At any rate, I take it that the evaluative use of ‘normal’ is now clear. In its evaluative role, as opposed to its value-free descriptive role, it expresses an individual’s preferential dispositions. For example, I would commit the same fallacy if I said that imaginative sex was normal for human beings. That would be merely a way of my commending imaginative sex, of prescribing it, of saying that it fits my notion of what might be desirable for human beings. Now, I do, as a matter of fact, commend imaginative sex. I am less concerned in this book with prescribing it or with claiming that it is desirable for human beings. I am principally interested in explaining it.

It will not be necessary to prescribe imaginative sex to human beings. Once you understand it you will either prescribe it to yourselves or not. You will think about it and do what you want. That is the way it should be. Similarly, I am not concerned to claim that imaginative sex is desirable for human beings. I am surely convinced that it is desirable for many human beings, and that it could produce great pleasure in their lives. I also suspect, of course, that imaginative sex is not for all human beings, particularly as they have now been trained and developed.

One point of importance is that many human beings are extremely deficient in imagination. It is not likely that they will even understand imaginative sex. For them, mindless sex or reductive sex, physiological sex, is the best they can manage. This is tragic, but then some people can’t draw and others can’t carry a tune, and others are color blind. We all have limitations of one sort or another. It is perhaps part of being human.

Secondly, imaginative sex may not be good for certain individuals who have been thoroughly conditioned to negative attitudes toward sex. If one has a negative attitude toward sex to begin with, it is not unlikely that imaginative sex will seem unpleasant, frightening or strange. Further, even if such people should find imaginative sex attractive, it is not clear they should try it. If the imprinting of their antisexual conditioning is deep and efficient, presenting them with barriers they cannot break, then perhaps they should not try imaginative sex. They might find themselves the victims of conditioned guilt-reflexes or shame-reflexes. The result of the practice of imaginative sex is not supposed to be misery but delight and pleasure. It seems to me, of course, that imaginative sex might, in some cases, blast individuals out of their mental cages. Guilt and fear are excellent at locking doors, but pleasure and joy are not bad at opening them, either.