It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct.
—Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

I will not give up on Paradise.
—Paul Goodman, Five Years

Lust strives to become intellectualized, the concrete operations of the flesh are blended with decorous abstractions, human loves tend toward the impossibilities of angelic embraces. Magic and pseudo-mysticism . . . become so many spices which are used to give a new taste to the well-known feast of the senses.
—Mario Praz,
The Romantic Agony

One of the most conspicuous features of the cultural revolution that swept through America and Western Europe in the 1960s was the demand for sexual liberation. In some respects, of course, this demand was not new. The revolt against traditional sexual mores had been an important...

 

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