“ A woman cannot give a man his sense of maleness. He can desire her, but not identify with her. At best, she can give him a negative identification: This can be very thrilling, but still leaves him de… Nancy Friday
“ I think the thing I miss most in our age is our manners. It sounds so old-fashioned in a way. But even bad people had good manners in the old days, and manners hold a community together, and manners h… Nancy Friday
“ When the Wicked Queen calls for Snow White’s heart, because her mir- ror has informed her that she has been outstripped in beauty, the fairy tale warns little girls, even today, that there is danger i… Nancy Friday
“ If women really want equality, we have to wipe the slate clean. It no longer matters in the largest sense what men did to us for the last 200 or 300 years. Nancy Friday
“ Freud called the first stage of life polymorphous perverse. At birth infants are so undifferentiated that they have the capacity to receive erotic stimulation at every aperture of the body and any are… Nancy Friday
“ Our feelings about menstruation are the image of what it is to be a woman in this culture. While menstruation and the fear of revealing evidence of loss of body control bear possibilities of humiliati… Nancy Friday
“ Because society would rather we always wore a pretty face, women have been trained to cut off anger. Nancy Friday
“ The primary rule is always that a mother can’t go wrong, ever, by encouraging her child after age one and a half to be as individuated and separated as possible. If she was not as good a mother before… Nancy Friday
“ Who said ladies don’t use words like fuck and cunt, or that one doesn’t use them around ladies? Maybe not when you’re having lunch with a lady, but when a lady’s fucking, she’s not having lunch. Nancy Friday
“ Forever after men sense the forbidding shadow of the primitive, preoedipal mother behind every woman to whom they are attracted. To escape this (..) they are usually attracted to women younger than th… Nancy Friday
“ The Freudian fetishist is defined by the fact that his desire is not primarily for the woman. (..) fetish is a transitional object – helping the toddler bridge his fear and loneliness. Having this unc… Nancy Friday
“ The image of women making love to women grips the male imagination because it expresses one of the dominant themes of male fantasy: the sexually insatiable woman. Women who masturbate, who make love t… Nancy Friday
“ To say something nice about themselves this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. Nancy Friday
“ Voyeurism is a general term for people who get sensual satisfaction from looking, often with the knowledge, consent, and even full participation of the sexual object. (..) the eye is one of the organs… Nancy Friday
“ Nancy, you know I’m not really good at this mothering business, she says. You’re a lovely child, the fault is not with you. But motherhood doesn’t come easily to me. So when I don’t seem like other pe… Nancy Friday
“ Do women dress for men or women? I’ve always wondered why that eternally provocative question is put in terms of approval - as if the heart of the matter, the answer, were indeed a question of approva… Nancy Friday
“ Rape does for a woman’s sexual fantasy what the first martini does for her in reality: both relieve her of responsibility and guilt. Nancy Friday
