Desire

Passages

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

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• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  What I had understood of woman stood in contrast to what I understood of man. They gestured at each other across a divide, defined themselves in contrast, made themselves solid. There were two natural and essential sexes: a woman and a man. Binary sexes appear so real, so normal, as to seem inevitable. I remember reading Judith Butler in graduate school and sort of getting it, but also not getting it at all: “Gender appears to the popular imagination as a substantial core . . . the spiritual or psychological correlate of biological sex,” she wrote. “Performing one’s gender wrong”—like SNL’s Pat—“initiates a set of punishments both obvious and indirect, and performing it well provides the reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after all.”20 I had scoffed at the scripts of womanhood that my childhood in Oklahoma City had offered me, but I’d believed all the same that there were right ways to do it, right and wrong ways to be a woman. My mother was a right way. I had always wanted to be good. I had stood by my husband, even as he made choices that I didn’t want. I’d raged, but I had recommitted again and again. I’d panted to do it all right. Can I be someone who can live with this? I’d contorted like an acrobat. When I saw Nora in the courtroom, I knew only that she was a woman in a suit. But I think she looked like something more than that, something I didn’t have: the will to stand apart, to crumple up the script. She seemed to define herself against no one, yet she was as real as anyone else. She was both and neither, somewhere in between, someone else entirely. She was her own invention, and I wanted her. There was no mistake or glitch about Nora. The friction between her body and the strictures of the world—that friction didn’t read as failure. Instead, it gave off heat. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] We had sex for the first time in her bed, early one afternoon. We’d been dating for three weeks. I drove to her house with Beyoncé’s Lemonade on the stereo, turned up until the dash vibrated. I knew what we were going to do. I was nervous when I walked in the door. I didn’t want to be shy with her, but I couldn’t shake it. She must have felt it, too. We lumbered through a greeting, small-talked. It was daylight, and her sheets were patterned in beige and white. There are no men here, I remember thinking. We could be anything. When she lifted her T-shirt over her head, there were three freckles along the ridge of her collarbone, dark as ink and evenly spaced. Orion’s Belt. We would find our way.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The woman in the men’s suit has an accent, something approximately southern. I can’t put my finger on it. I wonder how she wound up in Seattle. I wonder where in the city she lives. She’s got a trustworthy haircut, what an insurance salesman might get in a midwestern barbershop. It’s a lesbian haircut, I think. Her suit is the gray of spent charcoal, and the fabric swings loose around her legs when she walks. From my seat I can see her profile, the nose a little too large for its face, a pair of broken-in black cowboy boots under the table. I watch her wrists. They’re slim, elegant, the bones delicate as songbirds. I could loop my fingers around her wrist and make the tips touch. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] On the day that her client gives testimony, she stands up to question him and walks toward the jury box, stops a few feet from me. She rests her yellow lined pad on the half-wall that separates the jury from the courtroom, folds her hands, and rests them on top. Her wrists. I watch how the tendons move, taut as a cable-stayed bridge. Sweat prickles my palms. I’m relieved when she sits back down. What is this? Am I attracted to her? I’ve never been with a woman, had only considered it once, and then only briefly. Why am I looking at her? The next day she’s not doing anything special, just sitting beside her client at the table, and I notice that I’m watching her again. This time she turns in her seat and looks at me. It’s just for a second, and then we both look away, but not before something cold crackles up the back of my neck. I can hear my pulse in my ear. She’s caught me. She knows I was watching her. Everyone must know it. A second later: Of course not. Don’t be crazy. It would be stupid to think she’s noticed me at all. This is her job. To her, I’m a juror. Of course I would look at her. But she’s got to have noticed. I’m not looking; I’m watching. She’s got to have noticed. I know myself to be dense about certain things, moments and actions that other people tell me are obvious. I stare at people, forgetting that they might see me staring and think it’s rude. It’s not that I think they can’t see me; it’s that I do not think at all. I can never tell when a person is flirting with me, or when I’m flirting. Here’s a liability for the owner of a restaurant: I cannot tell when someone is drunk. Unless it’s formally declared and ratified by others present, like a UN resolution, I assume a person is just annoying or unusually friendly. If I’ve noticed me watching, why wouldn’t she? What the fuck am I doing.

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  He had asked more than once, in fact. The horrible non-proposal didn’t count, but he’d made at least two actual proposals once his pain medications wore off and he could think clearly again. The first time he’d tried to be romantic and declared his love for her. She’d cried herself to sleep that night, and dreamed of Ed in a knight costume, LARPing. A visored black knight had strolled past him, ignoring him, and Ed had conked him on the back of the helm with his giant foam halberd. She hadn’t seen Aaron in the black knight costume but she was a psychologist, after all. The second proposal had been all practicality, and less emotionally fraught for Beth. He’d laid out reasons. They were the same reasons she’d argued with herself over, which made them extremely compelling and reminded her that, once upon a time, she and Aaron had seemed to be of one mind about most things. He’d pulled out photo albums. He’d pushed her buttons. “Figures he’d do that. He had you as a captive audience. Did you tell him to fuck off?” Under Ed’s levity she could hear the fear and doubt. He was trying to hide it with humor, but it showed in the tension of his body, the way he crossed his arms and didn’t meet her eyes. “Fuck off? No, not exactly. But I wasn’t snuggling with him, either,” she insisted, her first instinct to defend herself. Then she remembered she’d planned to be on offense tonight. “I’m here with you now, not him—that’s what matters. And I’m not in a snuggling mood at the moment, big boy.” She backed him into the wall and kissed him hard, slipping a hand around his throat and pressing as she canted her hips into his. She could feel him resist for a moment, then his instincts got the better of him and he kissed her back. When he tried to pull her closer, though, she slapped his hand. “No! And take your clothes off.” “Are you going to tell me what kind of mood you’re in, then?” He stripped on the spot as he talked. It didn’t take him long. “You’ll figure it out soon enough. Bedroom’s this way. Come along.” Crooking a finger at him, she sauntered across the living room and down the short hall to her bedroom, with only a passing thought for whether or not she’d tidied it. The bed was made, she saw with relief, and there were no stray clothes around the room. As good as she usually got. Taking Ed by the shoulders, she placed him in the middle of the room and pressed firmly. “Stay. I’ll be right back.” “Yes, ma’am.” “And close your eyes.” “Okey-dokey.” Okey-dokey?

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The attorneys stand one by one to introduce themselves and their clients. The prosecutor wears a tailored skirt suit, and the male defense attorney has a swoop of hair that lays across his forehead like a paper fan. The second defense attorney is a woman in a men’s suit. I know it is a men’s suit because of the way it hangs straight at her hips. When she rises to speak, a smile blooms shyly across her mouth. Her teeth are gardenia-white. She’s said her name already, but I missed it. The judge presents the case, and then the attorneys ask us questions in rotation, calling us by the numbers in our plastic sleeves, weeding us out. They explain that this process has a name, voir dire, and that they’re looking to uncover our biases. There are so many of us, it takes hours. Finally, the prosecutor calls my number. She smiles and asks where I get my news. We banter a little about NPR. It turns out we’re both Terry Gross fans. She asks what I do for a living, what kind of writer I am. I am a writer who listens to public radio. Of course I’ll be eliminated. But they’re coming to the end of the numbers, and I’m still in the pew. They excuse another number, another. At the end of the day, there are eight of us left, and I’m given a new number, Juror #1, assigned to the first seat in the back row of the jury box. We’re to reconvene the next morning. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] I catch an early bus and find I have a half hour to spare. I’ve worn a linen dress that I bought a couple of years before June was born. Usually I only ever wear jeans, but now that I’m on a jury, I decide to look like someone who takes this seriously. I sit down in a stripe of weak sunlight on a bench outside the courthouse and pull out a thermos of coffee and my magazine from yesterday. The defendant is arriving, and he sits with his attorneys on a low wall outside the front door. I watch them over my magazine. They huddle like football players, eyes closed. It looks like they’re praying. The testimony takes four days. It’s a civil disobedience case, and the judge has told us not to talk about it with anyone outside the courtroom, not even our families. We’re not supposed to look up news stories about it or Google anyone involved. Each morning we wait in the assembly room, and the bailiff takes us to a restricted-access elevator at the back of the building, careful not to cross anyone else bound for the courtroom. I didn’t want to be here, but since I am, I will do this right. I tune my body like an antenna, listen and take notes.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The first time we’d had sex I circled the date in my calendar, then starred it for emphasis. Has anyone ever been so eager? I had a new range of motion, and I wanted every inch of it. Nora wore cotton boxer briefs, and I eased my fingers into the waistband. She batted my arm away, giggling. That tickles! she said. I wanted to make her feel good, but I would have to be taught. Help me learn, I said. I kissed the ledge of her collarbone, slid my lips toward the arc of her breast. I wanted to get my whole body around her, like an amoeba. Well, she said, I don’t like to be penetrated. I don’t like the feeling of it. That’s okay, I said. There’s so much else we can do. She took my hand and put it on the outside of her briefs. Here, she said, guiding my hand under her own. Press here, like this. Through the thin cotton I could feel the contours of her, the place where one fold slipped against another. Her eyes closed, and I heard her breath hitch in her throat, like a door latching. Then her hand closed hard around my fingers, and she opened her eyes. I’d rather make you come instead, she said, rolling to face me. She gave a small grin and shrugged. Can I put my mouth on you? I nodded. Had I done something wrong? Why won’t she let me touch her? The air above us felt thick, pressurized. I couldn’t speak. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] This was how it went for a while: she let me touch her for only a moment, on the outside of her briefs. She said she couldn’t explain it; she just wanted to touch me instead. And she was good at it. I wanted her to touch me. But I also wanted to touch her. I had never touched anyone’s vulva, anyone’s vagina, but my own. I wanted Nora so much, but I was also nervous: What would she feel like? Would she like it? Would I like it? What would she smell like, taste like? I wanted to touch her skin, not the fabric covering it. I wanted to earn her trust. I loved the way she fucked me, loved the firm efficiency of her fingers, loved to look at her long eyelashes as she moved her mouth between my legs. I wanted to fuck her like that. I wanted to earn her trust. When the definition of sex is not a set thing, how do you hash it out? You talk. You talk before anything else. We talked and we talked.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  And this turned out to be the right way to approach the issue. At the invitation, he got all panicky. She could see him freezing up. She had been wearing shorts with little floral suspenders that day. Suspenders were in since Godspell. Some frilly, lacy shirt. A trainer bra. Mike had never bargained on cooperation. Boys thought of girls the way they thought of particularly good careers, things to work toward. Or as fine objects: they wanted to haggle and get a good price. Wendy thought she was the first fourteen-year-old in America to fully understand this point. —What’s my payment, Mikey? If you want what you want, you gotta put your cards out on the table. The opportunity to fool with the boxes of gum afforded him the time he needed to think. The Williamses never understood people, really. That’s what Wendy thought. They fooled around with enterprises. Her mother had told Wendy this. It was one of her mother’s very firm points of view. Mike brought two gross boxes from one of the packing crates and placed them at her feet, like he was one of the wise men in the school Christmas pageant. —Not enough, she said. —No way, Wendy. My dad’ll see. You know? He’s keeping an eye out— —So he chews it too? —It’s not that, it’s— —Mikey, you’re making me mad. Forget it. You’re insulting me. I want the whole thing. I want a whole crate full. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. In Wendy’s social studies class they were doing skits about ethical dilemmas in November, and this would have made a fine one. Wendy did hers on President Nixon’s agonizing decision about whether or not to burn the tapes rather than turn them over to the special prosecutor. What Mike didn’t realize was that Wendy would have done it for nothing. Now, in November, it was wet and cold and he was late. He should have had time to stow his soccer clothes and make it to Silver Meadow. He should have had time to put everything else out of his mind except her, except the things about her—her hair in the wind, the way she hugged harder than anyone else, her devotion. In summer it was easy, and just a look at her body was enough to get him to put aside boyish things. The moment came, that first moment, gratis, at the country club.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The judge is speaking again, and I'm not listening. I'm watching the woman in the suit. Under the crisp lapels of her jacket, there's a swelling across her chest, a softness that says female. I wonder what it would feel like to put my arm around her. Her shoulders would be solid, more substantial than my own. If I think on it, I can feel them under my triceps, sound as a fence. I wonder what she wears when she's not wearing this suit, on the weekends or after work. I wonder what her friends call her. I wonder what she would look like next to me in a photo.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  The next morning, I woke up thinking about her, and the morning after that. I allowed myself to do what I hadn't during the trial: I searched for her online. It didn't take long to find her last name, along with a couple of photographs. Her smile was disorienting, like being blindfolded and spun around. I thought of a friend who'd suffered a recent bout of vertigo, how he described that these tiny mineral crystals from one part of his inner ear had wound up in another part, a wrong part, so that when he looked down, they'd roll around and trick his brain into thinking the floor had tilted. Nora's smile did that to me. It located a feeling where it wasn't supposed to be, turned the room on end.

• From Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999)

  In general I would say (and I would say this to young writers particularly): Rarely if ever can networking make a writing career when no career is to be made. It can make being a beginning writer more pleasant; it can make being a relatively established writer more pleasant. But little or nothing will happen there that will impel you from one state to the other. If anything, in the manner of stabilizing institutions, the social mechanics of conferences are more likely to retard career transitions, especially if you lean on them too heavily. Basically the thing to remember is this: One does not get publications by appearing in public. One gets further invitations to appear in public. Networking produces more opportunities to network—and that’s about all. Foucault gave us an analysis of power/knowledge. Desire/knowledge is just as important to understand—and, possibly and provisionally, in the current climate, even more so. Networking situations are self-replicating structures of knowledge and desire. Desire is what holds them stable and replicates them, and the absence on which that desire is based is the paucity of socio-material benefits everyone who attends them hopes to receive. The writer will get the most from the available networking situations if he or she attends them with a clear sense of this. §4.1. Briefly, what makes networking different from contact is that, in networking situations, the fundamentally competitive relationship between the people gathered in the networking group is far higher than it is in the general population among which contact occurs. The competition may be only barely perceptible at any given moment (or, under the camaraderie and good will of the occasion, all but invisible—it is the class war). Like the overriding economic forces of the class war and its effects on the individuals whose lives are caught up in and radically changed by it, the competition is seldom experienced as a force. It is pervasive nevertheless. Because of that competition in the networking situation, the social price tag on the exchange of favors and friendly gestures is much higher than it is in contact situations. The people in line with you at the grocery counter are rarely competing with you for the items on the shelves in the way that young writers are competing for the comparatively rare number of publishing slots for first novels that can, under the best of conditions, appear each year. (Department store sales, however . . .) Even fewer in the grocery line will be competing for your specialized knowledge of the life of Zinaida Hippius. And they are not—at the moment—in competitive relations at all for the favors (whether of data or material help) that the established writer might be able to offer. §4.2. Two orders of social force are always at work. One set is centripetal and works to hold a given class stable. Another set is centrifugal and works to break a given class apart.

• From Three Women (2019)

  After a few minutes he gets her on the bed. He rolls on top of her and his face is close to hers when he says, So, you’re raggin’? She laughs, retelling this to the discussion group. He’s a country boy, you know. Lina grew up in a family she has grown out of and she knows how easy it is to get stuck in the stuff you were christened in. San Pierre, where she’s from, is one of the most racist towns in America, she says. Aidan says many things Lina apologizes for. When he asks if she’s raggin’, she’s not turned off. Nor is she turned on, but she accepts it. Yeah, she says, breathily. Being in love with someone means being okay with all of him. She looks around, trying to take in everything of this night she hadn’t expected to happen. It’s a big room in the Hilton Garden Inn off the highway. Below, there’s a lone Subway in the middle of the street, glowing yellow in the dark. I want to feel you inside me, she says. Uh-huh. Want me to go get a towel? I’ll go get a towel. She comes back with a towel and turns off the light. She’s been picking her face a lot. Nerves and anxiety and depression. She is worried about the ingrown hairs around her nipples. Then she is on the towel in the dark and he gets on top of her and the weight of him is crushing and wonderful. He’s drunk and she’s thinking she doesn’t want him to sober up and come to his senses. Or sober up and be disgusted by the marks on her face and the inflammation around her nipples. But he is about to make love to her while she is bleeding, which makes her feel he is a real man, as she always knew he was. She and Ed have done it during her period maybe eleven times in eleven years of marriage. Here with Aidan her period is not a hazard but a fact of life and of the evening. He is on top of her and he’s French-kissing her and the head of his penis is about to go in and she says, Wait. She puts her hand to his chest. Wait a second. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with another man. Eleven and a half years. He murmurs acknowledgment. She grabs his rear, guides his body closer so that the head is touching her, and says, I’m sorry if I’m a little tight.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  • Many women look to herbal supplements to enhance energy and that feeling of well-being. Herbs like ginseng and ginkgo biloba can give your libido a boost. (See “Herbal Supplements,” above.) The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, by Christiane Northrup, is a wonderful source of information on dong quai, chasteberry, and black cohosh. Also check out New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way: Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90, by Susun S. Weed. • Low testosterone levels may be the cause of your lost libido. One study found that women with low testosterone levels were four times as likely to report low sex drive.31 Testosterone deficiency may also be responsible for decreased sensitivity in nipples and clitoris and diminished orgasm—or difficulty reaching orgasm at all.32 Testosterone may produce the sexual urge you’re looking for. This is very low dose testosterone; it should not produce male secondary sexual characteristics. Some gynecologists prescribe Estratest (a combination of estrogen and testosterone). Others prescribe low-dose testosterone in the form of a topical gel or cream or as a sublingual tablet. Dr. Susan Rako, author of The Hormone of Desire, recommends 2 percent testosterone in petroleum jelly (prepared by a compounding pharmacist) applied directly to genital tissue “to jump-start” the libido. This is followed by low-dose orally prescribed testosterone.33 If you think you may have a testosterone deficiency, work with a health-care provider to determine if testosterone will be helpful for you, and in what dose and form. • DHEA is an androgen and a precursor for testosterone; in some women, DHEA raises testosterone levels sufficiently to improve libido. Some health-care providers recommend DHEA for libido loss; others don’t. Some researchers say that DHEA strengthens the immune system, fights fatigue, and lifts depression. It is said to increase feelings of well-being and enhance libido. • Once widely prescribed for symptoms of menopause and to reduce the risks of heart disease and osteoporosis, estrogen and estrogen-plus-progesterone have been discredited by the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, which found both to be ineffective and potentially dangerous.34 Still, many women weigh the risks and decide that taking estrogen is the best course of action for them. You can replenish libido. In spite of physiological changes and health concerns, regardless of whether you take hormones or botanical supplements, you can maintain your erotic life force. Sexual energy needn’t be something that just happens to you—up in good times, down in bad. You can actively regenerate sexual energy, in much the same way you renew your energy overall. When you begin to think of your libido as self-generating, you have tremendous power over the course of your sexuality throughout your life. And just how do you do that? The book you’re holding is a good start. You’ll find plenty of suggestions and sources of additional information throughout the following chapters. Suggested Web LinkTHE CLITORIS.COM www.the-clitoris.com SOURCE OF QUOTE Nancy Friday, interviewed on www.Power-Surge.com chapter four Orgasm

• From The Journals of Sylvia Plath (1982)

  All right, I work well and hard most of the time; I am probably at my peak of sexual desire, and I should not wonder at my smoldering passion. So why not? Because, you fool, he doesn’t realize how you are transmuting him in your mind into a strong, brilliant man who desires you mentally and physically. And being as he will continue quite unaware of his role in your mind, you cannot expect him to fulfill that role in life. You must not let yourself be disappointed. Remember, you consider “love” a most intricate and complex word; and among its manifold meanings is that of vulnerability arising from shared weaknesses. There is a time for everything; and you must beware your predilection for green apples. They may be sweet and tart and new and early, but it’s about time you learned to wait for the season of harvest. Take it slow, please. He is to be no engine for your ecstasy. Not yet, anyway. As for minute joys: I think this book ricochets between the feminine burbling I hate and the posed cynicism I would shun. One thing, I try to be honest. And what is revealed is often rather hideously unflattering. I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love. I am still so naïve; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. “A passionate, fragmentary girl,” maybe? As for minute joys: as I was saying: Do you realize the illicit sensuous delight I get from picking my nose? I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucous in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucous, roll them round and jellylike between thumb and forefinger, and spread them on the under-surface of a desk or chair where they will harden into organic crusts. How many desks and chairs have I thus secretively be-fouled since childhood? Or sometimes there will be blood mingled with the mucous: in dry brown scabs, or bright sudden wet red on the finger that scraped too rudely the nasal membranes. God, what a sexual satisfaction! It is absorbing to look with new sudden eyes on the old worn habits: to see a sudden luxurious and pestilential “snot-green sea,” and shiver with the shock of recognition. Lying in bed per usual this morning, under the big, light, resilient feather puff, I started worrying about how I should have taken all different courses here.… God, I felt sick, or started to. Life is so only-once, so single-chancish!

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Some of us love to talk dirty. We whisper sensual promises into eager ears. We send salacious emails in the middle of the workday. We leave outrageously graphic notes in gym lockers, patent leather purses, billfolds, underwear drawers, and peeking out from the floor mat in the Honda—on the driver’s side, of course. We have long, wet phone conversations. We spend days online cruising chatrooms for eloquent lovers. We make home movies. We tape ourselves having sex, and, as one woman relates, we hit the playback button again and again and again. My lover and I recorded ourselves making love and we played it back one day, attempting to follow along with the rhythms of that particular “session.” It started with my lover going down on me. I could hear myself in the recording wiggling around, the sheets crinkling underneath me, and the wetness my lover caused between my legs. I could hear her licking me, in the tape and in the moment, as if in stereo. Her moans were echoing through my head, my moans were echoing through my head. As my breath became quicker in the recording, so did it in real time. My lover was so wet that when she rose to kiss me, all of my fingers entered easily, and she rode my hand. I had just barely gotten my fist inside her when she came. I could hear myself beginning to climax in the tape. I was tight, waiting for her to come inside me with her cock. When she did, I felt my entire body shudder, sucking her in. I lost track of what was happening in the tape. All I could do was feel her inside me and listen to our breath. I have never come so hard as I did that night. It was beautiful. Effective sexual communication is the single most useful erotic skill you can bring to a lover. As Susie Bright says, “No lover is able to look into your eyes and figure out how you want to get fucked in the ass.”1 Sexual communication includes being able to articulate your desires, fantasies, history, limits, and concerns—and being able to listen without judgment to those of your partners. Communication skills carry a big payoff: Your sex life improves dramatically as you gain fluency in the vocabulary of your own desires. When you can tell a partner what you want—in plain language—she’ll be more likely to meet your needs. (One woman wrote, “I would love to be fucked up the ass on the hood of my sports car”—a simple enough request.) Your partner will be inspired by your forthright manner, too. Soon, she’ll be telling you things she’s never said aloud before.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  That fall I enrolled in a fiction-writing class. The first assignment was to read a xeroxed short story whose plot unfolded around a dinner table. To warm up when we arrived for class, the instructor asked us to write for ten minutes about a fantasy meal. I knew immediately where I would go. I went to Nora's house. I found her in a worn wool sweater at the kitchen table, peeling an apple with a paring knife. The fruit's skin curled onto the table in a single spooling coil. I'm making pancakes, she said. Thought I might cook some apples in butter. When I sat down across from her, our knees knocked softly like gloved knuckles. That was as far as I got before time was up. I didn't volunteer to read aloud. My hands had started to sweat. I don't even like fruit with my pancakes, I thought. A relief. The instructor gave us a handout on character development. Your characters will have competing desires, she said. That's where stories come from. What your character wants, her internal desires, will conflict with her external reality. Interview your character, she said, and I wrote it on the back of the handout. Ask her what she wants.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  The other explanation for the limitations in my adventures while travelling is connected with a subject I raised in the first chapter. I liked to discover – on condition that I had a guide. I liked it if a man was introduced to me by another man. I would leave it up to the relationship the one had with the other, rather than having to think about my own desires and how to satisfy them. In fact, feeling desire and having sexual relations were almost two separate activities; I could want a man very much and nothing ever actually happen without feeling any frustration. I was a dreamer, a gifted fabulist; a major part of my erotic life was lived like that, heightened by the friction on my vulva, held between my thumb and index finger. Copulating really answered to a wider necessity: to carve a smooth path for myself in the world. As I have had the opportunity to illustrate, I was living in the comfort of a family-like complicity. Something you do not get when you arrive for the first time (and without any specific tips) in some distant city.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  Ask for what you want (not what you think you should want). You don’t have to mold your desires to fit a political agenda. You needn’t feel guilty that you are turned on by women of a certain body type or that you want to meet someone whose culture resonates with yours. You can always change your mind. I went through this black-dykes-only phase. Looking back, I think of it as a cocooning phase. I was focused on learning about who I was in the world, coming into an understanding of my blackness, and I didn’t want to be concerned with the needs or beliefs of white women. However, I did have a very powerful sexual reaction to one white woman. Eventually, I took this as an opportunity to explore the ways that my desire did not follow my politics. I had to find a way out of this discomfort, which was very much about boxing myself in. But it was also important for me to continue to make my beauty, my desires, and my culture the center of my world. Attraction for me would never equal loss of self or assimilation. Which is what I think I had feared. Making Your MoveIt’s time to make your move. Now what? Surely there’s more to sexual communication than lewd invitations whispered in a cloud of hormones. What about the thornier issues of partner sex? For instance, how do you ask someone to have sex with you? Many of us have been taught to wait for someone else to make the first move. Have you ever convinced yourself that if she isn’t making a move, she isn’t interested? This would be comic if it weren’t so tragic—since she’s probably thinking the very same thing. You have only one sure way to rise above misperception: Ask her. The trick is to ask in a context-appropriate manner. The statement “I find you extremely attractive, and I’d love to spend some time with you. Would you like to get together?” is acceptable in almost any situation. “I’d really like to touch you. May I?” is best saved for the dance floor or a sex party. You can state the conditions under which you might like to have sex: “I’d love to play. But I’d like to get to know you a bit better first.” You can check out a potential partner’s relationship status: “I never date married women. Are you seeing anyone?” You can invite a potential partner to engage in a particular activity and state your limits at the same time. “I’d love to play. But I’m not into penetration right now. Would you like to trade massages?” You can trade interests, experiences, and fantasies—and get your message across quite clearly: “I hear you’re quite a skilled top. I find the thought of submission quite tantalizing, though I’ve only bottomed once. Would you be interested in showing me the ropes?”

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, Part 2 (4 BCE – 451 CE) (2009)

  centuries by its rugged geography from much direct interference from its powerful neighbours. Although its dominant cultural influences had long been from Iran, it had also over the centuries reached a comfortable understanding with the Romans, allowing them to believe that it was a Roman client state, to the extent that some of the coins of the Emperor Augustus could proclaim the propaganda message ‘Armenia has been captured’.75 The Romans, reluctant to take on the expense of governing such a difficult and remote area, were happy not to interfere too much. The early stages of Christian contact with the kingdom are obscure, but there are plausible stories of Syrian missions to it during the second and third centuries.76 These predate the more widely circulated story of the founding bishop, Gregory the Illuminator (or ‘Enlightener’), which describes a dramatic turnaround for Christianity as a result of the conflicted relationship between the saint, a minor member of the royal family brought up a Christian in exile in the Roman province of Cappadocia in Asia Minor, and his distant cousin Trdat. Trdat, known to the Romans as Tiridates, became king of Armenia in the 280s or 290s with the support of the Emperor Diocletian, and at first he followed Diocletian’s increasingly hostile policies towards Christianity. In the conversion story, it was after suffering acute mental disorder that the new king turned to Gregory for counsel, having previously subjected him to savage torture. The King then ordered his people, including the priesthood of the old religion, to convert en masse to Christianity, in a year which is uncertain but most calculations place in the decade before the Roman Emperor Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge in 312. Trdat reputedly went further than Constantine’s new favour shown to the Church, ordering his people to become Christian en masse.77 Such wholesale conversion cannot have been as straightforward as the story implies, but it did represent the beginning of a passionate melding of Christianity and Armenian identity. Members of Gregory’s family succeeded him in the newly established bishopric, which received its succession from the Church of Cappadocia, in which he had grown up. A century after the conversion, a new Armenian alphabetic script was devised by a scholar-monk, Mesrop Maštoc‘. Within a few decades there was a complete Bible in Armenian, adding one or two more books than those accepted into the canon of the imperial Church. It was a foundation document for Armenian literary culture, even more than Homer was for the Greeks.78 When it looked beyond its frontiers, the Armenian Church began by cherishing its links with Cappadocia and the Roman Empire. Christianity was a force pulling Armenia out of its previous careful balance between Rome and the Eastern powers. While Roman emperors had now taken the same action as

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  • Engage a friend in a conversation about her or his sex life. You might want to pick someone who’s also struggling to break free of sexual inhibitions. Go to a sexy poetry reading or film together. Talk about the experience afterward. • Treat yourself to an online chat or an evening of phone sex. • Attend a workshop, play party, or other group event where people speak openly about sex. • Take a class. Even if “Talking Dirty” isn’t among the course offerings at your local sex boutique, you can polish your communication skills in nearly any workshop or lecture on sexuality. See “Where to Learn More,” below. Who Are You Looking For?I am attracted to big bodies. Give me the soft, plush, easy-to-roll-into bodies. Mmmmm. What are you looking for in a partner? Do you want a sex partner whose sexual interests match specific interests of yours? An experienced bondage top? A fisting bottom? Are looks important to you? Age? Cultural background? How important is gender to you in choosing a partner? “Oh, I just want someone nice” is a response that indicates you probably haven’t given this much thought. Perhaps you know what you’d like in a partner, but don’t think you really deserve someone that great. You may have been taught that it’s wrong to objectify a potential partner by naming such specific preferences. If you don’t own your preferences, someone else will do it for you. So take a pencil and paper, or call your best friend, and start a list of qualities you’re looking for in a sex partner. You can also get too specific for your own good. So, you’re looking for a butch Latina dyke, 25-29, at least 5’8”, strong build with voluptuous breasts and big hands, who works in the helping professions, enjoys softball and all-night poker games, Almodóvar films and mystery novels, nonsmoking, kinky S/M top, who loves kids and dogs? Great. That’s a start. But will you consider her if she’s 34? Only 5’5”? Programs computers? Enjoys an occasional cigar? And hates gambling? Give yourself permission to pursue sex—any kind of sex you can imagine, on terms of your choosing. You don’t have to pretend to romantic interests you don’t feel. Likewise, you needn’t pretend that you want to play when what you really want is to find a lover. Are you looking for a woman who will want only you? A polyamorous lover? A safer-sex buddy? Do you want to find a partner with whom you can break out of a rut? Are there particular sexual activities you want to try? I’ve gotten better at asking for what I want and finding partners who like the same kind of sex I do. Being polyamorous, I frequently seek in one relationship the sex I’m not getting in another.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  Those men were my lasting childhood crushes. They were lean and chiseled, well-groomed and well-dressed, and their voices didn’t sound like other men’s voices. They sounded weird, but in a way I liked: they e.nun.ci.ated, they ar.tic.u.la.ted. They were as heartthrobby as any boy I’d seen on the covers of Tiger Beat or BOP, and they were in my living room. I remember their calves, their white tennis shoes and ankle socks. They were sexy in a way even a preteen girl could understand. I used to dream about one of them, a dancer in the local ballet company. His hair was the blond of wheat stalks, and he stood with his feet always in first position. He had a smile that made my insides itch. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him. When my parents took me to the ballet, I stared at his headshot in the program and felt my earlobes go hot. I was sure everyone could see them glowing like coals. I couldn’t believe my luck: now I had a photo of him to look at whenever I wanted. I had plenty of crushes on boys my own age, but this dancer was a different kind of creature. I knew he was a man, but he was more than that too, better than that, other than that—like there was an extra layer to him, an extra shine. He was, in the words of writer Rebecca Solnit, an “encounter with what else men could be.”10 I remember another, Michael Freed. Michael had a smooth radio voice, and his cheekbones made a tidy triangle with the point of his chin. He was a working artist, and I tried to copy his style once or twice in art class. My parents had two of his smaller paintings, and they hung them upstairs, where our bedrooms were, among the family photos and framed memorabilia. My parents also had a large painting of Michael’s, but they never hung it. It was a banana, goldenrod-yellow and nearly four feet long. The banana was painted against a white background, and along the perimeter of the canvas, under a thin wash of white paint, was a border of old black-and-white photos of boys, high-school-age, in dress shirts and ties. Above the banana was the phrase ONE IN TEN, stenciled in black paint. That’s how many men are thought to be gay,11 my mother explained. One in ten. The banana painting was gay pop art. There was no place in our house where it would have fit, or fit in. My parents leaned it carefully against the back wall of a closet, where we saw it whenever we went for the vacuum.

• From The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography (2008)

  The feeling that porn offers an inferior version of sex is central to why some people give up porn when they move beyond adolescence and their early twenties. For some, experiencing the sensual and immediate pleasures of sexuality with another person immediately makes porn an unsatisfying substitute for the real thing. 4. Wanting Emotional Intimacy The desire to be in a close, meaningful sexual relationship can work as a strong deterrent to getting regularly or heavily involved with porn. It doesn’t take viewing much porn as an adult to realize that it doesn’t place value on or portray intimate and committed sexual relationships. As a writer for the group Men Against Pornography wrote, “Pornography, many men find, actually prevents intimacy between people. Even though it seems to ‘turn you on,’ it actually encourages you to ‘shut off’ those feelings that help you feel really close to someone.” Phil’s interest in sex with a real life partner contributed to his moving away from porn. “Sex is always best when I’m with a lover. For me sex has always been something sacred. It’s private. When I’m with a partner I want to be fully present and relating well with her.” Richard, a twenty-eight-year-old waiter, also values intimacy with a partner. He became aware of how porn can work against emotional closeness one evening when he and his girlfriend watched some porn together. He told us, “It was a real hot movie. We got very aroused and started making love about halfway through. The images from the movie kept replaying in my head even as I was touching my girlfriend. The sex was intense, but mentally we were each off in this other world. As arousing as it was, we felt we had just used each other for physical release. I missed the kind of closeness we share when we are making love and it is just the two of us in the bed, and in my mental awareness.” Richard said that the memory of this event helps squelch any desire he might have to rent another porn movie. Max, still in his twenties, was influenced by his parents’ close marriage and eventually wants to experience a relationship like they had. This goal of a long-term, happy, committed relationship with someone has contributed to his waning interest in porn. “I knew from interacting with the opposite sex and from having good role models in my life that pornography is a fantasy realm,” he said. “It’s never been anything I’d want to replicate in real life. It shows no real sexual intimacy or partnership. Why bother with it?”