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 39 of 79 · 20 per page

• From Cleanness (2020)

  But then Z. drew back, letting his arm fall from her shoulder, and looked at her in disbelief. He jerked his head in a single vertical motion, a decided no. He started to turn toward N. but the waitress pressed her hand to his chest and gestured for him to come back. She spoke longer this time, her hand on his chest, balancing the empty tray on the table. Now Z. did turn to N., shouting into his ear, and N. shouted to me in turn that to stay at the table we had to buy the gin. Okay, I shouted back, how much, and when he told me 160 leva, 80 euro, I burst out laughing, making Z. and N. laugh, too. But the woman didn’t laugh, she shrugged, all her seductiveness gone. It’s crazy, Z. shouted, but the alternative was to stand in the packed space between the bar and the booths, where you could hardly breathe, what would be the point of that, and so I pulled out my billfold. One night, I said, my throat already raw with shouting and with smoke, and they smiled and pulled out their wallets. No no, I said, wagging my forefinger, I didn’t want them to spend their money. I had gone to the bankomat earlier that day, my wallet was full of bills, and I drew out several to hand to the woman, who smiled again, opening the gin and a can of tonic and pouring us our first drinks before she spun away. There were maybe seven or eight tables in our corner of the room, almost all of them taken by groups of young people, some of them high school students, I thought, two or three couples gathered at each. N. waved to catch our attention, then pointed back to the entrance, nodding to Z. before he left. Z. mouthed something at me but I didn’t understand, the music was too loud, and after he repeated it to no avail he dropped his hands to his crotch and mimed a man pissing, his hand curled as if around an impossibly large cock. I laughed, both because it was funny and because it hid the other thing I felt. I mocked him, first holding my hand up, curled like his, making a doubtful face, and then I dropped both hands to my own crotch, as if holding a cock twice as large, three times, and Z. laughed too, a genuine laugh, I thought, though it wasn’t very funny, and both of us seemed a little embarrassed once the laughter had passed.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  other answer would have broken his heart. THERE WERE THREE men folding clothes in the back of the tailor shop when we came in. One of them walked over to us, a gray-skinned man with an Adam’s apple as big as a goiter. I had to force myself not to stare at it. Mr. Howard introduced him to me as Franz and me to him, without evident irony, as Mister Wolff. Franz inclined his head but did not offer to shake hands with me, nor did he speak. His eyes were milky. While Mr. Howard told Franz what we needed, Mrs. Howard sat down in one of a group of red leather chairs arranged around a frayed Oriental rug. Two white-haired men in dark suits were already seated there, both of them smoking cigars and dropping the ashes into columnar brass ashtrays filled with sand. The shop was panelled in dark wood. Fox-hunting prints hung between the tall mirrors. The plank floor was lustrous and covered with scraps of material and thread. One of the men said something to Mrs. Howard and she said something back. Then he looked at me. His nose was purple and bulbous. “Off to Hill, are you?” he said. “Yes sir.” “I used to wrestle against you fellows. Powerful team, Hill. A veritable juggernaut.” That was all he said. A few moments later he and the other man doused their cigars and left the shop. Mr. Howard led me to a mirror and Franz followed with an armful of jackets. Mr. Howard flipped through them until he found one that interested him. He had me put it on, then stood behind me and squinted at my reflection. “Do you have this in a darker tweed?” “Yesss,” Franz said heavily. “Let’s see it.” Franz brought another jacket. Mr. Howard made me turn this way and that, button the jacket, unbutton it. “The sleeves are long,” he said. Franz measured the sleeves and made a notation in the ledger he carried. Mr. Howard sent me to the changing room to try on a suit, then again to try on another one. Franz took the measurements and pinned the cuffs but he registered

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  A typical Paula touch. Our “flock,” as Paula called it, grew rapidly. New, terror-stricken faces appeared every week or two. Paula took the new members in hand, inviting them out to lunch, teaching, charming, and spiritualizing them. Soon we were so large we had to split into two groups of eight, and I introduced some psychiatric residents as coleaders. All the members resisted the splitting; it threatened the integrity of the family. I suggested a compromise: we would meet as two separate groups for an hour and a quarter and then, in the final fifteen minutes, merge so that the two groups could inform one another of the details of their meetings . The meetings were powerful and dealt, I believe, with issues that were more painful than any group had ever dared to face before. Meeting after meeting, members came in with new metastases, new tragedies; each time we found a way to offer presence and comfort to each stricken person. Occasionally, if someone were too weak, too close to death to attend, we would hold the group meeting in that member’s bedroom. There was no topic too difficult for the group to discuss, and Paula played an important role in every critical discussion. One meeting, for example, began with a member named Eva speaking of envying a friend who that week had very suddenly and unexpectedly died in her sleep of a coronary. “That’s the best way to go,” Eva proclaimed. But Paula took issue with Eva and suggested that instant death is a tragic death. I felt embarrassed for Paula. Why, I wondered to myself, is she compelled to commit herself to such ludicrous positions? Who could disagree with Eva’s position that dying in your sleep is a good way to go? With her usual persuasiveness, however, Paula gracefully elaborated on her point of view that sudden death is the worst death. “You need time, much unhurried time,” she said, “to prepare others for your death—your husband, friends, and, most of all, your children. You need to attend to life’s unfinished business. For surely your projects are important enough not to be discarded casually. They deserve to be completed or resolved. Otherwise, what meaning does your life contain? “Furthermore,” she concluded, “dying is a part of life. To miss it, to sleep through it, is to miss one of life’s great adventures.” Eva, herself a formidable presence, was, however, to have the final word: “Say what you want, Paula, I still envy my friend’s sudden death. I’ve always loved surprises.” The group soon became well known in the Stanford community. Students—psychiatric residents, nurses, classes of undergraduates—began observing the meetings through the one-way mirror. Sometimes the pain in the group was too much to bear, and students ran from the observation room in tears. But they always returned.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Rather than a lot of things. For example, rather than turning inward to consider and discuss and digest the meaning of the feedback. How it felt, whether or not it rang true, what it stirred up inside, how you felt about my saying it to you.” “Well, okay. To be honest, I’m really surprised to hear you say you find me attractive. You don’t act that way toward me.” “I do think you’re attractive, but here, in this office, I’m more interested in a deeper meeting with you: with your essence, with your—I know it sounds corny—but with your soul.” “Maybe I shouldn’t persist”—Myrna felt the energy going out of her question—“but my physical appearance is important to me, and I’m still curious about how you experience me—what features about my appearance are attractive to you, and that other question about what might have happened if we had met socially rather than professionally?” I’m being crucified, Ernest whimpered to himself. His worst nightmare about the here-and-now had come to pass. He had played out all his options. He had always feared that one day he would be cornered like this. The typical therapist would, of course, not answer the question but would reflect it back to her and explore all its implications: Why do you ask this question? And why now? And what were your underlying fantasies? How would you want me to respond? But this option was not available for Ernest. Having based his therapeutic approach squarely on authentic engagement, he couldn’t abandon it now and turn back to convention. Nothing to do now but hold on to his integrity and dive into the cold pool of truth. “Physically, you’re attractive in every way—pretty face, wonderful glossy hair, terrific figure—” “By ‘figure,’ you mean my breasts?” interrupted Myrna, arching her back ever so slightly. “Well, yes, everything—your carriage—grooming—slim—everything.” “Sometimes it seems you stare at my breasts—or at my blouse buttons.” Myrna felt a flush of pity and added, “A lot of men do.” “If I do, I’m not aware of it,” said Ernest. Too flustered to do what he knew he should—encourage her to express in depth her feelings about her appearance, including her breasts—he tried to scramble back to safe ground. “But, as I said, I do think of you as an attractive woman.” “Does that mean you might come on to me—I mean in this hypothetical situation?” “Well, I’m not in the singles world—been in a relationship for a while—but if I project myself back to that era, I’d say you’d pass all my physical checkpoints. But some of the other things we’ve been discussing would give me pause.” “Such as?”

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  The women’s movement sought to eliminate deep-rooted gender inequalities and to unearth the structures that perpetuated male domination in all spheres of life, including sexuality. It challenged the double standard that encouraged sexual experimentation by men, even seeing it as a necessary developmental stage, but forbade that same curiosity in women. This same double standard demanded sexual loyalty from women, while turning a blind eye on roaming men because “That’s how men are.” (There are still countries today where a man can murder his unfaithful wife with no legal repercussions whatsoever. In some cultures, killing her is the only way to restore his honor and that of his family.) Gender differences and their ensuing taboos and prohibitions had long been viewed as categorical imperatives, biologically rooted and therefore immutable. Feminism showed that these undisputed truisms and characterizations were, in fact, social constructions that reinforced a long-standing gender ordering—one that obviously favored men. Books like Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Women’s Room aimed to restore a sense of sexual ownership to women, both legally and psychologically, and to free them from the constraints that had governed female sexuality. Female sexual pleasure could not be set free until women were relatively safe from the traditional and very real dangers associated with sex. Sexually transmitted diseases, rape, and unwanted pregnancy brought not only shame but also ruination, and childbirth always carried the threat of fatality. Early feminists were much more interested in the subject of sexual sovereignty than in the subject of pleasure. First things first, they thought. As long as men completely dominate business and political life, as long as women are economically dependent on men, as long as the burden of child care falls wholly on women’s shoulders (toppling even the most egalitarian couples), you cannot speak of a liberated female sexuality. Undeniably, American feminists achieved momentous improvements in all these aspects of women’s lives; and no real freedom, sexual or other, is conceivable without them. But these improvements also smuggled in some unintended consequences. Without denigrating those historically significant achievements, I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire for men and women alike. The Bounded Space of Eroticism Elizabeth and Vito have worked hard to have an equitable marriage, but sex takes them to another place. The power differential that would be unacceptable in her emotional relationship with Vito is precisely what excites Elizabeth erotically. At first, when she discloses her sexual predilection, she is embarrassed. It doesn’t fit her image of herself as a liberated, powerful woman. “I’ve struggled to accept what turns me on. For a long time I was disturbed by my fantasies.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 289: _i.e._ a hypocritical sham devotee, covering a lewd life with an appearance of sanctity.] Pietro perceived that words were not like to fail her for all that night; wherefore, as one who recked little of her, 'Wife,' said he, 'no more for the present; I will content thee aright of this matter; but thou wilt do us a great courtesy to let us have somewhat to sup withal, for that meseemeth this lad, like myself, hath not yet supped.' 'Certes, no,' answered the lady, 'he hath not yet supped; for we were sitting down to table, when thou camest in thine ill hour.' 'Go, then,' rejoined Pietro, 'contrive that we may sup, and after I will order this matter on such wise that thou shalt have no cause to complain.' The lady, finding that her husband was satisfied, arose and caused straightway reset the table; then, letting bring the supper she had prepared, she supped merrily in company with her caitiff of a husband and the young man. After supper, what Pietro devised for the satisfaction of all three hath escaped my mind; but this much I know that on the following morning the youth was escorted back to the public place, not altogether certain which he had the more been that night, wife or husband. Wherefore, dear my ladies, this will I say to you, 'Whoso doth it to you, do you it to him'; and if you cannot presently, keep it in mind till such time as you can, so he may get as good as he giveth." * * * * * Dioneo having made an end of his story, which had been less laughed at by the ladies [than usual], more for shamefastness than for the little delight they took therein, the queen, seeing the end of her sovranty come, rose to her feet and putting off the laurel crown, set it blithely on Elisa's head, saying, "With you, madam, henceforth it resteth to command." Elisa, accepting the honour, did even as it had been done before her, in that, having first, to the satisfaction of the company, taken order with the seneschal for that whereof there was need for the time of her governance, she said, "We have many a time heard how, by dint of smart sayings and ready repartees and prompt advisements, many have availed with an apt retort[290] to take the edge off other folks' teeth or to fend off imminent perils; and, for that the matter is goodly and may be useful,[291] I will that to-morrow, with God's aid, it be discoursed within these terms, to wit, OF WHOSO, BEING ASSAILED WITH SOME JIBING SPEECH, HATH VINDICATED HIMSELF OR HATH WITH SOME READY REPLY OR ADVISEMENT ESCAPED LOSS, PERIL OR SHAME." [Footnote 290: Lit. a due or deserved bite (_debito morso_). I mention this to show the connection with teeth.]

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Female sexual pleasure could not be set free until women were relatively safe from the traditional and very real dangers associated with sex. Sexually transmitted diseases, rape, and unwanted pregnancy brought not only shame but also ruination, and childbirth always carried the threat of fatality. Early feminists were much more interested in the subject of sexual sovereignty than in the subject of pleasure. First things first, they thought. As long as men completely dominate business and political life, as long as women are economically dependent on men, as long as the burden of child care falls wholly on women’s shoulders (toppling even the most egalitarian couples), you cannot speak of a liberated female sexuality. Undeniably, American feminists achieved momentous improvements in all these aspects of women’s lives; and no real freedom, sexual or other, is conceivable without them. But these improvements also smuggled in some unintended consequences. Without denigrating those historically significant achievements, I do believe that the emphasis on egalitarian and respectful sex—purged of any expressions of power, aggression, and transgression—is antithetical to erotic desire for men and women alike. The Bounded Space of Eroticism Elizabeth and Vito have worked hard to have an equitable marriage, but sex takes them to another place. The power differential that would be unacceptable in her emotional relationship with Vito is precisely what excites Elizabeth erotically. At first, when she discloses her sexual predilection, she is embarrassed. It doesn’t fit her image of herself as a liberated, powerful woman. “I’ve struggled to accept what turns me on. For a long time I was disturbed by my fantasies. Submission just isn’t me. It took me years to reconcile what arouses me with my political beliefs. Somewhere in the midst of marriage, kids, and career, I realized that it was time to stop hiding, to stop pretending, and most of all to stop apologizing for who I was and what I hungered for in the world. Getting older helps. I don’t feel as if I have to justify myself. Maybe that’s the meaning of sexual liberation.” A lot of women find their desire for sexual submission hard to accept. But stepping out of ourselves is exactly what eroticism allows us to do. In eros, we trample on cultural restrictions; the prohibitions we so vigorously uphold in the light are often the ones we enjoy transgressing in the dark. It’s an alternative space where we can safely experience our taboos. The erotic imagination has the force to override reason, convention, and social barriers. The more I point to the tensions in these epiphanies of pleasure, the more relieved Elizabeth seems. I continue, “Of course nothing is scarier than a true loss of control in ‘reality.’ But the point of fantasy is that it allows you to transcend the moral and psychological constraints of your everyday life.” In the liberating expression of sexuality we give in to our unruly impulses and the disavowed, lurid parts of ourselves.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I even tried, for her, to achieve things that had never particularly interested me. Mina realized now what she had started and how difficult it all was; that was why she watched us so closely, as if stimulated by everything that seemed to defy fate in this situation. I allowed her to check my progress and swallowed my pride. I learned, for instance, with some displeasure that I shaved badly and not often enough and that people made remarks, behind my back, about how carelessly I dressed, about my noticeably North-African accent when I spoke French, and about the violence of my language. So Mina assumed the task of educating me. She was quite pitiless about it and pointed out to me each time there was a trace of tattletale gray about my collar, or a button missing from my jacket, or any stain that should be removed, or a tear that needed mending. At any other moment, I would have answered that my appearance didn’t matter to me, which wasn’t really true, and I would have demanded the right to be free in my violent criticism of the histrionics and the bowing and curtseying that characterized most of my friends. But Ginou was worth all this discipline to me. She was a middle-class girl, Mina would remind me, each time I feebly protested.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  Weeks later, when the event rolled around, I willed myself to have an open mind and a breezy attitude, slipping into what had now become my Maria-is-trying-to-masturbate robe and lighting candles around my bedroom. Saida was joined by Simone Niles, a sound healer and vocalist. The masturbation meditation began with a sound bath as we sunk into our bodies and channeled a meditative headspace. Saida directed us to “smile to our yonis” and to explore, play, and breathe. After some warm-up movements and exercises, we cupped our yonis with one hand and put our hands on our hearts with the other. At one point she encouraged us to locate tension in our bodies and to let it go; I realized my jaw was locked shut, my arms were crossed tightly across my chest, and my brow was furrowed, like a cartoon of an angry person. I tried to release the tension, focusing on my breath and imagining breathing into my vulva. Over the next many minutes Saida demonstrated on her hand a series of motions we were to try on our vulvas. One of the first I found quite appealing—covering our vulvas with one hand, and using the other hand to tap on top of that hand. That woke me right up. But staying with sensation, as we traced our clits and explored our inner lips and vaginal openings with our fingers, I kept snapping out of it—first, to lock eyes with the portrait of Regis Philbin that hangs in my bedroom; then, flipping over only to come face-to-face with my Danny DeVito pillow. After an hour, I closed my laptop. That evening I talked to Ryan, the thirty-year-old man who has been masturbating the same way since he was thirteen, about mindful masturbation. He was curious but skeptical. After a cursory Google search, he told me it seemed like the technique was more catered to women. Nonetheless, he said he was going to try it. He asked me if I needed any photos or videos for my research and I said, respectfully, no. Please no. He texted me a few days later. “Per our convo, I went out of my way to make it less of a chore and give myself the kind of love I would give someone else. It was much more enjoyable.” I, however, needed more help. I needed more direction. I needed a coach. 6 I GOT A SEX COACH “What neuroplasticity really means is that we’re rewiring the brain by rewriting our narratives. It’s the road to sexual self-realization.” —Dr. Patti Britton, certified sex coach

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  I asked him to describe the fleshlight-using type. “I would guess it’s the kind of person who uses solo sex as a replacement for partnered sex, as opposed to a distinct thing,” he said. This sentiment comes up a lot—that masturbating, with sex toys specifically, is something you do when you can’t get real sex. “I’m not going to rub my dick with a fake vagina because then it’s bad sex as opposed to a good kind of entertainment,” he said. Using a fleshlight is a less-good approximation of sex, he reasons, so why even try to replicate the real thing? He masturbates with his hands and has zero intention of upgrading. I floated the idea of a butt plug. This, too, was unthinkable to him. Sex tech can help us discover pleasure in unexplored (or previously off-limits) areas of our bodies, and we can use this information to improve both unsatisfying partnered sex and solo sex. Years ago, I’d tried li’l baby butt plugs a few times while writing my sex column, but I’d never jammed them in deep enough to feel pleasure. I’d also had a somewhat harrowing anal experience with a partner, which is standard when there isn’t lots of warm-up and lots of lube, since the butt famously does not self-lubricate. The Tilt, the Lora DiCarlo prostate/G-spot stimulator, can go into your butt or vagina. (To find the G-spot, which should more accurately be called the G area, DiCarlo recommends using one’s fingers to feel around for a spongy walnut texture deep in the vaginal canal.)* The device is the size of a palm and big enough to scare me. When my new products arrived in the mail, I lit some dollar store candles, tucked the Tilt away in a drawer so it couldn’t look at me, told Bucatina her mommy was sorry, and grabbed Osé 2, the giant C-shaped robot that would “suck” on my clit on one end and rumble in my vaginal canal on the other. After lubing it up and bending it to fit my unique “pelvic angle,” I sunk into my couch. I took a deep breath, remembering that breath is my inner lover. I took another deep breath, remembering an embarrassing incident from that morning when I mimed curtseying to the mailman after he handed me my New Yorker. I turned on the device.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Fortunately, the delay was not long, and the great day soon came. Our apartment was already invaded at dawn by all the women of our family and of the building. There was work enough for all: food had to be prepared, furniture moved out, Mother and the babies to be looked after, our terrace to be decorated. But there were too many women around and they all got in each other’s way, took nasty cracks at each other, and then sulked, finally uttering sudden cries of joy. I was already aware of my own dignity as a man and despised these women who were all noisy and changing in their moods like children. Their pointless excitement was like that of hens, especially when, looking up and staring straight ahead, with the chin thrust forward, they suddenly uttered long and loud cries of joy in the Oriental manner. At first, I thought of trying to be useful, but they soon steered me away toward the street. I would never have obeyed them had I really thought that they had come together in my honor. Besides, the presence of all these strangers, busied with tasks that were normally my mother’s, irritated me considerably. The comings and goings of aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors, through the wide-open door, never ceased. I no longer felt at all at home. Because it was so public, my party seemed no longer to be so much my own.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The merest glimpse of a woman’s skin upset me. An uncovered knee or an open blouse caused me such embarrassment that I was forced to look away. But my embarrassment itself was so obvious, and my efforts to keep from looking so violent, that they made the women far more self-conscious than if I had insistently stared. Their quick defensive gestures of pulling down a skirt or fixing a blouse told me that my involuntary aggressiveness had been perfectly well noticed. This left me feeling miserably guilty, so that I found it painful to approach any woman. I had never been able to participate in the sexual games of boys. When I was told that one of the older pupils offered to caress, with enough skill to cause an orgasm, anyone who wished, I refused with scorn and horror. My comrades organized these parties of collective pleasure out on a vacant lot not far from the school. Apparently, they all lined up with their back to the wall and Giacomo passed up the row one by one. I was the only one in the boarding-school common room not to talk of my adventures or to describe with delectation the sexual attributes of men and women a thousand times a day. To me, such promiscuity was repulsive; besides, what had I to tell? Nevertheless, shy though I was, I was forced to admit that my sexual and general isolation were becoming unbearable and that my secret demanded to be shared with another.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  There were as yet but few customers. The women chatted among themselves like housewives on their doorsteps. Some smiled at us, perhaps because we were so young and so obviously embarrassed. Like in a novel, a big brunette said, and I am sure it was to me, a phrase I knew well and was at last really hearing: “Won’t you come in, darling?” Enchanted and petrified, I hardly dared look at her and, unable to smile, I went by obediently at the same pace as Bissor. Bissor had a plan. He stopped in front of a plump little woman with a pleasant face and a pointed nose. She was dressed in a short blue frock with big celluloid buttons well spaced out all the way down the front. They smiled and greeted each other: “I’ve brought you a friend. Be kind to him, he’s nice.” She turned to go into her cell. She had said not a word to me, hardly looked at me. I did not, of course, expect her to welcome me in and shake hands formally. Still, I was taken aback. In any case I had expected nothing, and anything would have surprised me as much. I hesitated in the doorway, daring neither to enter nor to leave and awaiting God only knows what. Bissor gave me a push in the back, and I found myself inside a tiny rectangular room, as narrow as a corridor, so narrow that the sparse furniture had had to be placed along the two walls. She had just finished putting a sheet of rubber cloth on the iron bed. She came back to shut the door and, as there was not room enough for two between the bed and the wall, she pushed me with her hand against the little table, covered with a newspaper, on which were crowded all sorts of combs and creams and women’s magazines. The mere contact of her hand, of the body I was about to possess, upset me. This pressure already seemed familiar and promising to me, and I tried to catch her eye to express to her my budding tenderness. But her back was turned and she was preparing herself.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  I spent a recent afternoon jerking off a woman with my computer cursor. My hands clammy with sweat, I rubbed the white arrow up, across, and down her clitoris, just as she had instructed me in a tutorial video. “Accent one part, just like that,” Diana said breathily. Her vulva spread across my whole screen; I could see the contours of every shaved hair follicle. When I moved my cursor across the clit, the skin rippled to reflect the pressure. The level of realism almost disturbed me: I was interacting with an item that I have owned, on my body, for over three decades, yet have never properly investigated. On the recommendation of a sex therapist I interviewed, I was perusing OMGYes.com, an encyclopedia of masturbation techniques and tips for people with vulvas, featuring instructional (and graphic) videos, animations, and diagrams of moves to enhance pleasure. The original series highlights twelve “ingredients to enhance pleasure,” drawing from the collective wisdom of two thousand cis women aged eighteen to ninety-five. There are twelve modules you can explore, each with videos of women talking about a specific technique, ranging from edging to “orbiting” (which is exactly what it sounds like—the clitoris is the sun, your finger a planet), and demonstrating on their own vulvas. I started with the “accenting” module. “Accenting” is their term for upgrading a repetitive motion by adding extra pressure to one portion of the movement. You can “accent” a down stroke, an up stroke, or a segment of a circle. “Pleasure isn’t symmetrical—and giving the clit more or less attention on different areas can actually feel much better than treating all parts the same,” the video description reads. I felt attacked! I certainly do not grant my clit that degree of nuance. I rub it until what needs to happen happens. When I think about going down on a partner with a penis, or using my hands on someone else—then, I have technique! The thoughtfulness with which I handle other people’s genitalia, compared to the carelessness with which I handle my own, reminded me of Ryan, the masturbator who speeds through masturbation but takes his sweet time to pleasure others. I’ve never been a big masturbator, and it’s been a lifelong insecurity. I didn’t masturbate as an adolescent, just sort of recreationally touched my vulva around the house, and bystanders were kind enough not to say anything. I only started in college, begrudgingly, because a suitemate found out I didn’t and said I had to try it, as though masturbation were Zumba (big at the time). I’d never even seen porn before, so she showed that to me, too. I wasn’t moved by the visuals—I couldn’t find anything that aroused me the way my own sick thoughts of Alan Rickman did—but I eventually figured out how to touch myself until it felt good.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Why do I wave to Momma in my dream? I stopped waving years ago. How many? Maybe decades. Perhaps it was that afternoon over half a century ago, when I was eight and she took me to the Sylvan, the neighborhood movie theater around the corner from my father’s store. Though there were many empty seats, she plunked herself down next to one of the neighborhood toughs, a boy a year older than I. “That seat’s saved, lady,” he growled. “Yeah, yeah! Saved!” my mother replied contemptuously as she made herself comfortable. “He’s saving seats, the big shot!” she announced to everyone within earshot. I tried to vanish into the maroon velvet seat cushion. Later, in the darkened theater, I summoned courage, turned my head slowly. There he was, now sitting a few rows back next to his friend. No mistake, they were glaring and pointing at me. One of them shook his fist, mouthed, “Later!” Momma ruined the Sylvan Theater for me. It was now enemy territory. Off limits, at least in daylight. If I wanted to keep up with the Saturday serial—Buck Rogers, Batman, The Green Hornet, The Phantom—I had to arrive after the show started, take my seat in the darkness, at the very rear of the theater, as close to an escape door as possible, and depart just before the lights went on again. In my neighborhood nothing took precedence over avoiding the major calamity of being beaten up. To be punched—not hard to imagine: a bop on the chin, and that’s it. Or slugged, slapped, kicked, cut—same thing. But beaten up—ohmygod. Where does it end? What’s left of you? You’re out of the game, forever pinned with the “got beat up” label. And waving to Momma? Why would I wave now when, year after year, I lived with her on terms of unbroken enmity? She was vain, controlling, intrusive, suspicious, spiteful, highly opinionated, and abysmally ignorant (but intelligent—even I could see that). Never, not once, do I remember sharing a warm moment with her. Never once did I take pride in her or think, I’m so glad she’s my momma. She had a poisonous tongue and a spiteful word about everyone—except my father and sister.

• From The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon (2009)

  In this greeting, the “you” is plural. But that phrase “grace and peace” appears as in the greeting of every single one of Paul’s seven authentic letters. We will, therefore, leave it for now, but return to consider it in much greater detail in Chapter 4. After the greeting Paul continues with his usual thanksgiving element: When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother. (4–7) Paul’s thanksgiving verses usually interweave recipient, God, and Christ. Read, for example, what he says in 1 Thessalonians 1:2–3 and 1 Corinthians 1:4–9. And when Paul writes, for example, to the Philippians from the Ephesian prison, he says, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3–5). At a first glance, therefore, this thanksgiving element in Philemon is not at all unusual. The “you” in the greeting is plural, but in this thanksgiving the “you” is singular, focusing on Philemon himself. Although the letter involves a personal matter, it is not a private one. It also involves the twice mentioned “saints” (5, 7). What makes this thanksgiving strikingly unusual is what comes immediately after it. What follows it turns the thanksgiving into what Latin rhetoric calls captatio benevolentiae (“capturing your benevolence”) and we might call “laying it on thick.” It is like the fulsome praise of a person’s generosity that precedes a request for a loan. For a moment think of yourself in Philemon’s place. You are first addressed as Paul’s “dear friend and co-worker,” then praised for “your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus,” and finally termed “my brother.” Then, as you bask among those accolades, you are hit with this: For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. (8–9) First, notice that, whether Paul commands or appeals, it is a matter of Philemon’s duty. Whatever it is, Philemon should do it without any command or appeal from Paul or anyone else. Poor Philemon is forced—abruptly and tersely—to face these three words in this sequential relationship: command DUTY appeal It is not just a matter of Paul’s appeal or command but, before either option, a matter of Philemon’s duty. Ouch!

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  The radical truth is that in my deeply normal commitment to the bit of being confident and fuckable, I’ve tiptoed around the ugliness of my sexual history and of bad sex more specifically, doing myself and my readers a disservice. Most of the bad sex we have isn’t funny or even that interesting, and we’re not always the righteous heroes we believe ourselves to be. Straight men aren’t the only reason sex is horrible for so many people, though they certainly put in the work. I’ve never claimed my sex life was charmed (still, I pray every ex believes it so), but even in my writing about bad sex, I’ve tended to keep my complicity—and the more mundane, quotidian badness of it—to myself, locked in my skull, where it can rattle around to circus music until I die. I’m embarrassed to know so much about sex, and to have had so much of it, but to still feel so disenfranchised in my sexual relationships, nearly a decade after accusing all men of being sex losers. Yet my reluctance to examine that which I find most embarrassing—total resignation to chronic displeasure—perpetuates the well-documented problem1 of people believing that everyone else is having better and more sex than them, which makes us mopey about our sex lives, which makes our sex lives worse, which makes us even mopier, and on and on. This book aims to dispel these myths about other people’s sex lives, and to deflate their importance, while we’re at it: your sex life is the only sex life that matters. But your sexual problems aren’t as personal as they feel. We don’t need to feel this great, individual shame, when so many of us are united in it. We’ve done the best we could with the horrible tools we’ve been given. This book proposes better tools. To help make your sex lives more beautiful, more fulfilling, and more not bad, I’ve put my own sex life on the line, experimenting with practices designed to help us realize our authentic sexual selves, from masturbation meditations to sex cleanses. I hope that one or more of them are useful to you, or at the very least amusing. Sexual healing is not one-size-fits-all, and neither are butt plugs (more on that later). These tools are fundamentally limited, as they call on the individual to adapt, rather than the society that fucked up the individual. But many of the pleasure practices recommended to me by sex therapists, BDSM educators, and even vibrator designers have helped me and others access deeper understandings of our sexualities.

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  My first time using a sex toy is immortalized in a blog post that earned me twenty-five dollars (before tax) called “I Used a Vibrator for the First Time Today.” There are few benefits to mining one’s personal life for rent money, but one of them is that the internet acts as a sort of second brain, storing memories I’ve since repressed because they’re humiliating. The downside is that the internet is littered with my most humiliating memories. A later article called “I Wore Vibrating Underwear While Doing My Daily Errands,” published as part of my Vice column, Sex Machina, officially cemented my status as person unable to be hired in any other field. While writing Sex Machina, I explored the intersections of sex and technology through a personal lens, writing hard-hitting first-person accounts of using royal wedding–themed sex toys, oral sex–simulating sex toys, and a $2,000 vibrating sex machine called the Cowgirl, which is twenty-five pounds and as big as a torso, with a dildo on top for you to ride. “In general, people are now more accepting of sex toys,” Alicia Sinclair, a sex educator who designed the Cowgirl, told me at the time, in 2018. “I think we’re going to see more people investing in larger sex toys, whether it’s this one or sex furniture or larger vibrators. Especially folks who are at that point in their sexual timeline asking, ‘What else is there? What’s next?’” In my article, I continued, “That’s right—vibrators can be unapologetic statement pieces; they can be high-end and luxurious and so, so clearly for sex. A far cry from those looks-like-lipstick or could-just-be-a-ring vibrators; you put the thing on a couch or a bed or the floor, and you ride it, on top of any number of pulsating phallic attachments you adjust to your liking. It looks like a giant, sturdy saddle, atop of which you put the dildo or vibrator. And it’s fucking loud.” A few years later, sex tech has become even more ubiquitous. The pandemic and, more specifically, the crushing isolation of quarantine spurred a massive sex toy boom, with brands reporting up to 200 percent increases in sales.1 But this doesn’t necessarily speak to society’s comfort level with unapologetically sexual technology. It was still important to Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, that the Goop vibrator she released be “pretty and cool,” “intellectual,” and not “hypersexualized.” Celebrities from Cara Delevingne to Dakota Johnson became outspoken about their sex toy use and signed on to work for their favorite brands—Lora DiCarlo and Maude, respectively. While I enjoy Maude’s products, their branding is intentionally, aggressively discreet, with minimalist vibrators shaped like teardrops and lubricant dispensers that are dead ringers for hand soap in fancy restaurant bathrooms, rendering both unidentifiable as sex-related to the untrained eye.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  She laughed, uncertain, then inhaled from a cigarette. Its lit end flared. The tale had fallen flat. If I’d been Phoebe, I’d have replied with tactful questions to help the conversation along. With a light joke, a quick grace note, I’d put this woman, plus all the listeners, at ease. I lacked such skill; instead, I smiled, polite. I excused myself to find a cocktail. It was childish, but I started revising the night. The next time I talked to Phoebe, I’d retell it as the kind of outsize frolic she’d wish she hadn’t missed. I’d gild the event, adding the six-piece jazz band, a hired waltzing troupe. Pop champagne to spout, like liquid mirth, from jeroboam bottles. Twirl the partiers. Set them to dance beneath the jasmine, florets dangling like bells from white-limbed pergolas. The Phelps’ house was also in Shichahai, less than a mile from my apartment. I left the party on foot, but I hadn’t walked much in Beijing. Within minutes, I was lost. I kept walking. It was a dense, hot night again, the slight wind blood-temperature. Girls on bicycles spun past, black triangle seats wedged between taut buttocks. No one knew where I was in the old, ill-lit alleys, the zigzag streets of the hutong, and not a soul could find me. It seemed the quiet the hermit seeks in the wild or the stylite on his post might be realized here, like this, amid Beijing’s chaos. I felt free, blameless: I’d have liked to be lost all night. Too soon, I happened upon the stalls of street-food hawkers. Steam coiled up in a haze from grills and open pots. I asked for directions at the last cart in my college Mandarin. The peddler replied, but I didn’t understand him. The couple waiting in line heard the exchange, and, laughing, said they’d help. While they sketched a map, I noticed a girl who stopped to purchase food. In the occult light of the hawker’s cart, I saw the upturned stub of a nose, a flat bob streaked peacock-blue. She held a translucent plastic backpack with nothing inside. Despite the childish bag, she looked about my age. She had excess baby fat, the kind of flesh a person can grab. Upon receiving the change for a scallion pancake, she inspected the coins, slanting them to the light. Then, she bit into the fried cake; broad front teeth tugged free a long, tantalizing shred of bright green. Inhaling, she sucked both lips clean of oil. She looked nothing like Phoebe, but in relishing the treat, the obvious appetite—it brought my absent girlfriend to mind. We’d fought, again. I hadn’t talked to Phoebe in almost a week. She left; I thanked the couple, then I followed the girl.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  Monsieur de Vendome and the princess, to prolong the scene, hid their faces against each other, and laughed so heartily that they could not speak. The chamber- woman, seeing they did not budge for her rebuke, or show any signs of rising, went to drag them out of bed by the legs and arms ; but then she perceived by their dresses that they were not what she took them for. The moment she recognized their faces she fell on her knees, and implored their pardon for the fault she had committed in disturbing them. Monsieur de Vendome, wishing to know more of the matter, got up at once, and begged the good woman to tell him for whom she had taken them. At first she would not do so ; but after making him promise on oath that he would never men- tion it, she told him that the cause of her mistake was a demoiselle belonging to the house, with whom a pro- tbonotary * was in love ; and she had long watched them, * The office of Apostolic Prothonotary was instituted in the early times of the Romish Church by Pope Clement I. There were originally twelve such officers, and their duty was to write the lives of the saints and the other apostolic records. Gradually their number increased, and their functions diminished in importance, so that in the fifteenth century the title of prothonotary was merely an honorary dignity conferred as a matter of course on doctors of theology of noble family, or otherwise of a certain importance. Brantome says, in the beginning of his 28th Discours on the great captains and illustrious men of France: "Monsieur de I'Escun, brother of M. de Lautrec, was a good captain, but more intrepid and valiant than remarkable for the morality of his conduct. He had been destined for the long robe, and studied for a long time at Pavia in the time of the grand master Chaumont. when Milan was in our peaceable possession. He was called the Prothonotary of Foix, but I think he was what the Spaniard calls vii letrado que nt tenia muchas letras — that is to say, a litcratiis who had little acquaintance with letters ; and indeed it was usual in those days with prothonotaries, and even with those of good family, not to have Sei'enth day.-] QUEEN OF NA VARRE. 507 because she was vexed that her mistress put confidence in a man who offered her such an affront. She then re- tired, and left the prince and princess shut in as she had found them. They laughed long at the adventure ; and though they often told the tale, nevertheless they would never name the persons for whom they had been mis- taken. You see, ladies, how the good woman, thinking to do a righteous act, informed these princely strangers of things whereof the domestics of the house had never heard a word.*