Furthermore, animal copulation and human intercourse are quite different, as different as animal eating is from human meals. Most healthy animals gobble their food quickly when they are hungry. They aren't concerned with whether the food looks good or they are comfortable with the people at the table. They eat solely because they are hungry. If another animal comes around, they may try to drive the intruder away. But human beings enjoy eating together. There may be interesting conversation; the table can be a centre of affection and pleasure.

According to different national customs, there are different rules of behaviour toward other people; and there can be beauty, too, in the way the food is presented, the way the room and the table are docorated, and how the people look.

Sexual intercourse between a man and woman, as I have said, can be and often is a beautiful, loving, joyous thing. If the couple care for each other, their physical pleasure and sense of deep relationship can give them real ecstasy.

On the other hand, it is not always so, and much depends on how the couple are feeling toward each other at the time and how they feel about their own lives. It depends quite a lot also on their surroundings. That's why I slated that most animal sex is as different from human sex as animal eating is from human meals.

The basic difference between human and animal sex arises out of the facts that I have described. Human beings decide when they are going to engage in sexual activity; most animals have the decision made for them is learned or thought about. Human beings are responsible for their sex life; animals are not. There is great variation in human sex life, variation from country to country, from culture to culture, from gouup to group, from person to person. There is no such variation within a species of animals; dogs mate in the same way whether they are in India, France, Haiti, or the United States.

Animal sex is only a matter of body; human sex involves the personality, the mind, and the emotions - and the upbringing too. And there is yet another major difference. When animals in nature become sexually mature, they begin at once to copulate and reproduce their kind. And when young are produced by animals, the period during which the parents must provide care for them is generally quite short, usually less than a year. For example, with dogs and cats it is only several weeks, whereas human beings are responsible for the care of their young from fifteen to twenty years, or more - longer than any animal.

Even after human beings reach puberty, it may still be eight to ten years, or even longer in our culture, before they are ready to earn a living, establish a home, and take care of children of their own - in other words, to be responsible for the possible consequences of intercourse. This is something that boys and girls need to think about. There's much more to parenthood than having a jolly little baby to love, be loved, and be proud of. Let me repeat; and animal has little sexual freedom; it is limited by its seasons and driven by its instincts to copulate almost automatically. For it, the patterns are all set up in advance; there is little learning or choice. An animal sex life is primarilyfor reproduction.

But men and women have much freedom of choice; they must decide what to do an what not to do; they depend on good teaching and good learning. Men and women are responsible for their choices and decisions: they must take the consequences, good or bad.

Therefore, it is extremely important that they have enough knowledge, sense, and consideration to foresee those consequences and to act accordingly. Thus, human love and sex can result in pleasure and joyous satisfaction. Or the result be a great sorrow and unhappiness, if men and women in their sex lives ares not considerate of each other and do not take responsibility for the results.