Candra Gardley > Candra's Quotes

“There has been a recent rash of authors and individuals fudging evidence in an attempt to argue that women have a higher sex drive than men. We find it bizarre that someone would want to misrepresent data merely to assert that women are hornier than men. Do those concerned with this difference equate low sex drives with disempowerment? Are their missions to somehow prove that women are super frisky carried out in an effort to empower women? This would be odd, as the belief that women’s sex drives were higher than men’s sex drives used to be a mainstream opinion in Western society—during the Victorian period, an age in which women were clearly disempowered. At this time, women were seen as dominated by their sexuality as they were supposedly more irrational and sensitive—this was such a mainstream opinion that when Freud suggested a core drive behind female self-identity, he settled on a desire to have a penis, and that somehow seemed reasonable to people. (See Sex and Suffrage in Britain by Susan Kent for more information on this.)

If the data doesn’t suggest that women have a higher sex drive, and if arguing that women have a higher sex drive doesn’t serve an ideological agenda, why are people so dead set on this idea that women are just as keen on sex—if not more—as male counterparts?

In the abovementioned study, female variability in sex drive was found to be much greater than male variability. Hidden by the claim, “men have higher sex drives in general” is the fun reality that, in general, those with the very highest sex drives are women.

To put it simply, some studies show that while the average woman has a much lower sex drive than the average man, a woman with a high sex drive has a much higher sex drive than a man with a high sex drive. Perhaps women who exist in the outlier group on this spectrum become so incensed by the normalization of the idea that women have low sex drives they feel driven to twist the facts to argue that all women have higher sex drives than men. “If I feel this high sex drive,” we imagine them reasoning, “it must mean most women secretly feel this high sex drive as well, but are socialized to hide it—I just need the data to show this to the world so they don’t have to be ashamed anymore.”

We suppose we can understand this sentiment. It would be very hard to live in a world in which few people believe that someone like you exists and people always prefer to assume that everyone is secretly like them rather than think that they are atypical.”
― Malcolm Collins, The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality

“My people are taught from a young age to try to remember their dreams, to learn from them, and to aspire to achieve their dreams in the physical world.”
― Steven Decker, Projector for Sale

“Were we dealing with a spectrum-based system that described male and female sexuality with equal accuracy, data taken from gay males would look similar to data taken from straight females—and yet this is not what we see in practice. Instead, the data associated with gay male sexuality presents a mirror image of data associated with straight males: Most gay men are as likely to find the female form aversive as straight men are likely to find the male form aversive. In gay females we observe a similar phenomenon, in which they mirror straight females instead of appearing in the same position on the spectrum as straight men—in other words, gay women are just as unlikely to find the male form aversive as straight females are to find the female form aversive.

Some of the research highlighting these trends has been conducted with technology like laser doppler imaging (LDI), which measures genital blood flow when individuals are presented with pornographic images. The findings can, therefore, not be written off as a product of men lying to hide middling positions on the Kinsey scale due to a higher social stigma against what is thought of in the vernacular as male bisexuality/pansexuality. We should, however, note that laser Doppler imaging systems are hardly perfect, especially when measuring arousal in females.

It is difficult to attribute these patterns to socialization, as they are observed across cultures and even within the earliest of gay communities that emerged in America, which had to overcome a huge amount of systemic oppression to exist. It’s a little crazy to argue that the socially oppressed sexuality of the early American gay community was largely a product of socialization given how much they had overcome just to come out.

If, however, one works off the assumptions of our model, this pattern makes perfect sense. There must be a stage in male brain development that determines which set of gendered stimuli is dominant, then applies a negative modifier to stimuli associated with other genders. This stage does not apparently take place during female sexual development. ”
― Simone Collins, The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality

“The strange dance with the Infected continued, but the Loopers in the middle of the room were building into a frenzy, playing or fighting or maybe fucking each other — who the hell knew? Jessie fought not to throw up at the thought.”
― William Kely McClung, LOOP

“You have to understand that in a person's life there are a few precious moments in which decisions, choices that you make now, will affect you for the rest of your life.”
― Dave Pelzer, The Lost Boy

“Yet if there were no hazards there would be no achievement, no sense of adventure.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama

“Perhaps the early indicators of the end times were not birthed in these later events. But were rather the symptoms of a fundamental flaw in the human condition.”
― Rohith S. Katbamna, Down and Rising

“Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Briseis is kneeling by my body. She has brought water and cloth, and washes the blood and dirt from my skin. Her hands are gentle, as though she washes a baby, not a dead thing. Achilles opens the tent, and their eyes meet over my body.

"Get away from him," he says.

"I am almost finished. He does not deserve to lie in filth."

"I would not have your hands on him."

Her eyes are sharp with tears. "Do you think you are the only one who loved him?"

"Get out. Get out!"

"You care more for him in death than in life." Her voice is bitter with grief. "How could you have let him go? You knew he could not fight!"

Achilles screams, and shatters a serving bowl. "Get out!"

Briseis does not flinch. "Kill me. It will not bring him back. He was worth ten of you. Ten! And you sent him to his death!"

The sound that comes from him is hardly human. "I tried to stop him! I told him not to leave the beach!"

"You are the one who made him go." Briseis steps towards him. "He fought to save you, and your darling reputation. Because he could not bear to see you suffer!"

Achilles buries his face in his hands. But she does not relent. "You have never deserved him. I do not know why he ever loved you. You care only for yourself!"

Achilles' gaze lifts to meet hers. She is afraid, but does not draw back. "I hope that Hector kills you."

The breath rasps in his throat. "Do you think I do not hope the same?" he asks.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Hang on, the cats are demanding their second breakfast. One second.”
― Jon Scieszka, Who Done It?

“We would not be able to impact future generations if family was not one of our top priorities.”
― Gregory S. Works, Triumph: Life on the Other Side of Trials, Transplants, Transition and Transformation

“Without active listening, you can not adequately contribute to civil discourse.”
― Milan Kordestani, I'm Just Saying: A Guide to Maintaining Civil Discourse in an Increasingly Divided World

“The Profumo Affair in 1963 profoundly altered British society. It gave lie to the belief that those born into the ruling class were inherently superior and destined to lead.”
― Anne Michaud, Why They Stay: Sex Scandals, Deals, and Hidden Agendas of Nine Political Wives

“I reached and grabbed ahold of the garden rake that was leaned up against the tree, when suddenly I felt my heart begin to race and I began to feel dizzy as my visual field became black. That is the last thing I recall before awakening to find myself lying on the ground in the front yard, with the handle of the rake resting on my chest.”
― DEAN MAFAKO, M.D., Burned Out

“One thing I have learnt is that you may do a lot of evil things, but if you are ever afforded a chance to be good, then you should take it. You will feel better about yourself.”
― Max Nowaz, The Polymorph

“No man, no matter how smart or strong, can compete with a motivated woman.”
― J.K. Franko, Killing Johnny Miracle

“This is BATL.
War in miniature.
War as a game.
War under glass.”
― Brian Van Norman, Against the Machine: Evolution

“As the taxi entered the intersection, the two drivers in the attorney general’s entourage slammed on the brakes. Both Suburbans fishtailed out of control. Ducking in the back seat, Blake could smell the burning rubber from tires skidding on the asphalt and hear the pedestrians screaming and car horns sounding off in rebuke.”
― Chad Boudreaux, Scavenger Hunt

“On the end of my bed. He’s short, round and bald, with a tartan loin cloth, and what looks like a spout on the top of his head,’ Bryony said. ‘You flatter me,’ came the snide male voice. ‘But it’s a valve.”
― Sara Pascoe, Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

“A crude Darwinism? A sadistic fancy? An irresponsible egoism? A megalomania? It was all of these in part. But it was something more. For the mind and the passion of Hitler—all the aberrations that possessed his feverish brain—had roots that lay deep in German experience and thought. Nazism and the Third Reich, in fact, were but a logical continuation of German history.”
― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:—Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.”
― Thomas Mallory, Le Morte D'Arthur

“Mary’s supposed to be the opposite of Eve, but I bet she had childbirth pain just like everyone else.”
― Kathleen Zamboni McCormick, Dodging Satan: My Irish/Italian, Sometimes Awesome, But Mostly Creepy, Childhood

“Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“A true warrior,” she said, “does not fight because he wishes to but because he has to. A man who yearns for war, a man who enjoys his killing, he is a brute and a monster. No matter how much glory he wins on the battlefield, that cannot erase the fact that he is no better than a rabid wolf who will turn on his friends and family as soon as his foes.”
― Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

“People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.”
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“Why do you have such faith in me, Aurelia?" 
"I've told you a million times that I love you, you make me feel safe and cherished, and you care deeply for our people. Why wouldn't I have faith in you?”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“Oh, so now I'm getting in trouble for things I didn't tell anyone I didn't know?”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“No one else can close the door that God has opened for you,” she quietly said under her breath. That was something that Grandma Alice had said to her many times before her death.

“I miss you, Alice,” she whispered, “and wish you were here with me now.”
― Diane Merrill Wigginton, A Compromising Position

“I haven’t got a clue why his bones disintegrated, but look at the bright side,” laughed Adam. “We won’t have to dispose of the body. I’ll get a pan and brush in a minute and flush him down the toilet.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“Part of the hem floated loose. She spun around again—the fabric tightened like wool on a spindle. She breathed in fear. The boat was farther away. She swung her head around—so was the shore.”
― Yvonne Korshak, Pericles and Aspasia: A Story of Ancient Greece