Brave New World Sex Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Part.Paragraph)

Quote #21

In those other words he did not understand so well, she said to the man, "Not with John here." The man looked at him, then again at Linda, and said a few words in a soft voice. Linda said, "No." But the man bent over the bed towards him and his face was huge, terrible; the black ropes of hair touched the blanket. "No," Linda said again, and he felt her hand squeezing him more tightly. "No, no!" But the man took hold of one of his arms, and it hurt. He screamed. The man put up his other hand and lifted him up. Linda was still holding him, still saying, "No, no." The man said something short and angry, and suddenly her hands were gone. "Linda, Linda." He kicked and wriggled; but the man carried him across to the door, opened it, put him down on the floor in the middle of the other room, and went away, shutting the door behind him. He got up, he ran to the door. Standing on tiptoe he could just reach the big wooden latch. He lifted it and pushed; but the door wouldn't open. "Linda," he shouted. She didn't answer.

[…]

[…] He hated Popé. He hated them all—all the men who came to see Linda. (8.9-11)

Here we get our first glimpses of John's rage at Linda's promiscuity, which is probably related to his later anger at Lenina for being just promiscuous. This is Freudian, big-time.

Quote #22

One day, when he came in from playing, the door of the inner room was open, and he saw them lying together on the bed, asleep—white Linda and Popé almost black beside her, with one arm under her shoulders and the other dark hand on her breast, and one of the plaits of his long hair lying across her throat, like a black snake trying to strangle her. (8.42)

John's feeling that sex is dirty and violent begins here, in his childhood. He ascribes malevolence to Popé's relationship with his mother, and this is a great example of the way imagery is used in literature to convey emotion. We're talking about the contrast of white and darkness and, of course, about the snake.

Quote #23

The magic was on his side, the magic explained and gave orders. He stepped back in the outer room. "When he is drunk asleep…" The knife for the meat was lying on the floor near the fireplace. He picked it up and tiptoed to the door again. "When he is drunk asleep, drunk asleep…" He ran across the room and stabbed—oh, the blood! —stabbed again, as Popé heaved out of his sleep, lifted his hand to stab once more, but found his wrist caught, held and—oh, oh!— twisted. He couldn't move, he was trapped, and there were Popé's small black eyes, very close, staring into his own. He looked away. There were two cuts on Popé's left shoulder. "Oh, look at the blood!" Linda was crying. "Look at the blood!" (8.45)

We discuss this in depth in John's character analysis, but this is where we were really convinced of his "Oedipus complex"—the male desire to kill his father and sleep with his mother. John really does try to kill Popé here, who is as close to a father-figure as he has.

Quote #24

A moment later he was inside the room. He opened the green suit-case; and all at once he was breathing Lenina's perfume, filling his lungs with her essential being. His heart beat wildly; for a moment he was almost faint. Then, bending over the precious box, he touched, he lifted into the light, he examined. The zippers on Lenina's spare pair of viscose velveteen shorts were at first a puzzle, then solved, a delight. Zip, and then zip; zip, and then zip; he was enchanted. Her green slippers were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He unfolded a pair of zippicamiknicks, blushed, put them hastily away again; but kissed a perfumed acetate handkerchief and wound a scarf round his neck. Opening a box, he spilt a cloud of scented powder. His hands were floury with the stuff. He wiped them on his chest, on his shoulders, on his bare arms. Delicious perfume! He shut his eyes; he rubbed his cheek against his own powdered arm. Touch of smooth skin against his face, scent in his nostrils of musky dust—her real presence. "Lenina," he whispered. "Lenina!" (9.25)

Compare this passage to the one in Chapter 13, when John refuses to have sex with Lenina and she ends up locking herself in the bathroom. These zippers come up again, and we get the same repetition of the words "Zip! Zip!" It's just that, by then, John is disgusted rather than fascinated—much the way his reaction to the new world changes.

Quote #25

Then suddenly he found himself reflecting that he had only to take hold of the zipper at her neck and give one long, strong pull… He shut his eyes, he shook his head with the gesture of a dog shaking its ears as it emerges from the water. Detestable thought! He was ashamed of himself. Pure and vestal modesty… (9.33)

John feels the way he does about sex because he escaped hypnopaedic sleep conditioning. Instead of thinking promiscuity is acceptable, he values chastity and monogamy. But… wait a minute… from where did he get his values? Well, Shakespeare, and the religion of Malpais. That's not pre-conditioning. OR IS IT? If you think about it, it's probably more natural for John to have sex with Lenina right at this very moment than it is for him to hold off. Thus we have to ask the question… isn't everything just conditioning, in one form or another? And what, at the end of the day, is natural?

Quote #26

From behind a door in the corridor leading to the Beta-Minus geography room, a ringing soprano voice called, "One, two, three, four," and then, with a weary impatience, "As you were."

"Malthusian Drill," explained the Head Mistress. "Most of our girls are freemartins, of course. I'm a freemartin myself." She smiled at Bernard. "But we have about eight hundred unsterilized ones who need constant drilling." (11.52-3)

We don't even want to know what they're doing in that room.

Quote #27

In the cinematographic twilight, Bernard risked a gesture which, in the past, even total darkness would hardly have emboldened him to make. Strong in his new importance, he put his arm around the Head Mistress's waist. It yielded, willowily. He was just about to snatch a kiss or two and perhaps a gentle pinch, when the shutters clicked open again. (11.56)

Compare this to Bernard's earlier concerns that Lenina was being treated as nothing but meat. Fame seems to have gone to his head.

Quote #28

"It's wonderful, of course. And yet in a way," she had confessed to Fanny, "I feel as though I were getting something on false pretences. Because, of course, the first thing they all want to know is what it's like to make love to a Savage. And I have to say I don't know." She shook her head. "Most of the men don't believe me, of course. But it's true. I wish it weren't," she added sadly and sighed. "He's terribly good-looking; don't you think so?" (11.84)

For the first time, Lenina experiences the gap between desire and consummation. But is this the only reason she likes John—the fact that she can't have him?

Quote #29

Those fiery letters, meanwhile, had disappeared; there were ten seconds of complete darkness; then suddenly, dazzling and incomparably more solid-looking than they would have seemed in actual flesh and blood, far more real than reality, there stood the stereoscopic images, locked in one another's arms, of a gigantic n***o and a golden-haired young brachycephalic Beta-Plus female.

The Savage started. That sensation on his lips! He lifted a hand to his mouth; the titillation ceased; let his hand fall back on the metal knob; it began again. The scent organ, meanwhile, breathed pure musk. Expiringly, a sound-track super-dove cooed "Oo-ooh"; and vibrating only thirty-two times a second, a deeper than African bass made answer: "Aa-aah." "Ooh-ah! Ooh-ah!" the stereoscopic lips came together again, and once more the facial erogenous zones of the six thousand spectators in the Alhambra tingled with almost intolerable galvanic pleasure. "Ooh…" (11.98-99)

Huxley does an interesting thing here by making his reader (of the 1930s, that is) feel a similar sense of taboo that the fictional characters feel watching the feely. To them, the idea of three weeks of monogamous sex is, well, smut. To 1930s English readers, the thought of a black man and a white woman would be similarly frowned upon. We're not sure if Huxley deserves this much credit, but it would be nice if the text were asking whether or not our own present-day taboos were as unreasonable as the idea that monogamy is wrong.

Quote #30

The concussion knocked all the n***o's conditioning into a cocked hat. He developed for the Beta blonde an exclusive and maniacal passion. She protested. He persisted. There were struggles, pursuits, an assault on a rival, finally a sensational kidnapping. The Beta blond was ravished away into the sky and kept there, hovering, for three weeks in a wildly anti-social tête-à-tête with the black madman. Finally, after a whole series of adventures and much aerial acrobacy three handsome young Alphas succeeded in rescuing her. The n***o was packed off to an Adult Re-conditioning Centre and the film ended happily and decorously, with the Beta blonde becoming the mistress of all her three rescuers. They interrupted themselves for a moment to sing a synthetic quartet, with full super-orchestral accompaniment and gardenias on the scent organ. Then the bearskin made a final appearance and, amid a blare of sexophones, the last stereoscopic kiss faded into darkness, the last electric titillation died on the lips like a dying moth that quivers, quivers, ever more feebly, ever more faintly, and at last is quiet, quite still. (11.102)

If you were feeling adventurous, you could probably think of this as some sort of vague foreshadowing of the climactic orgy scene at the end of the novel.

Quote #31

"It was base," he said indignantly, "it was ignoble." (11.105)

John's opinion on the feely is so confusing and painful for Lenina to hear because, in fact, it is a reflection of his opinion of her—or at least of her sexual escapades.

Quote #32

"But it's absurd to let yourself get into a state like this. Simply absurd," she repeated. "And what about? A man—one man."

"But he's the one I want."

"As though there weren't millions of other men in the world."

"But I don't want them."

"How can you know till you've tried?"

"I have tried." (13.12-7)

This makes it sound like Lenina's desire for John is a simple case of wanting what you can't have. If she really loved him, she probably wouldn't be sleeping with "dozens" of other men. (Although you could also argue that this is her conditioned way of dealing with emotion. Your pick.)

Quote #33

"Well, if that's the case," said Fanny, with decision, "why don't you just go and take him. Whether he wants it or no." (13.28)

Fanny just suggested rape, but we're thinking that, in a world where "everyone belongs to everyone else," they don't really have any notion of what this means.

Quote #34

"It's like that in Shakespeare too. 'If thou cost break her virgin knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies may with full and holy rite…'" (13.63)

John gets his notions of chastity and honor both from the Native Americans on the Reservation and from Shakespeare.

Quote #35

"The murkiest den, the most opportune place" (the voice of conscience thundered poetically), "the strongest suggestion our worser genius can, shall never melt mine honour into lust. Never, never!" he resolved. (13.71)

John repeats his Shakespearean phases the same way Lenina, Fanny, and Henry recite their hypnopaedic teachings. Is this just another form of indoctrinated thought?

Quote #36

But her perfume still hung about him, his jacket was white with the powder that had scented her velvety body. "Impudent strumpet, impudent strumpet, impudent strumpet." The inexorable rhythm beat itself out. "Impudent…" (13.100)

Again we see the notions of rhythm and music tied up with violence and sex. This prepares us for the final orgy-porgy scene in which John repeats his saying in a rhythmic way while the people beat each other "in six-eight time."

Quote #37

"[…] chastity means passion, chastity means neurasthenia. And passion and neurasthenia mean instability. And instability means the end of civilization. You can't have a lasting civilization without plenty of pleasant vices." (17.45)

Mustapha claims that promiscuity is necessary to avoid feelings of unfulfilled desire. John will later establish that such feelings are part of being a human. It follows, then, that in creating "lasting civilization," the World Controllers have destroyed humanity. If this is true, what they're running isn't exactly a "civilization" at all.

Quote #38

The weather was breathlessly hot, there was thunder in the air. He had dug all the morning and was resting, stretched out along the floor. And suddenly the thought of Lenina was a real presence, naked and tangible, saying "Sweet!" and "Put your arms round me!"—in shoes and socks, perfumed. Impudent strumpet! But oh, oh, her arms round his neck, the lifting of her breasts, her mouth! Eternity was in our lips and eyes. Lenina… No, no, no, no! He sprang to his feet and, half naked as he was, ran out of the house. At the edge of the heath stood a clump of hoary juniper bushes. He flung himself against them, he embraced, not the smooth body of his desires, but an armful of green spikes. Sharp, with a thousand points, they pricked him. He tried to think of poor Linda, breathless and dumb, with her clutching hands and the unutterable terror in her eyes. Poor Linda whom he had sworn to remember. But it was still the presence of Lenina that haunted him. (18.62)

Here's some more of that Freudian business; to stop himself from thinking dirty thoughts about Lenina, John tries to think about something else instead. This would be great and not at all worth discussing if that something else didn't happen to be HIS MOM. Whether he wants to admit it or not, John's mind is definitely making the connection between the two women in his life.

Quote #39

"Strumpet! Strumpet!" he shouted at every blow as though it were Lenina (and how frantically, without knowing it, he wished it were), white, warm, scented, infamous Lenina that he was dogging thus. "Strumpet!" And then, in a voice of despair, "Oh, Linda, forgive me. Forgive me, God. I'm bad. I'm wicked. I'm… No, no, you strumpet, you strumpet!" (18.64)

Take a look at this: John wishes that it was Lenina he were striking. Because she's a "strumpet"? OK, yes, but also because striking her with a whip is the closest he'll let himself get to having sex with her. In a novel with a very, very fine line between sex and violence, there's little difference between them.

Quote #40

"Strumpet!" The Savage had rushed at her like a madman. "Fitchew!" Like a madman, he was slashing at her with his whip of small cords. (18.92)

Exactly.