Embarrassment

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 20 of 79 · 20 per page

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese thought it was natural that she didn’t bring Stanley to queer parties or spaces for what seemed to her complicated but obvious subcultural reasons. She was afraid of the things he might say, his big body and L. L. Bean—style among the sea of queer, cutoff black jeans; the way he’d take up space, make decrees, and just generally be triggering. Even if he kept his mouth shut, something he’d never shown much interest in doing, it’d be like bringing a water buffalo to a suburban pool party. Yes, that water buffalo might just be standing in the shallow end, gnawing happily on cud. But, still, no one was about to cannonball into the pool and splash around. Reese turned back to Iris, who blew smoke over her shoulder and held her cigarette in her particular way, arm almost straight, two fingers outstretched, as though she hoped to pass it to someone else. “Let’s cut temptation off at the root,” Reese said. “Let’s get out of this stupid park and go to some straight bar. Somewhere where we can get high on the ambient testosterone.” “What, like a bowling alley?” “C’mon. Pick a spot, I don’t care.” “Okay,” Iris agreed. But rather than make any move to pack up, Iris rose and sauntered over to Felicity. She bent to kiss her hellos, to hold out one hand in a light touch while her other kept her cigarette at a distance, but every time she could get away with it, she flashed a discreet but malevolent grin at Reese. Iris had a fifth gear of charm that she rarely bothered to engage, which she only ever shifted into to make trouble. “Reese, Reese,” Iris called after a minute, like a hostess at a fifties dinner party. “Come over here, there’s someone you just have to meet.” Felicity and Sebastian As a Girl watched as Reese stood, so that she had no moment to collect herself, straighten her clothes, pat her hair, or basically do anything but walk over to their little cluster as nonchalantly as possible to say “hey,” like the worst kind of bore, because what else was there to say after you made that kind of painfully laborious entrance? She couldn’t even stab Iris in the heart, because although at least that would have been more interesting, it might have made for a bad first impression. Felicity, whom Reese had met a few times before, greeted her with a lazy “Hey, girl,” which Reese returned before sticking out a limp but not too limp hand to Sebastian As a Girl. “Reese,” she said. “Amy,” said Amy, and gave Reese’s hand a light tug. “Sit with us.”

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  the people who make decisions about vaccines and other programs. He took the opportunity to present them with the Asian disease problem: half saw the “lives- saved” version, the others answered the “lives-lost” question. Like other people, these professionals were susceptible to the framing effects. It is somewhat worrying that the officials who make decisions that affect everyone’s health can be swayed by such a superficial manipulation—but we must get used to the idea that even important decisions are influenced, if not governed, by System 1. Even more troubling is what happens when people are confronted with their inconsistency: “You chose to save 200 lives for sure in one formulation and you chose to gamble rather than accept 400 deaths in the other. Now that you know these choices were inconsistent, how do you decide?” The answer is usually embarrassed silence. The intuitions that determined the original choice came from System 1 and had no more moral basis than did the preference for keeping £20 or the aversion to losing £30. Saving lives with certainty is good, deaths are bad. Most people find that their System 2 has no moral intuitions of its own to answer the question. I am grateful to the great economist Thomas Schelling for my favorite example of a framing effect, which he described in his book Choice and Consequence. Schelling’s book was written before our work on framing was published, and framing was not his main concern. He reported on his experience teaching a class at the Kennedy School at Harvard, in which the topic was child exemptions in the tax code. Schelling told his students that a standard exemption is allowed for each child, and that the amount of the exemption is independent of the taxpayer’s income. He asked their opinion of the following proposition: Should the child exemption be larger for the rich than for the poor? Your own intuitions are very likely the same as those of Schelling’s students: they found the idea of favoring the rich by a larger exemption completely unacceptable. Schelling then pointed out that the tax law is arbitrary. It assumes a childless family as the default case and reduces the tax by the amount of the exemption for each child. The tax law could of course be rewritten with another default case: a family with two children. In this formulation, families with fewer than the default number of children would pay a surcharge. Schelling now asked his students to report their view of another proposition:

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  I’m not going to be your entrée to Culver Creek social life.” “Uh, okay,” I said, but I could hear the words catch in my throat. I’d just carried this guy’s couch beneath a white-hot sun and now he didn’t like me? “Basically you’ve got two groups here,” he explained, speaking with increasing urgency. “You’ve got the regular boarders, like me, and then you’ve got the Weekday Warriors; they board here, but they’re all rich kids who live in Birmingham and go home to their parents’ air-conditioned mansions every weekend. Those are the cool kids. I don’t like them, and they don’t like me, and so if you came here thinking that you were hot shit at public school so you’ll be hot shit here, you’d best not be seen with me. You did go to public school, didn’t you?” “Uh…” I said. Absentmindedly, I began picking at the cracks in the couch’s leather, digging my fingers into the foamy whiteness. “Right, you did, probably, because if you had gone to a private school your freakin’ shorts would fit.” He laughed. I wore my shorts just below my hips, which I thought was cool. Finally I said, “Yeah, I went to public school. But I wasn’t hot shit there, Chip. I was regular shit.” “Ha! That’s good. And don’t call me Chip. Call me the Colonel.” I stifled a laugh. “The Colonel? ” “Yeah. The Colonel. And we’ll call you…hmm. Pudge.” “Huh?” “Pudge,” the Colonel said. “Because you’re skinny. It’s called irony, Pudge. Heard of it? Now, let’s go get some cigarettes and start this year off right.” He walked out of the room, again just assuming I’d follow, and this time I did. Mercifully, the sun was descending toward the horizon. We walked five doors down to Room 48. A dry-erase board was taped to the door using duct tape. In blue marker, it read: Alaska has a single! The Colonel explained to me that 1. this was Alaska’s room, and that 2. she had a single room because the girl who was supposed to be her roommate got kicked out at the end of last year, and that 3. Alaska had cigarettes, although the Colonel neglected to ask whether 4. I smoked, which 5. I didn’t. He knocked once, loudly. Through the door, a voice screamed, “Oh my God come in you short little man because I have the best story.” We walked in. I turned to close the door behind me, and the Colonel shook his head and said, “After seven, you have to leave the door open if you’re in a girl’s room,” but I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top. And she was talking over the Colonel, talking loud and fast.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  I dreaded what came next. Without looking up from the pad she held in her hand, the waitress asked Brother Terrell if he thought he might order before lunch. She laughed a bit as she said it, but he didn’t respond. From the platform, Brother Terrell glided over the most difficult words of scripture with ease. Take him off the platform, replace the Bible with a letter, a contract, or a menu from a roadside restaurant, and he stumbled and stammered and sounded out the words like a kid learning to read. Everyday life rendered him functionally illiterate. My mother said it was God’s anointing that enabled him to read during services. She didn’t say why God didn’t cure him of his illiteracy and spare him the humiliation.He cleared his throat again and pointed to the menu.“I’ll have this here.”The waitress’s pencil hovered over her pad. “And what’s that?”“It’s the, the . . .” His face turned red. Pam and I stared at our laps, trying to avoid her dad’s terrifying vulnerability. Brother Terrell turned to Betty Ann and dropped his voice. “What’s that say?”“Three eggs, country biscuits, redeye gravy, and ham.”He handed the menu to the waitress and swallowed hard. “That’s what I’ll have.”She looked up finally from her pad and her eyes went soft. “The writing is so small on these things, it’s a wonder any of us can read ’em.”By the time the waitress delivered breakfast, Brother Terrell had recovered. She settled the platter of food in front of him, and the light clicked on in his eyes.“That looks like my mama’s cookin’. I thank you.”She smiled at him like she had never been thanked before and lingered for a moment, hip cocked, before unloading onto the table the other plates that lined her arm.Betty Ann took it all in with her big, sad eyes. “Aren’t chu sumthin’?”Brother Terrell sawed at his ham without looking up. Pam and I stirred our runny eggs into the grits. Gary crunched into a slice of toast coated with jelly—his mouth a sticky grape outline. Mama picked at her scrambled eggs, then gave up. She mumbled for me to scoot over, all the way over, and slid out of the booth to play a song on the jukebox.The car felt more crowded than usual that morning when we folded ourselves back into it. The grown-ups spoke only when they had to, and when they did, their words said one thing and their voices another. Pam looked over her shoulder at me from her perch on the console between the bucket seats her parents occupied. Her face was smug. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was thinking, I get to sit up here and you don’t. I whined that it wasn’t fair that only Pam got to sit on the console. Mama told me to be quiet about it. I said it was only right that Gary and I should have a turn too.Mama cut her eyes at me.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  would argue that the decision of whether or not to donate one’s organs is unimportant, but there is strong evidence that most people make their choice thoughtlessly. The evidence comes from a comparison of the rate of organ donation in European countries, which reveals startling differences between neighboring and culturally similar countries. An article published in 2003 noted that the rate of organ donation was close to 100% in Austria but only 12% in Germany, 86% in Sweden but only 4% in Denmark. These enormous differences are a framing effect, which is caused by the format of the critical question. The high-donation countries have an opt out form, where individuals who wish not to donate must check an appropriate box. Unless they take this simple action, they are considered willing donors. The low- contribution countries have an opt-in form: you must check a box to become a donor. That is all. The best single predictor of whether or not people will donate their organs is the designation of the default option that will be adopted without having to check a box. Unlike other framing effects that have been traced to features of System 1, the organ donation effect is best explained by the laziness of System 2. People will check the box if they have already decided what they wish to do. If they are unprepared for the question, they have to make the effort of thinking whether they want to check the box. I imagine an organ donation form in which people are required to solve a mathematical problem in the box that corresponds to their decision. One of the boxes contains the problem 2 + 2 = ? The problem in the other box is 13 × 37 = ? The rate of donations would surely be swayed. When the role of formulation is acknowledged, a policy question arises: Which formulation should be adopted? In this case, the answer is straightforward. If you believe that a large supply of donated organs is good for society, you will not be neutral between a formulation that yields almost 100% donations and another formulation that elicits donations from 4% of drivers. As we have seen again and again, an important choice is controlled by an utterly inconsequential feature of the situation. This is embarrassing—it is not how we would wish to make important decisions. Furthermore, it is not how we experience the workings of our mind, but the evidence for these cognitive illusions is undeniable. Count that as a point against the rational-agent theory. A theory that is worthy of the name asserts that certain events are impossible—they will not happen if the theory is true. When an “impossible” event is observed, the theory is falsified. Theories can survive for a long time after conclusive evidence falsifies them, and the rational-agent model certainly survived the evidence we have seen, and much other evidence as well.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  At the weekly Monday all-staff meeting, the head of human resources, a young-for-the-position Southern woman named Carrie, announced that the agency’s bathroom policy would be changing. Carrie came from the type of Southern culture where she pronounced the letter H in “white” and “wheel,” ordered “mehr-leow” at wine bars, voted Democratic as much for obscure heritage reasons as politics, and at seventeen had the kind of debutante “coming out” that had nothing to do with the gay. “One final change this week,” she intoned at the end of the company meeting. “About the law in my home state of North Carolina that prohibits transgendered persons from using the bathroom of their adopted sex. I happen to be personally very ashamed of my state for this’—she allowed a sorrowful pause for effect—“so I’m pleased to announce that the small bathroom across from the periwinkle conference room will now be designated gender-neutral.” Carrie clapped for her own announcement and the meeting broke up. Ames had missed the meeting that day, and once back to work, Katrina forgot about the bathroom business. But as Katrina gathered her things for lunch, Carrie knocked on Katrina’s open office door, apologized for interrupting, and asked if they could chat for a minute. She was very delicate, so it took her a while to get around to the point, but she wanted to know if Katrina thought that one gender-neutral bathroom downstairs would be sufficient accommodation. “T have no idea,” Katrina told Carrie, baffled. “Oh,” said Carrie, “but you know, she works under you, so I thought maybe she might have communicated—” “What?” Katrina cut her off. “Ames, I mean. She reports to you.” “Ames is not a she.” “Oh, no, I know,” Carrie rushed to say. “I’m sorry. You know, it’s just that some other people have asked about it and, since it came out, people were talking about what our bathroom policy is.” “Carrie,” Katrina said carefully, “you need to tell me exactly what you mean when you say ‘came out.’ What are people talking about?” “Well,” Carrie said, then smoothed out her skirt and dropped her conciliatory demeanor, “what I was told was that on your trip to Chicago, you told Dave Etteens and Ronald Snelling that Ames used to be a woman. Ames said as much to them too. Abby is the project manager assigned to Dave and well, he told her about it, and then it got around the rumor mill here. And I just want to handle this with dignity, for everyone’s sake. The agency, but Ames too.” Katrina groaned and let her face drop into her hands. Carrie ignored this rudeness and continued. “Anyway. I think it’s good policy to have one gender-neutral restroom regardless. But since Ames is your direct report, please try to find out if we should designate one on this floor as well. I was thinking that the one by—” “Carrie,” Katrina cuts her off again. “Ames isn’t a woman.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “No, I know,” Carrie assures her. “I know. She is a man.” The way Carrie nodded, as if convincing herself, felt wrong to Katrina on an intuitive level. “Hold on, what are people saying exactly?” Carrie grimaced a little. “That he used to be a woman, you know, that he is a transgendered man.” “Oh fuck.” Katrina slumped back in her chair and stared at the drop-panel ceiling. Carrie put her hand on Katrina’s desk and leaned forward, concerned. “No! Katrina! He passes very well! It’s not a problem for anyone here. I only want your help in creating a supportive environment. We don’t have any policies yet for transgendered employees, so I think it’s important to do this correctly now...” Katrina’s first urge was to call Ames. But the situation was humiliating for them both. Katrina couldn’t face it on top of everything else. Instead, she thought to call Reese. “Okay,” cackles Iris, “so they think he was assigned female at birth? That he’s female-to-male?” “Yes,” says Katrina with a sigh, “that’s what I’m gathering.” Reese is enjoying this turn of events more than she should. “Can you blame them? That pretty boy. His beard hasn’t recovered from laser, and oh my god, even after that pert little nose got broken, it must be easy for them to imagine him as a trans guy.” “Amy isn’t that tall, right?” Thalia asks. “I’ve only seen pictures of her.” Each of the women in that room has some favorite complaint about her body, through which she can’t help but assess the bodies of other women. At six foot two, Thalia’s was her height. “Like five eight, maybe nine,” says Iris. “Perfect trans guy height.” “But you actually know trans men,” Iris corrects Thalia. Reese has to catch her laughter. This is really just so delicious. “Yeah, you know to clock a burly dude. Cis people are off looking for, like, Gwyneth Paltrow with a little mustache.” “In other words: They’re looking for Amy.” Iris’s face looks as pleased as Reese feels. Katrina’s interest has snagged on a different detail. “Burly?” “Oh yeah,” say the other women in emphatic unison. “If you want a manly man,” Iris counsels her, “find yourself a trans man. They’re the only ones you can be sure want to be that way, instead of compensating their way into it.” “Huh,” says Katrina. The sails of Katrina’s sexuality billow with new considerations. “Thalia likes the FTM4MTF romance,” Iris teases. “She’s always got a boy panting after her. She’s got a dancer right now.” “Really? Why didn’t you tell me?” Reese’s feelings get hurt when Thalia shares her love life with Iris but keeps it from her. “Lemme see a photo!” “Tonight is not about me,” Thalia snaps. “Fine.” Reese shifts focus back to Katrina to hide her miffed feelings. “So anyway, what advice do you want about this situation?”

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  And I listened in class, too, but on that Wednesday morning, when Dr. Hyde started talking about how Buddhists believe that all things are interconnected, I found myself staring out the window. I was looking at the wooded, slow-sloping hill beyond the lake. And from Hyde’s classroom, things did seem connected: The trees seemed to clothe the hill, and just as I would never think to notice a particular cotton thread in the magnificently tight orange tank top Alaska wore that day, I couldn’t see the trees for the forest—everything so intricately woven together that it made no sense to think of one tree as independent from that hill. And then I heard my name, and I knew I was in trouble. “Mr. Halter,” the Old Man said. “Here I am, straining my lungs for your edification. And yet something out there seems to have caught your fancy in a way that I’ve been unable to do. Pray tell: What have you discovered out there?” Now I felt my own breath shorten, the whole class watching me, thanking God they weren’t me. Dr. Hyde had already done this three times, kicking kids out of class for not paying attention or writing notes to one another. “Um, I was just looking outside at the, uh, at the hill and thinking about, um, the trees and the forest, like you were saying earlier, about the way—” The Old Man, who obviously did not tolerate vocalized rambling, cut me off. “I’m going to ask you to leave class, Mr. Halter, so that you can go out there and discover the relationship between the um-trees and the uh-forest. And tomorrow, when you’re ready to take this class seriously, I will welcome you back.” I sat still, my pen resting in my hand, my notebook open, my face flushed and my jaw jutting out into an underbite, an old trick I had to keep from looking sad or scared. Two rows behind me, I heard a chair move and turned around to see Alaska standing up, slinging her backpack over one arm. “I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. You can’t just throw him out of class. You drone on and on for an hour every day, and we’re not allowed to glance out the window? ” The Old Man stared back at Alaska like a bull at a matador, then raised a hand to his sagging face and slowly rubbed the white stubble on his cheek. “For fifty minutes a day, five days a week, you abide by my rules. Or you fail. The choice is yours. Both of you leave.” I stuffed my notebook into my backpack and walked out, humiliated. As the door shut behind me, I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I turned, but there was no one there. Then I turned the other way, and Alaska was smiling at me, the skin between her eyes and temple crinkled into a starburst.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  You’ve never read him?” I shook my head no. “Consider yourself lucky.” He smiled. I grabbed some clean underwear, a pair of blue Adidas soccer shorts, and a white T-shirt, mumbled that I’d be back in a second, and ducked back into the bathroom. So much for a good first impression. “So where are your parents?” I asked from the bathroom. “My parents? The father’s in California right now. Maybe sitting in his La-Z-Boy. Maybe driving his truck. Either way, he’s drinking. My mother is probably just now turning off campus.” “Oh,” I said, dressed now, not sure how to respond to such personal information. I shouldn’t have asked, I guess, if I didn’t want to know. Chip grabbed some sheets and tossed them onto the top bunk. “I’m a top bunk man. Hope that doesn’t bother you.” “Uh, no. Whatever is fine.” “I see you’ve decorated the place,” he said, gesturing toward the world map. “I like it.” And then he started naming countries. He spoke in a monotone, as if he’d done it a thousand times before. Afghanistan. Albania. Algeria. American Samoa. Andorra. And so on. He got through the A ’s before looking up and noticing my incredulous stare. “I could do the rest, but it’d probably bore you. Something I learned over the summer. God, you can’t imagine how boring New Hope, Alabama, is in the summertime. Like watching soybeans grow. Where are you from, by the way?” “Florida,” I said. “Never been.” “That’s pretty amazing, the countries thing,” I said. “Yeah, everybody’s got a talent. I can memorize things. And you can…?” “Um, I know a lot of people’s last words.” It was an indulgence, learning last words. Other people had chocolate; I had dying declarations. “Example?” “I like Henrik Ibsen’s. He was a playwright.” I knew a lot about Ibsen, but I’d never read any of his plays. I didn’t like reading plays. I liked reading biographies. “Yeah, I know who he was,” said Chip. “Right, well, he’d been sick for a while and his nurse said to him, ‘You seem to be feeling better this morning,’ and Ibsen looked at her and said, ‘On the contrary,’ and then he died.” Chip laughed. “That’s morbid. But I like it.” He told me he was in his third year at Culver Creek. He had started in ninth grade, the first year at the school, and was now a junior like me. A scholarship kid, he said. Got a full ride. He’d heard it was the best school in Alabama, so he wrote his application essay about how he wanted to go to a school where he could read long books. The problem, he said in the essay, was that his dad would always hit him with the books in his house, so Chip kept his books short and paperback for his own safety. His parents got divorced his sophomore year.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  becomes relevant only when such specific memories are not available. It is a fallback. Although its reliability is imperfect, the fallback is much better than nothing. It is the sense of familiarity that protects you from the embarrassment of being (and acting) astonished when you are greeted as an old friend by someone who only looks vaguely familiar. “body temperature of a chicken”: Ian Begg, Victoria Armour, and Thérèse Kerr, “On Believing What We Remember,” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 17 (1985): 199–214. low credibility: Daniel M. Oppenheimer, “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2006): 139–56. when they rhymed: Matthew S. Mc Glone and Jessica Tofighbakhsh, “Birds of a Feather Flock Conjointly (?): Rhyme as Reason in Aphorisms,” Psychological Science 11 (2000): 424–28. fictitious Turkish companies: Anuj K. Shah and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, “Easy Does It: The Role of Fluency in Cue Weighting,” Judgment and Decision Making Journal 2 (2007): 371–79. engaged and analytic mode: Adam L. Alter, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, Nicholas Epley, and Rebecca Eyre, “Overcoming Intuition: Metacognitive Difficulty Activates Analytic Reasoning,” Journal of Experimental Psychology—General 136 (2007): 569–76. pictures of objects: Piotr Winkielman and John T. Cacioppo, “Mind at Ease Puts a Smile on the Face: Psychophysiological Evidence That Processing Facilitation Increases Positive Affect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001): 989–1000. small advantage: Adam L. Alter and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, “Predicting Short- Term Stock Fluctuations by Using Processing Fluency,” PNAS 103 (2006). Michael J. Cooper, Orlin Dimitrov, and P. Raghavendra Rau, “A Rose.com by Any Other Name,” Journal of Finance 56 (2001): 2371–88. clunky labels: Pascal Pensa, “Nomen Est Omen: How Company Names Influence Shortand Long-Run Stock Market Performance,” Social Science Research Network Working Paper, September 2006. mere exposure effect: Robert B. Zajonc, “Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 9 (1968): 1–27. favorite experiments: Robert B. Zajonc and D. W. Rajecki, “Exposure and Affect: A Field Experiment,” Psychonomic Science 17 (1969): 216–17. never consciously sees: Jennifer L. Monahan, Sheila T. Murphy, and Robert B. Zajonc, “Subliminal Mere Exposure: Specific, General, and Diffuse Effects,” Psychological Science 11 (2000): 462–66.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese laughs. Of course that would be the case. Same story, different minority: No matter how easily she passed as cis among the cis, passing as cis among other trans women never happened—they had trained their entire lives to see signs of transness, and hope alone dictated that they would detect those signs in Reese. “Great, she and I already have something in common,” Reese says. “We’re both almost cis white ladies.” Ames had had more than a couple of conversations with Katrina about race and Katrina always expressed a sense of dismay about her passing. “Yeah, you two both pass. But I don’t know if she’s as aspirational about it as you are. Almost the opposite: I gather she feels something lost by her passing as a white lady.” “She grew up entirely in Vermont?” “Yeah. But not just Vermont, like, rural, back-to-the-land Vermont. They didn’t even have a TV until she was a teenager.” “Primeval.” “She loves pop culture, the way kids whose parents didn’t let them have sugar love candy.” Katrina’s stories from her early childhood struck Ames as cribbed from a cautionary post-hippie novel. The kind of story where idealistic types end up starving out on a commune somewhere, flower crowns wilting to reveal a grim human nature hidden beneath. In first-generation style, Katrina’s mother, Maya, had staged a twofold rebellion against her immigrant parents. First, Maya insisted upon becoming an artist, and second she met in an art history class, and later insisted upon marrying, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn named Isaac. Before college, Isaac’s Zionist parents sent him to live on a kibbutz in Israel for a year. At eighteen, he volunteered for the Israeli military service, which nearly lost him his U.S. citizenship. Within the year, he found himself participating in the incursions into Lebanon that came to be known as the 1978 Operation Litani, a participation which, to his parents’ great dismay, disillusioned him to Zionism and, in the process, religion in general. He returned home with signs of what might now be called PTSD and convinced that his stint in the promised land made him some kind of farmer. This conviction remained with him throughout his romance with Maya, through his dropping out of college to elope with her, until at last, he spent an inheritance from his maternal grandmother on a tract of land in Vermont. At that point, as close to being a farmer as he’d ever been, he moved his newly pregnant wife away from her disapproving family to a drafty farmhouse on twenty acres of granite hills not far from the border with New Hampshire, promising to convert the back porch into a light-filled art studio for her work.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese thought it was natural that she didn’t bring Stanley to queer parties or spaces for what seemed to her complicated but obvious subcultural reasons. She was afraid of the things he might say, his big body and L. L. Bean—style among the sea of queer, cutoff black jeans; the way he’d take up space, make decrees, and just generally be triggering. Even if he kept his mouth shut, something he’d never shown much interest in doing, it’d be like bringing a water buffalo to a suburban pool party. Yes, that water buffalo might just be standing in the shallow end, gnawing happily on cud. But, still, no one was about to cannonball into the pool and splash around. Reese turned back to Iris, who blew smoke over her shoulder and held her cigarette in her particular way, arm almost straight, two fingers outstretched, as though she hoped to pass it to someone else. “Let’s cut temptation off at the root,” Reese said. “Let’s get out of this stupid park and go to some straight bar. Somewhere where we can get high on the ambient testosterone.” “What, like a bowling alley?” “C’mon. Pick a spot, I don’t care.” “Okay,” Iris agreed. But rather than make any move to pack up, Iris rose and sauntered over to Felicity. She bent to kiss her hellos, to hold out one hand in a light touch while her other kept her cigarette at a distance, but every time she could get away with it, she flashed a discreet but malevolent grin at Reese. Iris had a fifth gear of charm that she rarely bothered to engage, which she only ever shifted into to make trouble. “Reese, Reese,” Iris called after a minute, like a hostess at a fifties dinner party. “Come over here, there’s someone you just have to meet.” Felicity and Sebastian As a Girl watched as Reese stood, so that she had no moment to collect herself, straighten her clothes, pat her hair, or basically do anything but walk over to their little cluster as nonchalantly as possible to say “hey,” like the worst kind of bore, because what else was there to say after you made that kind of painfully laborious entrance? She couldn’t even stab Iris in the heart, because although at least that would have been more interesting, it might have made for a bad first impression. Felicity, whom Reese had met a few times before, greeted her with a lazy “Hey, girl,” which Reese returned before sticking out a limp but not too limp hand to Sebastian As a Girl. “Reese,” she said. “Amy,” said Amy, and gave Reese’s hand a light tug. “Sit with us.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  The cowboy calls as she cuts a lime for her beer, but she can’t bear facing him right then and lets the call go to voicemail. Then he texts: WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING WITH MY WIFE. A follow- up: Are you a fucking psycho? Yes, this is more in line with the drama she expected. The voicemail contains a lot of shouting about Reese being jealous and trying to ruin his life with her Fatal Attraction bullshit. Reese has never seen Fatal Attraction, so she doesn’t totally get the reference, other than to gather it’s clearly another way to call her a psycho. She admires that about her cowboy: He’s something of a cinephile. His message ends with a warning to stay away from him, and most of all, to stay the fuck away from his wife. She watches a trailer for Fatal Attraction on her phone, which makes the insult sharper, but also, she can’t help but notice that Glenn Close, the Reese analogue of the movie's affair, is clearly hotter and more magnetic than whichever actress plays the threatened wife. She imagines that her cowboy must be stalking the streets somewhere, shouting in a park. No way could he yell like that in his own place, with his wife around. She takes her second beer to the window and gazes past her own reflection onto the parked cars. A small man walks a small terrier of some sort, but otherwise, the sidewalks are empty. In a moment of fantasy, Reese tries to calculate whether the cowboy might show up at her place, might try something to hurt her. But no, that isn’t his way. He will simply withdraw himself from her, withhold himself, perhaps indefinitely. That has always been the best way to hurt Reese anyhow. Iris answers the door and glares at Ames from under her rumpled hair, a silk robe wrapped haphazardly about her. “What the fuck, Amy, it’s one in the morning.” Before Ames can answer, Iris gestures him in. “Do you think you can wake her? I don’t want her to wake up to a man in her bedroom.” Iris rolls her eyes and jerks her thumb. “Up the stairs, Freddy Krueger.” Ames follows Iris down a linoleum corridor and up a flight of stairs, into a cozy space with geometric rugs. “Hold on,” Iris instructs, and then goes into a room dimly illuminated with some sort of colored LED lighting, from which Ames hears the murmur of a distinctly male voice, then Iris reemerges and goes into another door. A moment later, Reese comes out, blearily staring at Ames. “What the fuck? It’s one A.M.” 9 I “Thank you!” Iris says. Then she glances in her room. “Maybe we can both put on some music so we don’t hear each other?” Reese waves her hand. “Yeah, girl, get back to it.” Iris glares once more at Ames then shuts her door behind her.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  After a thorough examination and lengthy discussion, Dr. Greene and I decide on the mini pill. She writes me a prepaid prescription and instructs me to pick the pills up tomorrow. I love her no-nonsense attitude—she has lectured me until she’s as blue as her dress about taking it at the same time every day. And I can tell she’s burning with curiosity about my so-called relationship with Mr. Grey. I don’t give her any details. Somehow I don’t think she’d look so calm and collected if she’d seen his Red Room of Pain. I blush as we pass its closed door and head back downstairs to the art gallery that is Christian’s living room. Christian is reading, seated on his couch. A breathtaking aria is playing on the music system, swirling around him, cocooning him, filling the room with a sweet, soulful song. For a moment, he looks serene. He turns and glances at us when we enter and smiles warmly at me. “Are you done?” he asks as if he’s genuinely interested. He points the remote at a sleek white box beneath the fireplace that houses his iPod, and the exquisite melody fades but continues in the background. Standing, he strolls toward us. “Yes, Mr. Grey. Look after her; she’s a beautiful, bright young woman.” Christian is taken aback—as am I. What an inappropriate thing for a doctor to say. Is she giving him some kind of not-so-subtle warning? Christian recovers himself. “I fully intend to,” he mutters, bemused. Gazing at him, I shrug, embarrassed. “I’ll send you my bill,” she says crisply as she shakes his hand. “Good day, and good luck to you, Ana.” She smiles, her eyes crinkling, as we shake hands. Taylor appears from nowhere to escort her through the double doors and out to the elevator. How does he do that? Where does he lurk? “How was that?” Christian asks. “Fine, thank you. She said that I had to abstain from all sexual activity for the next four weeks.” Christian’s mouth drops open in shock, and I cannot keep a straight face any longer and grin at him like an idiot. “Gotcha!” He narrows his eyes, and I immediately stop laughing. In fact, he looks rather forbidding. Oh, shit. My subconscious quails in the corner as all the blood drains from my face, and I imagine him putting me across his knee again. “Gotcha!” he says and smirks. He grabs me around my waist and pulls me up against him. “You are incorrigible, Miss Steele.” He stares into my eyes as he weaves his fingers through my hair, holding me firmly in place. He kisses me, hard, and I cling to his muscular arms for support. “As much as I’d like to take you here and now, you need to eat and so do I. I don’t want you passing out on me later,” he murmurs against my lips. “Is that all you want me for—my body?” I whisper.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I huff. “Mostly he was courteous, formal, slightly stuffy—like he’s old before his time. He doesn’t talk like a man of twentysomething. How old is he, anyway?” “Twenty-seven. Ana, I’m sorry. I should have briefed you, but I was in such a panic. Let me have the recorder and I’ll start transcribing the interview.” “You look better. Did you eat your soup?” I’m eager to change the subject. “Yes, and it was delicious as usual. I’m feeling much better.” She smiles in gratitude. I check my watch. “I have to run. I can still make my shift at Clayton’s.” “Ana, you’ll be exhausted.” “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.” I’ve worked at Clayton’s since I started at WSU. It’s the largest independent hardware store in the Portland area, and over the four years I’ve worked here, I’ve come to know a little bit about most everything we sell—although ironically, I’m crap at any DIY. I leave all that to my dad. I’m glad I can make my shift, as it gives me something to focus on that isn’t Christian Grey. We’re busy—it’s the start of the summer season, and folks are redecorating their homes. Mrs. Clayton looks relieved to see me. “Ana! I thought you weren’t going to make it today.” “My appointment didn’t take as long as I thought. I can do a couple of hours.” “I’m real pleased to see you.” She sends me to the storeroom to start restocking shelves, and I’m soon absorbed in the task. When I arrive home later, Katherine is wearing headphones and working on her laptop. Her nose is still pink, but she has her teeth into a story, so she’s concentrating and typing furiously. I’m thoroughly drained, exhausted by the long drive, the grueling interview, and being swamped at Clayton’s. I slump onto the couch, thinking about the essay I have to finish and all the studying I haven’t done today because I was holed up with…him. “You’ve got some good stuff here, Ana. Well done. I can’t believe you didn’t take him up on his offer to show you around. He obviously wanted to spend more time with you.” She gives me a fleeting quizzical look. I flush, and my heart rate increases. That wasn’t the reason, surely. He just wanted to show me around so I could see that he was lord of all he surveyed. I realize I’m biting my lip, and I hope Kate doesn’t notice. But she seems absorbed in her transcription. “I hear what you mean about formal. Did you take any notes?” she asks. “Um…no, I didn’t.” “That’s fine. I can still make a fine article with this. Shame we don’t have some original stills. Good-looking son of a bitch, isn’t he?” “I suppose so.” I try hard to sound disinterested, and I think I succeed. “Oh, come on, Ana—even you can’t be immune to his looks.” She arches a perfect eyebrow at me.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Holy shit. He’s remembering the “gay” question. Once again, I’m mortified. In years to come, I know I’ll need intensive therapy to not feel this embarrassed every time I recall the moment. I start babbling about my mother—anything to block that memory. “My mom is wonderful. She’s an incurable romantic. She’s currently on her fourth husband.” Christian raises his eyebrows in surprise. “I miss her,” I continue. “She has Bob now. I just hope he can keep an eye on her and pick up the pieces when her harebrained schemes don’t go as planned.” I smile fondly. I haven’t seen my mom for so long. Christian is watching me intently, taking occasional sips of his coffee. I really shouldn’t look at his mouth. It’s unsettling. “Do you get along with your stepfather?” “Of course. I grew up with him. He’s the only father I know.” “And what’s he like?” “Ray? He’s…taciturn.” “That’s it?” Grey asks, surprised. I shrug. What does this man expect? My life story? “Taciturn like his stepdaughter,” Grey prompts. I refrain from rolling my eyes. “He likes soccer—European soccer especially—and bowling, and fly-fishing, and making furniture. He’s a carpenter. Ex-army.” “You lived with him?” “Yes. My mom met Husband Number Three when I was fifteen. I stayed with Ray.” He frowns as if he doesn’t understand. “You didn’t want to live with your mom?” he asks. This really is none of his business. “Husband Number Three lived in Texas. My home was in Montesano. And…you know, my mom was newly married.” I stop. My mom never talks about Husband Number Three. Where is Grey going with this? This is none of his business. Two can play at this game. “Tell me about your parents,” I ask. He shrugs. “My dad’s a lawyer; my mom is a pediatrician. They live in Seattle.” Oh…he’s had an affluent upbringing. And I wonder about a successful couple who adopts three kids, and one of them turns into a beautiful man who takes on the business world and conquers it single-handed. What drove him to be that way? His folks must be proud. “What do your siblings do?” “Elliot’s in construction, and my little sister is in Paris, studying cookery under some renowned French chef.” His eyes cloud with irritation. He doesn’t want to talk about his family or himself. “I hear Paris is lovely.” Why doesn’t he want to talk about his family? Is it because he’s adopted? “It’s beautiful. Have you been?” he asks, his irritation forgotten. “I’ve never left mainland USA.” So now we’re back to banalities. What is he hiding? “Would you like to go?” “To Paris?” I squeak. This has thrown me. Who wouldn’t want to go to Paris? “Of course,” I concede. “But it’s England that I’d really like to visit.” He cocks his head to one side, running his index finger across his lower lip. “Because?” Concentrate, Steele.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Grabbing my jacket, I dash into the bathroom and stare at my too-bright eyes, my flushed face—and my hair! Holy crap…just-fucked pigtails do not suit me, either. I hunt in the vanity unit for a brush and find a comb. It will have to do. I quickly tie back my hair while I despair at my clothes. Maybe I should take Christian up on his offer of clothes. My subconscious purses her lips and mouths the word ho. I ignore her. Struggling into my jacket, pleased that the cuffs cover the telltale patterns from his tie, I take a last anxious glance at myself in the mirror. This will have to do. I make my way into the main living room. “Here she is.” Christian stands from where he’s lounging on the couch. His expression is warm and appreciative. The sandy-haired woman beside him turns and beams at me, a full megawatt smile. She stands, too. She’s impeccably attired in a camel-colored fine knit sweater dress with matching shoes. She looks groomed, elegant, beautiful, and inside I die a little, knowing I look such a mess. “Mother, this is Anastasia Steele. Anastasia, this is Grace Trevelyan-Grey.” Dr. Trevelyan-Grey holds her hand out to me. T…for Trevelyan? His initial. “What a pleasure to meet you,” she murmurs. If I’m not mistaken, there is wonder and maybe stunned relief in her voice and a warm glow in her hazel eyes. I grasp her hand, and I can’t help but smile, returning her warmth. “Dr. Trevelyan-Grey,” I murmur. “Call me Grace.” She grins. Christian frowns but Grace continues, “I’m usually Dr. Trevelyan, and Mrs. Grey is my mother-in-law.” She winks at me and sits down. Christian takes his seat and motions for me to join him. “So how did you two meet?” Grace looks questioningly at Christian, unable to hide her curiosity. “Anastasia interviewed me for the student paper at WSU because I’m giving the commencement speech there this week.” Double crap. I’d forgotten that. “So you are graduating this week?” Grace asks. “Yes.” My cell phone starts ringing. Kate, I bet. “Excuse me.” It’s in the kitchen. I wander over and lean across the breakfast bar, not checking the number. “Kate.” “Dios mío! Ana!” Holy crap, it’s José. He sounds desperate. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to contact you. I need to see you, to apologize for my behavior on Friday. Why haven’t you returned my calls?” “Look, José, now’s not a good time.” I glance anxiously over at Christian, who’s watching me intently, his face impassive as he says something to his mom. I turn my back to him. “Where are you? Kate is being so evasive,” he whines. “I’m in Seattle.” “What are you doing in Seattle? Are you with him?” “José, I’ll call you later. I can’t talk to you now.” I hang up. I walk nonchalantly back to Christian and his mother. Grace is in full flow.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  With a name like Glamour Boutique, she had been naively expecting, well, glamour: three-way mirrors, flattering directional lighting, and sleek dresses hung sparingly on brushed metal rails. Instead, racks of clothing cramped the small space. The clothing mostly fell into two categories: frumpy or sexy, like the clientele wanted to either deflect all attention from themselves or wild out in one big skin-revealing splurge. In the back hung black latex and vinyl fetish gear, French maid outfits, schoolgirl ensembles, and frilly sissy party dresses. At the counter, the clerk, a goth girl with straight black hair and thick winged liner, rang up the purchase of a middle-aged man in golf clothes. The golfer kept his eyes fixed on the middle distance, refusing to make eye contact with anyone, which allowed Amy to examine him surreptitiously. Maybe he told his wife he’d gone golfing. Maybe he’d just finished a round of golf. Either way, a satin corset lay on the counter in front of him. The goth clerk met Amy’s glance briefly, gave a slight nod, then looked away tactfully. After the golfer left, the clerk watched Amy and Patrick without appearing to, her body language communicating that she presumed nothing. But Amy couldn’t help imagining what she thought. A tall balding man, and a young slender boy. She probably thinks I’m the sissy, Amy thought, and the thought both excited and ashamed her. Amy paused at a shelf of silicone breast forms. “Let me know if you want to try any,” the clerk said. She pointed at a mannequin wearing a bra and forms. “We have a special sheer bra with pockets that can hold them so that you can see the nipples. But you can also wear them in any regular bra.” Instinctively, Amy shook her head. Then she caught herself. “How much are they?” she asked. “Depends on the cup size. What size are you?” Amy didn’t know how to answer the question. Obviously, she had no breasts. The girl tried again. “What size bras do you have?” “T don’t know.” “Well, the sizes bigger than D are one-sixty for the forms, the smaller sizes are one-thirty. All the bras are forty.” “Can I see the C-cup?” Amy said. The girl appraised her. “I’m guessing you’re maybe a 34. But I can measure you if you want.” Rarely had Amy wanted something so badly. “No. I mean, yeah. Okay.” In the dressing room, which was a curtain pulled over a closet in the corner, the girl directed Amy to turn around. Amy wasn’t sure how, in this moment, she realized the girl was a transsexual. Some combination of aesthetics clicked into place. I’m getting a bra fitting from a transsexual! she told herself, not quite believing it. She wanted to ask the girl everything, but even more than that, she wanted to be cool. She didn’t want the girl to know what a creep she was. A creep who had jerked off to transsexual porn the night before.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  On the way to the train, Reese kept laughing, giddy and nervous, her whole body coiled with impish energy, as if they were on their way to pull off a hilarious prank. Amy kept attempting to calm Reese down, but each attempt agitated Reese more. By the time they got to the Unitarian church, to the little room rented for the orientation, Amy couldn’t explain Reese’s comportment any other way: Reese was acting weird. As she sat in the back, examining the other prospective adopters, Amy had to admit that she and Reese did not turn out to be very skilled at mom cosplay. No one but Reese wore heels or pearls. Most of the couples occupying the rows of plastic folding chairs appeared to be straight couples. Back by the coffee machine, four men, who Amy read as two couples of bears, sat in a row, looking like the bench at a football game. Toward the side of the room a man with long thin hair and a Lemmy chop-stache sat, apparently, alone—a terrifying-looking prospective single father in Amy’s opinion. One half of a dyke couple smiled at her and Reese, and Amy grinned back sheepishly. She thought she might start giggling, in a church laughter kind of way. Maybe Reese’s nervousness was natural. A young woman in a polo shirt began the presentation. Mostly it covered things that Amy had already learned researching the foster system online. Most of it she felt qualified to provide: She met the age and income requirements, and she’d even be able to provide a foster child a separate bedroom with a window—apparently a lot of kids shared rooms, and that caused problems. Amy hadn’t before heard the figure that ninety-five percent of the babies in the foster system had been exposed to drugs. That seemed awfully high. But perhaps it was so. A man in a checked collared shirt raised his hand. “Do you have any data on the outcomes of the kids after they turn eighteen?” The young woman giving the presentation, whose name was Consuela, grimaced perceptibly at the question, then recovered. “What kind of data or outcomes do you mean?” “Like earning figures, college acceptance.” “You want to know how much money the kids grow up to earn?” Amy inadvertently caught the eye of the man’s wife. She gave a barely perceptible shrug: He’s like this. “T wouldn’t put it like that,” the man protested. “I just was wondering about the data.” “No,” Consuela said. “We don’t keep data on the kids after they turn eighteen.” She hesitated. “But when thinking about kids who come from a background of neglect, separation, or even trauma, I would suggest that we engage with a more, um, robust, idea of what makes for success.”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  While cruising toward Interstate 5, my mind continues to wander. I’m truly perplexed as to what makes someone so driven to succeed. Some of his answers were so cryptic—as if he had a hidden agenda. And Kate’s questions—ugh! The adoption and asking him if he was gay! I shudder. I can’t believe I said that. Ground, swallow me up now! Every time I think of that question in the future, I will cringe with embarrassment. Damn Katherine Kavanagh! I check the speedometer. I’m driving more cautiously than I would on any other occasion. And I know it’s the memory of those piercing gray eyes gazing at me and a stern voice telling me to drive carefully. Shaking my head, I realize that Grey’s more like a man twice his age. Forget it, Ana, I scold myself. I decide that, all in all, it’s been a very interesting experience, but I shouldn’t dwell on it. Put it behind you. I never have to see him again. I’m immediately cheered by the thought. I switch on the stereo, and turn up the volume, sit back, and listen to thumping indie rock music as I press down on the accelerator. As I hit Interstate 5, I realize I can drive as fast as I want. We live in a small community of duplex apartments close to the Vancouver campus of WSU. I’m lucky—Kate’s parents bought the place for her, and I pay peanuts for rent. It’s been home for four years now. As I pull up outside, I know Kate is going to want a blow-by-blow account, and she’s tenacious. Well, at least she has the digital recorder. I hope I won’t have to elaborate much beyond what was said during the interview. “Ana! You’re back.” Kate sits in our living area, surrounded by books. She’s clearly been studying for finals—she’s still in her pink flannel pajamas decorated with cute little rabbits, the ones she reserves for the aftermath of breaking up with boyfriends, for assorted illnesses, and for general moody depression. She bounds up to me and hugs me hard. “I was beginning to worry. I expected you back sooner.” “Oh, I thought I made good time considering the interview ran over.” I wave the digital recorder at her. “Ana, thank you so much for doing this. I owe you, I know. How was it? What was he like?” Oh no—here we go, the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition. I struggle to answer her question. What can I say? “I’m glad it’s over and I don’t have to see him again. He was rather intimidating, you know.” I shrug. “He’s very focused, intense even—and young. Really young.” Kate gazes innocently at me. I frown. “Don’t you look so innocent. Why didn’t you give me a biography? He made me feel like such an idiot for skimping on basic research.” Kate clamps a hand to her mouth. “Jeez, Ana, I’m sorry—I didn’t think.”