Life & Wisdom Quote by Quentin Crisp

A line like this only works because it’s equal parts barb and confession. Quentin Crisp isn’t wagging a finger at sex so much as puncturing the sentimental story we tell about it: that it’s inherently liberating, affirming, or proof of a life well lived. By calling sex a “refuge,” he frames it as shelter-seeking behavior, not triumph - a place people run to when everything else feels unbearable. And “last refuge” is the dagger twist: not one option among many, but the final hiding place when status, purpose, dignity, and self-respect have already slipped out of reach.

Crisp’s intent is less puritanical than diagnostic. He’s describing a certain kind of sexuality as consolation prize, an attempt to purchase momentary intimacy when real intimacy - the kind built from mutual recognition and sustained regard - feels unattainable. The subtext is ruthless: sex can be a technology of denial, a way to turn loneliness into sensation and call it connection.

Context matters because Crisp made his name as an openly gay, flamboyant British writer who survived decades when queer desire was criminalized and ridiculed. He knew both the hunger for contact and the indignities of seeking it under social contempt. That history gives the line its bite: it’s not abstract cynicism, it’s lived skepticism. Coming from Crisp, it reads as a warning against mistaking access for acceptance - and a bleak joke about how quickly the body becomes the only place society will let certain people feel wanted.