Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  To return to religions, the study of only the most familiar ones had led men to believe for a long time that the idea of god was characteristic of everything that is religious. Now the religion which we are going to study presently is, in a large part, foreign to all idea of divinity; the forces to which the rites are there addressed are very different from those which occupy the leading place in our modern religions, yet they aid us in understanding these latter forces. So nothing is more unjust than the disdain with which too many historians still regard the work of ethnographers. Indeed, it is certain that ethnology has frequently brought about the most fruitful revolutions in the different branches of sociology. It is for this same reason that the discovery of unicellular beings, of which we just spoke, has transformed the current idea of life. Since in these very simple beings, life is reduced to its essential traits, these are less easily misunderstood. But primitive religions do not merely aid us in disengaging the constituent elements of religion; they also have the great advantage that they facilitate the explanation of it. Since the facts there are simpler, the relations between them are more apparent. The reasons with which men account for their acts have not yet been elaborated and denatured by studied reflection; they are nearer and more closely related to the motives which have really determined these acts. In order to understand an hallucination perfectly, and give it its most appropriate treatment, a physician must know its original point of departure. Now this event is proportionately easier to find if he can observe it near its beginnings. The longer the disease is allowed to develop, the more it evades observation; that is because all sorts of interpretations have intervened as it advanced, which tend to force the original state into the background, and across which it is frequently difficult to find the initial one. Between a systematized hallucination and the first impressions which gave it birth, the distance is often considerable. It is the same thing with religious thought. In proportion as it progresses in history, the causes which called it into existence, though remaining active, are no longer perceived, except across a vast scheme of interpretations which quite transform them. Popular mythologies and subtile theologies have done their work: they have superimposed upon the primitive sentiments others which are quite different, and which, though holding to the first, of which they are an elaborated form, only allow their true nature to appear very imperfectly.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  A society is the most powerful combination of physical and moral forces of which nature offers us an example. Nowhere else is an equal richness of different materials, carried to such a degree of concentration, to be found. Then it is not surprising that a higher life disengages itself which, by reacting upon the elements of which it is the product, raises them to a higher plane of existence and transforms them. Thus sociology appears destined to open a new way to the science of man. Up to the present, thinkers were placed before this double alternative: either explain the superior and specific faculties of men by connecting them to the inferior forms of his being, the reason to the senses, or the mind to matter, which is equivalent to denying their uniqueness; or else attach them to some super-experimental reality which was postulated, but whose existence could be established by no observation. What put them in this difficulty was the fact that the individual passed as being the finis naturæ —the ultimate creation of nature; it seemed that there was nothing beyond him, or at least nothing that science could touch. But from the moment when it is recognized that above the individual there is society, and that this is not a nominal being created by reason, but a system of active forces, a new manner of explaining men becomes possible. To conserve his distinctive traits it is no longer necessary to put them outside experience. At least, before going to this last extremity, it would be well to see if that which surpasses the individual, though it is within him, does not come from this super-individual reality which we experience in society. To be sure, it cannot be said at present to what point these explanations may be able to reach, and whether or not they are of a nature to resolve all the problems. But it is equally impossible to mark in advance a limit beyond which they cannot go. What must be done is to try the hypothesis and submit it as methodically as possible to the control of facts. This is what we have tried to do. INDEX This way of understanding the origins of religious thought escapes the objections raised against the most accredited classical theories. We have seen how the naturists and animists pretend to construct the idea of sacred beings out of the sensations evoked in us by different phenomena of the physical or biological order, and we have shown how this enterprise is impossible and even self-contradictory. Nothing is worth nothing.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  Such an expression is inexact. All religions, even the crudest, are in a sense spiritualistic: for the powers they put in play are before all spiritual, and also their principal object is to act upon the moral life. Thus it is seen that whatever has been done in the name of religion cannot have been done in vain: for it is necessarily the society that did it, and it is humanity that has reaped the fruits. But, it is said, what society is it that has thus made the basis of religion? Is it the real society, such as it is and acts before our very eyes, with the legal and moral organization which it has laboriously fashioned during the course of history? This is full of defects and imperfections. In it, evil goes beside the good, injustice often reigns supreme, and the truth is often obscured by error. How could anything so crudely organized inspire the sentiments of love, the ardent enthusiasm and the spirit of abnegation which all religions claim of their followers? These perfect beings which are gods could not have taken their traits from so mediocre, and sometimes even so base a reality. But, on the other hand, does someone think of a perfect society, where justice and truth would be sovereign, and from which evil in all its forms would be banished for ever? No one would deny that this is in close relations with the religious sentiment; for, they would say, it is towards the realization of this that all religions strive. But that society is not an empirical fact, definite and observable; it is a fancy, a dream with which men have lightened their sufferings, but in which they have never really lived. It is merely an idea which comes to express our more or less obscure aspirations towards the good, the beautiful and the ideal. Now these aspirations have their roots in us; they come from the very depths of our being; then there is nothing outside of us which can account for them. Moreover, they are already religious in themselves; thus it would seem that the ideal society presupposes religion, far from being able to explain it. [1306] But, in the first place, things are arbitrarily simplified when religion is seen only on its idealistic side: in its way, it is realistic. There is no physical or moral ugliness, there are no vices or evils which do not have a special divinity.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  So they imagined that each group of similar rites had been founded by one and the same ancestor, who came to reveal them to the tribe as a whole. Thus, among the Arunta, it was an ancestor of the Wild Cat clan, named Putiaputia, [914] who is thought to have taught men the way of making churinga and using it ritually; among the Warramunga, it was Murtu-murtu; [915] among the Urabunna, Witurna; [916] it was Atnatu among the Kaitish [917] and Tendun among the Kurnai. [918] Likewise, the practice of circumcision is attributed by the eastern Dieri and many other tribes [919] to two special Muramura, and by the Arunta to a hero of the Alcheringa, of the Lizard totem, named Mangarkunjerkunja. [920] To this same personage are ascribed the foundation of the matrimonial institutions and the social organization they imply, the discovery of fire, the invention of the spear, the buckler, the boomerang, etc. It also happens very frequently that the inventor of the bull-roarer is also considered the founder of the rites of initiation. [921] These special ancestors cannot be put in the same rank as the others. On the one hand, the sentiments of veneration which they inspire are not limited to one clan, but are common to the whole tribe. On the other hand, it is to them that men ascribe all that is most esteemed in the tribal civilization. For this double reason, they became the object of a special consideration. For example, they say of Atnatu that he was born in heaven at an epoch even prior to the times of the Alcheringa, that he made himself and that he gave himself the name he bears. The stars are his wives and daughters. Beyond the heaven where he lives, there is another one with another sun. His name is sacred, and should never be pronounced before women or non-initiated persons. [922] Yet, howsoever great the prestige enjoyed by these personages may be, there was no occasion for founding special rites in their honour; for they themselves are only rites personified. They have no other reason for existence than to explain existing practices; they are only another aspect of these. The churinga and the ancestor who invented it are only one; sometimes, both have the same name. [923] When someone makes the bull-roarer resound, they say that it is the voice of the ancestor making himself heard. [924] But, for the very reason that each of these heroes is confounded with the cult he is believed to have founded, they believe that he is attentive to the way in which it is celebrated.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  Now these architype souls had to be conceived as containing within them the source of all religious efficacy; for, since the imagination does not go beyond them, it is from them and only from them that all sacred things are believed to come, both the instruments of the cult, the members of the clan and the animals of the totemic species. They incarnate all the sacredness diffused in the whole tribe and the whole world, and so they are attributed powers noticeably superior to those enjoyed by the simple souls of men. Moreover, time by itself increases and reinforces the sacred character of things. A very ancient churinga inspires much more respect than a new one, and is supposed to have more virtues. [885] The sentiments of veneration of which it has been the object during the series of successive generations who have handled it are, as it were, accumulated in it. For the same reason, the personages who for centuries have been the subject of myths respectfully passed on from mouth to mouth, and periodically put into action by the rites, could not fail to take a very especial place in the popular imagination. But how does it happen that, instead of remaining outside of the organized society, they have become regular members of it? This is because each individual is the double of an ancestor. Now when two beings are related as closely as this, they are naturally conceived as incorporated together; since they participate in the same nature, it seems as though that which affects one ought to affect the other as well. Thus the group of mythical ancestors became attached to the society of the living; the same interests and the same passions were attributed to each; they were regarded as associates. However, as the former had a higher dignity than the latter, this association takes, in the public mind, the form of an agreement between superiors and inferiors, between patrons and clients, benefactors and recipients. Thus comes this curious idea of a protecting genius who is attached to each individual. The question of how this ancestor came to have relations not only with men, but also with things, may appear more embarrassing; for, at the first glance, we do not see what connection there can be between a personage of this sort and a rock or tree.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  In so far as they have caught the spirit that burned in the hearts of the prophets and breathed in gentle humanity through the Mosaic Law, the influence of the Old Testament has been one of the great permanent forces making for democracy and social justice. However our views of the Bible may change, every religious man will continue to recognize that to the elect minds of the Jewish people God gave so vivid a consciousness of the divine will that, in its main tendencies at least, their life and thought carries a permanent authority for all who wish to know the higher right of God. Their writings are like channel-buoys anchored by God, and we shall do well to heed them now that the roar of an angry surf is in our ears. We shall confine this brief study of the Old Testament to the prophets, because they are the beating heart of the Old Testament. Modern study has shown that they were the real makers of the unique religious life of Israel. If all that proceeded from them, directly or indirectly, were eliminated from the Old Testament, there would be little left to appeal to the moral and religious judgment of the modern world. Moreover, a comprehension of the essential purpose and spirit of the prophets is necessary for a comprehension of the purpose and spirit of Jesus and of genuine Christianity. In Jesus and the primitive Church the prophetic spirit rose from the dead. To the ceremonial aspects of Jewish religion Jesus was either indifferent or hostile; the thought of the prophets was the spiritual food that he assimilated in his own process of growth. With them he linked his points of view, the convictions which he regarded as axiomatic. Their spirit was to him what the soil and climate of a country are to its flora. The real meaning of his life and the real direction of his purposes can be understood only in that historical connection. Thus a study of the prophets is not only an interesting part in the history of social movements but it is indispensable for any full comprehension of the social influence exerted by historical Christianity, and for any true comprehension of the mind of Jesus Christ. For the purposes of this book it is not necessary to follow the work of the prophets in their historical sequence. We shall simply try to lay bare those large and permanent characteristics which are common to that remarkable series of men and which bear on the question in hand. Religion ethical and therefore social The fundamental conviction of the prophets, which distinguished them from the ordinary religious life of their day, was the conviction that God demands righteousness and demands nothing but righteousness.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  But after spending most of my life feeling ashamed of who I was and what I desired, I’d like to think that maybe my attraction to trans women is a sign that I am finally beginning to learn to love myself. 17 Crossdressing: Demystifying Femininity and Rethinking “Male Privilege” THE WORD “CROSSDRESSING,” in its most generic sense, refers to wearing clothing associated with the other sex. Both female- and male-bodied people crossdress, and they may choose to do so for a variety of reasons: as part of a drag or theatrical performance, in a sexual context, to have others perceive them as the other sex, and/or as an expression of a deeply felt cross-gender identity. While crossdressing (the verb) is a general phenomenon, the word “crossdresser” (and its psychiatric synonym “transvestite”) is often used specifically to refer to certain MTF spectrum people who channel their feminine expression into occasional (and typically private) spurts during which they immerse themselves in “women’s” clothing and gender roles, sometimes even taking on an alter ego entirely separate from their male lives. In contrast, pre- and non-transitioning FTM spectrum folks more typically live openly and continuously as butch or masculine women (rather than as feminine women who occasionally dress fully as men). MTF spectrum crossdressers (who will be referred to simply as “crossdressers” for rest of this essay) are relentlessly mischaracterized and disrespected by the public at large, as well as in specific fields such as psychiatry and gender studies, where their practices are coldly dissected and critiqued by those who are not crossdressers themselves. This lack of personal experience allows these clinicians and academics to naively and conveniently assign motives to crossdressers. Some of the more common of these assumptions are that crossdressing is a form of appropriating or objectifying womanhood; that it is an expression of latent homosexuality, exhibitionism, autogynephilia, or some other form of “sexually deviant” behavior; or that some males take refuge in femininity because they are unable or unwilling to live up to masculine ideals. As someone who identified as a crossdresser for twelve years, and who has shared many intimate conversations with other crossdressers during that time, I offer this essay as a (hopefully) more enlightened and thoughtful perspective on the MTF crossdressing experience. The explanations I offer here stem directly from my personal experiences as a crossdresser—one who has since gone on to identify and live as a woman—so it is likely that what I have to say will not resonate with all crossdressers, particularly those who happily embrace that identity throughout their lives without transitioning. My purpose here is not to insinuate that all crossdressers are transsexuals-in-waiting, nor is it to project my individual experience onto other people’s very different gendered experiences. This should simply be seen as my personal take on this very complex and misunderstood identity.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Truth be told, over the last three years, about half of the women who have piqued my interest, who I would consider approaching if I were actively dating, just so happened to be trans women. Now, as soon as I mentioned this, my friend said, “Oh, I had no idea that you had a ‘tranny fetish.’” So I sarcastically thanked him for insinuating that the only reason why a person might find someone like myself attractive is if they suffered from a sort of “sexual perversion.” After reprimanding him, I went on to say that there are a number of personality traits that I find attractive in women: passion, creativity, sense of humor, and self-confidence. And it has been my experience that trans women tend to have these qualities in full force. While some male “admirers” of trans women tend to fetishize us for our femininity or our imagined sexual submissiveness, I find trans women hot because we are anything but docile or demure. In order to survive as a trans woman, you must be, by definition, impervious, unflinching, and tenacious. In a culture in which femaleness and femininity are on the receiving end of a seemingly endless smear campaign, there is no act more brave—especially for someone assigned a male sex a birth—than embracing one’s femme self. And unlike those male tranny-chasers who say that they like “T-girls” because we are supposedly “the best of both worlds,” I am attracted to trans women because we are all woman! My femaleness is so intense that it has overpowered the trillions of lameass Y chromosomes that sheepishly hide inside the cells of my body. And my femininity is so relentless that it has survived over thirty years of male socialization and twenty years of testosterone poisoning. Some kinky-identified thrill-seekers may envision trans women as androgyne fuck fantasies, but that’s only because they are too self-absorbed to appreciate how completely fucking female we are. At this point in the conversation, my friend tried to play what he probably thought was his trump card. He asked me, “Well, what if you found out that the trans woman you were attracted to still had a penis?” I laughed and replied that I am attracted to people, not to disembodied body parts. And I would be a selfish, ignorant, and unsatisfying lover if I believed that my partner’s genitals existed primarily for my pleasure rather than her own. All that you ever need to know about genitals is that they are made up of flesh, blood, and millions of tiny, restless nerve endings—anything else that you read into them is mere hallucination, a product of your own overactive imagination.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Of the political usurper he demanded the restoration of the liberties of the people of Florence. It is significant that the dying sinner found it easy to assent to the first, hard to consent to the second, and impossible to concede the last. Nations rise to the climax of their life, and humanity unfolds its enormous dormant capacities only when religion enters into a living and inspiring relation to all the rest of human life. Under an impulse which was both religious and national the little Netherlands, hardly three million people on marshy soil, resisted the greatest and richest and most relentless power of Europe for eighty years, leaped to the van of European sea power, and became the leader in the great political coalitions of Europe. Under the same unity of religious and political enthusiasm Sweden, with only a million men on rocky and snow-bound soil, came to the rescue of Protestantism under Gustavus Adolphus and dictated terms to Europe. England would have been glad to help, but was held down by the selfish dynastic policy of James I. When the religious enthusiasm of the English did get a grip on the political machinery, it made England great. It developed an incomparable army, inspired a rough country gentleman to be the greatest ruler England has ever had, raised up such statesmen, and evoked such political ideas that England ever since has been carrying out the conceptions then born. The Puritan Revolution was the starting-point of modern democracy. Thus in past history religion has demonstrated its capacity to evoke the latent powers of humanity, and has in turn gained a fresh hold on men and rejuvenated its own life by supporting the high patriotic and social ambitions of an age. We, too, are in the midst of a vast historical movement. The historians of the future will rank it second to none. It is one of the tides in the affairs of men. If rightly directed, a little effort in this time of malleable heat will shape humanity for good more than huge labor when the iron is cold. If Christianity would now add its moral force to the social and economic forces making for a nobler organization of society, it could render such help to the cause of justice and the people as would make this a proud page in the history of the Church for our sons to read. And in turn the sweep and thrill of such a great cause would lift the Church beyond its own narrowness.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Certainly, that’s part of the reason for the Blume-aissance. But it’s not the whole story. The answer, I’ve come to believe, is sex. Sex is the lifeblood that flows through her pages. Not selling sex for titillation’s sake, the way her critics claimed, but sex as a fundamental part of being human. From Margaret Simon’s obsession with getting her period to Deenie Fenner’s curiosity about masturbation, the children in Blume’s stories all embrace puberty with open arms and take the ride into adulthood without shame. No matter how much they struggle, her adolescent characters are fundamentally empowered. Across Blume’s books, kids approach sex as a crucial part of growing up, a key element in their cultural and biological destinies. This was Blume’s personal philosophy as well. She believed that kids deserved to have pressing and private questions about their bodies, and that they were entitled to the answers. Over the course of her life and career, she has recognized that women’s interior lives and their sexual desires are deeply intertwined. Making that connection, and putting it into her books in the 1970s and 1980s, was radical at the time. Hell, it’s radical now. Americans are still debating the value of sex education. Twelve-year-old girls are still getting catcalled on the street, while books that talk frankly about sex are getting dismissed as pornography. Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land and powerful men have announced that they’re coming for birth control next. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has greenlit a bill that prevents girls younger than sixth grade from even talking about menstruation in school. Kids in many states are prohibited from learning about the gender spectrum, or LGBTQ+ issues, or anything that falls beyond the traditional boy/girl binary. This moment in history feels like a tipping point. When Judy Blume started writing in the late 1960s, the culture was at a tipping point, too. The sexual revolution presented an ocean of new ideas, but there were plenty of people trying to hold back the tide. Second Wave feminists—Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett—were fighting to change the world for women. The goal of women’s liberation was to free wives and mothers from cages of domesticity and let them enter modern society.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  We care about people. We make wonderful friends and partners for the people who are lucky enough to know us. Ironically, the individuals I work with who experience social anxiety—the same people who think they’re inadequate, awkward failures—are, time and again, the most interesting, beautiful, and kind people one could ever hope to meet. I love working with people who experience social anxiety because they are invariably brave and amazing, and I am privileged to help them discover exactly that. For the introverts among us, your true self may be quiet and contemplative. For the extroverts, your true self may be vocal and gregarious. I maintain that who you are when you’re not afraid is your authentic self. Remember Gandhi’s appreciation of his social anxiety? “It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of the truth.” Go forth and do. Stretch. Grow. And in doing so, you will find your truth—your authentic self. My Quiet Road to How to Be Yourself: A Conversation with Susan Cain Quiet came into my life in 2012, the year it was published. How it happened was unremarkable—I don’t remember if it was a gift or a purchase, whether it came recommended or was an impulse buy. But what it sparked was remarkable, not only to introverts the world over, but also, on a very different scale, to me. That year, my family and I had uprooted ourselves from our longtime New England community and moved to the opposite coast to finish my husband’s education. We were juggling a four-year-old and a one-year-old and felt overwhelmed by our jobs and unsettled by starting over in a new city. Nightly, I would lie in bed and think, I need to figure out what I’m doing. Ostensibly, this was a career conundrum, but I realize now it was deeper and more existential. Quiet came along at just the right moment. I remember reading it and recognizing myself on every page. I was thunderstruck by Susan Cain’s argument that introverts are powerful and valuable. But there was more: the real-life characters, the anecdotes, the mix of research and story—it was captivating. And her work ethic! There were nearly fifty pages of references at the end. At one point in the book, Susan mused that she would have enjoyed being a psychologist. When I read that, I thought, Wait, I am a psychologist. Maybe, just maybe, I could write a book, too. I started throwing a lot of proverbial spaghetti against the wall. Between writing grants and seeing clients at work, I researched how to pitch story ideas to magazines. One hundred percent of my pitches to those same magazines were met with “not a good fit at this time” or worse, silence. I showed up at exactly one meeting of a local writer’s group and got cornered by a talkative aspiring mystery writer. I pitched a not-ready-for-prime-time book idea at a local literary festival. In short, I was flailing. But it was thrilling.

• From Bold Move

  Luana is a refreshing voice in personal growth, walking the journey of building a bold life with you. Her words encourage, her vulnerability inspires, and her cutting-edge tools work. Bold Move is a must read!” —Jenni Schaefer, author of Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life “Dr. Luana takes evidenced-based approaches to reducing anxiety and makes them doable, palpable, and compelling to read. . . . I highly recommend this book to those who suffer from anxiety and/or are avoiding what they know they need to do.” —Steven A. Safren, PhD, ABPP, professor of psychology, University of Miami “Dr. Luana [invites] us to . . . become our best selves through mobilizing courage, developing (and tolerating) introspection, mastering new skills, and grounding these in deliberative, active alignment with our core values. Her voice is personal, engaging, and seemingly casual, as she brilliantly interweaves science with clinical expertise. . . . This is a remarkable book.” —Derri Shtasel, MD, MPH, associate professor, Harvard Medical School “Dr. Luana’s memorable analogies, real-life examples, visuals, and prompts make building new habits totally attainable (and fun!). As someone who struggles with anxiety and works adjacent to the mental health industry, I would highly recommend Bold Move to anyone seeking a better understanding of their emotions . . . as well as any mental health professionals . . . an insightful, witty, and resonant read!” —Delanie Fischer, cohost of the Self-Helpless podcast and business consultant for mental health professionals “Reading Bold Move is like having a conversation with your smartest, most relatable friend—who also happens to be an Ivy League clinical psychologist. Dr. Luana shares practical, relatable tools, backed by science, that will move you toward the life you want to live.” —Torrey A. Creed, PhD, associate professor of psychology in psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Copyright The names and identifying details of some individuals discussed in this book have been changed to protect their privacy. BOLD MOVE. Copyright © 2023 by Luana Marques. All rights reserved under International and Pan- American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e- books. FIRST EDITION Cover design: Pete Garceau Brain image © Blamb/Shutterstock Person walking © Ian Lesogor/Shutterstock Person thinking © Leremy/Shutterstock Person with arms up © T and Z/Shutterstock Buttons © Kindlena/Shutterstock Digital Edition MAY 2023 ISBN: 978-0-06-327703-8 Version 04172023 Print ISBN: 978-0-06-327701-4 About the Publisher Australia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  all word of mouth. Like one kid would read it and pass it to their friend, pass it to their friend, and pretty soon you had this huge fan base.” That huge fan base was ravenous for books by Blume. In August 1976, the New York Times reported that Dell had printed over 1.75 million copies of her titles, calling her “a kind of heroine to the kids who read and re-read her books.” She was a complicated figure for parents, who supported their kids in reading but weren’t always in love with Blume’s subject matter. The paper of record’s review of Forever, which had run the previous winter, called the novel “a convincing date-by-date account of first love.” It made no mention of the various sex scenes, but rumors of the book’s contents traveled swiftly from kid to kid, mother to mother. “Rest assured the kids manage to wangle copies of ‘Forever,’ ” the Times wrote. The trade magazines panned the novel. School Library Journal hated it, saying, “Obviously it’s not a quality book, but that fact won’t bother the many girls who will read it.” Kirkus was also dismissive. “Cath [sic] and Michael fall in love when both are high school seniors, and Blume leads up to It date by date and almost inch by inch (hand over sweater, hand under skirt),” the reviewer writes. “As usual with this immensely popular author, Forever has a lot of easy, empathic verity and very little heft.” Forever had at least one powerful ally in its corner. Mary Calderone at SIECUS— with whom Judy would eventually develop a warm relationship—thought the book was excellent. In May 1977, SIECUS put out its monthly report with a front-page story devoted to the topic of sex in children’s literature. Writer Pamela D. Pollack, who worked as a book reviewer for School Library Journal, rounded up a series of recent titles that dared to tackle the carnal experiences of teens. Pollack did not include Forever in her story, and offered a fairly bleak assessment of the way these books portrayed premarital sex. “Not too long ago, if sexual matters were mentioned at all in children’s fiction, a single standard of abstinence-or-else was applied unilaterally to the unmarried and underage,” she wrote. Now, she said, writers acknowledged the existence of teen sex but often did so by presenting the “extreme repercussions” that Randy Blume had mentioned to her mother: unwanted pregnancy, plummeting self-esteem, rape. Even the gentler versions presented “boys at the mercy of their hormones and girls as being at the mercy of boys.” Pollack expressed the need for a novel that guided young adult readers toward a healthier,

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  To paraphrase that famous saying, the opposite of attraction is not repulsion, it’s indifference. Therefore, any person who would freak out over their female lover’s seemingly inconsistent genitals is probably a little more interested in penises than they’d ever care to admit. (And by the way, this also applies to those “womyn-born-womyn”-identified lesbians who seem to emulate stereotypical straight male attitudes when it comes to this particular issue.) My friend, still seemingly perplexed, asked me, “So if it’s not about genitals, what is it about trans women’s bodies that you find most attractive?” I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible. When I look into trans women’s eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women’s eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman’s eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that’s seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one’s femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are “fabulous,” but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass! It was at that point in the conversation that I realized that perhaps I find trans women attractive because I see a little bit of myself in them. In their eyes, I see a part of myself that nobody else ever seems to see, the part that those who haven’t had a trans female experience never seem to understand. And perhaps it’s narcissistic to be attracted to someone who reminds me a bit of myself.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  An old mulatto woman kept our offices tidy and clean for a few dollars monthly from each of us, and one night I was awakened by her groans and cries: she lived in a garret up two flights of stairs and was evidently suffering from indigestion and very much frightened, as colored folk are apt to be when anything ails them: “I’m gwine to die!” she told me a dozen times. I treated her with whisky and warm water, heated on my little gas-heater and sat with her till at length she fell asleep. She declared next day I had saved her life and she’d never forget it “Nebber, fo sure!” I laughed at her and forgot all about it. Every afternoon I went over to Liberty Hall for an hour or so to keep in touch with events, though I left the main work to Will Thompson. One day I was delighted to find that Bret Harte was coming to lecture for us: his subject “The Argonauts of ’49”: I got some of his books from the bookstore kept by a lame man named Crew, I think, on Massachusetts Street, and read him carefully. His poetry did not make much impression on me, mere verse, I thought it; but “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” and other stories seemed to me almost masterpieces in spite of their romantic coloring and tinge of melodrama. Especially the description of Oakhurst, the gambler, stuck in my mind: it will be remembered that when crossing the “divide”, Oakhurst advised the party of outcasts to keep on travelling till they reached a place of safety. But he did not press his point: he decided it was hopeless and then came Bret Harte’s extraordinary painting phrase: “life to Oakhurst was at best an uncertain sort of game and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.” There is more humor and insight in the one sentence than in all the ridiculously overpraised works of Mark Twain. One afternoon I was alone in the box-office of Liberty Hall when Rose came in, as pretty as ever. I was delighted to renew our acquaintance and more delighted still to find that she would like tickets for Bret Harte’s lecture. “I didn’t know that you cared for reading, Rose?” I said, a little surprised. “Professor Smith and you would make anybody read,” she cried, “at any rate you started me.” I gave her the tickets and engaged to take her for a buggy-ride next day. I felt sure Rose liked me; but she soon surprised me by showing a stronger virtue than I usually encountered. She kissed me when I asked her in the buggy but told me at the same time that she didn’t care much for kissing: “all men”, she said, “are after a girl for the same thing; it’s sickening; they all want kisses and try to touch you and say they love you; but they can’t love and I don’t want their kisses.”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  And then the phrases: “her lips are like a thread of scarlet” … “her love like an army with banners”; but American puritanism is more timid even than its purblind teachers. It was commonly said at the time that Whitman had led a life of extraordinary self-indulgence: rumor attributed to him half a dozen illegitimate children and perverse tastes to boot. I think such statements exaggerated or worse: they are no more to be trusted than the stories of Paine’s drunkenness. At any rate, Horace Traubel later declared to me that Whitman’s life was singularly clean and his own letter to John Addington Symonds must be held to have disproved the charge of homo-sexuality. But I dare swear he loved more than once not wisely but too well, or he would not have risked the reprobation of the “unco guid.” In any case, it is to his honor that he dared to write plainly in America of the joys of sexual intercourse. Emerson, as Whitman himself tells us, did his utmost all one long afternoon to dissuade him from publishing the sex-poems; but fortunately all his arguments served only to confirm Whitman in his purpose. From certain querulous complaints later, it is plain that Whitman was too ignorant to gauge the atrocious results to himself and his reputation of his daring; but the same ignorance that allowed him to use scores of vile neologisms, in this one instance stood him in good stead. It was right of him to speak plainly of sex; accordingly he set down the main facts, disdainful of the best opinion of his time. And he was justified; in the long run, it will be plain to all that he thus put the seal of the Highest upon his judgment. What can we think and what will the future think of Emerson’s condemnation of Rabelais whom he dared to liken to a dirty little boy who scribbles indecencies in public places and then runs away and his contemptuous estimate of Shakespeare as a ribald playwright, when in good sooth he was “the reconciler” whom Emerson wanted to acclaim and had not the brains to recognize. Whitman was the first of great men to write frankly about sex and five hundred years hence, that will be his singular and supreme distinction. Smith seemed permanently better though, of course, for the moment disappointed because his careful eulogy of Paine never appeared in the “Press”, so one day I told him I’d have to return to Lawrence to go on with my law work, though Thompson, the doctor’s son, kept all my personal affairs in good order and informed me of every happening. Smith at this time seemed to agree with me, though not enthusiastically, and I was on the point of starting when I got a letter from Willie, telling me that my eldest brother Vernon was in a New York hospital, having just tried to commit suicide and I should go to see him.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  As soon as I had written out the Bradlaugh story, Smith took me down to the “Press” office and introduced me to the chief editor, a Captain Forney: indeed the paper then was usually called “Forney’s Press” though already some spoke of it as “The Philadelphia Press.” Forney liked my portrait of Bradlaugh and engaged me as a reporter on the staff and occasional descriptive writer at fifty dollars a week, which enabled me to save all the money coming to me from Lawrence. One day Smith talked to me of Emerson and confessed he had got an introduction to him and had sent it on to the philosopher with a request for an interview. He wished me to accompany him to Concord: I consented, but without any enthusiasm: Emerson was then an unknown name to me; Smith read me some of his poetry and praised it highly though I could get little or nothing out of it. When young men now show me a similar indifference, my own experience makes it easy for me to excuse them. They know not what they do! is the explanation and excuse for all of us. One bright fall day Smith and I went over to Concord and next day visited Emerson. He received us in the most pleasant, courteous way: made us sit and composed himself to listen. Smith went off at score, telling him how greatly he had influenced his life and helped him with brave encouragement: the old man smiled benignantly and nodded his head, ejaculating from time to time: “Yes, yes!” Gradually Smith warmed to his work and wanted to know why Emerson had never expressed his views on sociology or on the relations between Capital and Labor. Once or twice the old gentleman cupped his ear with his hand; but all he said was: “Yes, Yes! or I think so” with the same benevolent smile. I guessed at once that he was deaf; but Smith had no inkling of the fact for he went on probing, probing while Emerson answered pleasant nothings quite irrelevantly. I studied the great man as closely as I could. He looked about five feet nine or ten in height, very thin, attenuated even, and very scrupulously dressed: his head was narrow though long, his face bony; a long, high, somewhat beaked nose was the feature of his countenance:—a good conceit of himself, I concluded, and considerable will-power, for the chin was well-defined and large; but I got nothing more than this and from his clear steadfast gray eyes, an intense impression of kindness and good will, and why shouldn’t I say it? of sweetness even, as of a soul lifted high above earth’s carking cares and stragglings. “A nice old fellow”, I said to myself, “but deaf as a post.”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  And then, I wound up: “this common sense program won’t please your Senators or your Congressmen who prefer cheap claptrap to thought, or your superfine Professors who believe the war of classes is ‘a mere arithmetical problem’ (and I imitated the Professor’s thin voice), but it may nevertheless be accepted by the American farmer tired of being milked by the Yankee manufacturer and it should stand as the first chapter in the new Granger gospel.” I bowed to the Mayor and turned away but the audience broke into cheers and Senator Ingalls came over and shook my hand saying he hoped to know me better and the cheering went on till I had gotten back to my place and resumed my seat. A few minutes later and I was touched on the back by Professor Smith. As I turned round he said smiling “you gave me a good lesson: I’ll never make a public speaker and what I said doubtless sounded inconsequent and absurd; but if you’d have a talk with me, I think I could convince you that my theory will hold water.” “I’ve no doubt you could,” I broke in, heartily ashamed of having made fun of a man I didn’t know; “I didn’t grasp your meaning but I’d be glad to have a talk with you.” “Are you free tonight?” he went on: I nodded: “Then come with me to my rooms. These ladies live out of town and we’ll put them in their buggy and then be free. This is Mrs.… he added presenting me to the stouter lady and this, her sister, Miss Stevens.” I bowed and out we went, I keeping myself resolutely in the background till the sisters had driven away: then we set off together to Professor Smith’s rooms, for our talk. If I could give a complete account of that talk, this poor page would glow with wonder and admiration all merged in loving reverence. We talked or rather Smith talked for I soon found he knew infinitely more than I did, was able indeed to label my creed as that of Mill, “a bourgeois English economist” he called him with smiling disdain. Ever memorable to me, sacred indeed, that first talk with the man who was destined to reshape my life and inspire it with some of his own high purpose. He introduced me to the communism of Marx and Engels and easily convinced me that land and its products, coal and oil, should belong to the whole community which should also manage all industries for the public benefit.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I had got accustomed to spend all my spare time with Reece, Dell, Bob or the Boss, and from all of them I learned a good deal. In a short time I had exhausted the Boss and Reece; but Dell and Bob each in his own way was richly equipped, and while Dell introduced me to literature and economics, Bob taught me some of the mysteries of cowpunching and the peculiar morals of Texan cattle. Every little herd of those half-wild animals had its own leader, it appeared and followed him fanatically. When we brought together a few different bunches in our corral, there was confusion worse confounded till after much hooking and some fighting a new leader would be chosen whom all would obey. But sometimes we lost five or six animals in the mellay. I found that Bob could ride his pony in among the half-savage brutes and pick out the future leader for them. Indeed, at the great sports held near Taos, he went in on foot where many herds had been corralled and led out the leader amid the triumphant cheers of his compatriots who challenged los Americanos to emulate that feat. Bob’s knowledge of cattle was uncanny and all I know I learned from him. For the first week or so, Reece and the Boss were out all day buying cattle; Reece would generally take Charlie and Jack Freeman, young Americans, to drive his purchases home to the big corral; while the Boss called indifferently first on one and then on another to help him. Charlie was the first to lay off: he had caught a venereal disease, the very first night and had to lie up for more than a month. One after the other, all the younger men fell to the same plague. I went into the nearest town and consulted doctors and did what I could for them; but the cure was often slow for they would drink now and again to drown care and several in this way, made the disease chronic. I could never understand the temptation; to get drunk was bad enough; but in that state to go with some dirty Greaser woman, or half-breed prostitute was incomprehensible to me.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  In some people, such extreme virtue was the visible mark of the mastery they brought to bear on themselves and hence of the power they were worthy of exercising over others. Thus Xenophon’s Agesilaus not only “kept at arm’s length those whose intimacy he did not desire,” but kept from embracing even the boy he did love; and he was careful to lodge only in temples or in a place where “all men’s eyes became witnesses to his rectitude.” 14 But, for others, this abstention was linked directly to a form of wisdom that brought them into direct contact with some superior element in human nature and gave them access to the very essence of truth. The Socrates of the Symposium was like this, the one everybody wanted to be near, everybody was enamored of; the one whose wisdom everybody sought to appropriate—a wisdom that manifested and proved itself precisely in the fact that he was himself able to keep from laying hands on the provocative beauty of Alcibiades. 15 The thematics of a relationship between sexual abstinence and access to truth was already quite prominent. We must not ask too much of these few references, however. It would be a mistake to infer that the sexual morality of Christianity and that of paganism form a continuity. Several themes, principles, or notions may be found in the one and the other alike, true; but for all that, they do not have the same place or the same value within them. Socrates is not a desert Father struggling against temptation, and Nicocles is not a Christian husband; Aristophanes’ laughter at the expense of Agathon in drag has few traits in common with the disparagement of the invert that will be found much later in medical discourse. Moreover, one must also not lose sight of the fact that the Church and the pastoral ministry stressed the principle of a morality whose precepts were compulsory and whose scope was universal (which did not rule out differences of prescription relating to the status of individuals, or the existence of ascetic movements having their own aspirations). In classical thought, on the other hand, the demands of austerity were not organized into a unified, coherent, authoritarian moral system that was imposed on everyone in the same manner; they were more in the nature of a supplement, a “luxury” in relation to the commonly accepted morality. Further, they appeared in “scattered centers” whose origins were in different philosophical or religious movements.