Cassie Thompson

“An aside on the question of pleasure. The subject didn't really get much pleasure from all this fornicating she was doing. The compulsion wasn't to feel good, it was to enjoy the feeling of making someone want her, of making someone else feel good. Frequency of condition was high, in fact constant.”
― Claire Dederer, Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning

“Jess herself seemed resolutely asexual, though I later of torrid affairs, and complex intrigues. This quality of holding back was very important for me to see. She'd held herself apart a little. She didn't pretend she wasn't beautiful, there was nothing coy in her, but she wasn't very interested in using her beauty's power. That fascinated me. I had never thought of that as an option. Just letting your beauty lie around, unused. She was a model of a different way of being.”
― Claire Dederer, Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning

“The stereotype that men have sex for pleasure and women have sex for love is unfounded," says Meston. But while the top 10 show significant overlap, distinctions emerge lower in the list. "Women don't have sex because they're IN love," says Meston, "But because they're protecting love, stealing love, trying to create love, or doing it out of duty."
One participant said, "My mother taught me to have sex with my man, or someone else will."
Another said, "I'd rather spend five minutes having sex with him than listen to him whine and complain about how horny he is for the next two days.”
― Garth Sundem, Brain Trust: 93 Top Scientists Reveal Lab-Tested Secrets to Surfing, Dating, Dieting, Gambling, Growing Man-Eating Plants, and More!

“When the subject was 14, late in the year of 1980, she began to pursue male attention, like the cartoon cat who turns around and begins to chase the dog. From there on out, her pursuit was dedicated, the subject was never without a boyfriend, or several. She seemed to need to stack them, like cordwood, for winter. Sexual activity was ongoing, occasionally fervent, but usually desultory, or mechanical, or dutiful. What this study is attempting to ascertain is why. Why did she do this?”
― Claire Dederer, Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning