Love & Passion Quote by Quentin Crisp

Crisp turns sex into kitchen labor and, in doing so, smuggles a whole aesthetic philosophy into a one-liner. The joke lands because it treats "instant" sex the way mid-century advertising treated food: efficient, standardized, gratifying in the moment, and vaguely disappointing the second you think about it. "Flavor" is the tell. He's not arguing for morality or monogamy; he's arguing for texture, risk, and the minor inconveniences that make pleasure memorable.

The line also slyly reverses sexual machismo. Instead of conquest or quantity, Crisp prizes what takes time: peeling, cooking, the unglamorous prep work that turns appetite into appetite-with-character. The subtext is very Crisp: a disdain for shortcuts, for any culture that promises authenticity without effort. He loved the pose of effortless decadence, but he hated the actual laziness behind it.

Context matters. Crisp lived through decades when queer desire was policed, coded, and improvised. "Instant" encounters were often the only safe option, yet he still pokes at their limitations, not with shame but with connoisseurship. It's the voice of someone who survived secrecy and still insists on standards. The wit is defensive and aristocratic at once: a camp aphorism that doubles as cultural critique, aimed at a world increasingly selling speed as satisfaction.