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“Most guys prefer a blow-job,” she said. “They’re not really into fucking, they find it difficult to keep it up. But take some guy’s cock in your mouth and he’s like a little kid again. I think feminism has hit them harder than they like to admit.”
lines seem less brutal. A lot of women suffer here, though. Men who grow old alone have it easier than older women. They drink cheap booze and fall asleep, their breath stinks, then they wake up and start all over again; they tend to die young. Women take tranquilizers, go to yoga classes, see a shrink; they live a lot longer and suffer a lot more. They try to trade on their looks, even when they know their bodies are sad and ugly. They get hurt but they do it anyway, because they can’t give up the need to be loved. That’s one delusion they’ll keep to the bitter end. Once she’s past a certain
...more
Hmmmmmm
“Sorry—I’m a biology professor.”
Apologies
as you know. I was very much in love with my husband. When I stroked his penis or licked it, I worshiped it; I loved to feel him inside
When she awoke, the sun was shining and the prince stood before her.
Clearly AIDS had been a blessing for men of his generation.
little ritual over, and their manhood safe, in principle, they could go back to bed, snuggle up against their woman and fall asleep in peace.
Perhaps they would even see each other afterward; they might grow old together. From time to time she would offer him a little physical pleasure, and together they could live out their declining libidos. They would go on like that for some years and then it would be over; they would be old, and the comedy of sexual manners finished for good.
the end of the first day, it was apparent that Catherine’s personality had aspects of the witch, but also of the lioness, which usually pointed to a career in sales management.
In a few short years, they managed to turn every man they knew into an impotent, whining neurotic.
they started going on about how there were no real men anymore.
Then they start making jam from Marie Claire recipe cards. It’s always the same story, I’ve seen it happen dozens of times.”
themselves to believe it, and sometimes they do for an hour or two. They feel the presence of the Angel or the flower blossoming within but then the workshop’s over and they’re still ugly, aging and alone.
One of the most surprising things about physical love is the sense of intimacy it creates the instant there’s any trace of mutual affection.
And so, that night, Bruno told Christiane things he’d told no one—not even Michel, much less his therapist. He talked to her about his childhood, his grandmother’s death, how he was bullied at boarding school. He told her about his adolescence, about masturbating on the train with a girl only a few meters away; he told her about the summers he spent at his father’s house. Christiane stroked his hair and listened.
first of August.
He knew he needed to think, but what exactly did he need to think about?
He had to go to the limit of self-abasement, to face up to the humiliating sight of his fat belly, his flabby cheeks and his sagging buttocks. Then he would turn out the lights
He would exhale with all his might as he reached the final number; when he raised his head he would be a radically new man, finally ready to live, to swim with the tide of existence.
He would no longer feel guilty or ashamed; he would eat normally and behave normally around girls. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
She was uglier now, practically obese.
she had a studio apartment nearby, with a view of the boulevard Saint-Michel.
Bruno tried to take off her trousers, but she just curled up and pushed him away fiercely, without a word. He gave up and took out his penis. She would suck him off quickly, a little brutally, and he would come in her mouth. Sometimes they talked about their studies, but not often; he usually left quickly.
He’d stuff himself with Tunisian pastries until he felt sick and then go to see her, get a blow-job and leave.
the air as mild as before.
girl’s body lay smashed and strangely twisted on the sidewalk. Her shattered arms seemed to form two strange limbs around her head.
As they lifted her body he saw her shattered skull and turned away. The ambulance drove off in a howl of sirens. So ended Bruno’s first love.
He had a permanent hard-on.
He felt as though what was between his legs was a piece of oozing, putrefying meat devoured by worms.
A subtle but definitive change had occurred in Western society during 1974 and 1975, Bruno thought to himself.
Physical violence, the most perfect
manifestation of individuation, was about to reappear.
atomization of society.”
Family relationships last for years, sometimes decades—much longer, in fact, than any other kind of relationship; then, finally, they too gutter
Control of reproduction is more precise and eventually will be completely disassociated from sex altogether, and procreation will take place in tightly guarded laboratories where perfect genetic conditions are ensured.
Once that happens, any sense of family, of father-son bonds, will disappear.
When we get to the point that life can’t be prolonged any further, we’ll be killed off by voluntary euthanasia; quick, discreet, emotionless.
Sexual liberation is total—nothing stands in the way of instant gratification.
This is exactly the sort of world we’re trying to create, the world we want to live in.
“Everyone says Brave New World is supposed to be a totalitarian nightmare, a vicious indictment of society, but that’s hypocritical bullshit. Brave New World is our idea of heaven: genetic manipulation, sexual liberation, the war against aging, the leisure society.
meritocracy—is
he understood that for centuries the evolution of human society had been linked to scientific and technological progress and would continue to be more and more
Huxley was the first writer to realize that biology would take over from physics as the driving force of society—long before other sci-fi writers.”
!
He was certainly the only writer of his generation who understood the impact biology would have. It would all have happened much faster if it hadn’t been for the war.
was written by Julian Huxley, Aldous’s older brother, and published in 1931, a year before Brave New World. All of the ideas his brother used in the novel—genetic manipulation and improving the species, including the human species—are suggested here. All of them are presented as unequivocally desirable goals that society should strive for.”
Oh sht merked
Aldous Huxley is probably one of the most influential thinkers of the century.”
On the island a civilization has developed which has completely bypassed the great commercial currents of the twentieth century. The civilization is technologically advanced, but still respectful of nature.
“The metaphysical mutation that gave rise to materialism and modern science in turn spawned two great trends: rationalism and individualism.
growth of individualism brought about by an increased consciousness of death.
Individualism gives rise to freedom, the sense of self, the need to distinguish oneself and to be superior to others.
