could we ...

I wanted that immediate affirmation of the, what can I call it, just the possibility of escaping from the loneliness, the sexual loneliness, just the pure loneliness of being, of living with that appetite. The pure loneliness of living with an appetite that you couldn’t ever satisfy. That nearly drives everybody crazy that drives all men crazy. So of course, it drove me crazy too, so of course that’s what I wanted. So it seemed to be that’ s all that I wanted, anything after that I was ready to negotiate, but that seemed to be what I wanted.

And I was very fortunate because it was the 60’s, and it was very possible. And for a tiny moment in social history there was a tremendous cooperation between men and women about that particular item. I think it lasted maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but it was a great deal of compassion and understanding where the woman understood what you wanted, though it might not be her priority, and you understood what the woman wanted, even though it might not have been your priority. And all this was unspoken, and it was a tremendous generosity, people somehow, for 15-20 minutes in the entire history of men and women, when this agreement flourished, and like all agreements it wasn’t a contractual, it wasn’t written and understood, it was just embraced. So I was just very lucky that my appetite coincidented with this very rare religious, social… I don’t know what you call it, but that allowed men and women, boys and girls we were, to come together in a union that satisfied both.

The young are threatened with disease now and many kinds of fears about their lives, quite justified. For one reason or the other we live with the notion of fear now. That definitely does interfere with all our associations, not only sexually or romantic, social, international, racial – the sense of fear is very very present – the sense that if you are not very very careful you’re gonna get taken.

Leonard Cohen