For any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt by a hint of physical sex.
 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source Orthodoxy
Topic beauty sex
Date 1908
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130-images.html

Context

“The Greeks felt virginity when they carved Artemis, the Romans when they robed the vestals, the worst and wildest of the great Elizabethan playwrights clung to the literal purity of a woman as to the central pillar of the world. Above all, the modern world (even while mocking sexual innocence) has flung itself into a generous idolatry of sexual innocence— the great modern worship of children. For any man who loves children will agree that their peculiar beauty is hurt by a hint of physical sex. With all this human experience, allied with the Christian authority, I simply conclude that I am wrong, and the church right; or rather that I am defective, while the church is universal. It takes all sorts to make a church;” source