Anger

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.

Page 37 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  The following beats, however, are particular to anger: EyesHe shot her a venomous look.He shot her a furious glance.She speared him with another glare.He shot a glare up at her to silence her.She shot him a glare, but there was still a twinkle in her eye.She looked him in the eyes and he looked straight back into hers.He held her gaze for a moment before looking away without a word.A groan accompanied the roll of his eyes.His eyes were stormy.Her eyes widened.He glared at her without blinking.Darkness crossed his eyes.She skewered him with an unflinching look.Accepting the glaring anger that poured from her eyes, he kept her tight against him.Her eyes darkened.Her angry gaze sliced his face.She flayed him with her gaze.He leveled a glowering look.She shifted her angry glare to his face.She met his unrelenting stare.His eyes burned fanatically.She gave him a look designed to peel his hide.Her eyes flashed with anger.Her eyes narrowed to crinkled slits.She skewered him with a look.She shot him a sour look.He shot a glare at her.She treated him with a look of unmitigated fury.She caught him in a dark gaze.His eyes squeezed into thin slits.Face and HeadBoiling with fury, he ground his teeth and clenched his jaw so tight, it hurt.An i n finitesi m a l t witch in her l i ps th a t t old him he h a d h it the m a rk.His nostrils flared.He could hear the blood rushing through his head.His jaw clenched.He gritted his teeth so hard, his jaw ached.He ground his teeth.Her head flew back.He gritted his teeth for control.Heat burned his cheeks.Anger spiraled from the pit of her stomach .Anger swelled in her guts.Anger churned in her chest.She snorted with derision.Her frustration bubbled at her face.His expression grew turbulent.HandsHis hands dropped to his sides to form clenched fists of tension.Her hands squeezed/tightened into fists.She clenched/balled her fists.He slammed his hand on the table.She pounded her fist on the table.He shoved back his chair and slammed his fist on the table.He slammed his fist on the table, his nostrils flaring.His palms stung from digging his fingernails into them.He gripped the arm of the chair.Her nails cut into the heel of her hand as she tightened it around the bar.She wagged her finger at him.He jerked a thumb in her direction.His fingers drummed the mattress.With a swoop of her arm, she flung the stone in a shallow arc.He tapped his foot.She stomped her foot.She pumped a fist.He thrust his fists in the air.She punched the air.She extended her middle finger toward him.He gave her the finger.She let the door slam in her wake—just enough of a bang to register one final protest.Her fists drew up like angry stones.Her slap rang loudly in his ears; his cheek throbbed at the suddenness of it all.VoiceHe howled.She hollered.He barked.She bellowed.She roared.He cried out.She grunted.“No,” she rasped.“No,” she exploded.“No,” she snapped at him.He spat the words out through gritted teeth.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  Less than a month after Tyson’s conviction, the Supreme Court granted students the right to sue colleges and universities for monetary damages under Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education. That gave immediate leverage to young women across the country—at the University of Southern California; Stanford University; University of California at Berkeley; University of Wisconsin; University of Michigan; Tufts; Cornell; Yale; Columbia—who had begun speaking out about campus sexual assault. Most famously, girls at Brown University, frustrated by the administration’s indifference, scrawled a list of alleged rapists on the walls of the women’s bathroom in the school library. (Boys later retaliated with their own list: “Women Who Need to Be Raped.”) Even after the walls were painted black as a deterrent, girls used white paint pens to keep the list going; at one point it swelled to thirty names. Also during this period, the media began reporting on what was perceived as a sharp and shocking trend of “acquaintance rape” on campus. In December 1990 alone, the Washington Post revealed “The Statistic That No One Can Bear to Believe”; People ran a cover story on “a crime that too many colleges have ignored”; and Fox TV produced a documentary, Campus Rape: When No Means No. As evidence, many pointed to a 1987 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted by Mary P. Koss, then a professor of psychology at Kent State University. Koss surveyed six thousand students at thirty-two universities and found that 27.5 percent—more than one in four—of the girls had, since the age of fourteen, experienced a sexual encounter fitting the legal definition of rape. Eighty-four percent of those attacks were committed by someone the girl knew; 57 percent took place on dates. That led Koss to coin the term date rape. When she factored in other forms of unwanted sexual activity (“fondling, kissing, or petting but not intercourse”), the victimization rate shot up to nearly 54 percent. Only a quarter of the boys surveyed admitted involvement in some form of sexual aggression; one in ten said they had verbally pressured a girl into intercourse; 3.3 percent had attempted physical force; and 4.4 percent had raped someone. None of those in the latter two categories considered their acts criminal, largely because they had faced no consequences. “They would say, ‘Yes, I held a woman down to have sex with her against her consent,’” Koss told NPR, “‘but that was definitely not rape.’” Sexual violence was so pervasive, Koss concluded, that it was part of what the culture defined as “normal” interaction between women and men.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘No, I’m sane. It’s the only decent thing, it’s the only clean thing; we'll go anywhere you like, to Paris, to Egypt, or back to the States. For your sake I’m ready to give up my home. Do you hear? I’m ready to give up even Morton. But I can’t go on lying about you to Ralph, I want him to know how much I adore you -I want the whole world to know how I adore you. Ralph doesn’t understand the first rudiments of loving, he’s a nagging, mean-minded cur of a man, but there’s one thing that even he has a right to, and that’s the truth. I’m done with these lies — I shall tell him the truth and so will you, Angela; and after we’ve told him we’ll go away, and we'll live quite openly together, you and I, which is what we owe to ourselves and our love.’ Angela stared at her, white and aghast: ‘ You are mad,’ she said slowly, ‘ you’re raving mad. Tell him what? Have I let you become my lover? You know that I’ve always been faithful to Ralph; you know perfectly well that there’s nothing to tell him, beyond a few rather schoolgirlish kisses. Can I help it if you’re — what you obviously are? Oh, no, my dear, you’re not going to tell Ralph. You're not going to let all hell loose around me just be- cause you want to save your own pride by pretending to Ralph that you’ve been my lover. If you’re willing to give up your home I’m not willing to sacrifice mine, understand that, please. Ralph’s not much of a man but he’s better than nothing, and I’ve man- aged him so far without any trouble. The great thing with him is to blaze a false trail, that distracts his mind, it works like a charm. He’ll follow any trail that I want him to follow — you leave him to me, I know my own husband a darned sight better than you THE WELL OF LONELINESS 167 do, Stephen, and I won’t have you interfering in my home.’ She was terribly frightened, too frightened to choose her words, to consider their effect upon Stephen, to consider anyone but Angela Crossby who stood in such dire and imminent peril. So she said yet again, only now she spoke loudly: ‘ I won’t have you interfer- ing in my home! ’

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  During the course of their relationship, Jerome rapes Renay, which leads to her pregnancy and, in turn, accounts for their decision to marry. Once wedded, Renay, miserable within the confines of her forced marriage, is expected to submit routinely to Jerome's will and to specific gender roles or, otherwise, suffer Jerome's violent beatings. Renay maintains the household, raising their daughter and working to pay the bills with little assistance from Jerome, who drinks heavily and never secures a steady job. Misdirecting and displacing his resentment (which stems from his inability to support his family and his abandoned dreams of finishing college and becoming a professional athlete) onto Renay, Jerome lambastes her as a salve for his bruised manhood: "You know we black men have a hard enough time as it is making it in the white man's world. [...] I could have been somebody if it wasn't for you. All you castrating black bitches want to keep a man down. Ruin him. [...] And you. What goddam good are you to a man? Not even a good screw!" (29). The myth of the black matriarchy resonates in Jerome's highly castigatory remarks (which fail, ironically, to acknowledge that his condition is the result of his own doing-of his having raped Renay). Promulgated by sociologist and later senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and later appropriated by some black nationalists, the myth assumes that black women, in collusion with the white power structure, emasculated black men, thereby preventing them from maintaining their "rightful" position in the black family and society at large.36 In his evocation of black matriarchy rhetoric, Jerome, as Shockley clearly intends, is equated allegorically with black nationalist discourse, which he epitomizes throughout the novel. Moreover, in his assertion that Renay serves no purpose for men-that she is, as he claims, "not even a good screw"-he not only objectifies her but, like those black nationalists who viewed black women's only position in the movement as "prone," he also reduces her to a marginal sexual role.37 Compensating for his inadequacy and negligence as a husband, father, and provider, Jerome espouses nationalist ideologies regarding "lost manhood" and asserts himself "by any means necessary"-through both physically and verbally abusive manners-as patriarch of his household.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Rein in behind me.” And the watchman reported, “The messenger approached them, but he has not returned.” 19 Then Joram sent out a second horseman, who approached them and said, “Thus says the king: ‘Do you come in peace?’ ” Jehu replied, “What have you to do with peace? Rein in behind me.” 20 And the watchman reported, “He approached them, but he has not returned; and the driving [of the chariot] is like that of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.” 21 Then e Joram said, “Harness [the chariot].” When they harnessed his chariot horses , Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah went out, each in his chariot, and they went out to meet Jehu and met him on the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. 22 When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Do you come in peace, Jehu?” And he answered, “What peace [can exist] as long as the fornications of your mother Jezebel and her sorceries are so many?” 23 So Joram reined [his chariot] around and fled, and he said to Ahaziah, “Treachery and betrayal, Ahaziah!” 24 But Jehu drew his bow with his full strength and shot Joram between his shoulders; and the arrow went out through his heart and he sank down in his chariot. 25 Then Jehu said to Bidkar his officer, “Pick him up and throw him on the property of the field of Naboth the Jezreelite; for I remember when you and I were riding together after his father Ahab, that the LORD uttered this prophecy against him: 26 ‘I certainly saw the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons yesterday,’ says the LORD , ‘and I will repay you on this property,’ says the LORD . Now then, pick him up and throw him into the property [of Naboth], in accordance with the word of the LORD .” [1 Kin 21:15–29 ] Jehu Assassinates Ahaziah 27 When Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house. Jehu pursued him and said, “Shoot him too, [while he is] in the chariot.” So they shot him at the ascent to Gur, which is by Ibleam. And Ahaziah fled to Megiddo and died there. 28 Then his servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his grave with his fathers in the City of David. 29 In the eleventh year of Joram, the son of Ahab, Ahaziah became king over Judah. 30 So when Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard about it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked down from the [upper] window. 31 As Jehu entered in at the gate, she said, “Is it well, f Zimri, your master’s murderer?” [1 Kin 16:9 , 10 ] 32 Then Jehu raised his face toward the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” And two or three officials looked down at him.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  But we set girls up for that from the get go. Everything in the culture tells them that they are supposed to perform, that they are supposed to pay more attention to being desirable than their own desire. We don’t as parents name that whole area between belly button and knees. We don’t tell them what a clitoris is. We don’t even tell them what a vulva is. We just avoid the whole situation. [Kids] go into puberty ed class, and female pleasure is not necessary to talk about when you’re talking about reproduction. So we don’t. We talk about periods. We talk about unwanted pregnancy. And with boys we talk about erections and ejaculation. Then, no surprise, only a third of girls masturbate regularly, only half have ever masturbated. Then we tell them to go into their sexual encounters with a sense of equality. How is that supposed to happen? We have completely shrouded them. Maybe they figure it out. Maybe they do. But maybe they don’t, or maybe they have to get over their early experience, and that’s wrong. Look at research: When we talk about sexual satisfaction, we’re not talking about the same thing. Young women tend to measure sexual satisfaction by their partner’s satisfaction—which is why lesbians are more likely to have orgasms. They’re like, “I want you to feel good! No, I want you to feel good!” Heterosexual girls will say, “If he’s satisfied, I’m satisfied.” Boys are more likely to measure sexual satisfaction by their own orgasm and their own pleasure. On the flipside, when they talk about bad sex they use completely different language. Boys will say, “I didn’t come or I wasn’t that attracted to her.” Girls will talk about pain and humiliation and degradation. Boys never use that language. We’re talking about really different experiences going into it. That’s why I love that term “intimate justice.” To think about this in terms of equity and power dynamics. Who is entitled to engage sexually? Who is entitled to enjoy? Who is the primary beneficiary? So what is different now? What is it about this generation that is not just historic “girls pleasing boys” crap that we’ve all gone through?

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  10 ‘I will send the sword, famine and virulent disease among them until they are consumed from the land which I gave to them and to their fathers.’ ” Jeremiah 25 Prophecy of the Captivity 1 T HE WORD that came to Jeremiah in regard to all the people of Judah in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah (that was the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), 2 which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, 3 “For these twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, even to this day—the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you over and over again, but you have not listened. 4 “Although the LORD has persistently sent to you all His servants the prophets, you have not listened nor [even] inclined your ear to hear [His message], 5 saying, ‘Turn now everyone from his evil way and the evil of your actions [that you may not forfeit the right to] live in the land that the LORD has given to you and your forefathers forever and ever; 6 and do not go after other gods to serve them and to worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands, and I will do you no harm.’ 7 “Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the LORD , “so that you have provoked Me to anger with the work (idols) of your hands to your own harm. 8 “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Because you have not obeyed My words, 9 behold (hear this), I will send for all the families of the north,’ says the LORD , ‘and I will send for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant [to enact My plan], and I will bring them against this land and against its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations; and I will utterly destroy them and make them a horror and a hissing [that is, an object of warning and ridicule] and an everlasting desolation. 10 ‘Moreover, I will take from them the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones [grinding meal] and the light of the lamp [to light the night]. [Jer 7:34 ] 11 ‘This whole land will be a waste and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon a seventy years. [2 Chr 36:20–23 ; Jer 4:27 ; 12:11 , 12 ; Dan 9:2 ] Babylon Will Be Judged 12 ‘Then when seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans (Babylonia),’ says the LORD , ‘for their wickedness, and will make the land [of the Chaldeans] a perpetual waste.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Like Lazarius, Jerome is highly intolerant of individuals, especially black ones, who transgress established (hetero)sexual boundaries. Upon discovering that Renay has left him, not for another black man but for a white lesbian, he confronts her derisively, even referring to her and Terry in derogatory sexual terms. His reaction to Renay's same-gender loving relationship illustrates not only his extremely heterosexist and homophobic attitude, but also his intensely violent condemnation of homosexuality. Rather than accept same-gender loving within a black context, he articulates a willingness even to resort to murder as an extreme corrective for black sexual difference. In this case, Jerome, as the author intends, typifies the sexuality-based fears and hostilities of some nationalists and the general American public, as well as castigatory stances toward individuals whose "infractions" threaten established communal standards and cultural norms. Jerome's reaction-as well as his subsequent assertion that he will "whip the pure black shit out of [Renay's] yellow ass"-reflects his insecurities and inadequacies as a man, and problematically suggests that Renay is not "pure" or authentically black (131). For, Renay's having left him in general, and for a woman (and a white one at that), not only emasculates him but, far worse in his estimation, undermines his role as a (black) man since, within the nationalist project, women's sexuality is regulated through men who have orchestrated control over female bodies and sexuality.48 Jerome's desire to beat Renay evidences, then, his need to recover both dominion over Renay and his "lost" manhood. Renay's response to Jerome's violent reaction evidences the ways black women refuse to capitulate or subscribe to marginalizing nationalist and larger societal proscriptions for women. In challenging heterosexist relationships privileged in nationalist constructions of family-and dictates of women having to "inspire" their men on multiple levels-these women delegitimize the function of the "black man" as they resolutely assert themselves. Renay, aware of Jerome's false sense of security and feelings of masculinity, boldly challenges Jerome's threats: Yes.... You want to beat me, to trample on me, see me grovel because you despise what you can't change. A man should be able to control his woman-especially a black man who can't control anything else. But do you really want to know why you hate me? Because I've survived your male deterioration. [...] Survived. Through the muck and slime you've [...] put me through, I've come out of itour battle of wills. But, you, you're in it and can't get out because you're stuck! You're too weak to struggle. It's easier to stay in. And you can't stand the idea that I've left the dirt and you, and you can't push me back. (131-32)

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he has taunted and defied the armies of the living God?” 27 The men j told him, “That is what will be done for the man who kills him.” 28 Now Eliab his oldest brother heard what he said to the men; and Eliab’s k anger burned against David and he said, “Why have you come down here? With whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption (overconfidence) and the evil of your heart; for you have come down in order to see the battle.” 29 But David said, “What have I done now? Was it not just a [harmless] question?” 30 Then David turned away from Eliab to someone else and asked the same question; and the people gave him the same answer as the first time. David Kills Goliath 31 When the words that David spoke were heard, the men reported them to Saul, and he sent for him. 32 David said to Saul, “Let no man’s l courage fail because of him (Goliath). Your servant will go out and fight with this Philistine.” 33 Then Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight him. For you are [only] a young man and he has been a warrior since his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, 35 I went out after it and attacked it and rescued the lamb from its mouth; and when it rose up against me, I seized it by its whiskers and struck and killed it. 36 “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted and defied the armies of the living God.” 37 David said, “The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and may the LORD be with you.” 38 Then Saul dressed David in his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and put a coat of mail (armor) on him. 39 Then David fastened his sword over his armor and tried to walk, [but he could not,] because he was not used to them. And David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, because I am not used to them.” So David took them off. 40 Then he took his [shepherd’s] staff in his hand and chose for himself five m smooth stones out of the stream bed, and put them in his shepherd’s bag which he had, that is, in his shepherd’s pouch. With his sling in his hand, he approached the Philistine. 41 The Philistine came and approached David, with his shield-bearer in front of him.

• From Girls & Sex (2016)

  I was surprised, then, to hear that Megan, at the urging of a campus therapist, had pressed charges against Tyler through her school’s office of student ethics. The investigation took the entire second semester. Megan told her story repeatedly. Her friends gave statements about how much she’d changed since that night, growing depressed, unable to concentrate, how she dropped a class and was drinking more than usual. Tyler gave his version of events as well. When asked when, precisely, he believed Megan had given consent for intercourse, she recalled him saying, ‘Well, she gave me a blow job. I pretty much call that consent.’” That had infuriated her. “I was giving him the blow job to end it, not to start something. I told him I did not want to have sex. I told him I did not have birth control. And he just hopped out of bed, put on a condom, and raped me.” What she suspects ultimately made her case was not so much what either she or Tyler had said, but that Tyler’s own frat brothers turned on him, admitting that he could be aggressive, even violent; he had already been on probation for fighting. In the end, Tyler was suspended for a year and his credits for the semester nullified. Megan is pretty sure he won’t be back, though she can’t say whether he’s learned anything from the experience. “After the hearing he said he was sorry I felt the way I did, but he never apologized,” she said. “He never believed he’d done anything wrong.” In fact, she confessed, she had to control herself from apologizing to him. “I hated him,” she said, “but it was weird. I also wanted to give him a hug and tell him I was sorry for doing all this, for ruining his life.” DESPICABLE ME PLAYED on TV at an off-campus house as Megan and her friends poured pregame shots into candy-colored glasses. There were six girls and two boys, who were in town visiting from another school. They traded war stories about hangovers they’d had, the hazards of Everclear, and the crazy drinks they had tried: Jungle Juice, apple pie moonshine, vodka infused with cannabis or Skittles candy. Over the next hour, Megan and the other girls in the group would knock back four or five shots each. The boys would drink six. “We have a system,” one of the boys told me. “Drink three shots, wait three minutes, drink two more shots, wait five minutes, one more shot and you’re done.” I asked what the wait was for. “So we can have time to see if we’re too affected by it,” he said, apparently in all seriousness.

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Davis goes even further by locating her outside the "normative" in a degrading fashion that reduces her to stigmatization: "You ain't natural. [...] Shit, if you was natural, you wouldn't even be here, woman. You wouldn't even a let Davis Carter lay a hand on you. Not for free" (121). As when he initially met Eva, Davis imposes certain mischaracterizations upon her that mark her as licentious to the extent she embodies "illicit" sexuality; and his assertion that she is "unnatural" exacerbates thingssituating her as the embodiment of promiscuity that exceeds the confines of a sexually conventional and "natural/norm" culture. Eva's contestation manifests in reciprocity vis-a-vis her infliction of sexualized violence against Davis, who, in his verbal and physical sexual dehumanization, incites transgression. After lacing his drink with poison and killing him, Eva's transgressive behavior extends even further: I opened his trousers and played with his penis. My mouth, my teeth, my tongue went inside his trousers. I raised blood [...]. I got back on the bed and squeezed his dick in my teeth. I bit down hard. [...] I got the silk handkerchief he used to wipe me after we made love, and wrapped his penis in it. I laid it back inside his trousers, zipped him up. [...] The blood still came through. "Bastard." I reached in his pants, got my comb, took the key he'd promised, washed my hands, finished my brandy, wiped his mouth, and left. (129) Since black male bodies, when sexualized, are reduced to a fixation on the black male penis as "distillation of the essence of Black masculinity," in her contestation, Eva not only kills Davis but, in attacking his penis, the phallus and material embodiment of masculinist sexual hegemony, she also squelches his dominance sexually and otherwise. As sexual power and authority for men are linked to the phallus, it serves as a marker of masculinity.23 Eva refuses to be a passive or ornamental entity whose sexuality is regulated or confined in the service and sexual gratification of Davis and men. In taking the mutilated penis in bed, engaging with it on her own terms, she executes her own agency, pleasure, and gratification-sexual and empowering, even if grotesquethat diminishes masculinist sexual power and domination. In her transgressive behavior she, like transgression generally, not only marks the limit-crossing and violating it-but also designates the limit. Her contestatory act is, then, an instantiation of transgression. Contestation, as Foucault reminds us, "does not imply a generalized negation, but [...] a radical break of transitivity.[.. .C]ontestation is the act that carries them all to their limits"; thus, "to contest is to proceed until one reaches the empty core where being achieves its limit and where the limit defines being."24 "A Woman Got to Be Crazy to Do Something Like That. [...] Or Want You to Think She's Crazy": Madness and Transgression

• From Unbought and Unbossed: Transgressive Black Women, Sexuality, and Representation (2014)

  Moreover, the cigarettes, conspicuously symbolic of sexuality, serve as phallic symbols. In the same way Tyrone's presence, sexually and otherwise, inverts and disrupts-even violates, figuratively and literally-the fidelity and sanctity of Eva's parents' marriage (and the family), so, too, are the cigarettes opened backward a metaphoric manifestation of the same inversion of (sexual) access. In other words, Tyrone's uncustomary opening of and access to his cigarettes are emblematic of the same breach and intrusion-adultery and infidelity-that are wreaking havoc in John and Marie's union. Of equal import, whereas there is no "politics of silence" in the form of dissemblance surrounding sexuality, silence is present in another overarching form that is equally deleterious: the silence, that is, that falsely appears as indifference regarding the violation of the sanctity of their marriage. This dynamic appears "normative" since John and Marie go on as if everything were fine: "What was really strange, though, was they still slept together. [... T]hey made love as if Tyrone wasn't happening" (29). Yet, on the other hand, in the absence of vocalized contestation, the silence transposes instead into physical enactments of sexualized aggression, such as John's displays of violent desire and perverse excess, in his invective "Act like a whore, I'm gonna fuck you like a whore. You act like a whore, I'm gonna fuck you like a whore" (37). As noted earlier, Jones plays with the pornographic, which reflects the temporal moment in which the book was published during the sexual revolution and "sex wars"/"porn wars" of the 1970s and 198os. In this context, John and Marie's sexual exchanges lend themselves to a complex, rather than monolithic, reading of the sexual, sexual aggression, and the pornographic-or what constitutes the obscene. The scene might be read, on the one hand, then, as John's attempts to (over)compensate, through violently aggressive and dominating sexual behavior, for his lack of control over his wife's sexuality and the overall sexual dynamics of their relationship, as well as the state of sanctity (or lack thereof) in their marriage. This sexualized violence and overall sexual exchange, sadomasochism of sorts, between the two is not eroticism but, rather, perversity of desire. In Audre Lorde's theorization of the erotic and pornographic, she argues that "the erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation" and has been falsely confused "with its opposite, the pornographic. But pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.""

• From The Decameron (1353)

  'What?' cried Andreuccio. 'Dost thou not know me? I am Andreuccio, brother to Madam Fiordaliso.' Whereto quoth she, 'Good man, an thou have drunken overmuch, go sleep and come back to-morrow morning. I know no Andreuccio nor what be these idle tales thou tellest. Begone in peace and let us sleep, so it please thee.' 'How?' replied Andreuccio. 'Thou knowest not what I mean? Certes, thou knowest; but, if Sicilian kinships be of such a fashion that they are forgotten in so short a time, at least give me back my clothes and I will begone with all my heart.' 'Good man,' rejoined she, as if laughing, 'methinketh thou dreamest'; and to say this and to draw in her head and shut the window were one and the same thing. Whereat Andreuccio, now fully certified of his loss, was like for chagrin to turn his exceeding anger into madness and bethought himself to seek to recover by violence that which he might not have again with words; wherefore, taking up a great stone, he began anew to batter the door more furiously than ever. At this many of the neighbours, who had already been awakened and had arisen, deeming him some pestilent fellow who had trumped up this story to spite the woman of the house and provoked at the knocking he kept up, came to the windows and began to say, no otherwise than as all the dogs of a quarter bark after a strange dog, ''Tis a villainous shame to come at this hour to decent women's houses and tell these cock-and-bull stories. For God's sake, good man, please you begone in peace and let us sleep. An thou have aught to mell with her, come back to-morrow and spare us this annoy to-night.' Taking assurance, perchance, by these words, there came to the window one who was within the house, a bully of the gentlewoman's, whom Andreuccio had as yet neither heard nor seen, and said, in a terrible big rough voice, 'Who is below there?'

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  shame. As for you, I would rather see you dead at my feet than standing before me with this thing upon you — this unspeakable outrage that you call love in that letter which you don’t deny hav- ing written. In that letter you say things that may only be said between man and woman, and coming from you they are vile and filthy words of corruption — against nature, against God who created nature. My gorge rises; you have made me feel physically sick =’ ‘Mother — you don’t know what you’re saying — you’re my mother —’ ‘ Yes, I am your mother, but for all that, you seem to me like a scourge. I ask myself what I have ever done to be dragged down into the depths by my daughter. And your father — what had he ever done? And you have presumed to use the word love in con- nection with this — with these lusts of your body; these unnatural cravings of your unbalanced mind and undisciplined body — you have used that word. I have loved — do you hear? I have loved your father, and your father loved me. That was love.’ Then, suddenly, Stephen knew that unless she could, indeed, drop dead at the feet of this woman in whose womb she had - quickened, there was one thing that she dared not let pass un- challenged, and that was this terrible slur upen her love. And all that was in her rose up to refute it; to protect her love from such unbearable soiling. It was part of herself, and unless she could save it, she could not save herself any more. She must stand or fall by the courage of that love to proclaim its right to toleration. She held up her hand, commanding silence; commanding that slow, quiet voice to cease speaking, and she said: ‘ As my father loved you, I loved. As a man loves a woman, that was how I loved — protectively, like my father. I wanted to give all I had in me to give. It made me feel terribly strong . . . and gentle. It was good, good, good —I’d have laid down my life a thousand times over for Angela Crossby. If I could have, I’d have married her and brought her home — I wanted to bring her home here to Morton. If I loved her the way a man loves a woman, it’s because I can’t feel that I am a woman. All my life I’ve never felt THE WELL OF LONELINESS 229

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In Constantinople, during the Arian controversy, all classes, even mechanics, bankers, frippers, market women, and runaway slaves took lively part in the questions of Homousion and sub-ordination, of the begotten and the unbegotten.1284 The speculative mind of the Eastern church was combined with a deep religious earnestness and a certain mysticism, and at the same time with the Grecian curiosity and disputatiousness, which afterwards rather injured than promoted her inward life. Gregory Nazianzen, who lived in Constantinople in the midst of the Arian wars, describes the division and hostility which this polemic spirit introduced between parents and children, husbands and wives, old and young, masters and slaves, priests and people. "It has gone so far that the whole market resounds with the discourses of heretics, every banquet is corrupted by this babbling even to nausea, every merrymaking is transformed into a mourning, and every funeral solemnity is almost alleviated by this brawling as a still greater evil; even the chambers of women, the nurseries of simplicity, are disturbed thereby, and the flowers of modesty are crushed by this precocious practice of dispute."1285 Chrysostom, like Melanchthon at a later day, had much to suffer from the theological pugnacity of his times. The history of the Nicene age shows clearly that the church of God carries the heavenly treasure in earthly vessels. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was likewise in fact an incessant war, in which impure personal and political motives of every kind had play, and even the best men often violated the apostolic injunction to speak the truth in love. But we must not forget that the passionate and intolerant dogmatism of that time was based upon deep moral earnestness and strong faith, and so far forth stands vastly above the tolerance of indifferentism, which lightly plays with the truth or not rarely strikes out in most vehement intolerance against the faith. (Remember the first French revolution.) The overruling of divine Providence in the midst of these wild conflicts is unmistakable, and the victory of the truth appears the greater for the violence of error. God uses all sorts of men for his instruments, and brings evil passions as well as good into his service. The Spirit of truth guided the church through the rush and the din of contending parties, and always triumphed over error in the end. The ecumenical councils were the open battle-fields, upon which the victory of orthodoxy was decided. The doctrinal decrees of these councils contain the results of the most profound discussions respecting the Trinity and the person of Christ; and the Church to this day has not gone essentially beyond those decisions. The Greek church wrought out Theology and Christology, while the Latin church devoted itself to Anthropology and Soteriology. The one, true to the genius of the Greek nationality, was predominantly speculative, dialectical, impulsive, and restless; the other, in keeping with the Roman character, was practical, traditional, uniform, consistent, and steady.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  The real woman question is poverty.” When I’d first met Maria, she’d held in contempt everything she was—middle-class, American, artistic—in favor of a remote ideal, a Soviet Union we knew next to nothing about except that it stood for principles we considered progressive: respect for labor, division of wealth, equal opportunity for women, atheism, science. In recent years, however, we’d read more and more accounts about Russia that had disillusioned and finally appalled us. Simultaneously, Maria had become aware that women were oppressed in every country regardless of national policies or economics. She became angry with me when I suggested that her own lesbianism made her especially sensitive to women’s indignities. “Why do you have to search for a personal reason for political convictions that can be established through rational arguments? It’s so demeaning.” Maria’s feminism may have been objective, as she insisted, but nevertheless it provided subjective benefits to her. Because she was now defending what she was, a woman, her politics elicited pride not guilt, affirmation not chagrin. She began to paint again. Art was no longer a badge of privilege, but a quiet, deft way of making things, as one might make a new window box. She painted, listening to Der Rosenkavalier , as she had that first day I’d ever seen her, so many years ago, waltzing around her studio at the Eton art academy, her eyes closed. By chance I knew a young woman who was in Sean’s group. I badgered her to break the rule of secrecy and tell me what he was saying about me. She and I were seated in a cozy, dirty booth in a coffee shop on upper Broadway. “But he’s really sick,” she said. “He paces up and down and talks about feeling flames leaping along his arms—‘bizarre somatic delusions’ is what Dale calls them. He tries so hard to detect a heterosexual urge in himself he even pretends he’s getting excited over Dale, who could be his mother and has ankles thicker than his waist.” “I know it’s going to hurt,” I said, “but what does he say about me?” “He’s never even mentioned you.” She was polite enough to add, rather feebly, “That’s the sickest thing of all.” Under pressure from the group to date girls, Sean told me the sexual part of our relationship was over. He looked so pitiful, so flayed , that I didn’t object. I thought that a real person in my position would have said, “Fuck you. So long,” and walked out for good. But I felt sorry for Sean. The report of his behavior in group made me fear he was far more disturbed than I’d imagined. I also felt sorry for myself. I had stopped my compulsive toilet cruising since I’d met Sean. His sexual acceptance of me, paradoxically, had given me the courage to seduce other young men and take them home. In our mythology, a proper trick was more respectable than a tearoom quickie.

• From The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988)

  It denounced the “chic new trend toward treating homosexuality as though it were a different way rather than a lesser way.” The essay deplored homosexuals’ “glibly self-justifying references to the ancients.” It actually said, “We must blush for fifth-century Athens.” In conclusion, the essay read: “Let’s face the sour music: homosexuality is not a sophisticated or naughty aberration but a pathetic malady. We must make certain that in this era of drugs, free sex, and sloppy liberal rhetoric the Homintern, that conspiracy of bitter inverts who already have a stranglehold over the theater, fashion, and fiction, does not pervert the lives of decent people by glamorizing vice, neutering the female body, and making the fine old art of being a mature man or woman look dull—or as they would say, campy. ” When I cried in group therapy about Sean, about the helplessness I felt now, Simon said, “I wanna hear about de goils.” A rage I couldn’t control boiled up inside me. The other men in the group had to pull me off Simon. I knocked his chair over and was sitting on him, choking him with both hands and shouting, over and over, “Don’t you ever , don’t you ever —” but I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I’d always regarded my sister as the norm. She had managed to marry, have children, settle in the suburbs and lead a respectable life. I saw her only occasionally when I was home for the holidays, and then she’d shyly press her three children forward. One Christmas Eve she and I stayed awake all night trying to sort out the parts of a tricycle to be assembled according to instructions written in English by a Japanese. I never talked to her about my real feelings or my real life, but I assumed I knew everything about hers. Then she announced that she wanted to visit me in New York. She’d be coming without her husband but with the neighbor lady, Peg. Since by now I was making a decent living, I bought a new sofa bed for them. My sister was in love with Peg. Awkward, bespectacled, ashamed, my sister gazed at the handsome Peg with adoration and recounted to me by the hour the sad saga of Peg’s life (brutal parents, elderly husband, delinquent children, unfulfilled artistic ambitions). It was obvious to me that Peg didn’t love my sister but enjoyed all the attention, something her husband wasn’t providing. The two women never stopped drinking. First thing in the morning they’d stir up a batch of bloody marys, declaring that they were on vacation and determined to whoop it up. I discovered that my sister no longer thought I was a weirdo but someone who’d had the courage to lead a free life. She seemed strangely gratified that I found Peg beautiful—my sister apparently was as obsessed with physical beauty as I.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  'Well hast thou done,' said the friar; 'but hast thou often been angered?' 'Oh,' cried Master Ciappelletto, 'that I must tell you I have very often been! And who could keep himself therefrom, seeing men do unseemly things all day long, keeping not the commandments of God neither fearing His judgment? Many times a day I had liefer been dead than alive, seeing young men follow after vanities and hearing them curse and forswear themselves, haunting the taverns, visiting not the churches and ensuing rather the ways of the world than that of God.' 'My son,' said the friar, 'this is a righteous anger, nor for my part might I enjoin thee any penance therefor. But hath anger at any time availed to move thee to do any manslaughter or to bespeak any one unseemly or do any other unright?' 'Alack, sir,' answered the sick man, 'you, who seem to me a man of God, how can you say such words? Had I ever had the least thought of doing any one of the things whereof you speak, think you I believe that God would so long have forborne me? These be the doings of outlaws and men of nought, whereof I never saw any but I said still, "Go, may God amend thee!"' Then said the friar, 'Now tell me, my son (blessed be thou of God), hast thou never borne false witness against any or missaid of another, or taken others' good, without leave of him to whom it pertained?' 'Ay, indeed, sir,' replied Master Ciappelletto; 'I have missaid of others; for that I had a neighbour aforetime, who, with the greatest unright in the world, did nought but beat his wife, insomuch that I once spoke ill of him to her kinsfolk, so great was the compassion that overcame me for the poor woman, whom he used as God alone can tell, whenassoever he had drunken overmuch.' Quoth the friar, 'Thou tellest me thou hast been a merchant. Hast thou never cheated any one, as merchants do whiles!' 'I' faith, yes, sir,' answered Master Ciappelletto; 'but I know not whom, except it were a certain man, who once brought me monies which he owed me for cloth I had sold him and which I threw into a chest, without counting. A good month after, I found that they were four farthings more than they should have been; wherefore, not seeing him again and having kept them by me a full year, that I might restore them to him, I gave them away in alms.' Quoth the friar, 'This was a small matter, and thou didst well to deal with it as thou didst.'

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  “It is I, [the One] who speaks in righteousness [proclaiming vindication], mighty to save.” 2 Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? 3 “I have trodden the wine trough alone, And of the peoples there was no one with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My clothes. 4 “For the day of vengeance [against ungodliness] was in My heart, And My year of redemption [of those who put their trust in Me—the year of My redeemed] has come. 5 “I looked, but there was no one to help, And I was amazed and appalled that there was no one to uphold [truth and right]. So My own arm brought salvation to Me, And My wrath sustained Me. 6 “I trampled the peoples in My anger And made them drunk with [the cup of] My wrath, And I spilled their lifeblood on the earth.” God’s Ancient Mercies Recalled 7 I will tell of the lovingkindnesses of the LORD , and the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD , According to all that the LORD has done for us, And His great goodness toward the house of Israel, Which He has shown them according to His compassion And according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses. 8 For He said, “Be assured, they are My people, Sons who will not be faithless.” So He became their Savior [in all their distresses]. 9 In all their distress He was distressed, And the a angel of His presence saved them, In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them; And He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. [Ex 23:20–23 ; 33:14 , 15 ; Deut 1:31 ; 32:10–12 ] 10 But they rebelled And grieved His Holy Spirit; Therefore He changed into their enemy, And He fought against them. 11 Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses [and they said], Where is He who brought our fathers up out of the [Red] Sea, with the shepherds of His flock [Moses and Aaron]? Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in their midst, 12 Who caused His glorious arm and infinite power to go at the right hand of Moses, Dividing the waters before them to make for Himself an everlasting name, 13 Who led them through the depths [of the Red Sea], Like a horse in the wilderness, [so that] they did not stumble? 14 Like the cattle that go down into the valley [to find better pasture and rest], The Spirit of the LORD gave them rest. So You led Your people [O LORD ] To make for Yourself a beautiful and glorious name [preparing the way for the acknowledgment of Your name by all nations]. “You Are Our Father” 15 Look down from heaven and see from Your lofty dwelling place, holy and glorious.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I rebuked him the other day and he hath ill performed that which he promised me; wherefore, as well for that as for this that he hath newly done, I mean to warm his ears[158] for him after such a fashion that methinketh he will give thee no farther concern; but do thou, God's benison on thee, suffer not thyself to be so overcome with anger that thou tell it to any of thy folk, for that overmuch harm might ensue thereof unto him. Neither fear thou lest this blame anywise ensue to thee, for I shall still, before both God and men, be a most constant witness to thy virtue.' The lady made believe to be somewhat comforted and leaving that talk, said, as one who knew his greed and that of his fellow-churchmen, 'Sir, these some nights past there have appeared to me sundry of my kinsfolk, who ask nought but almsdeeds, and meseemeth they are indeed in exceeding great torment, especially my mother, who appeareth to me in such ill case and affliction that it is pity to behold. Methinketh she suffereth exceeding distress to see me in this tribulation with yonder enemy of God; wherefore I would have you say me forty masses of Saint Gregory for her and their souls, together with certain of your own prayers, so God may deliver them from that penitential fire.' So saying, she put a florin into his hand, which the holy father blithely received and confirming her devoutness with fair words and store of pious instances, gave her his benison and let her go. The lady being gone, the friar, never thinking how he was gulled, sent for his friend, who, coming and finding him troubled, at once divined that he was to have news of the lady and awaited what the friar should say. The latter repeated that which he had before said to him and bespeaking him anew angrily and reproachfully, rebuked him severely of that which, according to the lady's report, he had done. The gentleman, not yet perceiving the friar's drift, faintly enough denied having sent her the purse and the girdle, so as not to undeceive the friar, in case the lady should have given him to believe that he had done this; whereat the good man was sore incensed and said, 'How canst thou deny it, wicked man that thou art? See, here they are, for she herself brought them to me, weeping; look if thou knowest them.' The gentleman feigned to be sore abashed and answered, 'Yes, I do indeed know them and I confess to you that I did ill; but I swear to you, since I see her thus disposed, that you shall never more hear a word of this.' Brief, after many words, the numskull of a friar gave his friend the purse and the girdle and dismissed him, after rating him amain and beseeching him occupy himself no more with these follies, the which he promised him.