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.

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• From Going Clear (2013)

  88 “The world we live in now”: Hubbard’s lecture, “Assists,” Class VIII, Tape 10, Oct. 3, 1968. 89 “three-D, super colossal”: Hubbard’s handwritten note, “Incident 2,” part of the OT III materials, Oct. 28, 1968. 90 “He is not likely”: Hubbard’s lecture, “Assists,” Class VIII, Tape 10, Oct. 3, 1968. 91 “the planet of ill repute”: This story is drawn largely from Hubbard’s lecture, “Assists,” Ibid. It does not come from the actual OT III materials, which the Church of Scientology insists are secret and a trade secret, although they are easily available on the Internet. 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 .

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

  The monks stand in queue; all the sisters file before them and receive whiplashes from each; next, they are obliged to excite their torturers with their mouths while the latter torment and shower invectives upon them. The youngest, she of ten, is placed upon a divan and each monk steps forward to expose her to the torture of his choice; near her is the girl of fifteen; it is with her each monk, after having meted out punishment, takes his pleasure; she is the butt; the eldest woman is obliged to stay in close attendance upon the monk presently performing, in order to be of service to him either in this operation or in the act which concludes it. Severino uses only his hands to molest what is offered him and speeds to engulf himself in the sanctuary of his whole delight and which she whom they have posted nearby presents to him; armed with a handful of nettles, the eldest woman retaliates upon him for what he has a moment ago done to the child; 'tis in the depths of painful titillations the libertine's transports are born.... Consult him; will he confess to cruelty? But he has done nothing he does not endure in his turn. 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.

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

  During all the scenes of lust these are the girls who guarantee pleasure's success, who guide and manage the monks' joys, who tidy up whoever has become covered with filth: for example, a monk dirties himself while enjoying a woman: it is his aide's duty to repair the disorder; he wishes to be excited? the task of rousing him falls to the wretch who accompanies him everywhere, dresses him, undresses him, is ever at his elbow, who is always wrong, always at fault, always beaten; at the suppers her place is behind her master's chair or, like a dog, at his feet under the table, or upon her knees, between his thighs, exciting him with her mouth; sometimes she serves as his cushion, his seat, his torch; at other times all four of them will be grouped around the table in the most lecherous, but, at the same time, the most fatiguing attitudes. "If they lose their balance, they risk either falling upon the thorns placed near by, or breaking a limb, or being killed, such cases have been known; and meanwhile the villains make merry, enact debauches, peacefully get drunk upon meats, wines, lust, and upon cruelty." "O Heaven!" said I to my companion, trembling with horror, "is it possible to be transported to such excesses! What infernal place is this!" "Listen to me, Therese, listen, my child, you have not yet heard it all, not by any means," said Omphale. "Pregnancy, reverenced in the world, is the very certitude of reprobation amongst these villains; here, the pregnant woman is given no dispensations: brutalities, punishments, and watches continue; on the contrary, a gravid condition is the certain way to procure oneself troubles, sufferings, humiliations, sorrows; how often do they not by dint of blows cause abortions in them whose fruits they decide not to harvest, and when indeed they do allow the fruit to ripen, it is in order to sport with it: what I am telling you now should be enough to warn you to preserve yourself from this state as best you possibly can." "But is one able to ?" "Of course, there are certain devices, sponges...

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

  "The sight was really loathsome, and I turned my head aside so as not to see it, but the view that offered itself all around was, if anything, more disgusting. "The whores had unbuttoned all the young men's trousers, some were handling their organs, caressing their testicles or licking their backsides; one was kneeling before a young student and greedily sucking his huge and fleshy phallus, another girl was sitting a-straddle on a young man's knees, springing up and coming down again as if she had been in a baby-jumper—evidently running a Paphian race, and (perhaps there were not enough prostitutes, or it was done for the fun of the thing) one woman was being had by two men at the same time, one in front, the other behind. There were also other enormities, but I had not time enough to see everything. "Moreover, many of the young men who were already tipsy when they came here, having drunk champagne, absinthe and beer, began now to feel squeamish, to be quite sick, to hiccough, and finally to throw up. "In the midst of this nauseous scene, the consumptive whore went off into a fit of hysterics, crying and sobbing at the same time, whilst the fat one who was now thoroughly excited, would not allow her to lift up her head; and having got her nose where the tongue had hitherto been, she was rubbing herself against it with all her might, screaming: "'Lick on, lick stronger, don't take away your tongue now that I am about to enjoy it; there, I am finishing, lick on, suck me, bite me.' "But the poor cadaverous wretch in the paroxysm of her delirium had managed to slip away her head. "'Regarde donc quel con,' said Biou, pointing to that mass of quivering flesh amidst the black and froth-covered viscid hair. 'I shall just get my knee into it, and rub her soundly. Now, you'll see!' "He pulled off his trousers, and was about to suit the action to the words, when a slight cough was heard. It was at once followed by a piercing cry; and before we could understand what was the matter, the body of the tough old prostitute was bathed in blood. The cadaverous wretch had in a fit of lubricity broken a blood vessel, and was dying—dying—dead! "'Ah! la sale bougre!' said the ghoul-like woman with the bloodless face. 'It's all over with the slut now, and she owes me ...' "I do not remember the sum she mentioned. In the meanwhile, however, the cantinière continued to writhe in her senseless and ungovernable rage, twisting and distorting herself; but at last, feeling the warm blood flow in her womb, and bathe her inflamed parts, she began to pant, to scream, and to leap with delight, for the ejaculation was at length taking place.

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

  Seeing his friend brilliantly elevated, he comes up to offer himself to Saint-Florent's lust, and the tradesman enjoys him; I sharpen the spears, I steer them in the direction they are to thrust, and my exposed buttocks provide a perspective to the lubricity of some, a target for the bestiality of others. As all this wears on our two libertines become more circumspect, for considerable efforts are the price of reanimation; they emerge unscathed from their joustings and their new state is such to terrify me even more. "Very well, La Rose," says Saint-Florent, "take the bitch; we'll tighten her up: it's time for the stricturing." I am not familiar with the expression: a cruel experiment soon reveals its meaning. La Rose seizes me, he places my flanks upon a small circular repentance stool not a foot in diameter: once there, lacking any other support, my legs fall on one side, my head and arms on the other; my four limbs, stretched as far apart as possible, are tied to the floor; the executioner who is going to perform the stricturing catches up a long needle through whose eye he passes a stout waxed thread, and with complete unconcern for either the blood he is to shed or the sufferings he is going to cause me, the monster, directly before the two colleagues whom the spectacle amuses, sews shut the entrance to the temple of Love; when finished, he turns me over, now my belly rests upon the repentance stool; my limbs hang free, they are attached as before, and the indecent shrine of Sodom is barricaded in the same manner: I do not speak of my agonies, Madame, you must yourself fancy what they were, I was on the verge of losing consciousness. "Splendid, that's how I must have them," quoth Saint-Florent when I had been turned over again and was lying on my buttocks, and when, in this posture, he spied well within striking range the fortress he wanted to invade. "Accustomed to reaping nothing but the first fruits, how, without this ceremony, should I be able to harvest any pleasures from this creature ?" Saint-Florent had the most violent erection, they were currying and drubbing his device to keep it rampant; grasping that pike, he advances: in order to excite him further, Julien enjoys Cardoville before his eyes; Saint-Florent opens the attack, maddened by the resistance he encounters, he presses ahead with incredible vigor, the threads are strained, some snap.

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

  He finished with two bottles of West Indies rum and ten cups of coffee. As fresh after this performance as he might have been had he just waked from sleep, Monsieur de Gernande said: "Off we go to bleed your mistress; I trust you will let me know if I manage as nicely with her as I did with you." Two young boys I had not hitherto seen, and who were of the same age as the others, were awaiting at the door of the Countess' apartment; it was then the Count informed me he had twelve minions and renewed them every year. These seemed yet prettier than the ones I had seen hitherto; they were livelier... we went in.... All the ceremonies I am going to describe now, Madame, were part of a ritual from which the Count never deviated, they were scrupulously observed upon each occasion, and nothing ever changed except the place where the incisions were made. The Countess, dressed only in a loose-floating muslin robe, fell to her knees instantly the Count entered. "Are you ready?" her husband inquired. "For everything, Monsieur," was the humble reply; "you know full well I am your victim and you have but to command me. ' Monsieur de Gernande thereupon told me to undress his wife and lead her to him. Whatever the loathing I sensed for all these horrors, you understand, Madame, I had no choice but to submit with the most entire resignation. In all I have still to tell you, do not, I beseech you, do not at any time regard me as anything but a slave; I complied simply because I could not do otherwise, but never did I act willingly in anything whatsoever. I removed my mistress' simar, and when she was naked conducted her to her husband who had already taken his place in a large armchair: as part of the ritual she perched upon this armchair and herself presented to his kisses that favorite part over which he had made such a to-do with me and which, regardless of person or sex, seemed to affect him in the same way. "And now spread them, Madame," the Count said brutally. And for a long time he rollicked about with what he enjoyed the sight of; he had it assume various positions, he opened it, he snapped it shut; with tongue and fingertip he tickled the narrow aperture; and soon carried away by his passions' ferocity, he plucked up a pinch of flesh, squeezed it, scratched it. Immediately he produced a small wound he fastened his mouth to the spot. I held his unhappy victim during these preliminaries, the two boys, completely naked, toiled upon him in relays; now one, now the other knelt between Gernande's thighs and employed his mouth to excite him.

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

  49 In the earliest strand of the conquest narratives, Joshua’s violence was associated with an ancient Canaanite custom called the “ban” (herem). 50 Before a battle, a military leader would strike a deal with his god: if this deity undertook to give him the city, the commander promised to “devote” (HRM) all valuable loot to his temple and offer the conquered people to him in a human sacrifice. 51 Joshua had made such a pact with Yahweh before attacking Jericho, and Yahweh responded by delivering the town to Israel in a spectacular miracle, causing its famous walls to collapse when the priests blew their rams’ horns. Before allowing his troops to storm the city, Joshua explained the terms of the ban and stipulated that no one in the city should be spared, since everybody and everything in the town had been “devoted” to Yahweh. Accordingly, the Israelites “enforced the ban on everything in the town, men and women, young and old, even the oxen and sheep and donkeys, massacring them all.” 52 But the ban had been violated when one of the soldiers kept booty for himself, and consequently the Israelites failed to take the town of Ai the following day. After the culprit had been found and executed, the Israelites attacked Ai again, this time successfully, setting fire to the city so that it became a sacrificial pyre and slaughtering anybody who tried to escape: “The number of those who fell that day, men and women together, were twelve thousand, all [the] people of Ai.” 53 Finally Joshua hanged the king from a tree, built a monumental cairn over his body, and reduced the city to “a ruin for ever more, a desolate place, even today.” 54 Ninth-century inscriptions discovered in Jordan and southern Arabia record conquests that follow this pattern to the letter. They recount the burning of the town, the massacre of its citizens, the hanging of the ruler, and the erection of a cultic memorial claiming that the enemy had been entirely eliminated and the town never rebuilt. 55 The ban was not, therefore, the invention of “monotheistic” Israel but was a local pagan practice. One of these inscriptions explains that King Mesha of Moab was commanded by his god Kemosh to take Nebo from King Omri of Israel (r. 885–874). “I seized it and killed every one of [it],” Mesha proclaimed, “seven thousand foreign men, native women, foreign women, concubines—for I devoted it [HRM] to destruction to Ashtur Kemosh.” 56 Israel had “utterly perished forever.” 57 This was wishful thinking, however, because the Kingdom of Israel would survive for another 150 years. In the same vein, the biblical authors record Yahweh’s decree that Jericho remain a ruin forever, even though it would become a thriving Israelite city.

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

  The old Roman civilization of Gaul, though nominally Christian, was in the last stage of consumption when the German barbarians invaded the soil and introduced fresh blood. Several savage tribes, even the Huns, passed through Gaul like a tempest, leaving desolation behind them, but the Franks settled there and changed Gaul into France, as the Anglo-Saxons changed Britain into England. They conquered the Gallo-Romans, cruelly spoiled and almost exterminated them in the North-Eastern districts. Before they accepted the Christianity of the conquered race, they learned their vices. "The greatest evil of barbarian government," says Henri Martin,99 "was perhaps the influence of the greedy and corrupt Romans who insinuated themselves into the confidence of their new masters." To these degenerate Christians Montalembert traces the arts of oppression and the refinements of debauchery and perfidy which the heathen Germans added to their native brutality. "The barbarians derived no advantage from their contact with the Roman world, depraved as it was under the empire. They brought with them manly virtues of which the conquered race had lost even the recollection; but they borrowed, at the same time, abject and contagious vices, of which the Germanic world had no conception. They found Christianity there; but before they yielded to its beneficent influence, they had time to plunge into all the baseness and debauchery, of a civilization corrupted long before it was vanquished. The patriarchal system of government which characterized the ancient Germans, in their relations with their children and slaves as well as with their chiefs, fell into ruin in contact with that contagious depravity."100

• From Manhunt (2022)

  She ignored the clang as the man slammed his muzzled face into the steel a bare inch from her hand. “This called itself Camilla.” The crowd was in full flight now. Only a handful remained in their seats, though Ramona couldn’t tell if they were terrified or fascinated. Both, probably, as she’d been when she saw the same sight in Philly. Sara. Her monster. Silicon moving in spongy mantles under his grayish skin, which hung in rags from raw pink flesh where his dermis had grown too tight and burst. “Maybe you think you don’t need the sisterhood, you don’t need the Matriarchy. I can understand that. You’ve survived without us until now.” She turned back toward the audience, the thing in the cage climbing the bars behind her, bashing its bruised and bloody head against cold metal. “But before you decide to walk out of here and set yourself against us, think about this.” One slim hand dipped inside her coat—Ramona watched the crowd tense—and drew out a crusty, half-wet tampon by its string. She raised her voice to drown out the disgusted groans. “Every woman—every real woman—has already bled a thousand times for nothing.” She made a fist, crushing bloody cotton. “Imagine what we’d do to defend what we love.” Sergeant Kilroy, as real as fake could be, stood smiling at attention at the platform’s edge, the nearer end of the path that led to the huge, misshapen thing battering itself against the bars a scant few yards away. Ramona felt a strange sort of pride toward Kilroy, a surge of sisterly affection mixed with loving pity. Look at her , she thought. She gave up everything for us. Abandoned manhood. Her body. Her gender. What a special thing. Afterward, once Teach had shaken hands with the remaining boys and the junior officers had taken down their names and addresses, the party cut across the park and over a small creek by footbridge to the curb where a black town car idled. Molly opened the rear driver’s side for Teach as Ramona climbed in opposite her. Pigeons seethed in the street and perched in noisy rows along the eaves and sills of nearby buildings. They pulled out, Molly and the driver’s voices muffled by the smoked glass of the car’s partition, and the birds rose in shimmering waves around them. “I think you really had them,” said Ramona. Teach said nothing. She was looking out the window at the warehouses and depots of the waterfront, which little by little gave way to apartments, burned-out restaurants, and looted husks of corner stores. Across the Summer Street bridge, the ocean pounding under them in hypnotic white whorls and Boston Harbor laid out to the east past another bridge, collapsed, a heaving slate-gray chop interrupted by a string of half-drowned islands where the wrecks of sea forts and summer homes sank slowly into saturated earth.

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

  He surprised me in bed. By employing the excuse of looking to see whether any traces of my wounds remained, he obtained the right, which I was unable to dispute, of performing an examination upon me, naked, and as he had done the same thing twice a day for a month and had never given any offense to my modesty I did not think myself able to resist. But this time Rodin had other plans; when he reaches the object of his worship, he locks his thighs about my waist and squeezes with such force that I find myself, so to speak, quite defenseless. "Therese," says he, the while moving his hands about in such a manner as to erase all doubt of his intents, "you are fully recovered, my dear, and now you can give me evidence of the gratitude with which I have beheld your heart overflowing; nothing simpler than the form your thanks would take; I need nothing beyond this," the traitor continued, binding me with all the strength at his command. "...Yes, this will do, merely this, here is my recompense, I never demand anything else from women... but," he continued, " 'tis one of the most splendid I have seen in all my life... What roundness, fullness!... unusual elasticity!... what exquisite quality in the skin!... Oh my! I absolutely must put this to use...." Chapter 17 Whereupon Rodin, apparently already prepared to put his projects into execution, is obliged, in order to proceed to the next stage, to relax his grip for a moment; I seize my opportunity and extricating myself from his clutches, "Monsieur," I say, "I beg you to be well persuaded that there is nothing in the entire world which could engage me to consent to the horrors you seem to wish to commit. My gratitude is due to you, indeed it is, but I will not pay my debt in a criminal coin. Needless to say, I am poor and most unfortunate; but no matter; here is the small sum of money I possess," I continue, producing my meager purse, "take what you esteem just and allow me to leave this house, I beg of you, as soon as I am in a fitting state to go." Rodin, confounded by the opposition he little expected from a girl devoid of means and whom, according to an injustice very ordinary amongst men, he supposed dishonest by the simple fact she was sunk in poverty; Rodin, I say, gazed at me attentively.

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

  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." "Well, and how did that jolly evening come to an end?" "Drinks had been ordered—beer, spirits, and some bottles of frothy stuff, yclept champagne, which surely was not the produce of the sunny vines of France, but of which the women imbibed copiously. "After this, not wishing us to leave the house without having been entertained in some way or other, and to get a few more francs out of our pockets, they proposed to shew us some tricks that they could do amongst themselves. "It was apparently a rare sight, and the one for which we had come to this house. My friends acquiesced unanimously. Thereupon the old bladder of fat undressed herself stark naked, and shook her buttocks in a kind of poor imitation of the Eastern Dance of the Wasp. The poor consumptive wretch followed her example, and slipped off her dress by a simple shake of her body. "At the sight of that huge mass of flabby hog's lard flapping on either side of the rump, the thin whore lifted up her hand, and gave her friend a smart slap on the buttocks, but the hand seemed to sink in it, as into a mass of butter.

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

  "A certain Biou, young in years, but old in craft, who—like an elderly tom-cat—had, at sixteen, already lost an eye in a battle of love, (having got some syphilitic virus into it), proposed to shew us life in the unknown parts of the real Quartier Latin. "'First,' said he, 'I'll take you to a place where we'll spend little and have some jolly fun; it'll just put us 'en train' and from there we'll go to another house, to fire off our pistols, or I should rather say our revolvers, for mine is a seven shot barrel.' "His single eye twinkled with delight, and his trousers were stirred from within as he said this. We all agreed to his proposal, I especially feeling quite glad that I might at first remain only a spectator. I wondered, however, what the sight would be like. "We had an endless drive through the narrow straggling streets, alleys, and by-ways, where painted women appeared in gorgeous dresses at the filthy windows of some wretched houses. "As it was getting late, all the shops were now shut, except the fruiterers, who sold fried fish, mussels, and potatoes. These disgorged an offensive smell of dirt, grease, and hot oil, which mixed itself up with the stench of the gutters and that of the cesspools in the middle of the streets. "In the darkness of the ill-lighted thoroughfares more than one café chantant and beer-house flared with red gas-lights, and as we passed them we felt the puffs of warm, close air reeking with alcohol, tobacco, and sour beer. "All those streets were thronged with a motley crowd. There were tipsy men with scowling, ugly faces, slip-shod vixens, and pale, precociously withered children all tattered and torn, singing obscene songs. "At last we came to a kind of slum, where the carriages stopped before a low, beetling-browed house which seemed to have suffered from water on the brain when a child. It had a crazy look; and being, moreover, painted in yellowish-red, its many excoriations gave it the appearance of having some loathsome, scabby, skin disease. This place of infamous resort seemed to forewarn the visitor of the illness festering within its walls. "We went in at a small door, up a winding, greasy, slippery staircase, lighted by an asthmatic, flickering gas-light. Although I was loth to lay my hand on the bannisters, it was almost impossible to mount those muddy stairs without doing so.

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

  "In the darkness of the ill-lighted thoroughfares more than one café chantant and beer-house flared with red gas-lights, and as we passed them we felt the puffs of warm, close air reeking with alcohol, tobacco, and sour beer. "All those streets were thronged with a motley crowd. There were tipsy men with scowling, ugly faces, slip-shod vixens, and pale, precociously withered children all tattered and torn, singing obscene songs. "At last we came to a kind of slum, where the carriages stopped before a low, beetling-browed house which seemed to have suffered from water on the brain when a child. It had a crazy look; and being, moreover, painted in yellowish-red, its many excoriations gave it the appearance of having some loathsome, scabby, skin disease. This place of infamous resort seemed to forewarn the visitor of the illness festering within its walls. "We went in at a small door, up a winding, greasy, slippery staircase, lighted by an asthmatic, flickering gas-light. Although I was loth to lay my hand on the bannisters, it was almost impossible to mount those muddy stairs without doing so. "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?

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  He put each one of his hands over mine to steady them. It absorbed a little of my shaking. “He wrote this for you,” Isaac said. His eyes were dark, like he had too many thoughts and they were filling him up. I didn’t want to answer. There was no mistaking the similarities in name—Senna/Brenna. There was also no mistaking the actual story itself. The fine line that squiggled between fiction and truth. It made me sick that Nick told the story. Our story? His version of our story. Some things should be buried and left to rot. I pointed to the book. “Take it,” I said. “Throw it away.” His eyebrows drew together. “Why?” “Because I don’t want the past.” He stared at me for a long minute, then picked up the book, tucked it under his arm and walked for the door. “Wait!” I held out my hand for the book and he walked it back to me. Opening the cover I flipped to the dedication, touching it softly, running my fingers over the words … then I ripped it out. Hard. I handed the book back to Isaac, with the jagged page clutched in my fist. Stone faced, he left, the soles of his shoes sucking on the hospital floor. Thwuup ... Thwuup … Thwuup. I listened until they disappeared. I folded the page over and over until it was the size of my thumbnail, square upon square upon square. Then I ate it. I was discharged a week later. The nurses told me that normally a double mastectomy patient went home after three days, but Isaac pulled strings to keep me there longer. I didn’t say anything about it as he handed me my prescriptions in a paper bag, folded over twice and stapled. I shoved the bag into my overnight bag, trying to ignore the rattling sound of the pills. Trying to ignore how heavy the bag was in general. I supposed that it was easier for him to keep an eye on me here rather than at my house. He moved surgeries around and took the afternoon off to take me home. It annoyed me, and yet I didn’t know what I’d do without him. What did you say to a man who inserted himself as your caretaker without your permission? Stay away from me, what you’re doing is wrong? Your kindness freaks me out? What the hell do you want from me? I didn’t like being someone’s project, but he had his wits and car, and I was laced with painkillers. I wondered what he did with Nick’s book. Did he toss it in the trash? Put it in his office?

• From Between Us

  Levenson and Ekman intended to test their theory that a few basic emotions were hardwired and evolved through natural selection (as referred to in chapter 1): among these were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, and anger. Basic emotions, so the hypothesis goes, are each characterized by specific brain patterns, a unique subjective feeling, a characteristic autonomic activity (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance, respiration), and also a unique (facial) signal. The different emotional modalities were thought to be strongly connected—so strongly, in fact, that if you activated one, say facial expressions, the others should automatically emerge also. Levenson and his colleagues sought the strongest test of their theory by trying to replicate a former study on a cultural site that was very different from the Western context: the Minangkabau are both matrilineal and Muslim, and lived their lives as agrarians. Without ever mentioning the emotion words, respondents were coached to produce facial configurations that, to a Western eye, would make them look angry or disgusted (or any of the other “basic” emotions). For disgust, the instruction was: “(a) wrinkle your nose and let it open, (b) pull your lower lip down, and (c) move your tongue forward, but do not stick it out.” Levenson and his colleagues wanted to know: Did a person who looked disgusted also have the associated autonomic arousal of “disgust,” and did they feel disgusted? In the United States, the answer to both of these questions had been “yes”: when trained actors and undergraduate college students looked disgusted, they also felt disgusted, and their autonomic arousal tended to be distinguishable from the pattern associated with different expressions. And was their hypothesis confirmed? The answer is no. Even if we disregard the lower quality of both facial configurations and the physiological data produced in the Minangkabau group, the Minangkabau men did not report any emotions when asked “if any emotions, memories, or physical sensations had occurred during the facial configurations.” As the Levenson team acknowledged, an important reason may have been that “the task [was] missing the critical element for emotional experience as defined by [the Minangkabau] culture, namely the meaningful involvement of another person.” Heider himself had observed in his fieldwork that: “[i]n comparison with Americans, for whom the internal experience of emotion is very important, Minangkabau more commonly emphasize the external aspects of emotion, focusing on the implications of emotion for interpersonal interactions and relationships.” Minankabau emphasized OURS emotions—emotions as relational acts between people. The test in isolation that had worked so well to elicit emotions in American respondents failed to cue emotional experience in the Minangkabau. Physiological and bodily markers may well play a role in Minangkabau emotional experience, but only if socially contextualized or shared.

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

  Monsieur, Monsieur, constrain me not, I entreat you; can you conceive of gleaning happiness in the depths of tears and disgust? Dare you suspect pleasure where you see naught but loathing? No sooner shall you have consummated your crime than my despair will overwhelm you with remorse...." But the infamies to which Dubourg abandoned himself prevented me from continuing; that I was able to have believed myself capable of touching a man who was already finding, in the very spectacle of my suffering, one further vehicle for his horrible passions! Would you believe it, Madame? becoming inflamed by the shrill accents of my pleadings, savoring them inhumanly, the wretch disposed himself for his criminal attempts! He gets up, and exhibiting himself to me in a state over which reason is seldom triumphant, and wherein the opposition of the object which causes reason's downfall is but an additional ailment to delirium, he seizes me brutally, impetuously snatches away the veils which still conceal what he burns to enjoy; he caresses me.... Oh! what a picture, Great God I What unheard-of mingling of harshness... and lewdness! It seemed that the Supreme Being wished, in that first of my encounters, to imprint forever in me all the horror I was to have for a kind of crime whence there was to be born the torrent of evils that have beset me since. But must I complain of them? No, needless to say; to his excesses I owe my salvation; had there been less debauchery in him, I were a ruined girl; Dubourg's flames were extinguished in the fury of his enterprises, Heaven intervened in my behalf against the monster before he could commit the offenses he was readying for, and the loss of his powers, before the sacrifice could occur, preserved me from being its victim. The consequence was Dubourg became nothing if not more insolent; he laid upon me the blame for his weakness' mistakes, wanted to repair them with new outrages and yet more mortifying invectives; there was nothing he did not say to me, nothing he did not attempt, nothing his perfidious imagination, his adamantine character and the depravation of his manners did not lead him to undertake. My clumsiness made him impatient: I was far from wishing to participate in the thing, to lend myself to it was as much as I could do, my remorse remained lively.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t. “I’ll be fine,” I said. When he was gone, I pushed the sofa to the front door and wedged it between the jamb and the wall. It was no more a barrier against someone intruding than my small, ineffective fists, but it made me feel better. I undressed in the foyer, kicking off the lightweight pants and shirt the nurse gave me at the hospital after she bagged mine for evidence. Naked, I carried them to the fireplace, setting them on the floor next to me as I opened the grate and arranged the logs. I lit a fire and waited until it was hot and hungry. Then I threw everything in, and watched the worst day of my life burn. Carrying a Brillo pad and a half-full jug of bleach to the downstairs bathroom, I turned the water to the hottest setting. The bathroom filled with steam. When the mirrors were hazed, and I couldn’t see myself, I climbed into the shower and watched my skin turn red. I scrubbed my body until my skin bled and the water turned pink around my feet. Screwing the cap off the bleach, I lifted it above my shoulders, and poured. I cried out and had to hold myself up while I did it again. Then I lay on the floor with my knees spread apart and my hips raised, and poured it into my body. They’d given me a pill, told me it would take care of an unwanted pregnancy. Just in case, the nurse said. But, I wanted to kill everything he touched—every skin cell. I needed to make sure there was nothing left of him on any part of me. I walked naked to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block I kept next to the fridge. Using the tip, I ran it up and down the inside of my arm, tracing my favorite vein. Too many windows; my house had too many ways to break in. What if he’d been watching me? If he knew where I lived? I pierced the skin with that last thought and dragged the tip about two inches. I watched the blood trickle down my arm, mesmerized by the sight. When my doorbell rang, the knife clattered to the floor.

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

  "What! there are such cities now-a-days?" "Aye! for Jehovah has acquired experience with age; so He has got to understand His children a little better than He did of yore, for He has either come to a righter sense of toleration, or, like Pilate, He has washed His hands, and has quite discarded them. "At first I felt a deep sense of disgust at seeing the old catamite pass by me again, and lift, with utmost modesty, his arm from his breast, thrust his bony finger between his lips, and move it in the same fashion as the workman had done his arm, but trying to give all his movements a maidenly coyness. He was—as I learnt later—a pompeur de dard, or as I might call him, a 'sperm-sucker'; this was his speciality. He did the work for the love of the thing, and an experience of many years had made him a master of his trade. He, it appears, lived in every other respect like a hermit, and only indulged himself in one thing—fine lawn handkerchiefs, either with lace or embroidery, to wipe the amateur's instrument when he had done with it. "The old man went down towards the river's edge, apparently inviting me for a midnight stroll in the mist, under the arches of the bridge, or in some out-of- the-way nook or other corner. "Another man came up from there; this one was adjusting his dress, and scratching his hind part like an ape. Notwithstanding the creepy feeling these men gave me, the scene was so entirely new that I must say it rather interested me." "And Teleny?" "I had been so taken up with all these midnight wanderers that I lost sight both of him and of Briancourt, when all at once I saw them re-appear. "With them there was a young Zouave sub-lieutenant and a dapper and dashing fellow, and a slim and swarthy youth, apparently an Arab. "The meeting did not seem to have been a carnal one. Anyhow, the soldier was entertaining his friends with his lively talk, and by the few words which my ear caught I understood that the topic was an interesting one. Moreover, as they passed by each bench, the couples seated thereon nudged each other as if they were acquainted with them. "As I passed them I shrugged up my shoulders, and buried my head in my collar. I even put up my handkerchief to my face. Still, notwithstanding all my precautions, Teleny seemed to have recognized me, although I had walked on without taking the slightest notice of him. "I heard their merry laugh as I passed; an echo of loathsome words was still ringing in my ears; sickening faces of effete, womanish men traversed the street, trying to beguile me by all that is nauseous. "I hurried on, sick at heart, disappointed, hating myself and my fellow-creatures, musing whether I was any better than all these worshippers of Priapus who were inured to vice.

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

  And so I took my place; scarcely was I at it when Rodin enters his daughter's room, he leads her into the other, the two women of the house arrive; and thereupon the impudicious Rodin, all restraints upon his behavior removed, free to indulge his fancies to the full, gives himself over in a leisurely fashion and undisguisedly to committing all the irregularities of debauchery. The two peasants, completely nude, are flogged with exceeding violence; while he plies his whip upon the one the other pays him back in kind, and during the intervals when he pauses for rest, he smothers with the most uninhibited, the most disgusting caresses, the same altar in Rosalie who, elevated upon an armchair, slightly bent over, presents it to him; at last, there comes this poor creature's turn: Rodin ties her to the stake as he tied his scholars, and while one after another and sometimes both at once his domestics flay him, he beats his daughter, lashes her from her ribs to her knees, utterly transported by pleasure. His agitation is extreme: he shouts, he blasphemes, he flagellates: his thongs bite deep everywhere, and wherever they fall, there immediately he presses his lips. Both the interior of the altar and his victim's mouth... everything, the before-end excepted, everything is devoured by his suckings; without changing the disposition of the others, contenting himself with rendering it more propitious, Rodin by and by penetrates into pleasure's narrow asylum; meanwhile, the same throne is offered by the governess to his kisses, the other girl beats him with all her remaining strength, Rodin is in seventh heaven, he thrusts, he splits, he tears, a thousand kisses, one more passionate than the other, express his ardor, he kisses whatever is presented to his lust: the bomb bursts and the libertine besotted dares taste the sweetest of delights in the sink of incest and infamy... Rodin sat down to dine; after such exploits he was in need of restoratives. That afternoon there were more lessons and further corrections, I could have observed new scenes had I desired, but I had seen enough to convince myself and to settle upon a reply to make to this villain's offers. The time for giving it approached. Two days after the events I have described, he himself came to my room to ask for it.

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

  2. Morals. The priests were expected to excel in virtue as well as in education, and to commend their profession by an exemplary life. Upon the whole they were superior to their flock, but not unfrequently they disgraced their profession by scandalous immorality. According to ancient discipline every priest at his ordination was connected with a particular church except missionaries to heathen lands. But many priests defied the laws, and led an irregular wandering life as clerical tramps. They were forbidden to wear the sword, but many a bishop lost his life on the battle field and even some popes engaged in warfare. Drunkenness and licentiousness were common vices. Gregory of Tours mentions a bishop named Cautinus who, when intoxicated, had to be carried by four men from the table. Boniface gives a very unfavorable but partizan account of the French and German clergymen who acted independently of Rome. The acts of Synods are full of censures and punishments of clerical sins and vices. They legislated against fornication, intemperance, avarice, the habits of hunting, of visiting horse-races and theatres, and enjoined even corporal punishments.328 Clerical immorality reached the lowest depth in the tenth and eleventh centuries, when Rome was a sink of iniquity, and the popes themselves set the worst example. But a new reform began with the Hildebrandian popes. 3. Canonical Life. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (A.D. 760), reformed the clergy by introducing, or reviving, after the example of St. Augustin, the "canonical" or semi-monastic life. The bishop and lower clergymen lived in the same house, near the cathedral, ate at the same table, prayed and studied together, like a family of monks, only differing from them in dress and the right of holding property or receiving fees for official services. Such an establishment was called Chapter,329 and the members of it were called Canons.330 The example was imitated in other places. Charlemagne made the canonical life obligatory on all bishops as far as possible. Many chapters were liberally endowed. But during the civil commotions of the Carolingians the canonical life degenerated or was broken up.