The idea underlying such endless discussion and dreaming about the physical act is that sexual expertise confers worldliness and is therefore part of becoming an affirmed individual. This is a curious suggestion... Sex is many things - a need, a desire, an emotion, a release - but it has nothing to do with worldly sophistication, character building or even existential action. Sex, in general, is more of an obstacle than anything else for those who wish to free themselves and act as individuals... [W]e aren't dealing with a successful affirmation of responsible individualism in the real world. We are creating private dreams which compensate for the fracturing of the individual and the castration of his or her power in public life.

If Marx were functioning today, he would have been hard put to avoid saying that imaginary sex is the opiate of the people.

There is little to envy in the woman's position either. For perhaps the first time in history, she has a general sense of herself as an individual apart from m…

Superficial nonconformism... leaves our rational structures indifferent. Questions of moral action and of physical appearance are increasingly irrelevant; they…

'Men may control the free world, but women control the boobs.'

The subject of men and women is absolutely fraught with sex, which is as it should be.

This breakdown of social order - rules of dress, sexual controls, speech patterns, family structures - has been seen as a great victory for the individual. On …