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 43 of 447 · 20 per page

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

  In Meridian, Alice Walker illuminates the ways in which individuality, especially women's individual freedom, and community are not antithetical or diametrical entities. Through her characterization of Meridian, she demonstrates the convergence, rather than disjuncture, of black women's autonomy in relation to the community at large. Instead of the community serving merely and problematically as a source of entrapment or marginalization for women, it, as Walker illumines, significantly provides a space for women's agency and choice, be it with regard to mothering and/or participating in revolutionary work. In so doing, Walker "takes into account the dynamics of collective identity along with the demands that social codes place upon the group, and she considers the structure of personal identity with its [...] social relations, especially family."35 Moreover, she destabilizes the very meanings and functions of the individual and collective, and their relational aspects to various conventional institutions and social relations: particularly family, motherhood, and community. To this end, she creates transformative and liberatory spaces, not without complications and complexities, for black women as well as generations of blacks. [image file=img/page0156_0000.svg] If post-civil rights black women authors limn the nexus of racialized gender and sexual transgression, employing erotic characterizations and theatricalities of desire, Eva's Man does just this. Yet, it goes even farther, exceeding the limit and traversing the boundaries in ways unparalleled in other texts examined in this book. It engages the radical sexual dimension, as well as contests the regulation of female sexuality through men, as does Sula. Like Loving Her, it refuses to privilege heterosexual intimacy, marked by male dominance, as a singular and solitary option; and, much like Meridian, it critiques silence-especially in the form of dissemblance (or the politics surrounding black women's sexuality)-as insidious. Even with these connections, Eva's Man is far more aggressive: it agitates; is crude and, at times, simultaneously titillating, pornographic, and offensive; and is both uncensored and unrelenting in its violence, sexual language, imagery, and tone. In fact, Jones's language, her calculated use of the sexually explicit (quasi-pornographic), operates as a direct contestation-a means to overturn-racialized Victorianism. Published during the sexual revolution, the novel reflects the ideological and sociosexual politics of the moment in its effort to liberate sex and libidinal forces from not only repression, but conservatism in terms of morality and what one might engage in during the sex act. Sensibilities undergirding the novel reflect the sociocultural and legal advances in the sexual realm, namely in the arena of the pornographic and public obscenity.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  12 Then a letter came to Jehoram from Elijah the prophet, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of David your father (ancestor): ‘Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, 13 but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to be unfaithful [to God] as the house of Ahab was unfaithful, and you have also murdered your brothers, your father’s house (your own family), who were better than you, 14 behold, the LORD is going to strike your people, your sons, your wives, and all your possessions with a great disaster; 15 and you will suffer a severe illness, an intestinal disease, until your intestines come out because of the sickness, day after day.’ ” 16 Then the LORD stirred up against Jehoram the spirit (anger) of the Philistines and of the Arabs who bordered the Ethiopians. 17 They came against Judah and invaded it, and carried away all the possessions found in the king’s house (palace), together with his sons and his wives; so there was not a son left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons. 18 After all this, the LORD struck Jehoram with an incurable intestinal disease. 19 Now it came about in the course of time, at the end of two years, that his intestines came out because of his disease and he died in excruciating pain. And his people did not make a funeral fire to honor him, like the fire for his fathers. 20 Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years; and he departed with no one’s regret (sorrow). They buried him in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. 2 Chronicles 22 Ahaziah Succeeds Jehoram in Judah 1 T HEN THE inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son, king in his place, because the band of men (raiders) who came with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the older sons . So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign. 2 Ahaziah was a twenty-two years old when he became king and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri. [2 Kin 8:26 ] 3 He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his adviser [and she encouraged him] to act wickedly. 4 So he did evil in the sight of the LORD like the house of Ahab, for they were his advisers after the death of his father, resulting in his destruction. Ahaziah Allies with Jehoram of Israel 5 He also walked in accordance with their advice, and he went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to wage war against Hazael king of Aram (Syria) at Ramoth-gilead. And the Arameans wounded b Joram (Jehoram).

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  3 Elihu’s anger burned against Job’s three friends because they had found no answer [and were unable to determine Job’s error], and yet they had condemned Job and declared him to be in the wrong [and responsible for his own afflictions]. 4 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because the others were years older than he. 5 And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, he burned with anger. 6 Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite said, “I am young, and you are aged; For that reason I was anxious and dared not tell you what I think. 7 “I thought age should speak, And a multitude of years should teach wisdom. 8 “But there is [a vital force and] a spirit [of intelligence] in man, And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding. [Prov 2:6 ] 9 “Those [who are] abundant in years may not [always] be wise, Nor may the elders [always] understand justice. 10 “Therefore I say, ‘Listen to me; I also will give you my opinion [about Job’s situation] and tell you plainly what I think.’ 11 “You see, I waited for your words, I listened to your [wise] reasons, While you pondered and searched out what to say. 12 “I even paid close attention to [what] you [said], Indeed, not one of you convinced Job [nor could you refute him], Not one of you supplied [satisfactory] answers to his words. 13 “Beware if you say, ‘We have found wisdom; God thrusts Job down [justly], not man [for God alone is dealing with him].’ 14 “Now Job has not directed his words against me [therefore I have no reason to be offended], Nor will I answer him with arguments like yours. [I speak for truth, not for revenge.] 15 “They (Job’s friends) are dismayed and embarrassed, they no longer answer; The words have moved away and failed them,” [says Elihu]. 16 “And shall I wait, because they say nothing, But stand still and say no more? 17 “I too will give my share of answers; I too will express my opinion and share my knowledge. 18 “For I am full of words; The spirit within me constrains me. 19 “My belly is like unvented wine; Like new wineskins it is about to burst. 20 “I must speak so that I may get relief; I will open my lips and answer. 21 “I will not [I warn you] be partial to any man [that is, let my respect for you mitigate what I say]; Nor flatter any man. 22 “For I do not know how to flatter, [in an appropriate way, and I fear that], My Maker would soon take me away. Job 33 Elihu Claims to Speak for God 1 “H OWEVER, JOB, please listen to my words, And pay attention to everything I say.

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  Understanding the o ld testament 74 When the Philistines go to war with Israel, David is ready to join up. However, the Philistines are not yet completely comfortable with David or his loyalties, and they don’t take him along. Still, the Philistines defeat Saul, who dies at his own hand. Now left to take over Israel himself, David consolidates his rule and wipes out the remainder of Saul’s family. He eventually manages to take the city of Jerusalem, making it his capital. Bathsheba David remains brutal throughout his reign, exemplified by the famous episode with Bathsheba, the wife of a Hittite named Uriah, who is off at war. One evening, as depicted in 2 Samuel 11, David sees Bathsheba bathing and sends people to take her. Though her present-day reputation is that of a seductress, the truth is far from it; Bathsheba is, if anything, a victim of rape. She becomes pregnant. David sends for Uriah from the frontlines, brings him home, gets him drunk, and invites him to return home where he can be with his wife. David’s goal is to give everyone the impression—including the husband himself—that the child will be his. King David Handing the Letter to Uriah , Pieter l astman, 1611. l e Ct Ure 12 | t he Boo Ks of s am Uel 75 Uriah sleeps on David’s doorstep instead. David’s convenient solution fails. He is forced to compound his rape with the crime of murder. He arranges for Uriah to be placed at the front line of the war, and he has the rest of the army withdraw, leaving Uriah exposed. After Uriah is killed, verse 26 states David sends for Bathsheba and brings her into his house. She has no choice, and “in the sight of the Lord what David has done was evil.” This is followed by the arrival of the prophet Nathan. Nathan is not one of the ecstatic band prophets. However, he is a spokesman for God to David and later to David’s son and successor Solomon. God has something to say to David here about the Bathsheba episode. Nathan makes up a parable about a poor man whose wealthy neighbor steals his only lamb. When David proclaims the man is worthy of death, Nathan famously says, “You are the man!” nathan and d avid

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

  Jerome's narrow conceptualization of Renay is symptomatic of a larger masculinist (gender) hierarchy in nationalism that characterizes women as appendages or adjuncts of men who can/should not operate independently of them. As such, women putatively function off a male-derived axis that centralizes men. Moreover, nationalist discourse constructs women as "feminized entities" or objects that "emphatically, historically, and globally-are the property of men."45 In his failure to view and thereby treat Renay within a politics of equality, as the passage demonstrates, Jerome subscribes to a male proprietor/female commodity binary, as evidenced through his conceptions of Renay within a discourse of possession. Renay's deliberate abandonment of Jerome-and especially her assertion that, "I'm not coming back, Jerome Lee. Ever. I'm getting a divorce"-uncharacteristically marks her progression in that she expresses, for the first time verbally, her refusal to acquiesce to Jerome and serve as a mere extension of him. Of far greater significance, it signifies her disavowal of nationalist and larger societal tendencies that, in the process of nation building, largely objectify and disempower women. Shockley, thus, indicts black nationalists like Jerome who, in their construction of family and nation, reify dominant patriarchal ideologies that result in the enforcement of male hegemony and an unequal distribution of power between black men and women. The author does this via Renay's stance toward Jerome's request for her to "C'mon home": "Why?" she asked. He had said nothing about being sorry. Why did he want her back? To be his scapegoat? To be the blame for his alcoholic weakness? To be an escape mechanism [...]? But above all, to be the doormat upon which he could wipe his feet. Wasn't that what most black men wanted their women for? To take their anger at themselves and the world about them, hold their sperm, spew out their babies? This was what made them feel manly: the white man's underdog having an underdog too. (44) Shockley's narration in this passage is problematic for a multiplicity of reasons: no differentiation between her idiosyncrasies as author, the narrative voice, and the protagonist's thought process exists. What this results in is a series of generalizations about black men and women directly and nationalism indirectly that, left largely unmediated, resonates more as ideological realities than stereotypes. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, Shockley contests the intransigently narrow, myopic, and marginal ways black women are largely conceived within the nationalist imaginary: black women's role as "scapegoats," reproductive entities who produce the nation, and objects upon which black men's resentment against the hegemonic and oppressive white power structure is displaced.

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

  Thus, even as the novel appears to conspicuously reify stereotypes (such as the black whore and black brute) that have historically pathologized black people and black sexuality, Eva's Man also provides insightful commentary, ironically, on stereotypes of black sexual pathology, which it does namely, I would suggest, through overexaggeration and titillation. In other words, the novel manipulates and mocks these stereotypes, driving them to extremes in uber-exaggerated form, to illuminate the ludicrous, insanely troubling nature of such skewed constructions of blackness and black sexuality. As Madhu Dubey deftly notes in her analysis of the novel in Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic: Eva's Man repeats and recycles a limited number of sexual stereotypes in a stylized manner that forces us to regard black sexuality as a textual fabrication rather than a natural essence. The problem with Eva's Man, then, is not that it fails to critique the stereotype of the primitive black, but that this critique is not explicit enough [...]. The "perverse ambivalence" of Eva's Man derives from its reluctance to pass unequivocal thematic judgments on the racist and sexist stereotypes of the past, and its failure to offer a new set of positive and politically useful images of blacks.' While I concur with Dubey's assertion, I would also suggest that, in order to engage and critique these larger dynamics, both ambivalence (vis-a-vis textual incomprehensibility) and madness serve as means by which this is done. As such, the text never offers a linear, absolute, or overtly definitive stance or addresses myths governing black sexual pathology. It is, however, worth noting that Jones's own use of the narrative defamilarizes convention. In the same way that Eva transgresses convention, Jones (and the text) transgresses and elides particular literary "norms," politics, and "unequivocal judgments," including the dynamics confronting her as a black (female) writer who produced this novel during the Black Arts/Aesthetics Movement. While there were particular expectations for black writers, as has historically been the case for African Americans in the literary establishment, Jones confronted certain choices, if not Black Aesthetic "mandates": to promote representations of blackness that were racially righteous, that challenged racism and the systematic oppression of blacks, and that embraced a politics that elevated black identity rather than issued "assaults" against it. In other words, black writers, including Jones, confronted issues concerning what literary scholar Biman Basu insightfully recognizes as politics over aesthetics, content or form, and ideology versus ontology.' Eva's Man, and Jones as writer, transgresses categorization in that it does not transparently embrace these dynamics, which accounts, in part, for its intense scrutiny. In an interview entitled "About My Work," Jones ruminates on her position as author, especially as it relates to writing, politics, and artform:

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Judges 15 Samson Burns Philistine Crops 1 B UT AFTER a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat [as a gift of reconciliation]; and he said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father would not allow him to go in. 2 Her father said, “I really thought you utterly hated her; so I gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not more beautiful than she? Please take her [as your wife] instead.” 3 Samson said to them, “This time I shall be blameless in regard to the Philistines when I do them harm.” 4 So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches and turning the foxes tail to tail, he put a torch between each pair of tails. 5 When he had set the torches ablaze, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and he burned up the heap of sheaves and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and olive groves. 6 Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And they were told, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took Samson’s wife and gave her to his [chief] companion [at the wedding feast].” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire. 7 Samson said to them, “If this is the way you act, be certain that I will take revenge on you, and [only] after that I will stop.” 8 Then he struck them a without mercy, a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam. 9 Then the [army of the] Philistines came up and camped in [the tribal territory of] Judah, and overran Lehi (Jawbone). 10 The men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” And they answered, “We have come up to bind Samson, in order to do to him as he has done to us.” 11 Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam and said to Samson, “Have you not known that the Philistines are rulers over us? What is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.” 12 They said to him, “We have come down to bind you, so that we may hand you over to the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not b kill me.” 13 So they said to him, “No, we will [only] bind you securely and place you into their hands; but we certainly will not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock [of Etam]. 14 When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  3 Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why are you disregarding the king’s command?” 4 Now it happened when they had spoken to him day after day and he would not listen to them, that they told Haman to see whether Mordecai’s reason [for his behavior] would stand [as valid]; for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 When Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage to him, he was furious. 6 But he disdained laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were (his nationality); so Haman determined to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who lived throughout the kingdom of Ahasuerus. 7 In the first month, the month of Nisan (Mar-Apr), in the c twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Haman cast Pur, that is, the lot, cast before him day after day [to find a lucky day to approach the king], month after month, until the twelfth month, the month of Adar (Feb-Mar). 8 Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered [abroad] and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people, and they do not observe the king’s laws. Therefore it is not in the king’s interest to [tolerate them and] let them stay here . 9 “If it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry out the king’s business, to put into the king’s treasuries.” 10 Then the king removed his signet ring from his hand [that is, the special ring which was used to seal his letters] and gave it to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 11 The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, and the people also, to do with them as you please.” 12 Then the king’s scribes (secretaries) were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and it was written just as Haman commanded to the king’s satraps (chief rulers), and to the governors who were over each province and to the officials of each people, each province according to its script (writing), each people according to their own language; being written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet ring. 13 Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth [day] of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar (March 7, 473 B .C .), and to seize their belongings as plunder.

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

  Frustration and disdain were wrapped up in his instruction. “Listen to me,” he said, emphasizing each of the last three words.She spat out the words.…he said in a croaky voice.A twinge of anger laced his voice.He grated.He started to speak, but huffed out a breath first.She choked out.His voice/response was laced with irritation/impatience/frustration/anger.He growled.He retorted.He shot back.He snapped.He panted.He groaned.He snarled.He stammered.He exhaled a groan rivaling a rusty hinge.Every statement emerged as a growl."What?" he barked in answer.He flung a handful of words at her through the open window.…she mumbled, sucking back the bitter taste of past rejections.The man’s laughter dumped hot coals into the pit of her belly.Something bitter dripped from her tone.Her voice caught an angry swath through the air.She swore, tasting the bitter words. Their immediate heat burned her tongue and she worked her mouth to savor their rough, jagged edges.…he said, his voice a sharp bite.A hushed tone wedged itself between his words.… she hissed like a cornered serpent. DesireMany of the reactions mentioned in surprise, fear and nervousness may also be present with desire; for example, an increased heart rate; a reddening of the cheeks; talking faster etc. Here are some physical reactions pertaining to desire alone: A low and pleasant hum warmed his blood.Her brain fizzled.She forgot her left from her right.Her thoughts wouldn’t line up. Every time she tried to align one, it tumbled down, scattering the rest.She imagined herself melting, just sliding onto the floor in a puddle of hormones and liquid lust.Thinking about it gave her sharp palpitations.Those feelings took over and turned her mind to mush.The thought turned her mind into a buzzing mess of static.She clasped him to her.Her face lit up.Every hair on his scalp stood to attention, every skin cell tingled, every neuron fired.Warmth spread across his chest.His heart pounded hard as she finally came to a halt before him, inches from his face.…he said, his breath tickling her ear.…she asked, her voice a bare whisper in the night.With a crooking of her index finger, she beckoned him over.…his body draped all over her.He brushed his hand across her cheek.She tapped a finger on his lips.He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles.She hooked an arm.She gave him the thumbs up.She put her hands on her hips.She rested a hand on his hip.…she said in a husky voice.The heat from his hand burned her skin.Desire burned a hot spot in the pit of her belly, until his grin doused her heat.He flung a high-ended wolf whistle at her.His name felt smooth against her tongue, slightly cool.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  9 Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and everything that was good, and they were not willing to destroy them entirely; but everything that was undesirable or worthless they destroyed completely. Samuel Rebukes Saul 10 Then the word of the LORD came to Samuel, saying, 11 “I regret that I made Saul king, for he has turned away from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” Samuel was angry [over Saul’s failure] and he cried out to the LORD all night. 12 When Samuel got up early in the morning to meet Saul, he was told, “Saul came to b Carmel, and behold, he set up for himself a monument [commemorating his victory], then he turned and went on and went down to Gilgal.” 13 So Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the LORD . I have carried out the command of the LORD .” 14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen c to sacrifice to the LORD your God; but the rest we have destroyed completely.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop, and let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night.” Saul said to him, “Speak.” 17 Samuel said, “Is it not true that even though you were small (insignificant) in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed you king over Israel, 18 and the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, totally destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are eliminated.’ 19 “Why did you not obey the voice of the LORD , but [instead] swooped down on the plunder [with shouts of victory] and did evil in the sight of the LORD ?” 20 Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the LORD , and have gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have completely destroyed the Amalekites. 21 “But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things [that were] to be totally destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God at Gilgal.” 22 Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obedience to the voice of the LORD ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed [is better] than the fat of rams. 23 “For rebellion is as [serious as] the sin of divination (fortune-telling), And disobedience is as [serious as] false religion and idolatry.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  14 For Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and struck and killed Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria and became king in his place. 15 The rest of Shallum’s acts, and his conspiracy which he made, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 16 Then Menahem struck [the town of] Tiphsah and all who were in it and its borders from Tirzah; [he attacked it] because they did not surrender to him; so he struck it and ripped up all a the women there who were pregnant. Menahem over Israel 17 In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi became king over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria. 18 He did evil in the sight of the LORD ; for all his days he did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin. 19 Pul, [Tiglath-pileser III] king of Assyria, came against the land [of Israel], and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver [as a bribe], so that he might help him to strengthen his control of the kingdom. 20 Menahem exacted the money from Israel, from all the wealthy, influential men, fifty shekels of silver from each man to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land. 21 Now the rest of Menahem’s acts, and everything that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 22 And Menahem slept with his fathers [in death]; his son Pekahiah became king in his place. Pekahiah over Israel 23 In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem became king over Israel, and reigned two years in Samaria. 24 He did evil in the sight of the LORD ; he did not turn from the [idolatrous] sins of Jeroboam [I] the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin. 25 But Pekah the son of Remaliah, his officer, conspired against Pekahiah and struck him in Samaria, in the citadel of the king’s house, with Argob and Arieh; and with Pekah were fifty Gileadites. So he killed Pekahiah and became king in his place. 26 Now the rest of the acts of Pekahiah, all that he did, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Pekah over Israel 27 In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah became king over Israel, and reigned twenty years in Samaria. 28 He did evil in the sight of the LORD ; he did not turn from the [idolatrous] sins of Jeroboam [I] the son of Nebat, who made Israel sin.

• 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 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?'