www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/200479485/creativecommons.

com
25 Most Important Things Ever Said About Women,
Sex and Love

Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

Jed@MenAlive.com www.MenAlive.com

After 44 years helping men and women achieve more satisfying and
joyful relationships, I’ve accumulated some helpful wisdom. I’ve
written about the 25 Most Important Things About Men and 25 Most
Important Things About Sex, Love, and Marriage. Here’s some
wisdom about women, sex, and love.

25. “You never lose by loving. You lose by holding back.” --Barbara
De Angelis

24. “Woman the bowl, the urn, the cave, the musky jungle. We are
the dark mysterium! We are hidden folds and primal wisdom and
always, always, the womb, bearing life, releasing life, and then
sucking it back in again, into those moist, chthonic plaits. ‘Male
sexuality, then, returning to this primal source, drinks at the spring of
being and enters the murky region, where up is down and death is
life, of mythology,’ John Updike has written.” --Natalie Angier,
Woman: An Intimate Geography.

23. “It is hard to understand why it is that when we have roots we

want wings and when we have wings we seek roots, or why it is so
difficult to have both at the same time. I just know that the people
making the change to get one when they have the other rarely realize
how important the one they are giving up will be until they’ve lost it.
But by then, it is too late.” --Merle Shain, Courage My Love: A Book
to Light an Honest Path.

22. “Many of us are addicts, only we don't know it. We turn to each
other out of the same needs that drive some people to drink and
others to heroin. Interpersonal addiction, love addiction, is just about
the most common yet least recognized form of addiction we know.” –
Stanton Peele, Love and Addiction
21. “If our parents related to us in hostile, critical, cruel, manipulative,
overbearing, over dependent, or otherwise inappropriate ways, that is
what will feel ‘right’ to us when we meet someone who expresses,
perhaps very subtly, undertones of the same attitudes and
behaviors.” --Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much

20. “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you
higher.” --Oprah Winfrey

19. “What competing is to males, choosing is to females. We do not

mean to imply that women are not competitive with one another; they
are, but not so directly or blatantly as men. Women tend to compete
by focusing on themselves, by striving to look more attractive,
seductive, desirable, and youthful than the competition. Of the three
evolutionary goods female seek, a future mate’s resources are the
most apparent and, to many, the most important. From insects to
primates, females prefer wealthy men.”—Judith Lipton and David
Barash, Making Sense of Sex.

18. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will
forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them
feel.” --Maya Angelou

17. “Scientists have documented an astonishing array of structural,

chemical, genetic, hormonal, and functional brain differences
between women and men. For example, in the brain centers for
language and learning women have 11 percent more neurons than
men. The principle hub of both emotion and memory formation—the
hippocampus—is also larger in the female brain, as is the brain
circuitry for language and observing emotions in others.” --Louann
Brizendine, The Female Brain.

16. “The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even
less than you settled for.”--Maureen Dowd
15. “I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me.
Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I
alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings,
my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or
myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own
my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I
own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so
doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there
are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do
not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can
courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and
ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever
I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time
is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded,
thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is
unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I
discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to
survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense
and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own
me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.
—Virginia Satir

14. “If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work:

‘Hello. Can't work today, still queer.’” –Robin Tyler

13. “Rx for Women. Regular Sex—at least once a week, and until
this is available, remain celibate. While you’ll probably never get a
prescription like this from a doctor, you should know that is actually
sound advice. My research with more than seven hundred women
confirms the value of weekly sexual contact, a weekly love cycle.”
--Winnifred B. Cutler. Love Cycles: The Science of Intimacy.

12. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember,

you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to
reach for the stars to change the world.” —Harriet Tubman
11. “Two oddly correlated phenomena, the international baby boom
and the biology of menopause, will accelerate women’s impact on
tomorrow. Middle-aged women around the world tend to become
much more assertive. With menopause, levels of the estrogens
decline, unmasking natural levels of testosterone and other
androgens in the female body. ‘Such a critical mass of older women
with a tradition of rebellion and independence and a way of making a
living has not occurred before in history,’ writes historian Gerda
Lerner. We stand on the doorway of what may become an age of
women.” --Helen Fisher, The First Sex: The Natural Talents of
Women and How They Are Changing the World.

10. “It upsets women to be, or not to be, stared at hungrily.”

--Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

9. “Women remember stressful events better than men do. Here’s

why. Estrogen not only activates a larger field of neurons in women
during an upsetting experience, meaning that they experience the
stress more intensely, but it also prolongs the amount of time that the
adrenal glad secretes the stress hormone cortisol—which happens to
be a natural memory booster. That’s why simply remembering an
unpleasant incident can bring back the same terrible sadness and
agitation that was experienced at the time.” --Marianne J. Legato.,
Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget.

8. “The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The

male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and
building systems.” --Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference:
The Truth About the Male & Female Brain.

7. “Anti-woman feelings appear to be almost universal. By

misogyny, I mean an unreasonable fear or hatred of women. Men
love and hate women simultaneously and in equal measure. Most
men need women desperately and most men reject this driving need
as both unworthy and dangerous. There seems to be something
about being a human male that produces a painful conundrum in
relating to and living with women.” --David D. Gilmore. Misogyny:
The Male Malady
6. “Lay the blame for the four enemies of happiness, the four new
horses of the apocalypse—death, bereavement, loneliness, and
shame—at nature’s door. All are attendant upon ageing. It is well to
acknowledge that nature is not our friend. Blithely, she discards us.
Better treat her as an enemy. She is concerned with our children, not
with us, and though our interests may overlap, they do not coincide.
Nature has no interest in us once we are past a certain age—and
even for the young she can prove an uneasy ally.” --Fay Weldon,
What Makes Women Happy.

5. “Over the last four decades, women have experienced

unprecedented growth in independence and opportunities. Yet, many
of us are flooded with worries, thoughts, and emotions that swirl out
of control, sucking our emotions and energy down, down, down. We
are suffering from an epidemic of overthinking—getting caught in
torrents of negative thoughts and emotions that overwhelm us and
interfere with our functioning and well-being.”—Susan Nolen-
Hoeksema, Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of
Over-Thinking and Reclaim Your Life.

4. “It was becoming all too common. A well-established midlife

couple with everything to be grateful for—a beautiful family, a cozy
home, a comfortable lifestyle—and a divorce proceeding heatedly
under way. Another midlife marital casuality. –Nancy Cetel. Double
Menopause: What to Do When Both You and Your Mate Go
Through Hormonal Changes Together.

3. “The torment that so many young women know, bound hand and
foot by love and motherhood, without having forgotten their former
dreams.” --Simone de Beauvoir
2. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our
darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not
to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the
world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people
won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the
glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of
us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own
fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” --MaryAnne
Williamson

1. “’No’ is a complete sentence.” --Anne Lamont

Well, let’s be honest. These are the not the most important things
ever said about women, sex, and love. They are just one man’s
collection of what he thinks are important words of wisdom. I hope
you found them valuable.

I welcome your comments.

If you liked this article you will also like my article on the 25 Most
Helpful Things Ever Said About Men.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20579255/25-Most-Helpful-Things-Ever-
Said-About-Men-Masculinity-and-Marriage

and 237 Reasons Why Women Have Sex

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20528148/237-Reasons-Why-Women-
Have-Sex

and The 25 Most Helpful Things Ever Said About Love Marriage and
Relationships

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19942619/The-25-Most-Helpful-Things-
Ever-Said-About-Love-Marriage-and-Relationships
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.
Jed@MenAlive.com www.MenAlive.com