Best 6 quotes of Martin Duberman on MyQuotes

Anal sex is in fact characteristically the interaction of two active partners, not one aggressor and one passive recipient of aggression. No anal sex worth a candle involves a limp, passive, nearly comatose “victim”; both participants write the script, both actively orchestrate the scene, both gyrate their bodies with interactive abandon. Which fact, if acknowledged, would, as it were, make the traditional-minded heterosexual male’s blood run cold (or, perhaps put more appropriately, scare the shit out of him).

A “successful” relationship is best defined not as one that sustains erotic intensity but rather one that helps to soften the brute fact that we’re alone in this world—and will leave it.

Gay men know a lot more about sexual responsiveness, and the erotic potential of their bodies, particularly of their nipples and assholes, than straight men.

Humanitarian concerns are always dismissed as impractical, at least initially. Humanitarian concerns, however, aren’t high on the national gay movement’s list of priorities; if they were, we’d hear a lot more from them than we do about the inequities that derive from race, class, and gender.

The attitudinal changes we’ve seen in recent decades regarding racism, sexism, and homophobia are real, but can encourage simplistic optimism about additional progress.

The main goal here is to make ourselves “familiar enough” to straight people to win their acceptance. But why should that be of paramount importance? Precisely why would we want to do ourselves over in their image? To become more like them would be to forget our own singular history and the special insights and perspectives that derive from it, giving us, as spies in the culture, a unique perspective for evaluating and critiquing aspects of mainstream culture.