Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963) as translated by Richard Howard (1968) - Excerpt online http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/1963/interview.htm
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Context: It was said that I refused to grant any value to the maternal instinct and to love. This was not so. I simply asked that women should experience them truthfully and freely, whereas they often use them as excuses and take refuge in them, only to find themselves imprisoned in that refuge when those emotions have dried up in their hearts. I was accused of preaching sexual promiscuity; but at no point did I ever advise anyone to sleep with just anyone at just any time; my opinion on this subject is that all choices, agreements and refusals should be made independently of institutions, conventions and motives of self-aggrandizement; if the reasons for it are not of the same order as the act itself, then the only result can be lies, distortions and mutilations.
“Like all men I have a maternal instinct, but I can clutch only so many characters to my breast at one time.”
"Touch of Evil: A selective investigation of recent mysteries and thrillers" http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/04/touch-of-evil/304721/ (April 2006), The Atlantic
2000s
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Brian Reynolds Myers 149
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