Nikki

“This rather abrupt change from one sex to two sexes was not the result of any new knowledge of the female or male body. Scientists knew little more about human anatomy in 1800 than they did in 1700. What changed was the demand for a division of human beings into stable categories, a demand that was essential for social order in an increasingly industrialized Europe. Science, in other words, didn’t change anything on its own but rather did the work of culture by defining a new reality. And in this world, there was little room for any idea that sex was a spectrum or continuum along which humans could move. A clear-cut distinction between male and female roles, and between the home and work, the private and public spheres, was essential, even if in most industrial English working-class families both men and women worked. An ideology of manliness, male privilege, and superiority also fit well with the new image of the strong, independent male worker who was at no risk of becoming as soft and vulnerable as men believed women to be. In the one-sex world,”
― Roy Richard Grinker, Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness

“In Buddhism, the term hungry ghost refers to the person whose appetite exceeds their capacity for satisfaction. The visual of a hungry ghost is a Buddha-ghost with a tiny mouth and an enormous stomach. They’re greedy, starved for money, sex, drugs, power, status, all the good stuff. More is never enough.”
― Chloe Caldwell, I'll Tell You in Person

“A writer friend who is a practicing therapist as well once told me this is why writers write. They don’t feel seen. I”
― Chloe Caldwell, I'll Tell You in Person

“In this one-sex world, Queen Elizabeth I could refer to herself as both a feeble virgin and the nation’s husband, and artists could represent Eve’s partner, Adam, as pregnant.3 Before the Enlightenment, there were even paintings of Christ with breasts.”
― Roy Richard Grinker, Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness