Degradation Is Us

“The commercial prostitution of love
is the last outcome of our whole social system,
and [it is] loves' most clear condemnation.
[This condemnation] flaunts in our streets,
it hides itself in the garment of respectability
under the name of matrimony,
it eats in actual physical disease and death
right through our midst; it is fed
by the oppression and the ignorance of women, 
by their poverty and denied means of livelihood,
and by the hypocritical puritanism which forbids them
by millions not only to gratify but even to speak
of their natural [and relatively chaste] desires;
and it is encouraged by the callousness
of an age which has accustomed men
to buy and sell for money every most precious thing
- even the life-long labor of their brothers -
therefore why not also the very bodies of their sisters?”
-Edward Carpenter (written circa 1900)

Levelling Upwards

Utopian as this quote is, it is good to have something to live up to....

'Eros is a great leveller. Perhaps the true Democracy rests, more firmly than anywhere else, on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual workers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which although not publicly acknowledged have a decided influence on social institutions, customs and political tendencies.'

          Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex