Hank Rearden And Sex

"He learns that the capacity of sex is physical, a mechanism for the use and expression of his spirit, the means of expressing in physical form one's greatest celebration of life, of joy, of one's highest self-exaltation and one's highest moral values in regard to man—that is, in regard to himself and the woman of his choice. He learns that sex is the means and form of translating spiritual admiration for a human being into physical action—just as productive activity is the translation of spiritual values into physical form, just as all life is a process of conceiving a spiritual purpose, based on one's spiritual code of values, then giving it a material form—which is the proper, moral, and complete cycle for man's existence, for the relation of man's spirit to physical matter. The spirit sets the purpose and uses matter as its tool, as material; the spirit gives form to matter. Just as pure "spirituality," divorced from physical action, is evil hypocrisy—so is the materialism which attempts to have matter give man purpose, value, and satisfaction. Just as "Platonic love" is evil hypocrisy—so is purely physical sex, which is an evil destruction of one's values."

Ayn Rand, The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 606 - 607

Difference Between Ayn Rand's Morality And Hedonism

"This is the difference between my morality and hedonism. The standard is not: "that is good which gives me pleasure, just because it gives me pleasure" (which is the standard of the dipsomaniac or the sex-chaser)—but "that is good which is the expression of my moral values, and that gives me pleasure." Since the proper moral code is based on man's nature and his survival, and since joy is the expression of his survival, this form of happiness can have no contradiction in it, it is both "short range" and "long range" (as all of man's life has to be), and it leads to the furtherance of his life, not to his destruction."

Ayn Rand, The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 597.

Uniting The Mind And Body

"(Perhaps sex is the one field that unites the needs of mind and body, with the mind determining the desire and the body providing the means of expressing it. But the sex act itself is only that—an expression. The essence is mental, or spiritual.)"

Ayn Rand, The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 555.

"The Personal Enjoyment In Human Relationships"

I would like to add that whenever a young man shaves or a young girl makes up her face, or either of them puts on attractive clothes, it is done for the implicit purpose of arousing sexual thoughts and desires—which does not mean the intention of rushing to bed with every stranger, but merely the wish to be admired, to receive a tacit acknowledgment of one's sexual value qua man or woman. This type of acknowledgment creates the heightened interest, the excitement, the color, the personal enjoyment in human relationships with the opposite sex.

There is only one ideology that would condemn it—the ideology that opposes man's enjoyment of his life on earth and holds sex as such to be evil—the same ideology that is the source and cause of anti-obscenity censorship: religion.

For a discussion of the profound, metaphysical reasons of religion's antagonism to sex, I refer you to my article "Of Living Death" (The Objectivist, September-November 1968), which deals with the papal encyclical on contraception, "Of Human Life." Today, most people who profess to be religious, particularly in this country, do not share that condemnation of sex—but it is an ancient tradition which survives, consciously or subconsciously, even in the minds of many irreligious persons, because it is a logical consequence implicit in the basic causes and motives of any form of mysticism.

Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Letter, Thought Control, p. 249

Thought Control and Sex

"Apparently, the Roth decision considers discussions of sex permissible (particularly, as it points out, "in art, literature and scientific works"), but prohibited if they appeal to sexual interest or arouse sexual desire. I submit that a work of art or literature which deals with sex without appealing to such interest, is guilty of lousy craftsmanship."

Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Letter, Thought Control, p. 248