Disgust

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 70 of 90 · 20 per page

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I had settled for a steak knife myself. They are easy to handle and sharp as hell. I relieve myself and step over to the sink to wash my hands. There is a mirror hanging above it. I look at myself and flinch. My hair is limp and greasy, the inch-wide streak of grey that showed up when I was twelve is startling against my pale face. I have done everything to rid myself of it: dying it, cutting it, pulling it out strand by strand. Color won’t take to the grey. I have sat in dozens of chairs over the years and every stylist has said the same thing. “It doesn’t make sense … it won’t take the color.” No matter what I do, it always comes back like a stubborn weed. Eventually, I let it be. The old part of me won out. I turn on the water, it sputters like the croup for several seconds before a weak brown stream comes dribbling out. I splash it over my face, drink some. It tastes funny—like rust and dirt. When I walk out of the bathroom, Isaac hands me his butcher knife. I have to put my knife down to hold it, since my wrist is a gimp. “Me too,” he says. “Don’t let the bad guys get us.” I grin—I actually grin—as he closes the door. His humor always shows up at the oddest moments. I thought I was the bad guy, I didn’t think I’d ever be at the mercy of one. When he comes out, his face has been washed, too, and his hair is damp. There is a trickle of water running from his temple. “Now what?” I say. “Are you tired? We could take turns. Do you want to sleep?” “Hell no!” He laughs. “Yeah, I get ya.” There is a long awkward pause. “I’d like to take a shower,” I say. What I don’t add is, in case the sick fuck touched me… He nods. I climb up the ladder to get something clean to wear. It makes me sick, putting on clothes that someone chose and put here for me. I wish I had my own, but not even the pajamas I’m still wearing are mine. I study the contents of the wardrobe. Almost every article of clothing is something I would have chosen for myself—except for the color. There is too much of that. This is creepy. Who would know me well enough to buy me clothes? Clothes that I actually like? I pluck a long sleeve yoga top from a hanger and find the matching pants underneath it. In a drawer are a variety of panties and bras. Oh God! I decide to go without either. I can’t wear underwear that some sicko bought and folded into a drawer. It would feel like was touching me … there. I slam the drawer closed.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  The fervid patriotism unleashed by the Christian triumph led to more hysterical conspiracy fears. 24 Some remembered old tales of Jews helping the Muslim armies when they had arrived in Spain eight hundred years earlier and pressured the monarchs to deport all practicing Jews from Spain. After initial hesitation, on March 31, 1492, the monarchs signed the edict of expulsion, which gave Jews the choice of baptism or deportation. Most chose baptism and, as conversos, were now harassed by the Inquisition, but about eighty thousand crossed the border into Portugal, and fifty thousand took refuge in the Ottoman Empire. 25 Under papal pressure. Ferdinand and Isabella now turned their attention to Spain’s Muslims. In 1499 Granada was split into Christian and Muslim zones, Muslims were required to convert, and by 1501 Granada was officially a kingdom of “New Christians.” But the Muslim converts (Moriscos) were given no instruction in their new faith, and everybody knew that they continued to live, pray, and fast according to the laws of Islam. Indeed, a mufti in Oran in North Africa issued a fatwa permitting Spanish Muslims to conform outwardly to Christianity, and most Spaniards turned a blind eye to Muslim observance. A practical convivencia had been restored. The first twenty years of the Spanish Inquisition were undoubtedly the most violent in its long history. There is no reliable documentation of the actual numbers of people killed. Historians once believed that about thirteen thousand conversos were burned during this early period. 26 More recent estimates suggest, however, that most of those who came forward were never brought to trial; that in most cases the death penalty was pronounced in absentia over conversos who had fled and were symbolically burned in effigy; and that from 1480 to 1530 only between 1,500 and 2,000 people were actually executed. 27 Nevertheless, this was a tragic and shocking development that broke with centuries of peaceful coexistence. The experience was devastating for the conversos and proved lamentably counterproductive. Many conversos who had been faithful Catholics when they were detained were so disgusted by their treatment that they reverted to Judaism and became the “secret Jews” that the Inquisition had set out to eliminate. 28 Spain was not a modern centralized state, but in the late fifteenth century it was the most powerful kingdom in the world. Besides its colonial possessions in the Americas, Spain had holdings in the Netherlands, and the monarchs had married their children to the heirs of Portugal, England, and the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. To counter the ambitions of its archrival France, Ferdinand had campaigned in Italy against France and Venice and seized control of Upper Navarre and Naples.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Nevertheless, you will know, Madame, that, for light in Monsieur du Harpin's apartment, there was never any but what he got from the street lamp which, happily, was placed opposite his room; never did Monsieur or Madame use linen; what I washed was hoarded away, it was never touched; on the sleeves of Monsieur's coat, as well as upon Madame's dress, were old gauntlet cuffs sewn over the material, and these I removed and washed every Saturday evening; no sheets; no towels, and that to avoid laundry expenses. Never was wine drunk in her house, clear water being, declared Madame du Harpin, the natural drink of man, the healthiest and least dangerous. Every time bread was sliced, a basket was put beneath the knife so that whatever fell would not be lost; into this container went, also, and with exactitude all the scraps and leavings that might survive the meal, and this compound, fried up on Sunday together with a little butter, made a banquet for the day of rest; never was one to beat clothing or too energetically dust the furniture for fear of wearing it out, instead, very cautiously, one tickled about with a feather. Monsieur's shoes, and Madame's as well, were double-soled with iron, they were the same shoes that had served them on their wedding day; but a much more unusual custom was the one they had me practice once a week: there was in the apartment a rather large room whose walls were not papered; I was expected to take a knife and scrape and shave away a certain quantity of plaster, and this I next passed through a fine sieve; what resulted from this operation became the powder wherewith every morning I sprinkled Monsieur's peruke and Madame's hair, done up in a bun. Ah! wouldst to God those had been the only turpitudes of which this evil pair had made habits! Nothing's more normal than the desire to conserve one's property; but what is not normal is the desire to augment it by the accession of the property of others. And it was not long before I perceived that it was only thus du Harpin acquired his wealth. Above us there lodged a solitary individual of considerable means who was the owner of some handsome jewels, and whose belongings, whether because of their proximity or because they had passed through my master's hands, were very well known to him; I often heard him express regrets to his wife over the loss of a certain gold box worth fifty or sixty louis, which article would infallibly have remained his, said he, had he proceeded with greater cleverness.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I had settled for a steak knife myself. They are easy to handle and sharp as hell. I relieve myself and step over to the sink to wash my hands. There is a mirror hanging above it. I look at myself and flinch. My hair is limp and greasy, the inch-wide streak of grey that showed up when I was twelve is startling against my pale face. I have done everything to rid myself of it: dying it, cutting it, pulling it out strand by strand. Color won’t take to the grey. I have sat in dozens of chairs over the years and every stylist has said the same thing. “It doesn’t make sense … it won’t take the color.” No matter what I do, it always comes back like a stubborn weed. Eventually, I let it be. The old part of me won out. I turn on the water, it sputters like the croup for several seconds before a weak brown stream comes dribbling out. I splash it over my face, drink some. It tastes funny—like rust and dirt. When I walk out of the bathroom, Isaac hands me his butcher knife. I have to put my knife down to hold it, since my wrist is a gimp. “Me too,” he says. “Don’t let the bad guys get us.” I grin—I actually grin—as he closes the door. His humor always shows up at the oddest moments. I thought I was the bad guy, I didn’t think I’d ever be at the mercy of one. When he comes out, his face has been washed, too, and his hair is damp. There is a trickle of water running from his temple. “Now what?” I say. “Are you tired? We could take turns. Do you want to sleep?” “Hell no!” He laughs. “Yeah, I get ya.” There is a long awkward pause. “I’d like to take a shower,” I say. What I don’t add is, in case the sick fuck touched me… He nods. I climb up the ladder to get something clean to wear. It makes me sick, putting on clothes that someone chose and put here for me. I wish I had my own, but not even the pajamas I’m still wearing are mine. I study the contents of the wardrobe. Almost every article of clothing is something I would have chosen for myself—except for the color. There is too much of that. This is creepy. Who would know me well enough to buy me clothes? Clothes that I actually like? I pluck a long sleeve yoga top from a hanger and find the matching pants underneath it. In a drawer are a variety of panties and bras. Oh God! I decide to go without either. I can’t wear underwear that some sicko bought and folded into a drawer. It would feel like was touching me … there. I slam the drawer closed.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "On the first landing we were greeted by a grey-haired old hag, with a bloated yet bloodless face. I really do not know what made her so repulsive to me—perhaps it was her sore and lashless eyes, her mean expression, or her trade—but the fact is, I had never in all my life seen such a ghoul-like creature. Her mouth with its toothless gums and its hanging lips seemed like the sucker of some polypus; it was so foul and slimy. "She welcomed us with many low courtesies and fawning words of endearment, and ushered us into a low and tawdry room, where a flaring petroleum light shed its crude sheen all around. "Some frowsy curtains at the windows, a few old arm-chairs, and a long, battered, and much-stained divan completed the furniture of this room, which had a mixed stench of musk and onions; but, as I was just then gifted with a rather strong imagination, I at times detected—or I thought I did—a smell of carbolic acid and of iodine; albeit the loathsome smell of musk overpowered all other odours. "In this den, several—what shall I call them?—syrens? no, harpies! were crouched or lolled about. "Although I tried to put on a most indifferent, blasé look, still my face must have expressed all the horror I felt. This is then, said I to myself, one of those delightful houses of pleasure, of which I have heard so many glowing tales? "These painted-up Jezebels, cadaverous or bloated, are the Paphian maids, the splendid votaresses of Venus, whose magic charms make the senses thrill with delight, the houris on whose breasts you swoon away and are ravished into paradise. "My friends seeing my utter bewilderment began to laugh at me. I thereupon sat down and tried stupidly to smile. "Three of those creatures at once came up to me, one of them putting her arms round my neck kissed me, and wanted to dart her filthy tongue into my mouth; the others began to handle me most indecently. The more I resisted, the more bent they seemed on making a Laocoon of me." "But why were you singled out as their victim?" "I really do not know, but it must have been because I looked so innocently scared, or because my friends were all laughing at my horror-stricken face. "One of those poor women—a tall dark girl, an Italian, I believe—was evidently in the very last stage of consumption. She was in fact a mere skeleton, and still—had it not been for the mask of chalk and red with which her face was covered—traces of a former beauty might still have been discerned in her; seeing her now, anyone not inured to such sights could not but feel a sense of the deepest pity. "The second was red-haired, gaunt, pockmarked, goggle-eyed and repulsive. "The third: old, short, squat and obese; quite a bladder of fat. She went by the name of the cantinière .

• From Between Us

  Some of the children of Japanese descent in Minoura’s study—after having spent considerable time in the U.S. because of their parents’ jobs, experienced difficulty reentering Japanese culture. One of them, seventeen-year-old Jiro, tells Minoura: “I had to make a Japanese out of myself. . . .” Jiro’s “emotions” had become Americanized at the expense of being Japanese. Other Japanese-born teens also noted they had adopted the American way of doing emotion to the exclusion of the Japanese way. They had a hard time conforming and communicating in the indirect ways that are normative in Japan; some actually went as far as to feel “disgusted” with the Japanese ways. Jiro’s experience may reflect the fate of many immigrants, as a study by my colleague Jozefien De Leersnyder suggests. De Leersnyder took our emotion profile questionnaire to Turkey and Korea, and established the Turkish and Korean emotion “norms” for the different situation types. In a situation like the one Ayse reported about the teacher publicly reprimanding her, the Turkish profile might have primarily consisted of shame and respect. When De Leersnyder compared the emotion profiles of immigrant populations with the normative emotions of their culture of origin, she found that the immigrant groups had lost some of their original emotional culture. On average, the emotions of second-generation Turkish Belgians were not Turkish anymore—no more “Turkish” than those of a Belgian-majority sample. Similarly, the emotions of Korean Americans were not “Korean” anymore: no more “Korean” than the emotions of their European American counterparts. Only the first-generation Turkish Belgians still experienced “Turkish” emotions: they were just as “Turkish” as the emotions in the Turkish sample. As you will remember, the emotions of the first-generation Belgian Turks were hardly aligned with the Belgian ways of doing emotions yet. But does the learning of a new way of doing emotions necessarily replace the old way? The story of Jiro, the Japanese teen in Minoura’s study, suggests that it does not. Three years after his return to Japan, he finds an opportunity to go back to the U.S., where he reflects on both cultures’ ways of doing emotions, and now also recognizes the advantages of the Japanese system of conformity and amae. Jiro is aware that the relational goals in the US and Japan are different, and he can relate to them both:

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "The first was dresssed in grass-green, or prassino; the red-haired strumpet wore a robe which once must have been blue; the old slut was clad in yellow. "All these dresses, however, were stained and very much the worse for wear. Besides, some slimy viscid fluid which had left large spots everywhere, made them seem as if all the snails of Burgundy had been crawling over them. "I managed to get rid of the two younger ones, but I was not so successful with the cantinière . "Having seen that her charms, and all her little endearments, had no effect upon me, she tried to rouse my sluggish senses by more desperate means. "As I said before, I was sitting upon the low divan; she thereupon stood in front of me and pulled her dress up to her waist, thus exhibiting all her hitherto hidden attractions. It was the first time I had seen a naked woman, and this one was positively loathsome. And yet, now that I think of it, her beauty might well be compared with that of the Shulamite, for her neck was like the tower of David, her navel resembled a round goblet, her belly a huge heap of blighted wheat. Her hair, beginning from her waist and falling down to her knees, was not exactly like a flock of goats—as the hair of Solomon's bride—but in quantity it surely was like that of a good-sized black sheep-skin. "Her legs—similar to those described in the biblical song—were two massive columns straight up and down, without any sign of calf or ankle about them. Her whole body, in fact, was one bulky mass of quivering fat. If her smell was not quite that of Lebanon it was surely of musk, patchouli, stale fish and perspiration; but as my nose came in closer contact with the fleece, the smell of stale fish predominated. "She stood for a minute in front of me; then, coming nearer by a step or two, put one foot on the divan, and opening her legs as she did so, she took my head between her fat, clammy hands. "' Viens mon cheri, fais minette a ton petit chat .' "As she said this I saw the black mass of hair part itself; two huge dark lips first appeared, then opened, and within those bulgy lips—which inside had the colour and the look of stale butcher's meat—I saw something like the tip of a dog's penis when in a state of erection, protrude itself towards my lips. "All my schoolfellows burst out laughing—why, I did not exactly understand; for I had not the slightest idea of what minette was, or what the old whore wanted of me; nor could I see that anything so loathsome could be turned into a joke."

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Clement lightly pinches the little girl's flesh; the enjoyment offered within is beyond his capabilities, but he is treated as he has dealt with the girl, and at the feet of the idol he leaves the incense he lacks the strength to fling into its sanctuary. Antonin entertains himself by kneading the fleshier parts of the victim's body; fired by her convulsive struggling, he precipitates himself into the district offered to his chosen pleasures. In his turn he is mauled, beaten, and ecstasy is the fruit of his torments. Old Jerome employs his teeth only, but each bite leaves a wound whence blood leaps instantly forth; after receiving a dozen, the target tenders him her open mouth; therein his fury is appeased while he is himself bitten quite as severely as he did bite. The saintly fathers drink and recover their strength. The thirty-six-year-old woman, six months pregnant, as I have told you, is perched upon a pedestal eight feet high; unable to pose but one leg, she is obliged to keep the other in the air; round about her, on the floor, are mattresses garnished three feet deep with thorns, splines, holly; a flexible rod is given to her that she may keep herself erect; it is easy to see, on the one hand, that it is to her interest not to tumble, and on the other, that she cannot possibly retain her balance; the alternatives divert the monks; all four of them cluster around her, during the spectacle each has one or two women to excite him in divers manners; great with child as she is, the luckless creature remains in this attitude for nearly a quarter of an hour; at last, strength deserts her, she falls upon the thorns, and our villains, wild with lust, one last time step forward to lavish upon her body their ferocity's abominable homage... the company retires. The superior put me into the keeping of the thirty-year-old girl of whom I made mention; her name was Omphale; she was charged to instruct me, to settle me in my new domicile. But that night I neither saw nor heard anything.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Even as a children, boys are constantly learning about their turn-ons, even if they’re not supposed to—even if they don’t want to. A stiffening penis is extremely difficult to ignore. Later, when they learn to masturbate, most men discover an even more compelling link between their favorite fantasy images and the immediate responses of their genitals. When a girl feels turned on, her genital responses are far less obvious. She may feel warm and tingly all over, but she won’t necessarily associate her arousal with changes in her genitals—or vice versa.3 As a result, her turn-ons are more diffuse, less defined, less narrowed. However, these differences are slowly changing. An increasing number of women are deliberately using masturbation and fantasy to cultivate more defined, focused erotic preferences.4 THE DARK SIDE OF LUSTTurn your attention toward any significant arena of human life—work, creativity, economics, politics, friendship, or family life—and you’ll soon come face to face with manifestations of the least appealing and most destructive aspects of human nature. The same, of course, is true of lust. Considering the devaluation and mistrust of lustful feelings in our society, it’s not surprising that many people see lust solely as a negative force. Others try to shield themselves from the dark side of lust by insisting that predatory sexual behavior isn’t really sexual at all. It’s about power, they insist, not sex. This is the currently fashionable explanation for acts such as rape and incest. But it is sex and power and hatred—all rolled up together with the delusion among many predators that their victims actually enjoy it. The great analyst Carl Jung believed that to achieve psychological wholeness and maturity, each person—and society as a whole—must come to terms with what he called “the shadow,” the least acceptable, often denied parts of ourselves. I believe that the same is required for erotic health. It is a terrible mistake to deny or downplay the dog-eat-dog aspects that exist in all human interactions, including sexual ones. Only when we see both the positive and the negative expressions of our lusty impulses can we truly appreciate—with our eyes wide open—all the ways lust can add richness and zest to life.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  POSITIVE AVERSIONSMany clients enter therapy already in an erotic crisis, though they don’t fully realize it. At first they simply want to resolve a sexual dysfunction or rekindle waning desire. Only later do they discover a more serious problem: negative core beliefs are wrecking their eroticism. In these cases unpleasant symptoms aren’t just necessary, they’re ultimately beneficial. They force a person to stop, take notice, and initiate a change. Brenda: Self-esteem and the death of desire “My husband, Ernie, sent me here because I’m a mess sexually,” Brenda announced with a mixture of pain and embarrassment she tried unsuccessfully to hide. “He sent you?” I asked, echoing the implication that she had been towed into the shop for repairs. She explained that she was rarely orgasmic with Ernie but insisted she didn’t mind. Until recently, sex had been tolerable, sometimes pretty good. But now Ernie was displeased because Brenda had lost all interest. She couldn’t even acquiesce passively as she had so often done before. “I don’t know why I’m so screwed up,” she said, sighing, “but the thought of sex almost makes me sick. “Pretty crazy, huh?” she asked, watching closely to see how quickly I would agree with her self-criticism. Her eyes moistened when I insisted that there must be very good reasons for her to feel so disgusted with sex. When I asked if Ernie had considered coming in with her, she replied incredulously, “Are you kidding? Ernie would never go to therapy!” Although their marriage was clearly in serious trouble, intuition told me that Brenda had come for more important reasons. Her voice mostly communicated sadness and resignation, but occasionally she would slip in little clues that she was on the threshold of a radical new experiment: to find out what she felt and wanted. Wearily, she accepted my invitation to explore her sexuality for her own purposes rather than Ernie’s, to see if we could uncover the messages her inhibitions were trying to convey. Born into a large, prominent New England family, Brenda had been terrorized by a loud and pompous father who relied on intimidation and violent flare-ups to get his way and keep everyone around him in a state of fear. Like her mother, Brenda adopted a submissive “low profile” in hopes of avoiding her father’s wrath. She excelled in school and always had close girlfriends, but males seemed too frighteningly crass and aggressive. Yet in one of those predictable ironies of erotic life, her gentle ways attracted men with an urge to dominate. Although reluctant to admit it, she finally acknowledged that these attractions were quite often mutual. One day she confided in a hushed, confessional tone that in her favorite fantasy an almost savage stranger sweeps her off her feet, carries her to bed, and ravages her, catering to her every need—a common fantasy among women, and quite a few men too.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  All are absorbed. Business, social relations, art, the health of children, their education. And there are visits that must be received and made; it is necessary to see this one, it is necessary to hear that one or the other one. In the city there are always one, two, or three celebrities that it is indispensable that one should visit. “Now one must care for himself, or care for such or such a little one, now it is the professor, the private tutor, the governesses, . . . and life is absolutely empty. In this activity we were less conscious of the sufferings of our cohabitation. Moreover, in the first of it, we had a superb occupation,—the arrangement of the new dwelling, and then, too, the moving from the city to the country, and from the country to the city. “Thus we spent a winter. The following winter an incident happened to us which passed unnoticed, but which was the fundamental cause of all that happened later. My wife was suffering, and the rascals (the doctors) would not permit her to conceive a child, and taught her how to avoid it. I was profoundly disgusted. I struggled vainly against it, but she insisted frivolously and obstinately, and I surrendered. The last justification of our life as wretches was thereby suppressed, and life became baser than ever. “The peasant and the workingman need children, and hence their conjugal relations have a justification. But we, when we have a few children, have no need of any more. They make a superfluous confusion of expenses and joint heirs, and are an embarrassment. Consequently we have no excuses for our existence as wretches, but we are so deeply degraded that we do not see the necessity of a justification. The majority of people in contemporary society give themselves up to this debauchery without the slightest remorse. We have no conscience left, except, so to speak, the conscience of public opinion and of the criminal code. But in this matter neither of these consciences is struck. There is not a being in society who blushes at it. Each one practices it,—X, Y, Z, etc. What is the use of multiplying beggars, and depriving ourselves of the joys of social life? There is no necessity of having conscience before the criminal code, or of fearing it: low girls, soldiers’ wives who throw their children into ponds or wells, these certainly must be put in prison. But with us the suppression is effected opportunely and properly. “Thus we passed two years more. The method prescribed by the rascals had evidently succeeded. My wife had grown stouter and handsomer. It was the beauty of the end of summer. She felt it, and paid much attention to her person. She had acquired that provoking beauty that stirs men. She was in all the brilliancy of the wife of thirty years, who conceives no children, eats heartily, and is excited.

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

  It is true, too, that the immense majority of the acts of the martyrs are the transparent forgeries of lying monks; but it is also true that among the authentic records of Pagan persecutions there are histories, which display, perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of cruelty to which human nature may sink, and the heroism of resistance it may attain. There was a time when it was the just boast of the Romans, that no refinement of cruelty, no prolongations of torture, were admitted in their stern but simple penal code. But all this was changed. Those hateful games, which made the spectacle of human suffering and death the delight of all classes, had spread their brutalising influence wherever the Roman name was known, had rendered millions absolutely indifferent to the sight of human suffering, had produced in many, in the very centre of an advanced civilisation, a relish and a passion for torture, a rapture and an exultation in watching the spasms of extreme agony, such as an African or an American savage alone can equal. The most horrible recorded instances of torture were usually inflicted, either by the populace, or in their presence, in the arena. We read of Christians bound in chains of red-hot iron, while the stench of their half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others who were torn to the very bone by, shells or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the lust of the gladiator or to the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to the mines, each with the sinews of one leg severed by a red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped from its socket; of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with burning lead; of mingled salt and vinegar poured over the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. For the love of their Divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and even weak girls, endured these things without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings, No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a later age should impair the reverence with which we bend before the martyr’s tomb. § 27. Rise of the Worship of Martyrs and Relics. I. Sources. In addition to the works quoted in §§ 12 and 26, comp. Euseb. H. E. IV. 15; De Mart. Palaest. c. 7. Clem. Alex.: Strom. IV. p. 596. Orig.: Exhort. ad mart. c. 30 and 50. In Num. Kom. X. 2. Tertull.: De cor. mil. c. 3; De Resurr. carn. c. 43. Cypr.: De lapsis, c. 17; Epist. 34 and 57. Const. Apost.: l. 8. II. Works. C. Sagittarius: De natalitiis mart. Jen. 1696. Schwabe: De insigni veneratione, quae obtinuit erga martyres in primit. eccl. Altd. 1748.

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

  Paul Lacroix: Manners, Customs, and Dress of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance Period (transl. from the French, N. York 1874), p. 407–434. Brace. Gesta Christi, ch. XV. The torture rests on the same idea as the ordeal.365 It is an attempt to prove innocence or guilt by imposing a physical pain which no man can bear without special aid from God. When the ordeal had fulfilled its mission, the torture was substituted as a more convenient mode and better fitted for an age less superstitious and more sceptical, but quite as despotic and intolerant. It forms one of the darkest chapters in history. For centuries this atrocious system, opposed to the Mosaic legislation and utterly revolting to every Christian and humane feeling, was employed in civilized Christian countries, and sacrificed thousands of human beings, innocent as well as guilty, to torments worse than death. The torture was unknown among the Hindoos and the Semitic nations, but recognized by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as a regular legal proceeding. It was originally confined to slaves who were deemed unfit to bear voluntary testimony, and to require force to tell the truth.366 Despotic emperors extended it to freemen, first in cases of crimen laesae majestatis. Pontius Pilate employed the scourge and the crown of thorns in the trial of our Saviour. Tiberius exhausted his ingenuity in inventing tortures for persons suspected of conspiracy, and took delight in their agony. The half-insane Caligula enjoyed the cruel spectacle at his dinner-table. Nero resorted to this cruelty to extort from the Christians the confession of the crime of incendiarism, as a pretext of his persecution, which he intensified by the diabolical invention of covering the innocent victims with pitch and burning them as torches in his gardens. The younger Pliny employed the torture against the Christians in Bithynia as imperial governor. Diocletian, in a formal edict, submitted all professors of the hated religion to this degrading test. The torture was gradually developed into a regular system and embodied in the Justinian Code. Certain rules were prescribed, and exemptions made in favor of the learned professions, especially the clergy, nobles, children below fourteen, women during pregnancy, etc. The system was thus sanctioned by the highest legal authorities. But opinions as to its efficiency differed. Augustus pronounced the torture the best form of proof. Cicero alternately praises and discredits it. Ulpian, with more wisdom, thought it unsafe, dangerous, and deceitful. Among the Northern barbarians the torture was at first unknown except for slaves. The common law of England does not recognize it. Crimes were regarded only as injuries to individuals, not to society, and the chief resource for punishment was the private vengeance of the injured party. But if a slave, who was a mere piece of property, was suspected of a theft, his master would flog him till he confessed. All doubtful questions among freemen were decided by sacramental purgation and the various forms of ordeal.

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  The only thing you both have to be in bed is clean. None of us should have to be subjected to a sexual partner who isn’t. I’m not just talking about your private parts. I can’t tell you how regularly this comes up in both the men’s and women’s seminars. Hair, ears, fingernails, toenails, and feet are often overlooked and left unscrubbed in the haste to get into bed. I would never have felt the need to state the obvious in a book like this if didn’t come up in nearly every seminar. Evidently, we tend to assume that we all groom ourselves in the same way. Also, we are horrified at the thought of discussing the subject: to tell a lover that you are turned off by his lack of cleanliness is uncomfortable for both of you. But there is no excuse for having to feel “dirtied” by someone with whom you’re going to be intimate. Anyone willing to share himself or herself in this manner deserves a partner who is well groomed. If you’re too tired for another shower or bath, you’re too tired for sex. And while we’re on the subject of cleanliness, I just want to mention a word about the natural odor of the human body. I understand that some men and women prefer to go au naturel and not wear deodorant, but I think you’re taking a risk here. Let me recount a story of a successful businessman in his early sixties, trim and quite the gentleman. He had been with a woman who was in her late forties and was very much attracted to her: she was fit, active, and fun-loving—all qualities he appreciated and admired. After the second or third sexual encounter, he became unavoidably aware of her bad body odor. He felt very awkward bringing this up, as they didn’t know each other that well yet, but he felt really turned off. Need I say more? I think it’s a shame to go through all the emotional stages involved in becoming ready for physical intimacy only to discover, once you get down to the bare essentials, that you can’t stomach the way your lover smells. And through scores of interviews, I’ve found that the biggest offenders are the most oblivious to it. What I suggest is that if you lead even a moderately active lifestyle, experience any level of stress, or sweat for any reason, and don’t use deodorant, in spite of the fact that you shower daily, you are a candidate for body odor. Bathing is essential, of course. But if it were enough, deodorant would not have been invented.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I feel myself floating out of my body, much the way I do in moments of crisis with my kids when I’ve cradled them after falls have broken their bones or bloodied their faces, and I remain preternaturally calm, managing their physical care while not allowing in the repulsion of gushing blood or limbs that seem to be bent in the wrong direction. Silently, I follow him to his bedroom and take my tank top and skirt off, folding them and placing them on his dresser, then lie down in my lacy bra and underwear. He strips down to his white briefs, and I see that his body is intimidatingly thick, solid and muscular. He goes down on me, and I am gone now: in my mind I am floating in a vast ocean, warm water carrying my body, sun beating down and saturating me. I don’t want to be in bed with this man, and the longer I stay here, the more I am disgusted by him – and, more horribly, by myself for being here. Sex has been purely fun and joyous and liberating and toe-curling and energizing and fulfilling and transcendent these past two months, but now the ugly side of it is lashing its forked tongue at me: asymmetry of power, physical vulnerability, fear, mistrust, revulsion. He puts on a condom and comes inside of me and then lies next to me, interrogating me about my sexual predilections. Do I like anal sex? Have I ever been with a woman? Am I interested in threesomes? What is the kinkiest thing I have ever done? I respond haltingly and do not ask him anything at all. Finally, I say that I have to get home to my kids and he strokes my upper thigh up to the curve of my hip and back down again to my waist, asking, “Can I have you one more time before you go?” The wording of his question is spot on, as that’s exactly what he’s doing: having me. And I am allowing it. “Sure,” I say quietly, because now I am so far gone that I suspect I will not return to my body for days. He straddles me and rolls me onto my stomach, then he enters me vaginally from behind. I lie like a ragdoll, just letting it happen. When he shudders and then collapses on top of me, I feel like all air has been pressed out of me and I wait for him to realize he is crushing me. I deserve this , I think, to feel breathless and powerless, because I have willingly made myself prostrate and obedient . Finally, he rolls off me and I wordlessly rise from the bed, taking my small pile of clothes from the dresser and heading to the bathroom, where I clean myself as best I can with toilet paper and water and put my clothes back on.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  They do not differ substantively from the material Hubbard discussed in this lecture and wrote about elsewhere. 92 “We won’t go into that”: Interview with Hana Eltringham Whitfield. 93 threw up violently: Interview with anonymous former Sea Org member. 94 “a fucking asshole”: Gerald Armstrong interview, “Secret Lives—L. Ron Hubbard,” Channel 4, UK, 1997. 95 “They held the power”: Interview with Hana Eltringham Whitfield. 96 intimate but not overtly sexual: Affidavit of Tonja Burden, Jan. 25, 1980. 97 When the girls became: Sue Lindsay, “Genius in a Yellow Straw Hat,” Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 16, 1986. 98 “putting ethics in”: Hubbard, Introduction to Scientology Ethics, p. 20. 99 Good and evil actions: Ibid., pp. 13–14. 100 “the greatest good”: Ibid., p. 101. 101 “You have to establish”: Hubbard’s lecture, “Ethics and Case Supervision,” Oct. 9, 1968. 102 his cigarette smoking: “With respect to our parishioners, smoking is a personal choice”; Karin Pouw, personal correspondence. 103 It had begun with Gibraltar: Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah, p. 275. 104 England banned foreign Scientologists: Ibid., p. 289. 105 “She was like Cinderella”: Interview with “Catherine Harrington.” 106 Mary Sue used to have parties: Interview with Candy Swanson. 107 “gorgeous”: Interview with Belkacem Ferradj. 108 “I hit the bulkhead”: Ibid. 109 “Never question LRH”: Hana Eltringham Whitfield lecture, Hamburg Symposium, Mar. 26, 2010. 110 even in rough seas: “The degree of swell or wave has no bearing on whether they go overboard or not.” Hubbard, Flag Order 1499, Oct. 21, 1968. 111 John McMaster ... was tossed: Lamont, Religion, Inc., pp. 53–54. 112 He left the church: The church says of McMaster: “He was in his day a ‘squirrel’ who sought to profit from his off-beat alterations of Mr. Hubbard’s discoveries.... He died in 1990, an alcoholic, and virtually no one in Scientology today has heard of him.” Karin Pouw, personal communication. 113 “She screamed all the way”: Hana Eltringham Whitfield lecture, Hamburg Symposium, Mar. 26, 2010. 114 “raw, bleeding noses”: Russell Miller interview with David Mayo, “The Bare-Faced Messiah Interviews,” Aug. 28, 1986, www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/bfm/interviews/mayo.htm. 115 Children who committed minor: Sharone Stainforth, theapolloseries.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-transcript-for-dublin-conference.html. 116 Derek Greene: Interview with Hana Eltringham Whitfield. Elsewhere, Whitfield has said the child was confined for four days and nights. Hana Eltringham Whitfield lecture, Hamburg Symposium, Mar. 26, 2010. 117 Other young children were: Russell Miller interview with David Mayo, “The Bare-Faced Messiah Interviews,” Aug. 28, 1986, www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/bfm/interviews/mayo.htm. Tonja Burden recalls “one boy held in there for 30 nights, crying and begging to be released.” Affidavit of Tonja Burden, Jan. 25, 1980. Monica Pignotti also writes about the chain locker: Monica Pignotti, “My Nine Lives in Scientology,” www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/pignotti/. Sharone Stainforth recalls seeing a four- or five-year-old girl with her top half sticking out of a ship chain locker, and that she was filthy and red-faced from crying. Sharone Stainforth, theapolloseries.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-transcript-for-dublin-conference.html. According to another former Sea Org member, the little girl’s name was Angela, “a cute little blond girl that LRH thought was an SP and assigned her to the chain locker.

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

  4. Celibacy. In the East the lower clergy were always allowed to marry, and only a second marriage is forbidden. In the West celibacy was the prescribed rule, but most clergymen lived either with lawful wives or with concubines. In Milan all the priests and deacons were married in the middle of the eleventh century, but to the disgust of the severe moralists of the time.331 Hadrian II. was married before he became pope, and had a daughter, who was murdered by her husband, together with the pope’s wife, Stephania (868).332 The wicked pope Benedict IX. sued for the daughter of his cousin, who consented on condition that he resign the papacy (1033).333 The Hildebrandian popes, Leo IX. and Nicolas II., made attempts to enforce clerical celibacy all over the West. They identified the interests of clerical morality and influence with clerical celibacy, and endeavored to destroy natural immorality by enforcing unnatural morality. How far Gregory VII. succeeded in this part of his reform, will be seen in the next period. § 76. Domestic Life. The purity and happiness of home-life depend on the position of woman, who is the beating heart of the household. Female degradation was one of the weakest spots in the old Greek and Roman civilization. The church, in counteracting the prevailing evil, ran into the opposite extreme of ascetic excess as a radical cure. Instead of concentrating her strength on the purification and elevation of the family, she recommended lonely celibacy as a higher degree of holiness and a safer way to heaven. Among the Western and Northern barbarians she found a more favorable soil for the cultivation of Christian family life. The contrast which the heathen historian Tacitus and the Christian monk Salvian draw between the chastity of the Teutonic barbarians and the licentiousness of the Latin races is overdrawn for effect, but not without foundation. The German and Scandinavian tribes had an instinctive reverence for the female sex, as being inspired by a divinity, possessed of the prophetic gift, and endowed with secret charms. Their women shared the labors and dangers of men, emboldened them in their fierce battles, and would rather commit suicide than submit to dishonor. Yet the wife was entirely in the power of her husband, and could be bought, sold, beaten, and killed.

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

  During the Crusades the schism was deepened by the brutal atrocities of the French and Venetian soldiers in the pillage of Constantinople (1204), the establishment of a Latin empire, and the appointment by the pope of Latin bishops in Greek sees.318 Although this artificial empire lasted only half a century (1204–1261), it left a legacy of burning hatred in the memories of horrible desecrations and innumerable insults and outrages, which the East had to endure from the Western barbarians. Churches and monasteries were robbed and desecrated, the Greek service mocked, the clergy persecuted, and every law of decency set at defiance. In Constantinople "a prostitute was seated on the throne of the patriarch; and that daughter of Belial, as she is styled, sung and danced in the church to ridicule the hymns and processions of the Orientals." Even Pope Innocent III. accuses the pilgrims that they spared in their lust neither age nor sex, nor religious profession, and that they committed fornication, adultery, and incest in open day (in oculis omnium), "abandoning matrons and virgins dedicated to God to the lewdness of grooms." And yet this great pope insulted the Eastern church by the establishment of a Latin hierarchy on the ruins of the Byzantine empire.319 § 72. Fruitless Attempts at Reunion. The Greek emperors, hard pressed by the terrible Turks, who threatened to overthrow their throne, sought from time to time by negotiations with the pope to secure the powerful aid of the West. But all the projects of reunion split on the rock of papal absolutism and Greek obstinacy. The Council of Lyons. A.D. 1274.320 Michael Palaeologus (1260–1282), who expelled the Latins from Constantinople (July 25, 1261), restored the Greek patriarchate, but entered into negotiations with Pope Urban IV. to avert the danger of a new crusade for the reconquest of Constantinople. A general council (the 14th of the Latins) was held at Lyons in 1273 and 1274 with great solemnity and splendor for the purpose of effecting a reunion. Five hundred Latin bishops, seventy abbots, and about a thousand other ecclesiastics were present, together with ambassadors from England, France, Germany, and other countries. Palaeologus sent a large embassy, but only three were saved from shipwreck, Germanus, ex-patriarch of Constantinople, Theophanes, metropolitan of Nicaea, and the chancellor of the empire. The pope opened the Synod (May 7, 1274) by the celebration of high mass, and declared the threefold object of the Synod to be: help for Jerusalem, union with the Greeks, and reform of the church. Bonaventura preached the sermon. Thomas Aquinas, the prince of schoolmen, who had defended the Latin doctrine of the double procession321 was to attend, but had died on the journey to Lyons (March 7, 1274), in his 49th year. The imperial delegates were treated with marked courtesy abjured the schism, submitted to the pope and accepted the distinctive tenets of the Roman church.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But almost as little as under the form of pleasures do our acts invariably appear to us under the form of goods. All diseased impulses and pathological fixed ideas are instances to the contrary. It is the very badness of the act that gives it then its vertiginous fascination. Remove the prohibition, and the attraction stops. In my university days a student threw himself from an upper entry window of one of the college buildings and was nearly killed. Another student, a friend of my own, had to pass the window daily in coming and going from his room, and experienced a dreadful temptation to imitate the deed. Being a Catholic, he told his director, who said, 'All right! if you must, you must,' and added, 'Go ahead and do it,' thereby instantly quenching his desire. This director knew how to minister to a mind diseased. But we need not go to minds diseased for examples of the occasional tempting-power of simple badness and unpleasantness as such. Every one who has a wound or hurt anywhere, a sore tooth, e.g., will ever and anon press it just to bring out the pain. If we are near a new sort of stink, we must sniff it again just to verify once more how bad it is. This very day I have been repeating over and over to myself a verbal jingle whose mawkish silliness was the secret of its haunting power. I loathed yet could not banish it. Believers in the pleasure-and-pain theory must thus, if they are candid, make large exceptions in the application of their creed. Action from 'fixed ideas' is accordingly a terrible stumbling-block to the candid Professor Bain. Ideas have in his psychology no impulsive but only a 'guiding' function, whilst "The proper stimulus of the will, namely, some variety of pleasure and pain, is needed to give the impetus. . . .

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] To understand the Saudi influence, one must reckon with what may seem a contradiction. On the one hand, after the Iranian Revolution, the kingdom had become one of America’s chief regional allies. On the other hand, it subscribed to an extremely reductive form of Islam, which had been developed in the eighteenth century by the Arabian reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92). Ibn Abd al-Wahhab had preached a return to the pristine Islam of the Prophet and repudiated such later developments as the Shiah, Sufism, Falsafah, and the jurisprudence (fiqh) on which all other Muslim ulema depended. He was particularly distressed by the popular veneration of holy men and their tombs, which he condemned as idolatry. Even so, Wahhabism was not inherently violent; indeed, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab had refused to sanction the wars of his patron, Ibn Saud of Najd, because he was fighting simply for wealth and glory.13 It was only after his retirement that Wahhabis became more aggressive, even to the point of destroying Imam Husain’s shrine in Karbala in 1802 as well as monuments in Arabia connected with Muhammad and his companions. At this time too, the sect insisted that Muslims who did not accept their doctrines were infidels (kufar).14 During the early nineteenth century, Wahhabis incorporated the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah into their canon, and takfir, the practice of declaring another Muslim an unbeliever, which Ibn Abd al-Wahhab himself had rejected, became central to their practice.15