With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution.

Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.

Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?

There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization.

Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.

We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.

Since the point of erotica is to offer the consumer sexual experiences without having to compromise with the demands of the other sex, it is a window into each sex's unalloyed desires. Pornography for men is visual, anatomical, impulsive, floridly promiscuous and devoid of context and character. Erotica for women is far more likely to be verbal, psychological, reflective, serially monogamous and rich in context and character. Men fantasise about copulating with bodies; women fantasise about making love to people.