cunnilingus or sixty-nine, the whole theater resounded with lapping and sucking noises. Hearing all these sounds, I couldn t help but wonder what a curious planet I lived on.”
“A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the baneful word seared my reeling brain—I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted simpering female impersonators I d seen in a Baltimore nightclub. Could it be possible I was one of those subhuman things? I walked the streets in a daze like a man with a light concussion. I would ve destroyed myself. And a wise old queen—Bobo, we called her—taught me that I had a duty to live and bear my burden proudly for all to see. Poor Bobo came to a sticky end - he was riding in the Duke Devanche s Hispano Suissa when his falling hemorrhoids blew out of the car and wrapped around the rear wheel. He was completely gutted leaving an empty shell sitting there on the giraffe skin upholstry. Even the eyes and the brain went with a horrible shlupping sound. The Duke says he would carry that ghastly shlup with him to his mausoleum.”
“I don t like kissing. I suppose it is a matter of taste. [...] I wondered, did anyone ever, shrug, you know, hurt you so you don t like kissing? love? Nope. [...] I thought maybe someone had been bad to you in the past, and that was why you don t like people touching or holding you. Ah damn it to hell, she bangs the lamp down on the desk and the flame jumps wildly. I said no. I haven t been raped or jilted or abused in any fashion. There is nothing in my background to explain the way I am. She steadies her voice, taking the impatience out of it. I m the odd one out, the peculiarity in my family, because they are all normal and demonstrative physically. But ever since I can remember, I ve disliked close contact...charge contact, emotional contact, as well as any overtly sexual contact. I veer away from it, because it always feels like the other person is draining something out of me. I know that s irrational, but that s the way I feel. She touches the lamp and the flaring light stills. I spent a considerable amount of time when I was, o, adolescent, wondering why I was different, whether there were other people like me. Why, when everyone else was facinated by their developing sexual nature, I couldn t give a damn. I ve never been attracted to men. Or women. Or anything else. It s difficult to explain, and nobody has ever believed it when I have tried to explain, but while I have an apparently normal female body, I don t have any sexual urge or appetite. I think I am a neuter.”
“How was the sex?” he asked casually. “Excuse me?” “How was it,” said Nicholas, emphasizing each syllable, “when he fucked you? I m assuming it was a he. Tell me all about it. I want to know.” Jay set her fork down with a ping. “It was fine.” “Dinner is fine. Cable television is fine. I m asking if, when he was pounding into you at night with his college boy cock, were you screaming the walls down, or were you just lying there calculating last night s tips?”
“If being bi means always knowing, well, that isn t me. The only girls on my bedroom walls are my friends, and I m certainly not into any of them that way. That settles it. I m straight. Just like I always thought. I wait for the feeling of a weight lifting from my shoulders, but it never comes.”
“...the Western cultural chorus is shouting ever louder that authenticity is only found in following your flesh. To specifically deny what your body wants is a scandal in our culture. When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero - denying it makes you a villain.”
“My ideas of gender and sexuality reflected those of my parents. They did not raise me not to be a homophobe. They rarely talked about gay and lesbian people. Ideas often dance a capella. Their silence erased queer existence as thoroughly as integrationists erased the reality of integrated White spaces.”
“It could make you slightly psychotic if you really focused on the idea that girls had holes under their clothes. Holes that suggested, in the absence they pointed out, that they could be filled, and that you could do the filling.”
“Alex Roentgen stared at Jared, mildly incredulous. ::You actually need a reason to have an orgy?:: Jared began to respond, but Roentgen held up his hand. ::One, because we’ve been through the valley of the shadow of death and come through the other side. And there’s no better way to feel alive than this. And after the shit we’ve seen today, we need to get our minds off it right quick. Two, because as great as sex is, it’s even better when everyone you’re integrated with is doing it at the same time.::”