In modern life sex is one of the few numinous areas we have left, numinosity being the aura of awe and mystery usually associated with religious feeling. . . . But fortunately we have not yet reduced the power of sex to stir deep desire and to compel the contemplation of images. Maybe it is a saving grace that the human body can still evoke the overwhelming desire to gaze and even the deeply felt need to insist on taboo.
— Thomas Moore, The Soul of Sex