Quotes about sex
page 12

Peter Akinola photo
Phil Brooks photo

“You know, there's one other thing I don't do, Vince. I don't have dirty, unprotected sex with some money grubbing skank who eventually files a paternity suit against me, which gets me kicked out of my own house and leaves me nothing but a living, breathing national disgrace.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

Extreme Championship Wrestling. August 21, 2007.
To Vince McMahon when he said there was no way Punk could be his illegitimate son because of Punk being straight edge.
Extreme Championship Wrestling

Christopher Hitchens photo
Jair Bolsonaro photo

“So let’s respect the pedophile’s right to have sex with a 2-year-old?”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

About the gay rights, in an interview to Time. Jair Bolsonaro Loves Trump, Hates Gay People and Admires Autocrats. He Could Be Brazil's Next President http://time.com/5375731/jair-bolsonaro/. Time (23 August 2018).

Mary Gaitskill photo

“She brightened. "Last week I ran a personal ad in the Guardian. I answered a few too. I'm not looking for sex; I feel too vulnerable for that. I just want somebody to hurt me and humiliate me."”

Mary Gaitskill (1954) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

"The Wrong Thing: Stuff" in Because They Wanted To, p. 244, Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Frances Wright photo

“It has already been observed that women, wherever placed, however high or low in the scale of cultivation, hold the destinies of human kind. Men will ever rise or fall to the level of the other sex.”

Frances Wright (1795–1852) American activist

Lecture II: Of Free Inquiry, considered as a Means for obtaining Just Knowledge
A Course of Popular Lectures (1829)

Michael Swanwick photo
Peter Akinola photo

“The Church commends the law-makers for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and calls for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality.”

Peter Akinola (1944) Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria

(Communique on the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill 2006
The 2006 Bill, as well as criminalising same-sex marriage, also proposed to criminalise "Registration of Gay Clubs, Societies and organizations" and "Publicity, procession and public show of same-sex amorous relationship through the electronic or print media physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise", on penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment.

William Moulton Marston photo

“Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

As interviewed by Richard, Olive, "Our Women are Our Future": Sylvia Family Circle, (Aug 14, 1944) 14-17, 19 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.32.

Nick Griffin photo
Phyllis Schlafly photo

“Minors are an intended audience for the highly profitable sex industry. Impressionable teenagers are easily persuaded to have abortions, and homosexual clubs in high school are designed for the young.”

Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016) American activist

[Schlafly, Phyllis, 2004, September, Activist Judges Rule for Special Interests, Phyllis Schlafly Report, 38, 2, http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2004/sept04/psrsept04.html, 2007-03-30]

Camille Paglia photo
Larry the Cable Guy photo

“At first I didn't even realize she was pregnant. I kinda gotten used to her throwing up every time we had sex…”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Katy Perry photo

“I was like, I don't know if I can hold that promise [to wait until marriage to have sex] because this guy at camp is really cute. Sex wasn't talked about in my home, but I was a very curious young girl.”

Katy Perry (1984) American singer, songwriter and actress

On her upbringing as the daughter of born-again Christian pastors.
Cosmopolitan magazine (2009)

Laurie Penny photo
Judith Martin photo
Annie Proulx photo
Robert Louis Stevenson photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Peter Greenaway photo

“Raw sex is the last thing you are going to encounter in a Jane Austen woman.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

8 1/2 Women

George Bernard Shaw photo

“The sex relation is not a personal relation. It can be irresistibly desired and rapturously consummated between persons who could not endure one another for a day in any other relation.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

letter, 24 June 1930, to Frank Harris "To Frank Harris on Sex in Biography" Sixteen Self Sketches (1949)
1940s and later

Emo Philips photo

“My girlfriend always giggles during sex. No matter what she's reading.”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

E=MO² (1985), Track Two + Track Two continued

Laurie Penny photo
David Berg photo
Rick Santorum photo

“So the gay community said, "He's comparing gay sex to incest and polygamy, how dare he do this," and they have gone out on a, I would argue, jihad against Rick Santorum since then.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

Campaign stop in Spartanburg, South Carolina, 2011-08-26, quoted in * Santorum: Gay community on 'jihad' against me for stance on marriage
The Hill
2011-08-29
Justin
Sink
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/178543-santorum-gay-community-on-jihad-against-me-for-stance-on-marriage
2011-09-01

Vanna Bonta photo

“Sex is as personally unique to individuals as it is universal.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Margaret Atwood photo
Preity Zinta photo

“Love, money, sex or power:”

Preity Zinta (1975) film actress

Love is most important. Least important would be power because if you have money, you automatically have power. Sex is also important because I'm a normal person.
Personal Quotes

Ronald Dworkin photo
Bill Maher photo

“The Rubicons which women must cross, the sex barriers which they must breach, are ultimately those that exist in their own minds.”

Freda Adler (1934) Criminologist, educator

Source: Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975), P. 250.

Bill Maher photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“Really, other one-pop variations of sex pale after it goes cosmic. And there is an abundance of fake or imitation sex around.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Henri Bergson photo

“Sex-appeal is the keynote of our whole civilization.”

Toute notre civilisation est aphrodisiaque
Source: The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932), Chapter IV

Roger Ebert photo

“On the receipt of this letter, Hijaj obtained the consent of Wuleed, the son of Abdool Mullik, to invade India, for the purpose of propagating the faith and at the same time deputed a chief of the name of Budmeen, with three hundred cavalry, to join Haroon in Mikran, who was directed to reinforce the party with one thousand good soldiers more to attack Deebul. Budmeen failed in his expedition, and lost his life in the first action. Hijaj, not deterred by this defeat, resolved to follow up the enterprise by another. In consequence, in the year AH 93 (AD 711) he deputed his cousin and son-in-law, Imad-ood-Deen Mahomed Kasim, the son of Akil Shukhfy, then only seventeen years of age, with six thousand soldiers, chiefly Assyrians, with the necessary implements for taking forts, to attack Deebul…“On reaching this place, he made preparations to besiege it, but the approach was covered by a fortified temple, surrounded by strong wall, built of hewn stone and mortar, one hundred and twenty feet in height. After some time a bramin, belonging to the temple, being taken, and brought before Kasim, stated, that four thousand Rajpoots defended the place, in which were from two to three thousand bramins, with shorn heads, and that all his efforts would be vain; for the standard of the temple was sacred; and while it remained entire no profane foot dared to step beyond the threshold of the holy edifice. Mahomed Kasim having caused the catapults to be directed against the magic flag-staff, succeeded, on the third discharge, in striking the standard, and broke it down… Mahomed Kasim levelled the temple and its walls with the ground and circumcised the brahmins. The infidels highly resented this treatment, by invectives against him and the true faith. On which Mahomed Kasim caused every brahmin, from the age of seventeen and upwards, to be put to death; the young women and children of both sexes were retained in bondage and the old women being released, were permitted to go whithersoever they chose.”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Muhammad bin Qãsim (AD 712-715)Debal (Sindh)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

L. Ron Hubbard photo
Camille Paglia photo
Alfred Kinsey photo
Gore Vidal photo

“I can understand companionship. I can understand bought sex in the afternoon, but I cannot understand the love affair.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Quoted in profile by Martin Amis, "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" (1977) in The Moronic Inferno (1987)
1970s

David Brin photo
Michel Foucault photo

“What is important is that sex was not only a question of sensation and pleasure, of law and interdiction, but also of the true and the false.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

L’important, c’est que le sexe n’ait pas été seulement affaire de sensation et de plaisir, de loi ou d’interdiction, mais aussi de vrai et de faux.
Vol. I, p. 76
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Vanna Bonta photo

“Sex in space is not just a good idea, it's survival.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Quoted by MSNBC during a panel discussion at the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace 2006 conference. Outer-space sex carries complications http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14002908/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/outer-space-sex-carries-complications, by Alan Boyle; MSNBC July 24, 2006

Tony Abbott photo

“I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak.”

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

Panel discussion "Religion, Sex and Politics" http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2514401.htm on abc.com.au, March 19, 2009.
2009

Peter Akinola photo
Warren Farrell photo
John Quincy Adams photo

“In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST : TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.
Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.”

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)

Passage on Muhammad by an anonymous author in The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9 (1830), edited by Joseph Blunt, Ch. X, p. 269. Robert Spencerattributed the authorship to Adams in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005), p. 83, but provided no clear documentation as to why this attribution was made.
Disputed

Hebe Camargo photo

“I think it would not work. I would be very jealous. It would be better if it was just sex.”

Hebe Camargo (1929–2012) Brazilian television host

about a possible affair with Roberto Carlos
Magazine IstoÉ Gente. Edição 381 http://www.terra.com.br/istoegente/381/frases/index.htm

Derryn Hinch photo

“Recently, I was evicted of contempt of court over my online editorial about (bleep). I was sentenced to pay a $100,000 fine, or go to jail for 50 days. I believe this was the highest personal fine ever issued in Australia. Other websites, newspapers, and radio stations were not charged for similar or even more controversial material. Yet the judge attacked me for portraying myself as a scapegoat — a whipping boy — and he punished me accordingly. Now it is true, I have prior convictions. In 1987, I was fined $15,000 and jailed for exposing a paedophile priest Michael Glennon. Glennon had already been to jail for raping a 10-year-old girl, but was still running a camp for kids in country Victoria. And he was still a Catholic priest. He eventually went to jail, and he died behind bars several weeks ago. And to be honest, I feel good about that — he was an evil, evil man. I also spent five months under house arrest in 2011 for breaching court suppression orders, revealing the names of two serial sex offenders at a rally outside Victoria's Parliament House. About 4000 other people also shouted their names. That one cost me my radio job at 3AW. And I was fined and did 250 hours of community service for naming a judge who ruled that a man could not be charged for raping his wife under a 300-year-old British law. In Victoria, that law has since been changed. Now, here we go again. I have made a decision not taken lightly. On principle, I will not pay the $100,000 fine, which was due today. Instead, I'll go to jail. I'll go to jail for 50 days; to draw attention to all the suspended sentences for crimes of violence and child pornography; for the obscenely short sentences given to king hit killers; to draw attention to my campaign for a national register of convicted sex offenders. Already, 30,000 of you have signed up. I'm happy to serve just 50 days of the many years that the convicted paedophile ex-magistrate should be serving. That pervert, Simon Cooper, wasn't even put on the sex offenders register. If my going to jail draws attention to the judges and magistrates, out of touch with community expectations and your safety, then every one of my 50 days behind bars will be worth it. And so I'll go to jail.”

Derryn Hinch (1944) New Zealand–Australian media personality

Today Tonight, 16 January 2014.

Catharine A. MacKinnon photo

“Women are raped and coerced into sex.”

Catharine A. MacKinnon (1946) American feminist and legal activist

Source: Reflections on Sex Equality under Law (1991) Yale Law Journal Vol.100 No. 5, p. 1213

Taylor Caldwell photo

“Sex is good but poker lasts longer.”

Alan Williams (novelist) (1935) novelist

Spanier, David. Total Poker. London: Secker & Warburg, 1977. No page number. (Cited in Poker Wit & Wisdom: Quotes and Writings on America's Favorite Card Game. A. D. Livingston. Globe Pequot (2006); pg. 50).

Bart D. Ehrman photo
L. Ron Hubbard photo
Madonna photo
Max Barry photo
Nigella Lawson photo

“While I am sure there are a number of women who secretly wonder whether they are lesbian, most simply have, somewhere, a fantasy about having sex, in a non-defining, non-exclusive way, with other women.”

Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster

As written in "Sapphism is more than designer-dykery" by Nigella Lawson in The Guardian http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,416467,00.html (31 December 2000)

Hans Blüher photo
Friedrich Engels photo

“We are now approaching a social revolution, in which the old economic foundations of monogamy will disappear just as surely as those of its complement, prostitution. Monogamy arose through the concentration of considerable wealth in one hand — a man's hand — and from the endeavor to bequeath this wealth to the children of this man to the exclusion of all others. This necessitated monogamy on the woman's, but not on the man's part. Hence this monogamy of women in no way hindered open or secret polygamy of men. Now, the impending social revolution will reduce this whole care of inheritance to a minimum by changing at least the overwhelming part of permanent and inheritable wealth—the means of production—into social property. Since monogamy was caused by economic conditions, will it disappear when these causes are abolished?
One might reply, not without reason: not only will it not disappear, but it will rather be perfectly realized. For with the transformation of the means of production into collective property, wagelabor will also disappear, and with it the proletariat and the necessity for a certain, statistically ascertainable number of women to surrender for money. Prostitution disappears and monogamy, instead of going out of existence, at last becomes a reality—for men also.
At all events, the situation will be very much changed for men. But also that of women, and of all women, will be considerably altered. With the transformation of the means of production into collective property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of society. The private household changes to a social industry. The care and education of children become? a public matter. Society cares equally well for all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the "consequences" which now forms the essential social factor—moral and economic—hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man. Will not this be sufficient cause for a gradual rise of a more unconventional intercourse of the sexes and a more lenient public opinion regarding virgin honor and female shame? And finally, did we not see that in the modern world monogamy and prostitution, though antitheses, are inseparable and poles of the same social condition? Can prostitution disappear without engulfing at the same time monogamy?”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1804) as translated by Ernest Untermann (1902); Full English text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm - Full original-language German text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me21/me21_025.htm

Aleister Crowley photo

“What demon is our god? What name subsumes
That act external to our sleeping selves?
Not pleasure — it is much too broad and narrow —,
Not sex, not for the moment love, but pride,
And not in prowess, but pride undefined,
Autonomous in its unthought demands,
A bit of vanity, but mostly pride.”

J. V. Cunningham (1911–1985) American writer

from "In a few days now when two memories meet", 1964
The Poems of J. V. Cunningham, edited by Timothy Steele, Ohio University Press/Swallow Press, 1997, ISBN 0-804-00997-X
Other poetry

David Berg photo
Elton John photo

“People should be very free with sex, but they should draw the line at goats.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

from 1976 interview with Rolling Stone magazine
Sixty things for Sir Elton's 60th (2007)

Jerry Springer photo
Roger Ebert photo
André Maurois photo
Charles Dickens photo

“Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ.”

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 54, Mr. Bucket to Mademoiselle Hortense

Vanna Bonta photo

“Sex in space is more than a Big Bang.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Femail Magazine June 2008. Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space http://www.femail.com.au/vanna-bonta-talks-sex-in-space.htm

Herbert Spencer photo
Harvey Fierstein photo

“We had great sex, but we argued politics. […] Now we enjoy politics and argue sex.”

Harvey Fierstein (1954) actor from the United States

This Is Not Going to Be Pretty, Live at the Bottom Line (1995), Safe Sex

Ben Hecht photo
Elizabeth Gaskell photo
Ryan North photo

“I'm suddenly worried people will think that I believe their religion can be summed up on four sex-obsessed sentences.”

Ryan North (1980) Canadian webcomic writer and programmer

Comment http://www.livejournal.com/users/dinosaurcomics/31123.html?thread=753043#t753043

David Sedaris photo
Catharine A. MacKinnon photo
Winnifred Harper Cooley photo

“The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!

Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.

The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.”

Winnifred Harper Cooley (1874–1967) American author and lecturer

The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

Marilyn Monroe photo

“I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Statement c. 1962, as quoted in Marilyn (1992) by Peter Harry Brown and Patte B. Barham, Ch. 30
Variant: I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me — and that I've made of myself — as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman's and I can't live up to it.

John Rogers Searle photo
Bill Engvall photo

“Men have three basic needs: Eating, sleeping, sex. That's it.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Here's Your Sign Live! (2004)

Hillary Clinton photo
Ogden Nash photo
Warren Farrell photo
Joshua Jackson photo
Jerry Falwell photo

“Today the world has gone sex crazy. Illicit sex has become the downfall of many in the Bible. Movie stars not married to each other, having babies and making headlines all over the world as though they were doing some great thing. Big deal! Just another moral pervert. And for them to become heroes for our kids. My wife and I will be married 49 years the next anniversary.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Televised sermon at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia (25 June 2006), as quoted in "Falwell on the "moral pervert[s http://mediamatters.org/items/200606270003" in Hollywood: "[Y]ou almost got to be a homosexual to be recognized in the entertainment industry anymore" at Media Matters for America (27 June 2006)]

Sydney Smith photo

“As the French say, there are three sexes, — men, women, and clergymen.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 9
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

Warren Farrell photo
Andrea Dworkin photo

“(On prostitution:) Incest is boot camp. Incest is where you send the girl to learn how to do it. So you don't, obviously, have to send her anywhere, she's already there and she's got nowhere else to go. She's trained. And the training is specific and it is important: not to have any real boundaries to her own body; to know that she's valued only for sex; to learn about men what the offender, the sex offender, is teaching her.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

"Prostitution and Male Supremacy" http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/MichLawJourI.html (1993), Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 1(1):1–12. Reprinted in Life and Death (1997), p 139–51.
Often paraphrased as "Incest is boot camp for prostitution".

“Sex is not necessary to make a movie sell. It's enough to have a pretty girl in the movie.”

Jamie Uys (1921–1996) South African film director

Sunday Times interview (1979)

David Brin photo

“One great mystery is why sexual reproduction became dominant for higher life-forms. Optimization theory says it should be otherwise.
Take a fish or lizard, ideally suited to her environment, with just the right internal chemistry, agility, camouflage—whatever it takes to be healthy, fecund, and successful in her world. Despite all this, she cannot pass on her perfect characteristics. After sex, her offspring will be jumbles, getting only half of their program from her and half their re-sorted genes somewhere else.
Sex inevitably ruins perfection. Parthenogenesis would seem to work better—at least theoretically. In simple, static environments, well-adapted lizards who produce duplicate daughters are known to have advantages over those using sex.
Yet, few complex animals are known to perform self-cloning. And those species exist in ancient, stable deserts, always in close company with a related sexual species.
Sex has flourished because environments are seldom static. Climate, competition, parasites—all make for shifting conditions. What was ideal in one generation may be fatal the next. With variability, your offspring get a fighting chance. Even in desperate times, one or more of them may have what it takes to meet new challenges and thrive.
Each style has its advantages, then. Cloning offers stability and preservation of excellence. Sex gives adaptability to changing times. In nature it is usually one or the other. Only lowly creatures such as aphids have the option of switching back and forth.”

Introduction to Chapter 8 (pp. 123-124)
Glory Season (1993)