This is why witty sex quotes--especially those that beguile us into laughing at ourselves--deserve our (at least) "quasi-serious" attention. To maintain our psychological balance, it's essential we let ourselves smile, giggle, and maybe even break up over all the incongruities, inconsistencies, and flat-out contradictions related to what may be our favorite pastime.
After all, what could be healthier than light-heartedly chuckling over our abiding impulses, susceptibilities, and weaknesses. At some level, most of us can appreciate that many comic utterances betray profound truths about ourselves--truths we might not be willing to look at without their being framed humorously. But feeling amused, we may be able to recognize and (however begrudgingly) accept that, overcome by lower instincts and desires, we're quite capable of being like that, talking like that, reacting like that. Our powerful, more animal side can preempt our better judgment, or our higher ethical sensibilities.
Here, for example, are two witty (but also rather cutting) examples of how our sexual propensities may disclose things about us that, though comical, are hardly admirable. The first pokes fun at men, the second at women:
"Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography." (Robert Byrne)
"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible." (P. J. O'Rourke)
Anyhow, I hope you'll enjoy these quotations. I assembled them--and as much as possible sought to group them--after reviewing many 100s of witticisms, jokes, puns, and assorted drollery on the subject. Finally, I selected those I felt were "choice," the very best of the lot, while at the same time endeavoring to exclude those that seemed rather tasteless, mean-spirited, or overly derisive. Still, I've little doubt that some readers will see me as failing in my attempts here.
As in my love quotes piece earlier, you'll probably find many of them somewhat cynical. And certainly they tend toward the outspoken, irreverent, and at times outrageous. But, however embarrassingly, almost all contain at least a grain of truth about them. Some are quite wise, some almost hilariously paradoxical, and others (I think) simply hilarious. So as you chuckle (while perhaps simultaneously shaking your head), do consider what each quip might possibly say about you . . . as well as--ahem--all the rest of us. And please, do go ahead and have a good (non-judgmental) laugh over the foolishness and folly that so many of them encapsulate.
One last note: I purposely saved all my Woody Allen quotes for the very end. Regarding him as the veritable master of witty one-liners on sex, I thought it fitting to give him the closing say--to allow his unusually clever jests to represent, well, the final climax.
Okay, on with the quotes:
"A dirty book is rarely dusty." ~ Anon.
"Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around." ~ David Lodge
"Familiarity breeds contempt--and children." ~ Mark Twain
"It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins." ~ Chinese Proverb
"Sex at age ninety is like trying to shoot pool with a rope." ~ George Burns
"I'm at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table." ~ Rodney Dangerfield
"I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin." ~ Groucho Marx
"My father told me all about the birds and the bees--the liar. I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one" ~ Bob Hope
"I know nothing about sex, because I was always married." ~ Zsa Zsa Gabor
"Anticipation makes the hard-on longer." ~ Itsby Stevintary
"The difference between light and hard is that you can sleep with a light on." ~ Anon
"A promiscuous person is a person who is getting more sex than you are." ~ Victor Lownes
"A nymphomaniac is someone who has more sex than you do." ~ Alfred Kinsey
"Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man." ~ Mignon McLaughlin
"A student undergoing a word-association test was asked why a snowstorm put him in mind of sex. He replied frankly: 'because everything does.'" ~ Honor Tracy
"Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact." ~ Marlene Dietrich
"Men are those creatures with two legs and eight hands." ~ Jayne Mansfield
"Chastity: The most unnatural of the sexual perversions." ~ Aldous Huxley
"Don't worry, it only seems kinky the first time. ~ Anon
"Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken." ~ Anon
"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults." ~ Gore Vidal
"There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex--they should draw the line at goats." ~ Elton John
"My girlfriend said to me in bed last night: 'you're a pervert.' I said, 'That's a big word for a girl of nine.'" ~ Emo Philips
"Sex on television can't hurt you, unless you fall off." ~ Anon
"Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed." ~ William Shakespeare
"He in a few minutes ravished this fair creature, or at least would have ravished her, if she had not, by a timely compliance, prevented him." ~ Henry Fielding
"I once knew a woman who offered her honor
So I honored her offer
And all night long I was on her and off her." ~ Anon
"Nothing risqué, nothing gained." ~ Alexander Woollcott
"Be naughty--save Santa a trip. ~ Anon
"I think I could fall madly in bed with you." ~ Anon
"When a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 a minute." ~ Anon
"The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs less." ~ Brendan Francis
"Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable." ~ Lord Chesterfield
"Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble." ~ John Barrymore
"When a guy goes to a hooker, he's not paying her for sex, he's paying her to leave." ~ Anon
"Vanity, revenge, loneliness, boredom, all apply: lust is one of the least of the reasons for promiscuity." ~ Mignon McLaughlin
"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex." ~ Aldous Huxley
"There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex." ~ Billy Joel
"Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure." ~ Thomas Szasz
"We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation." ~ Lily Tomlin
