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.

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• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Some people, women more than men, aren’t aware of fantasizing at all. Others fantasize primarily about exciting events that actually occurred in the past, perhaps with a few embellishments. Another common form of fantasy is imagining sexual possibilities you hope might happen one day—as when you daydream about a sexy stranger whom you pass each day on the way to work. Keep in mind, however, that fantasies don’t necessarily bear any relationship to real life. If you grant yourself the freedom to do so, you can enjoy, within the sanctuary of your mind, fantasy scenarios that you would never want to experience in reality. Many people are confused on this point, mostly because they haven’t allowed themselves to experiment sufficiently with the infinite flexibility of fantasy. At the most basic level, many people are confused about what, exactly, a fantasy is, so I included this statement in the SES: An erotic fantasy is an image, thought, or feeling within your mind that is sexually interesting to you. Some people think of fantasy as a sexual daydream. Maybe it turns you on just a little bit—so little that you hardly notice. Or maybe it turns you on a great deal. Sexual fantasies may or may not make your body become aroused. A fantasy can be triggered by something you actually see or hear (for example, an attractive person or an erotic picture or story) or it can just pop into your mind out of the blue. It’s very common for people to have fantasies while they masturbate, but it’s also common for people to fantasize while having sex with a partner or while doing virtually anything else. People have many different kinds of sexual fantasies, and some people say they have none at all. A fantasy may be a simple or elaborate story—perhaps based on a past experience, a hoped-for encounter, or a totally imaginary scene. I ask that you pay close attention to your fantasies and how they help to turn you on—even if you think your fantasies are boring, silly, or uninteresting. Remember that a fantasy does not have to be a big production in order to be important. Three of the SES’s most important and provocative questions direct your attention to the imaginative creations of your erotic mind: 1. Imagine yourself really wanting to be sexually aroused but, for some reason, you’re not. Based on everything you know about your sexuality, describe the fantasy that would be the very most likely to arouse you. 2. What are your ideas about what makes this fantasy so exciting? 3. Describe the “climax”—the most intense point of excitement—of this fantasy. Although the SES asks you to focus on one favorite fantasy, feel free to recall as many as you like. You may have a wide variety of fantasies. If so, jot them down. The question about the climax of your fantasy is intended to help you identify the specific details that intensify your excitement.

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

  To begin with, no reader of the last two chapters will be inclined to doubt the fact that objects do excite bodily changes by a preorganized mechanism, or the farther fact that the changes are so indefinitely numerous and subtle that the entire organism may be called a sounding-board, which every change of consciousness, however slight, may make reverberate. The various permutations and combinations of which these organic activities are susceptible make it abstractly possible that no shade of emotion, however slight, should be without a bodily reverberation as unique, when taken in its totality, as is the mental mood itself. The immense number of parts modified in each emotion is what makes it so difficult for us to reproduce in cold blood the total and integral expression of any one of them. We may catch the trick with the voluntary muscles, but fail with the skin, glands, heart, and other viscera. Just as an artificially imitated sneeze lacks something of the reality, so the attempt to imitate an emotion in the absence of its normal instigating cause is apt to be rather 'hollow.' The next thing to be noticed is this, that every one of the bodily changes, whatsoever it be, is FELT, acutely or obscurely, the moment it occurs. If the reader has never paid attention to this matter, he will be both interested and astonished to learn how many different local bodily feelings he can detect in himself as characteristic of his various emotional moods. It would be perhaps too much to expect him to arrest the tide of any strong gust of passion for the sake of any such curious analysis as this; but he can observe more tranquil states, and that may be assumed here to be true of the greater which is shown to be true of the less. Our whole cubic capacity is sensibly alive; and each morsel of it contributes its pulsations of feeling, dim or sharp, pleasant, painful, or dubious, to that sense of personality that every one of us unfailingly carries with him. It is surprising what little items give accent to these complexes of sensibility. When worried by any slight trouble, one may find that the focus of one's bodily consciousness is the contraction, often quite inconsiderable, of the eyes and brows. When momentarily embarrassed, it is something in the pharynx that compels either a swallow, a clearing of the throat, or a slight cough; and so on for as many more instances as might be named.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  We’ll have to find something else to do: So everyone please look in their shoe!” As each person took their own shoe out of the basket, there was a roar of laughter. Inside each shoe was a little wrapped package addressed to its owner. Yours, Anne Dearest Kitty, A bad case of flu has prevented me from writing to you until today. Being sick here is dreadful. With every cough, I had to duck under the blanket -- once, twice, three times -- and try to keep from coughing anymore. Most of the time the tickle refused to go away, so I had to drink milk with honey, sugar or cough drops. I get dizzy just thinking about all the cures I’ve been subjected to: sweating out the fever, steam treatment, wet compresses, dry compresses, hot drinks, swabbing my throat, lying still, heating pad, hot-water bottles, lemonade and, every two hours, the thermometer. Will these remedies really make you better? The worst part was when Mr. Dussel decided to play doctor and lay his pomaded head on my bare chest to listen to the sounds. Not only did his hair tickle, but I was embarrassed, even though he went to school thirty years ago and does have some kind of medical degree. Why should he lay his head on my heart? After all, he’s not my boyfriend! For that matter, he wouldn’t be able to tell a healthy sound from an unhealthy one. He’d have to have his ears cleaned first, since he’s becoming alarmingly hard of hearing. But enough about my illness. I’m fit as a fiddle again. I’ve grown almost half an inch and gained two pounds. I’m pale, but itching to get back to my books. Ausnahmsweise* (the only word that will do here [* By way of exception]), we’re all getting on well together. No squabbles, though that probably won’t last long. There hasn’t been such peace and quiet in this house for at least six months. Bep is still in isolation, but any day now her sister will no longer be contagious. For Christmas, we’re getting extra cooking oil, candy and molasses. For Hanukkah, Mr. Dussel gave Mrs. van Daan and Mother a beautiful cake, which he’d asked Miep to bake. On top of all the work she has to do! Margot and I received a brooch made out of

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON JANUARY 22, 1944: I wouldn’t be able to write that kind of thing anymore. Now that I’m rereading my diary after a year and a half, I’m surprised at my childish innocence. Deep down I know I could never be that innocent again, however much I’d like to be. I can understand the mood chanaes and the comments about Margot, Mother and Father as if I’d written them only yesterday, but I can’t imagine writina so openly about other matters. It embarrasses me areatly to read the panes dealina with subjects that I remembered as beina nicer than they actually were. My descriptions are so indelicate. But enouah of that. I can also understand my homesickness and yearning for Moortje. The whole time I’ve been here I’ve longed unconsciously and at times consciously for trust, love and physical affection. This longing may change in intensity, but it’s always there. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1942 Dear Kitty, The British have finally scored a few successes in Africa and Stalingrad hasn’t fallen yet, so the men are happy and we had coffee and tea this morning. For the rest, nothing special to report. This week I’ve been reading a lot and doing little work. That’s the way things ought to be. That’s surely the road to success. Mother and I are getting along better lately, but we’re never close. Father’s not very open about his feelings, but he’s the same sweetheart he’s always been. We lit the stove a few days ago and the entire room is still filled with smoke. I prefer central heating, and I’m probably not the only one. Margot’s a stinker (there’s no other word for it), a constant source of irritation, morning, noon and night. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1942 Dearest Kitty, Mother’s nerves are very much on edge, and that doesn’t bode well for me. Is it just a coincidence that Father and Mother never scold Margot and always blame me for everything? Last night, for example, Margot was reading a book with beautiful illustrations; she got up and put the book aside for later. I wasn’t doing anything, so I picked it up and began looking at the pictures. Margot carne back, saw’ “her” book in my hands, knitted her brow and angrily demanded the book back. I wanted to look through it some more. Margot got madder by the minute, and Mother butted in: “Margot was reading that book; give it back to her.” Father came in, and without even knowing what was going on, saw that Margot was being wronged and lashed out at me: “I’d like to see what you’d do if Margot was looking at one of your books!” I promptly gave in, put the book down and, according to them, left the room’ ‘in a huff.” I was neither huffy nor cross, but merely sad. It wasn’t right of Father to pass judgment without knowing what the issue was.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Prince Bernhard recently announced that Princess juliana is expecting a baby in January, which I think is wonderful. No one here understands why I take such an interest in the Royal Family. A few nights ago I was the topic of discussion, and we all decided I was an ignoramus. As a result, I threw myself into my schoolwork the next day, since I have little desire to still be a freshman when I’m fourteen or fifteen. The fact that I’m hardly allowed to read anything was also discussed. At the moment, Mother’s reading Gentlemen, Wives and Servants, and of course I’m not allowed to read it (though Margot is!). First I have to be more intellectually developed, like my genius of a sister. Then we discussed my ignorance of philosophy, psychology and physiology (I immediately looked up these big words in the dictionary!). It’s true, I don’t know anything about these subjects. But maybe I’ll be smarter next year! I’ve come to the shocking conclusion that I have only one long-sleeved dress and three cardigans to wear in the winter. Father’s given me permission to knit a white wool sweater; the yarn isn’t very pretty, but it’ll be warm, and that’s what counts. Some of our clothing was left with friends, but unfortunately we won’t be able to get to it until after the war. Provided it’s still there, of course. I’d just finished writing something about Mrs. van Daan when she walked into the room. Thump, I slammed the book shut. “Hey, Anne, can’t I even take a peek?” “No, Mrs. van Daan.” “Just the last page then?” “No, not even the last page, Mrs. van Daan.” Of course, I nearly died, since that particular page contained a rather unflattering description of her. There’s something happening every day, but I’m too tired and lazy to write it all down. Yours, Anne

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I’d be mortified in front of a man like that. In addition, it mentions Eva’s menstruation. Oh, I long to get my period -- then I’ll really be grown up. Daddy is grumbling again and threatening to take away my diary. Oh, horror of horrors! From now on, I’m going to hide it. Anne Frank WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1942 I imagine that. . . I’ve gone to Switzerland. Daddy and I sleep in one room, while the boys’. study is turned into a sitting room, where I can receive visitors. As a surprise, they’ve bought new furniture for me, including a tea table, a desk, armchairs and a divan. Everything’s simply wonderful. After a few days Daddy gives me 150 guilders -- converted into Swiss money, of course, but I’ll call them guilders -- and tells me to buy everything I think I’ll need, all for myself. (Later on, I get a guilder a week, which I can also use to buy whatever I want.) I set off with Bernd and buy: 3 cotton undershirts @ 0.50 = 1.50 3 cotton underpants @ 0.50 = 1.50 3 wool undershirts @ O. 75 = 2.25 3 wool underpants @ O. 75 = 2.25 2 petticoats @ 0.50 = 1.00 2 bras (smallest size) @ 0.50 = 1.00 5 pajamas @ 1.00 =5.00 1 summer robe @ 2.50 = 2.50 1 winter robe @ 3.00 = 3.00 2 bed jackets @ O. 75 = 1.50 . Anne’s cousins Bernhard (Bernd) and Stephan Elias. 1 small pillow @ 1.00 = 1.00 1 pair of lightweight slippers @ 1.00 = 1.00 1 pair of warm slippers @ 1.50 = 1.50 1 pair of summer shoes (school) @ 1.50 = 1.50 1 pair of summer shoes (dressy) @ 2.00 = 2.00 1 pair of winter shoes (school) @ 2.50 = 2.50 1 pair of winter shoes (dressy) @ 3.00 = 3.00 2 aprons@ 0.50 = 1.00 25 handkerchiefs @ 0.05 = 1.00 4 pairs of silk stockings @ 0.75 = 3.00 4 pairs of kneesocks @ 0.50 = 2.00 4 pairs of socks @ 0.25 = 1.00 2 pairs of thick stockings @ 1.00 = 2.00 3 skeins of white yarn (underwear, cap) = 1.50 3 skeins of blue yarn (sweater, skirt) = 1.50 3 skeins of variegated yarn (cap, scarf) = 1.50 Scarves, belts, collars, buttons = 1.25 Plus 2 school dresses (summer), 2 school dresses (winter), 2 good dresses (sumr.ner), 2 good dresses (winter), 1 summer skirt, 1 good winter skirt, 1 school winter skirt, 1 raincoat, 1 summer coat, 1 winter coat, 2 hats, 2 caps. For a total of 10g.00 guilders. 2 purses, 1 ice-skating outfit, 1 pair of skates, 1 case (containing powder, skin cream, foundation cream, cleansing cream, suntan lotion, cotton, first-aid kit, rouge, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, bath salts, bath powder, eau de cologne, soap, powder puff). Plus 4 sweaters @ 1.50,4 blouses @ 1.00, miscellaneous items @ 10.00 and books, presents @ 4.50.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Nancy’s insights emboldened Burt to observe himself the next time Nancy pleasured him. “When Nancy was stroking my inner thighs and balls last week,” Burt explained, “I wanted to push her away even though it felt terrific. I guess I don’t like being in the spotlight.” By consciously resisting his urge to flee from the receptive position, he saw how he had learned to compensate for feeling unattractive by focusing on stimulating his lovers. Burt wasn’t guilty about pleasure the way Nancy was. He just couldn’t believe that anyone could genuinely want him to lie back and do nothing but enjoy. Burt also acknowledged that, like many men, he had trouble with the passivity of receiving pleasure. “Guys are supposed to be doing something,” he said. “I feel like I’m slacking off on the job.” Nancy and Burt’s inhibitions about pleasure were so thoroughly ingrained that only careful, courageous self-observation uncovered them. They took the risk of disclosing difficult, embarrassing feelings and attitudes they had concealed even from themselves. Gradually, the naughty thrills that once defined and limited their eroticism yielded to a pleasure-based approach. Sometimes they missed the heart-pounding intensity of overcoming so many obstacles on the road to passion. But the deepening bond between them brought a whole new dimension to their lovemaking. As you can see, sensuous touch is a potent tool for healing, self-awareness, and simple enjoyment. It can also help you recognize hidden anxieties about pleasure, anxieties that aren’t pleasant to confront but necessary if your eroticism is to evolve. Touch isn’t the only way to come to your senses. Dancing, stretching, walking, or other forms of exercise offer opportunities to rediscover the joy of spontaneous movement and the vitality and strength that flow from it. Although these activities may seem far removed from sex, they all reconnect you with your body—the fountain of eros. STEP 6:RISK THE UNFAMILIARTherapists and clients alike often share a mistaken belief that gaining insight into the hidden roots of troublesome symptoms leads directly to more fulfilling behaviors. Although this notion holds an obvious appeal, it can also blind us to the complex realities of growth. Rarely is change automatic, no matter how insightful you are, especially when you’re grappling with long-established patterns. I’m not suggesting that self-awareness is useless, just that it promotes change only insofar as it emboldens you to try something out of the ordinary. Those who insist on spontaneous, “natural” change inevitably stick to the status quo—the only thing that truly comes naturally. Insights call your attention to the kinds of risks that are necessary. Then, if you can rise to the occasion, your courageous, unnatural choices will yield far more results than any amount of armchair analysis.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Sometimes he comes downstairs to get me, but that’s awkward too, because in spite of all his precautions his face turns bright red and he can hardly get the words out of his mouth. I’m glad I don’t blush; it must be extremely unpleasant. Besides, it bothers me that Margot has to sit downstairs all by herself, while I’m upstairs enjoying Peter’s company. But what can I do about it? I wouldn’t mind it if she came, but she’d just be the odd one out, sitting there like a lump on a log. I’ve had to listen to countless remarks about our sudden friendship. I can’t tell you how often the conversation at meals has been about an Annex wedding, should the war last another five years. Do we take any notice of this parental chitchat? Hardly, since it’s all so silly. Have my parents forgotten that they were young once? Apparently they have. At any rate, they laugh at us when we’re serious, and they’re serious when we’re joking. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, or whether we’ll run out of things to say. But if it goes on like this, we’ll eventually be able to be together without talking. If only his parents would stop acting so strangely. It’s probably because they don’t like seeing me so often; Peter and I certainly never tell them what we talk about. Imagine if they knew we were discussing such intimate things. I’d like to ask Peter whether he knows what girls look like down there. I don’t think boys are as complicated as girls. You can easily see what boys look like in photographs or pictures of male nudes, but with women it’s different. In women, the genitals, or whatever they’re called, are hidden between their legs. Peter has probably never seen a girl up close. To tell you the truth, neither have I. Boys are a lot easier. How on earth would I go about describing a girl’s parts? I can tell from what he said that he doesn’t know exactly how it all fits together. He was talking about the “Muttermund,” [* cervix], but that’s on the inside, where you can’t see it. Everything’s pretty well arranged in us women. Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn’t realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn’t see them. What’s even funnier is that I thought urine came out of the clitoris. I asked Mother one time what that little bump was, and she said she didn’t know. She can really play dumb when she wants to! But to get back to the subject. How on earth can you explain what it all looks like without any models? Shall I try anyway? Okay, here goes! When you’re standing up, all you see from the front is hair.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  He had to think about that one; he said he’d tell me tonight. I told him what had happened to Jacque, and said that girls are defenseless against strong boys. “Well, you don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said. When I came back that evening, he told me how it is with boys. Slightly embarrassing, but still awfully nice to be able to discuss it with him. Neither he nor I had ever imagined we’d be able to talk so openly to a girl or a boy, respectively, about such intimate matters. I think I know everything now. He told me a lot about what he called Prasentivmitteln* [* Should be Praservativmitteln: prophylactics] in German. That night in the bathroom Margot and I were talking about Bram and Trees, two friends of hers. This morning I was in for a nasty surprise: after breakfast Peter beckoned me upstairs. “That was a dirty trick you played on me,” he said. “I heard what you and Margot were saying in the bathroom last night. I think you just wanted to find out how much Peter knew and then have a good laugh!” I was stunned! I did everything I could to talk him out of that outrageous idea; I could understand how he must have felt, but it just wasn’t true! “Oh no, Peter,” I said. “I’d never be so mean. I told you I wouldn’t pass on anything you said to me and I won’t. To put on an act like that and then deliberately be so mean. . . No,Peter, that’s not my idea ofa joke. It wouldn’t be fair. I didn’t say anything, honest. Won’t you believe me?” He assured me he did, but I think we’ll have to talk about it again sometime. I’ve done nothing all day but worry about it. Thank goodness he came right out and said what was on his mind. Imagine if he’d gone around thinking I could be that mean. He’s so sweet! Now I’ll have to tell him everything! Yours, Anne FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 1944 Dear Kitty, I often go up to Peter’s room after dinner nowadays to breathe in the fresh evening air. You can get around to meaningful conversations more quickly in the dark than with the sun tickling your face. It’s cozy and snug sitting beside him on a chair and looking outside. The van Daans and Dussel make the silliest remarks when I disappear into his room. “Annes zweite Heimat,”* [* Anne’s second home] they say, or “Is it proper for a gentleman to receive young girls in his room at night with the lights out?” Peter has amazing presence of mind in the face of these so-called witticisms. My mother, incidentally, is also bursting with curiosity and simply dying to ask what we talk about, only she’s secretly afraid I’d refuse to answer. Peter says the grown-ups are just jealous because we’re young and that we shouldn’t take their obnoxious comments to heart.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Why is she making me act so religious and devout? Tomorrow we’re going to light the stove for the first time. The chimney hasn’t been swept in ages, so the room is bound to fill with smoke. Let’s hope the thing draws! Yours, Anne MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942 Dear Kitty, Bep stayed with us Friday evening. It was fun, but she didn’t sleep very well because she’d drunk some wine. For the rest, there’s nothing special to report. I had an awful headache yesterday and went to bed early. Margot’s being exasperating again. This morning I began sorting out an index card file from the office, because it’d fallen over and gotten all mixed up. Before long I was going nuts. I asked Margot and Peter to help, but they were too lazy, so I put it away. I’m not crazy enough to do it all by myself! Anne Frank PS. I forgot to mention the important news that I’m probably going to get my period soon. I can tell because I keep finding a whitish smear in my panties, and Mother predicted it would start soon. I can hardly wait. It’s such a momentous event. Too bad I can’t use sanitary napkins, but you can’t get them anymore, and Mama’s tampons can be used only by women who’ve had a baby. COMMENT ADDED BY ANNE ON JANUARY 22, 1944: I wouldn’t be able to write that kind of thing anymore. Now that I’m rereading my diary after a year and a half, I’m surprised at my childish innocence. Deep down I know I could never be that innocent again, however much I’d like to be. I can understand the mood chanaes and the comments about Margot, Mother and Father as if I’d written them only yesterday, but I can’t imagine writina so openly about other matters. It embarrasses me areatly to read the panes dealina with subjects that I

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

  The second Evangelist combines in his name, as well as in his mission, the Hebrew and the Roman, and is a connecting link between Peter and Paul, but more especially a pupil and companion of the former, so that his Gospel may properly be called the Gospel of Peter. His original name was John or Johanan (i.e., Jehovah is gracious, Gotthold) his surname was Mark (i.e., Mallet).943 The surname supplanted the Hebrew name in his later life, as Peter supplanted Simon, and Paul supplanted Saul. The change marked the transition of Christianity from the Jews to the Gentiles. He is frequently mentioned in the Acts and the Epistles.944 He was the son of a certain Mary who lived at Jerusalem and offered her house, at great risk no doubt in that critical period of persecution, to the Christian disciples for devotional meetings. Peter repaired to that house after his deliverance from prison (A.D. 44). This accounts for the close intimacy of Mark with Peter; he was probably converted through him, and hence called his spiritual "son" (1 Pet. 5:13).945 He may have had a superficial acquaintance with Christ; for he is probably identical with that unnamed "young man" who, according to his own report, left his "linen cloth and fled naked" from Gethsemane in the night of betrayal (Mark 14:51). He would hardly have mentioned such a trifling incident, unless it had a special significance for him as the turning-point in his life. Lange ingeniously conjectures that his mother owned the garden of Gethsemane or a house close by. Mark accompanied Paul and Barnabas as their minister (uJphrevth") on their first great missionary journey; but left them half-way, being discouraged, it seems, by the arduous work, and returned to his mother in Jerusalem. For this reason Paul refused to take him on his next tour, while Barnabas was willing to overlook his temporary weakness (Acts 15:38). There was a "sharp contention" on that occasion between these good men, probably in connection with the more serious collision between Paul and Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2:11 sqq.). Paul was moved by a stern sense of duty; Barnabas by a kindly feeling for his cousin.946 But the alienation was only temporary. For about ten years afterwards (63) Paul speaks of Mark at Rome as one of his few "fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God," who had been "a comfort" to him in his imprisonment; and he commends him to the brethren in Asia Minor on his intended visit (Col. 4:10, 11; Philem. 24). In his last Epistle he charges Timothy to bring Mark with him to Rome on the ground that he was "useful to him for ministering" (2 Tim. 4:11). We find him again in company with Peter at "Baby]on," whether that be on the Euphrates, or, more probably, at Rome (1 Pet. 5:3). These are the last notices of him in the New Testament.

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

  Further up there was a hairpin bend in the track. On one side there was a ditch which acted as a dumping ground and, every time we passed, we noticed that its contents had mysteriously changed: the carcasses of agricultural machinery, the Cyclops heads of washing machines, etc. On the other side a pale coloured rock ran along it for several metres, shear like a wall. Despite the intensity of reflected light, it was one of our elected stopping points, because there too the smooth rocks comfortably accommodated the palms of my hands, but also – and why not? – because we unconsciously liked to feel that our bodies came from the jumble around us. As there were no leaves to wipe ourselves with, and we didn’t always think to come equipped with handkerchiefs I would stay turned towards my rock for a few moments, with my legs apart, watching the cum falling from my pussy onto the ground in a lazy drool the same whitish colour as the rocks. Further up again, on top of the plateau, the track ended in a huddle of trees where the remains of picnics sometimes mingled with the dry bushes, and which might have offered a bit more shade. But we stopped there only a few times. You had to get there in the first place and, when we did, the business had often already been seen to. Jacques would not have been able to resist the undulating buttocks under the skirt or shorts in front of him, their movement as regular as breathing, marking out the rhythm as I walked; while I would be making the ascent absorbed in the thought of his gaze on me, giving me plenty of time to ready my snatch whose opening I can only compare to a baby bird’s tirelessly gaping beak.

• From A Grief Observed (1961)

  I cannot talk to the children about her. The moment I try, there appears on their faces neither grief, nor love, nor fear, nor pity, but the most fatal of all non-conductors, embarrassment. They look as if I were committing an indecency. They are longing for me to stop. I felt just the same after my own mother’s death when my father mentioned her. I can’t blame them. It’s the way boys are. I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do. And not only in boyhood. Or are the boys right? What would H. herself think of this terrible little notebook to which I come back and back? Are these jottings morbid? I once read the sentence ‘I lay awake all night with toothache, thinking about toothache and about lying awake.’ That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. Do these notes merely aggravate that side of it? Merely confirm the monotonous, tread-mill march of the mind round one subject? But what am I to do? I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now. By writing it all down (all?—no: one thought in a hundred) I believe I get a little outside it. That’s how I’d defend it to H. But ten to one she’d see a hole in the defence. It isn’t only the boys either. An odd byproduct of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet. At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate it if they do, and if they don’t. Some funk it altogether. R. has been avoiding me for a week. I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can. Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers. To some I’m worse than an embarrassment. I am a death’s head. Whenever I meet a happily married pair I can feel them both thinking, ‘One or other of us must some day be as he is now.’

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  The truth is that we’re selling software that lets companies, most of them small businesses, sell more stuff. The world of online marketing, where HubSpot operates, has a reputation for being kind of grubby. In addition to pool installers and flower shops, our customers include people who make a living bombarding people with email offers, or gaming Google’s search algorithm, or figuring out which kind of misleading subject line is most likely to trick someone into opening a message. Online marketing is not quite as sleazy as Internet porn, but it’s not much better, either. Nevertheless, Dave is laying it on thick, and the new recruits are nodding their heads and seem to be eating it up. Most of them are right out of college, clean-cut and well scrubbed. The guys wear khakis and button-down shirts. The women wear jeans and boots, and lots of makeup, and they have paid attention to their hair. The guy next to me has a buzz cut and just graduated from some college in New Hampshire. He tells me that he lives with his parents and commutes an hour to get here, but he’s thinking about moving closer to Boston and getting his own place. I feel ridiculous. I definitely don’t belong here. When it’s my turn to tell a little something about myself, I make a joke about how I’m friends with all of their parents, who have sent me here to keep an eye on them. The joke falls flat, which it should, because it’s a shit joke. I’m nervous. I have to come up with something. What makes me a special snowflake? How am I different from everyone else here, other than the fact that my hair is gray, my cholesterol is too high, and I’m probably the only person in this room who has had a colonoscopy? I say something about being the parent of twins. The other recruits just look at me. Dave ushers in a parade of executives who give us inspiring talks about what a great company we’ve joined. I’m not only older than all of the other trainees, I’m also older than all of the executives. Assistant trainers lead various courses during the day and give us homework assignments. A woman named Patty does most of the training on how to use HubSpot’s software. What we’re selling is not one single product but actually a handful of separate programs that can be purchased individually or as a bundle. The bad news is that some of the programs aren’t especially good. I’ve already been using the content management system, or CMS, which is software for writing and editing blog posts, and it’s awful—buggy, slow, prone to crashing, incredibly limited in its functionality. HubSpot’s CMS is a tinker toy compared to WordPress, the most popular blogging software, which also costs nothing to use.

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

  Romain was very gentle, almost indolent underneath a virile outward appearance, his leather jacket slung over a bachelor’s un-ironed T-shirt. Yet another who lived in a studio on Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the least cluttered one I knew. We fucked on a mattress on the carpet, in the middle of the room, as the overhead light hit me full on. The first time I kept on looking at the light bulb and didn’t realise that he’d ejaculated. Weightless, his chest lay over mine, his head turned away. The only living thing that I could feel was the odd strand of his long hair brushing over my mouth and chin. I had hardly felt him penetrate, he had scarcely executed a few weak thrusts. I too lay motionless, embarrassed. I wouldn’t have wanted to disturb him if he hadn’t finished, but if that was the case wasn’t it my job to make my presence known and get him going again? But if I started moving after he had done would I not look stupid? Eventually I felt something running right at the top of my thigh, a bit of sperm spat out by my vagina. Romain’s organ was a good size, it got off quite happily but it was completely passive. If I had wanted to personify his cock, I could have compared it to a novice who doesn’t move from his chair when all the participants in a ceremony rise to their feet: you felt no more the urge to rebuke him than you would the inept novice. As I spread my legs under this youth, I had almost a sense of comfort from feeling nothing, nothing nice, but nothing nasty either.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  But these aren’t journalists. An awkward silence has fallen over the conference room. In a gentle voice, the voice you might use to persuade a lunatic to put down the gun and step away from the schoolchildren, Deb says, “You know, Dan, some of the people here in our group today belong to that personality type. Surely you’re not going to strangle any of the people in this room, are you?” I try to backpedal and explain that I was making a joke, but it’s too late. They’re all staring at me. They don’t look afraid; they look appalled. Later, after the meeting breaks up, I pull Dave aside and apologize for my outburst. “No, that was great,” he says, with a tight smile, quickly turning away. “Thank you for being honest.” Which I think means, Thanks for ruining my training session, asshole. It occurs to me that spending twenty-five years surrounded by journalists has not prepared me for life in the outside world. Civilians is one term journalists use to describe non-journalists. Another is laypeople. Or normals. As I’m now finding out, it’s one thing to write about the normal, and quite another to work among them. This business of personal reinvention is going to be more difficult than I thought. Six Our Cult Leader Has a Really Awesome Teddy Bear One morning in early July, about ten weeks after I’ve arrived at HubSpot, everyone in the marketing department receives word from Spinner, our peppy, ponytailed PR person, that Dharmesh has just posted an awesome article on LinkedIn, and it would be awesome if we could all use our Twitter and Facebook accounts to promote the article and drive lots of traffic to it so that it can go viral and blow up the Internet. Spinner is in her early thirties and has never worked at a tech company before. She’s married, and has an MBA from Sloan (that’s the MIT business school), and was captain of her college volleyball team. Spinner has a GSD attitude and is a total team player. She is filled with school spirit! “Go HubSpot Go!” she exclaims in emails addressed to the marketing department.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  The more deeply we explore, the more we see that peak turn-ons are not only very similar to other peak experiences, they’re also different. Whereas most peak experiences contain little to be embarrassed about, in peak sex the erotic impulse frequently strays far from our ideals. In the realm of eros all the contradictions and paradoxes of the human drama are played out. One way or another, erotic peaks always reveal secrets about our idiosyncracies, conflicts, and unresolved emotional wounds. More often than not, people fear that if their innermost experiences of arousal are revealed they will be pronounced abnormal. No wonder we discuss such matters, if we do so at all, only when we feel safe and are absolutely certain that we won’t be judged or ridiculed—by others or ourselves. THE SEXUAL EXCITEMENT SURVEYIn the mid-1980s I realized that even though I was learning an incredible amount about the erotic mind in my therapeutic work, my studies were being hampered. For one thing, relatively few clients were as open about their eroticism as Fred and Sabrina. In addition, most clients who did explore their peak experiences were impatient to get back to the problems that had brought them to therapy in the first place. I became keenly aware of both the advantages and the limitations of therapy as a means of investigating eroticism. I was eager to expand my work by studying peak erotic experiences in a totally different way. To that end I created the Sexual Excitement Survey (SES). The survey asks anonymous respondents to write in detail about especially arousing and memorable encounters and fantasies, as well as their ideas about what made these events so thrilling. My challenge would be to analyze the content of their stories and comments and look for recurring themes and patterns. It’s difficult to find people willing to spend at least ninety minutes disclosing the very things they naturally keep to themselves. So I distributed many of the surveys in undergraduate-and graduate-level human sexuality classes, where self-exploration is a part of the learning. Interested students mailed completed surveys directly to me—not to their instructors. Also, a number of professional and social organizations took an interest in this project and invited their members to participate. Whenever I spoke in seminars and workshops, I always mentioned the SES and had a stack of them available.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  While they watched — or while he did, and she stared into a middle distance, wondering if she was blushing (it seemed like it) and, if so, whether if it was from anger or embarrassment or both — without a word or muting the movie, Martin turned and began touching her again, fingering her through the side of her underwear and occasionally moving her T-shirt away to inexpertly but intently suck her nipple. He did it, she thought later, out of guilt and obligation or as a kind of good form and fair play (he was a WASP, after all, he had said so over drinks, though he had gone to school on a scholarship) or from an excitement that (and here she began to feel compassion for him and not contempt) he was unable to fully feel but only witness and acknowledge, the way one smells food that one doesn’t actually crave but understands others eating. Whyever he was doing it, he made Isabel come, a bit more intensely than she usually made herself in the evenings, her experience diminished somewhat by the accompanying sound of a song sung by cartoon flounders in the movie, along with which she suspected Martin was quietly humming, though it might have been more of the agreeing- with moaning he had done before. Afterward, he pulled away, leaving her to readjust her underwear and fully pull on her shirt. The fact that he had even done it, after being impotent (because he lacked strong enough blood circulation or didn’t desire her in that way or didn’t eat enough — he had only nibbled at the nachos in the bar, while she ate almost all of them — or was, well, ill) somewhat endeared him to her, and she placed an elbow upon his shoulder, as if they were players on a high school soccer team or something, as they watched to the end the movie they still thought mediocre. As the credits rolled — and Martin finally pressed the mute — Isabel thought she should say something to comfort him, in case he felt at fault. “T bet you’ve had more exciting evenings,” she said, to take the rap, though she knew — or at least suspected — she was unworthy of such punishment, a tiny residual doubt notwithstanding. “Oh, hey,” Martin said, after a long and tortured pause, direct expression clearly — along with other kinds of human interactions — an ongoing and excruciating trial for him, “it’s you who had to... I mean, I hadn’t been ...” and that was the best he could do to grab back the ball of blame. Then there was an even longer pause before, not able to look at her, he asked, “When was the first time you — you did it?” Isabel was The Dead End Fob 153

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  Surely you’re not going to strangle any of the people in this room, are you?” I try to backpedal and explain that I was making a joke, but it’s too late. They’re all staring at me. They don’t look afraid; they look appalled. Later, after the meeting breaks up, I pull Dave aside and apologize for my outburst. “No, that was great,” he says, with a tight smile, quickly turning away. “Thank you for being honest.” Which I think means, Thanks for ruining my training session, asshole . It occurs to me that spending twenty-five years surrounded by journalists has not prepared me for life in the outside world. Civilians is one term journalists use to describe non-journalists. Another is laypeople. Or normals . As I’m now finding out, it’s one thing to write about the normal, and quite another to work among them. This business of personal reinvention is going to be more difficult than I thought. Six [image "image" file=Image00003.jpg] Our Cult Leader Has a Really Awesome Teddy BearO ne morning in early July, about ten weeks after I’ve arrived at HubSpot, everyone in the marketing department receives word from Spinner, our peppy, ponytailed PR person, that Dharmesh has just posted an awesome article on LinkedIn, and it would be awesome if we could all use our Twitter and Facebook accounts to promote the article and drive lots of traffic to it so that it can go viral and blow up the Internet . Spinner is in her early thirties and has never worked at a tech company before. She’s married, and has an MBA from Sloan (that’s the MIT business school), and was captain of her college volleyball team. Spinner has a GSD attitude and is a total team player . She is filled with school spirit! “Go HubSpot Go!” she exclaims in emails addressed to the marketing department. Promoting a new article by our company co-founder by blasting links onto dozens of social media feeds is the kind of thing that HubSpot’s marketing people do all the time. Recently we were all encouraged to vote for HubSpot in some local contest aimed at choosing the best place to work in Boston, and by “encouraged” I mean that HubSpot has been bombarding us with email messages reminding us that if we haven’t voted, we need to go do that right now, because HubSpot really wants to win this thing. If we do, Halligan and Dharmesh will put out a press release saying how grateful and humbled they are to have had this honor bestowed upon them. To make it easier for us to promote Dharmesh’s LinkedIn post, Spinner has created some “lazy tweets,” Twitter messages that she has written and that we can send out from our personal Twitter accounts, as if we have written them ourselves.

• From Cultish (2021)

  Wannabe film stars find ads in issues of Backstage magazine promising career-making crash courses in entertainment, or they attend artist workshops secretly backed by Scientology. Others accept street team invitations to take a personality test. Some spend an afternoon touring the impressive campus (it’s open to the public) or attend an intro course as a joke. Some do it with a genuinely open mind, and most get the hell out of Dodge long before they’re really in. But a select few look at celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Elisabeth Moss— Scientology’s mascots—and tell themselves, That could be me. You can’t clock a Scientologist in the wild by the way they dress or act— only by how they speak, and only if you know what to listen for. “If you were ever in Scientology, you could have a conversation with someone and know what they were by the way they talked,” an ex-Scientologist named Cathy Schenkelberg told me in an interview. Now in her forties, Cathy has been out of Scientology for nearly two decades and lives part-time in Ireland, working as a small-time actress. In 2016, Cathy gained some media attention after coming forward with a story about how she once auditioned for what she thought was a Scientology training video, but turned out to be an interview for the role of Tom Cruise’s girlfriend. When they asked her seemingly at random what she thought of the movie star, she told them frankly, “I can’t stand him, I think he’s a narcissistic baby. I’m really bummed about him splitting with Nicole.” Needless to say, she didn’t get the gig, and not long after, Katie Holmes was cast instead. These days, Cathy performs a one-woman traveling comedy show about her Scientology experience called Squeeze My Cans. It’s a cheeky reference to Hubbard’s famous E-Meter, a lie detector–esque machine resembling an oversize portable CD player from the ’90s. An E-Meter is used to “audit” (spiritually counsel) PCs (“pre-clears,” or auditing subjects), though even the Church of Scientology admits that the device “itself does nothing.” A few years ago, half a decade after she’d escaped the church, Cathy was doing a voice-over gig for McDonald’s when she met a director named Greg, and within five minutes of conversing, alarm bells sounded in her brain. “He was giving me directions, and he used certain words,” she said . . . like “enturbulated,” meaning upset, and “Dev-T,” which stands for Developed Traffic and means “cause for delay.” “So I said to him, ‘Greg, are you a Scientologist?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, I was wondering the same thing about you.’