Excitement

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 Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  I drove to the workshop with three other women from the group. It took all day: east on Highway 1 out of Vancouver, then north up the Fraser Canyon, trail of the Cariboo gold rush in the 1860s and ‘70s. When we hit Williams Lake we turned northwest and followed Highway 20 as it angles toward the coast again. Wolf’s Den sits midway between Williams Lake and Bella Coola on the coast. Throughout the drive all four of us chattered away as only women can. We took turns driving, ate junk food, stopped frequently for bio breaks and, of course, discussed spirituality. The sun shone as mile after mile of quiet, single-lane highway spooled away in our wake. I’d never seen this part of BC before and was fascinated as we squeezed between the walls of the Fraser Canyon and then were spat out onto rolling grassland at the canyon’s top end a few hours later. I was nervous about attending my first spiritual workshop. And excited. I’d never participated in anything like this before. There was the familiar sense of spiritual purposefulness that sang quietly in the background of my mind. Like the Blues Brothers, my fellow travellers and I were on a mission from God, and it felt so good to be certain of something. Beyond Williams Lake, there were several hundred miles of the highway, still unpaved at that time, and the journey slowed down as we allowed for potholes and the corduroy effect that large transport trucks leave in their wake. Finally, road-weary and cramped, we pulled off the highway and bounced down a long gravel driveway that eventually terminated at the lodge. This was Limori’s unofficial ashram, the seat of her growing empire, although I didn’t think of it as such as the time. She and her ever-present sidekick Alice greeted us warmly with hugs and inquiries about our journey. We were shown around the lodge, then later the property. It was the first time any of us had been here. Limori was the warm, genial hostess, clearly enjoying her role as matriarch of the brood that was gathering under her wings. She was also obviously proud of the work that those who lived at Wolf’s Den had done under her tutelage and direction, to rescue the lodge and its outlying cabins from the neglect and wear they had suffered in recent years. She proudly showed us through all the buildings, pointing out all that had been done and mentioning the numerous changes that were to come. The lodge and all the cabins were rustic split-log design, perfectly befitting the surrounding wilderness landscape. The lodge had a fair-sized kitchen, which opened to the main living room via a pass-through window and a set of swinging doors. This room, with red carpet salvaged form Limori’s home in Port Moody, would serve as the main workshop space and the place we would eat our meals, buffet style.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Fitted with huge picture windows, it offered a spectacular view of the lake and its far shores. The lodge was furnished gracefully but without flash. Limori had a way of creating physical beauty wherever she went, even in these somewhat primitive circumstances. Limori and Matthew’s bedroom was on the far side of the living room. Alice and her then-husband John slept in a cabin nearby that, before the arrival of electricity, had been an icehouse. We were each assigned a cabin to share with two or three others. There were about twenty of us; the five men stayed in one cabin and the women in the others. The cabins were without running water or electricity, and each had a woodstove for heat and a nearby outhouse. During that first workshop, all twenty of us shared the one bathroom in the lodge. We were each given a five-minute window every other day to shower so that we would not overwhelm the septic system. In later years, as the business of the lodge expanded, a shower house would be built to service the cabins. Throughout the late afternoon and early evening, cars bearing fellow group members arrived. The passengers would disembark and receive the same welcome and tour that we’d had. Some of Limori’s followers lived in BC’s interior, and those of us from Vancouver saw them only at workshops such as this. It was a bit like a reunion as everyone slowly gathered in the living room, even though some of us had seen each other just a few days earlier. As the crowd grew, a feeling of anticipation began to permeate the atmosphere, and I became conscious of my curiosity about what would occur this week. Once everyone had arrived, we were all seated in the living room and without instruction we grew quiet, ready to listen to whatever Limori and her “spirit guides” had to offer us. She was there in regal splendour as usual, dressed in a custom-made silk skirt and matching top, while the rest of us were mostly in jeans. As the chatter in the room slowly petered out, she clasped her hands around her belly, closed her eyes and made the small nodding motions and quiet, private murmurs of assent to the spirit voices she was listening to that we had come to learn meant she was “tuning in.” She would often laugh at something Spirit had said and then open her eyes, still chuckling, and let us in on the joke she and Azeen were sharing. A few guidelines were outlined for the week, such as the instruction that no one was to leave the property. Limori emphasized that she had drawn in good spirits to protect us while we were here but if we strayed past the property boundaries we could break the protective seal at the property line and endanger ourselves and everyone else.

• From White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America (2016)

  propagandist Thomas Paine presented a variation of Franklin’s American breed to a receptive audience. Like Franklin, Paine imagined a people forged from unique conditions of its land and resources. The American breed was endowed with an instinctive, youthful, and forward-directed spirit. Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense (1776) is heralded for having captured the spirit of the Revolution, replete with a potent language of natural rights and an economic justification for independence. For Paine, the unique character of America’s empowered white inhabitants, supported by the unquestioned majesty of an extensive continent, was evidence of the irresistible sway of nature’s law. He emphasized free trade and America’s potential as a commercial empire. He celebrated the power of a burgeoning continent over the reach of distant kings, as he employed the rhetorical device of unnatural breeding to disavow monarchy. He forecast that independence would end the waste and idleness that prevailed under the colonial regime. Paine is actually an odd choice for modern Americans to celebrate as a Revolutionary symbol. He was an Englishman born and bred; better put, an Englishman in exile. When Common Sense was published in January 1776, he had been in Philadelphia for little more than a year. He had arrived with a letter of introduction from Franklin, which landed him a job editing the Pennsylvania Magazine; or American Monthly Museum, a venture committed to everything American, despite its unmistakable London design and English editor. Adding to the irony of the situation, he had been an exciseman in England, and tax collectors did not fare well in the protests leading up to the Revolution. Though his pamphlet did not sell the 150,000 copies he claimed, it did win over George Washington, and it did reach audiences in New England, New York, Baltimore, and Charleston. Like his sponsor Franklin, Paine was fascinated by facts and figures, the stuff of political arithmetic and useful knowledge, yet at the same time he was not above quoting Aesop’s fables. His pamphlet spoke a familiar language, a distinctly British language of commerce, employing a simple and direct style capable of reaching readers beyond the educated elite. 35 Paine’s writing is equally as revealing for what he does and doesn’t say about class. He would not tackle the monopoly of land and wealth until 1797, after watching the French Revolution unfold, when he declared in Agrarian Justice that everyone had an equal and divine right to the ownership of the earth. In Common Sense, he pushed class, poverty, and other social divisions aside. Though he acknowledged the “distinctions of rich, of poor,” he directly dismissed the “harsh ill-sounding names” that exacerbated class conflict. In two

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Society, or at least the respectable chunk of it, saw the tent and those of us who traveled with it as a freak show, a rolling asylum that hit town and stirred the local Holy Rollers, along with a few Baptists, Methodists, and even a Presbyterian or two, into a frenzy. Brother Terrell reveled in that characterization.“I know they’s people call me David Nut Terrell. I’m not ashamed of it.” He bounced up and down the forty-foot-long platform with the pop and spring of a pogo stick. “I’m crazy for Jesus, crazy for the Lord.” The crowd was on its feet, pogoing with him.The tent went up in all kinds of weather, but in my memory it’s always the hottest day of summer when the canvas rises. A cloud of dust hangs over the grounds, stirred by the coming and going of the twenty to thirty people it took to raise the canvas. Local churches sent out volunteers, but most of the work was done by families who followed Brother Terrell from town to town, happy to do the Lord’s work for little more than a blessing and whatever Brother Terrell could afford to pass along to them. When he had extra money, they shared in it. He had a reputation as a generous man who “pinched the buffalo off every nickel” that passed through his hands. He employed only two to four “professional” tent men, a fraction of the number employed by organizations of a similar size. The number of employees remained the same over the years even as the size of the tents grew larger. “World’s largest tent. World smallest tent crew,” was the joke.The air smelled of grease and sweat. Men dressed in long pants and long-sleeved shirts (the Lord’s dress code) ran back and forth, calling to one another over the gear grind of the eighteen-wheeler as it pulled one of seven thirty-foot center poles into the air. I held my breath as the men wrestled the poles into place, praying that a pole didn’t fall and knock a couple of men straight to glory, but making sure I didn’t miss it if it did. With a couple of center poles secured, the men broke for lunch, mopping their faces with red or blue bandanas or an already soaked shirtsleeve. Pam and I brought out the trays of bologna sandwiches our mothers had made and walked among them passing out the food. I tried not to wrinkle my nose at the greasy imprints their fingers made in the white bread or the sour hugs that accompanied their thank-yous.It took three to four days to put the tent up, and the site looked different each time we visited. Some days I picked my way through red and blue poles that lay on the ground in seemingly careless arrangements, imagining them as tall slender ladies who had fainted in the heat or young girls waiting to be asked to dance.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  My stomach went queasy.“You got spit on you.”My words came out in a whisper loud enough that people turned and stared. Pam giggled, and her mother yanked her hair. Pam shot me a look that meant I would get it after church. At five, she was two years older than I was and capable of making me pay for every sin I committed against her. I placed my hands on either side of my seat and pushed my weight away from the wooden slats to relieve the pressure on my bony butt. I leaned forward slightly and the chair tossed me headfirst into one of the metal tentpoles. Two adults jumped up to see if I was okay. One of them helped me up and dusted the sawdust off my dress. The other said too bad there was no ice around. I put my hand to my head and felt a bump rise under the skin. Pam looked at me with suspicion.“You did that to get attention.”“Did not.”“Did too.”Betty Ann shushed us.“Donna, sit down. Now. Pamela Eloise, shut up and pay attention.”Pam pointed her finger at me. “She’s not paying attention.”Betty Ann pinched her full lips into a hard little knot, raised her eyebrows, and inclined her head toward the platform and my mother. I sighed and sat down. Brother Terrell preached on.“Faith changes things. When I was a boy doctors diagnosed me with cancer of the bone. They operated nine times and removed all the bone in my leg. I spent so much time in hospitals, I had to drop out of school in third grade.”I sat up and listened. This was the story of the scar. Brother Terrell clipped the microphone around his neck, bent over, and rolled up his right pant leg to just below his knee. He spoke off microphone, and his voice sounded small and distant. “They wanted to amputate, but my mother wouldn’t let them. She believed God would heal me.” He gripped the white rail of the prayer ramp behind him, balanced on his left leg, and held his right in the air, crooked at the knee. His calf gleamed white under the spotlights, exposed between the dark fabric of his pant leg and sock like some subterranean creature seeing light for the first time. Only it wasn’t the first time. Brother Terrell revealed the scar at almost every revival.“Come on up here, you that wants to see.”People rose across the tent and made their way to the front. Men, women, children, even the scoffers crowded ’round.“Go ahead, touch it. Jesus told Thomas to put his finger in the nail holes. See for yourself what faith will do.”He lost his balance for a moment and one of the ministers on the platform brought him a chair. He took a seat and stretched out his leg. The scar ran along the inside of his right leg, from knee to ankle. One by one, people laid their fingers in the long trough of purple tissue.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Bless him, Jesus. Tell it, brother.”“When Jesus tells you stand up and walk, you better get on your feet. Get up!”People all over the tent rose from their seats, hands in the air. Pam and I stood in our chairs, trying to see over or around the grown-ups. My mother began to play “God Don’t Never Change,” a fast-paced song that turned up the energy.Brother Terrell stood at the top of the prayer ramp and the crowd moved toward him. The sick, the blind, the deaf, the deformed in body and spirit. By the time the prayer line formed, his right hand was red and hot and jerking like a downed power line.My mother was deep into the music, a gap-toothed double-wide smile parked across her face. Betty Ann left my brother in the care of a friend and moved to the front to help with the prayer line. Pam and I climbed down from our chairs and made our way to the side of the platform at the end of the prayer ramp. Brother Terrell was someplace else entirely. Randall came and stood beside us, his cowlick standing straight up.“Look at that.”A woman with a stomach so large she looked two years pregnant labored up the ramp, pulling herself forward by the rails, breathing through her mouth. With each step, her face turned a little redder. Randall put his hand over his mouth.“Her stomach will be there three days before the rest of her. Daddy’ll be lucky if she don’t die before she gets to him.”We giggled. Brother Terrell leaned over and whispered something to the woman. She nodded and raised her hands. The people who stood in line behind her on the ramp backed up. Betty Ann and the preachers who waited in front of her on the ramp moved away. If this woman went down in the spirit, no one wanted to go with her. Randall, Pam, and I edged beyond the corner of the platform for a better view. No one was left on the ramp but the woman and Brother Terrell. The music and the clapping stopped. He raised his hand to place it on her forehead, but before he could touch her, the woman’s skirt dropped around her ankles. Her big stomach was gone. Randall let out a whoop. Brother Terrell looked over his shoulder at the men on the platform, and they all doubled over laughing. He whirled back toward the audience and jumped up and down, just above the ramp where the woman still stood with her hands raised and her eyes closed.“She’s healed, praise God. The spirit of God has filled this place like a mighty wind, just like in the Bible, hallelujah! The healing power of God destroyed the tumor. It’s gone.”Anyone still in their seats rushed to the front.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  The questions spilled out as the seven of us Walshes huddled together in the front room. What were the names of our grandparents? Laura and Bill McKinley. I thought of the president by the same name—were we related? No. Where did they live? In Cambridge. Did Sister Elizabeth Ann ever speak to them? Not in a long time. Did she have any brothers and sisters? A much younger sister who had two children. What was not divulged was that my aunt was twice divorced. Such information was considered scandalous. How many cousins did I have? The meeting came to an end leaving not enough time to have all my questions answered. But at least the Center could now craft a rebuttal to the claim that we children knew nothing about our families. The court case was drawing near as I entered my sophomore year, at age fifteen. To my surprise, Sister Mary Clare, who normally was one of the cooks for the guests and who also played the organ, was now assigned to be our English tutor. During the first week of tutoring, she introduced us to Shakespeare—Julius Caesar , The Merchant of Venice , Macbeth , and Hamlet . As she paced back and forth at the head of the classroom, her vibrant African American black eyes gleamed with energy. Holding the script at arm’s length, she impersonated, with gesture and voice, each of the characters in the play, as though she were on stage. Her passion was intoxicating. In a matter of days, English became my favorite subject. I delighted in exploring the world of literature, a world that included Keats and Shelley, Wordsworth and Masefield, George Eliot and Mark Twain. A few weeks later, when the authorities in the local school district came to observe us in the classroom, Sister Catherine introduced Sister Mary Clare as a “brilliant graduate of Radcliffe with her master’s in education.” At that moment, I understood the ploy. Sister Catherine had assigned Sister Mary Clare as one of our tutors to prove that our teachers were as good as the teachers out in the world. That was a savvy move on her part—upgrading the credentials of the tutors—but Sister Catherine chose to keep one step back from truly capitalizing on the intellectual prowess of the adults within the community. Not a single one of the Big Brothers was allowed to be a tutor, despite their array of extraordinary credentials—physicists, mathematicians, writers, geologists, poets. She kept those brilliant men relegated to menial tasks, where they posed less of a threat to her power. Our history tutoring room now had a newly installed corkboard wall that was crammed with newspaper clippings and articles from Time and Life , two magazines that Father had long told us were “of the devil.” I devoured the information they shed on the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and President John Kennedy.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  As is common in such situations, the threat of evil was projected onto others. . . . Hence, at Nauvoo the innocent children of God realized their identity through their struggle against the evil followers of Satan, who dominated American society everywhere except in the city of the Saints. The problem, of course, with this kind of dichotomous myth is that, for the people who hold it, guilt and innocence become matters of belief, not evidence. JOHN E. HALLWAS AND ROGER D. LAUNIUS, CULTURES IN CONFLICT When the Utah businessman and Dream Mine supporter Bernard Brady brought Prophet Onias and the Lafferty brothers (minus Allen) together one crisp fall evening near the end of 1983, it seemed to all who were present to be an especially auspicious union. There was an instant feeling of kinship and shared values, and the men talked excitedly until “the wee hours of the morning,” according to Onias. Giddy with their sense of divinely empowered mission, everyone at the gathering was convinced that, collectively, they were destined to alter the course of human history. “Five of the six brothers,” Onias said, “became extremely enthusiastic when they realized that we had just been given a commandment by the Lord to send three sections of The Book of Onias to all the stake and ward authorities.” * He was referring to a revelation he’d received on November 26 of that year, in which God had commanded Onias to “prepare pamphlets to send out to the presidents of stakes and bishops of wards of My church”—the LDS Church—so that those who had committed fornication against Him would “be warned.” The pamphlet consisted of excerpts from Onias’s collected revelations, cautioning the entire LDS leadership—from the president and putative prophet in Salt Lake City down to the bishop of every ward across North America—that God was extremely unhappy with the way they’d been running His One True Church. God was especially steamed, Onias explained, that modern Mormon leaders were blatantly defying some of the most sacred doctrines He had revealed to Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century. Most egregiously, the men at the helm of the church continued to sanction and zealously enforce the government’s criminalization of plural marriage. And only slightly less disturbing, from Onias’s perspective, was the blasphemy perpetrated by LDS President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 when he decreed that black-skinned men should be admitted into the Mormon priesthood—a historic, earth-shaking turnabout in church policy widely applauded by those outside the church. God had revealed to Onias, however, that blacks were subhuman “beasts of the field, which were the most intelligent of all animals that were created, for they did walk upright as a man doeth and had the power of speech.” † According to the pamphlet, God had given Onias an earful about blacks being ordained as LDS priests: Behold I say unto you, at no time have I given a commandment unto My church, nor shall I . . .

• From Synanon Kid: Book One: A Memoir of Growing Up in the Synanon Cult

  I’d never heard of either of them, I told Pilar. Her slim, pale fingers traced the stern-looking man’s face. “Frederick Douglass was a very important man in history. A long time ago, black people were slaves in this country and were owned by white people. Slaves had to work all the time and weren’t allowed to learn to read or write. They had a very hard life. Frederick was born a slave, but he secretly learned to read and write and he escaped. When he was older he wrote about his experiences to help abolish slavery in America.” “What’s ‘abolish’?” I asked. “To put an end to.” She pointed to the other book. “This is the life story of Harriet Tubman, who also was born a slave and escaped.” Escape. The word always caught my attention. The children in Hansel and Gretel escaped the wicked witch’s house after their father and stepmother abandoned them in a forest. The Little Match Girl escaped poverty through death and joined her grandmother in heaven. “But Harriet did something different,” Pilar said. “She returned to the plantations to help her friends and family escape from slavery, too. She also had others who worked with her. Some of them were white people who wanted slavery to end. They helped Harriet by hiding runaways in their homes as they traveled toward the Northern states, where black people were legally free.” Pilar stretched out her hands. “The route they took, including the string of homes used as hiding places, was known by the slaves as ‘The Underground Railroad.’” I was enthralled and a little terrified. No one had ever told me about this history. I wanted to read the books right away. Questions raced through my mind: When did all this take place? Was I in danger of becoming a slave at some point? “It is important to know your history,” Pilar said, “and where you come from. When you understand history, you gain a better understanding of the world we currently live in and the people in it. A lot of us are fighting for justice in our own way.” When she finished talking, Pilar removed her black clothes, then put on a long, white cotton nightgown, knit cap and woolen socks. We climbed into her bed and I opened the first page of Harriet Tubman’s story. I became absorbed in a world where people were owned like objects or ranch animals and were treated far worse. I read The Underground Railroad several times that night, as well as Frederick Douglass’s story before I finally succumbed to the drowsiness that tugged at my eyes. Cuddling next to Pilar’s warm body, I drifted off to sleep. On our next trip to the Petaluma Public Library, I asked the librarian where I could find more books about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. I came away with Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Navy blue was as close as it got. Still, who knew what they’d find inside? Miri had clipped an ad from the Daily Post : THIS SEASON GIVE HER NYLON TRICOT BY VANITY FAIR. She wasn’t sure about nylon tricot but the ad from Nia’s showed a half-slip for $3.99, something her mother might appreciate since she’d been complaining about the worn-out elastic waistbands of hers. A single chime announced the opening of the door as Miri and Suzanne entered the shop. Inside, it was busy with holiday shoppers but not overwhelming the way it would be at Levy’s or Goerke’s, the other downtown department store. The shoppers, all women, talked in hushed voices. A small white Christmas tree with silver ribbons threaded through its branches, topped by a silver angel, sat on the display table. Satin bedroom slippers and delicate bed jackets in pale colors were arranged around the tree. Who wore bed jackets? Rusty had a woolly robe and two flannel nightgowns for winter, and a seersucker robe and a few cotton nightgowns for summer. Maybe movie stars who were served breakfast in bed wore bed jackets. But there were no movie stars in Elizabeth, New Jersey. None that Miri knew of, anyway. Even Mrs. Osner didn’t have a bed jacket. If she did it wasn’t hanging in her closet, because Miri had been through that closet a hundred times, ever since she and Natalie had become best friends two years ago. Miri and Suzanne were still babysitting partners and ate lunch at the same cafeteria table every day—they just weren’t bests. “Can I help you?” a pretty young woman asked Miri. “Are you Nia?” Miri hadn’t planned to say that. It just slipped out. “I’m Athena, her daughter. What can I show you today?” Athena —Miri didn’t know anyone named Athena. Such an exotic name. Wasn’t Athena the Greek goddess of wisdom, arts and something else, maybe war? She’d loved her book of Greek mythology in fifth grade. Uncle Henry had given it to her. Every night they’d taken turns reading myths to each other. “Are you looking for something special?” Athena asked. When Miri didn’t answer, Suzanne nudged her. “It’s my mother’s birthday,” Miri said, coming back to the moment, “and I was thinking of a half-slip, maybe a nylon tricot half-slip.” Before Miri had the chance to dig the ad from her purse, Athena said, “I have just what you’re looking for. What size does your mother wear?” “She’s either a small or a medium, depending.” “Really, a small?” Athena said, as if a mother couldn’t possibly be a small. “She’s five-five, a hundred and fifteen pounds.” Miri knew everything about her mother, every detail of her life, except for one, and she wasn’t going to waste her time thinking of that today. Athena brought out a few half-slips. “Double slits,” she said, holding up one. By Vanity Fair, $3.99. “This is the nylon tricot. Feel how soft it is.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Christina had never heard of this one, Love Without Fear. Daisy’s note said, Dearest Christina, I wish someone had given me this book when I was your age. I had so many questions but I was too afraid to ask them. Merry Christmas to a special young woman. It’s a pleasure to work with you. Daisy There was also a small separate package with a key to the office in a purple leather key holder. Her own key to the office. That meant they trusted her. It meant they thought she was mature enough to handle emergencies and to lock up after hours if she was last to leave. The key meant more than the book. Until she looked at the book. The book shocked her. And it made her wet down there. She’d have to keep it hidden under her mattress and read it only at night before she went to sleep. She would write a friendly thank-you note to Daisy, making a big deal out of the key and a smaller deal out of the book. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00010.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00010.jpg] LITTLE THINGS SAY A LOTBy Henry AmmermanDEC. 21 — When Elizabeth firemen hacked their way through the underbelly of the wrecked C-46, they piled the shoes, gloves, eyeglasses and other salvage into boxes that were carried into the Elizabethtown Water Company’s garage. The items revealed stories that for a moment made the victims seem alive. A set of medical records told of a soldier who had survived the Korean battlefield, only to perish here. A pile of press clippings and photographs of a man described as a “212-pound Brooklyn wrestler” reminded us that the strong fall with the weak. Other pieces of salvage, though anonymous, told their own stories. A pair of high-powered binoculars, the carrying case burned off, would never be used at a Florida racetrack. A child’s twisted bicycle would never be ridden in the warm afternoons. An anticipated Merry Christmas was evidenced by the gay holiday wrapping on a set of men’s pajamas. “Handle with care” was the admonition scrawled on the remains of a photo album. If only it could have been. 6 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] MiriWas it wrong to go to a holiday dance just a week after something horrible had happened in their town? None of her friends thought so. They hardly talked about the crash anymore. They wanted to dress up and dance and have a good time. There might be boys from the Weequahic section of Newark at the Y, older boys who wouldn’t necessarily know they were just ninth graders. Miri wore her favorite dress, red wool with a full skirt and metallic buttons down the front that either were or weren’t made of old coins. Rusty thought they were. Her boss’s wife saved their daughter’s best things for Miri. Miri used to think Rusty bought them at a snazzy shop, Bonwit Teller, because that’s what the labels inside said.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  “An exciting book…. Whether people agree with it or not: these are issues that will need debating over and over before we will arrive at a resolution.” —Frans de Waal, Ph.D., author of The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society “Turns everything you thought you knew about sex on its head. Funny, engaging, and superbly written, this book explores the science behind what many of us suspected all along: human beings are not naturally monogamous.” —Julie Holland, M.D., author of Weekends at Bellevue “Sex at Dawn manages to be both enormously erudite and wildly entertaining—even, frequently, hilarious. Ryan and Jethá slip effortlessly across millions of years, from the savanna of prehistoric Africa to the contemporary bedroom, presenting cutting-edge research with clarity and wit.” —Tony Perrottet, author of The Sinner’s Grand Tour “This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.” —Andrew Weil, MD, Program Director, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine “Sex at Dawn is not a tome on why people should cheat on their partners. Think of it as a new, wide-ranging sampling of research and ideas to get us to rethink our notion of human beings as sexual beings…. It helps put the ‘human’ back in ‘human sexuality.’ As suitable for an open-minded book club as the veteran sex therapist seeking new ways to rethink common challenges faced in clinical practice.” —Eric Marlowe Garrison, Contemporary Sexuality CreditsCover design by Andrea Cardenas Copyright [image file=image_rsrc68P.jpg] SEX AT DAWN. Copyright © 2010 by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2011. The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Ryan, Christopher Sex at dawn: the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality / Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá.—1st ed. p. cm. Summary: “A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you know about sex, marriage, family, and society.”—Provided by publisher Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-06-170780-3 (hardback) 1. Sex. 2. Sex—History. 3. Sex customs. 4. Marriage. I. Jethá, Cacilda. II. Title. HQ12.R93 2010 306.7—dc22 2009045457 ISBN 978-0-06-170781-0 (pbk.) 11 12 13 14 15 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062207944 Version 02112020 About the PublisherAustralia HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia http://www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower 22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor Toronto, ON M5H 4E3, Canada www.harpercollins.co.in">www.harpercollins.co.in India HarperCollins India A 75, Sector 57 Noida Uttar Pradesh 201 301 http://www.harpercollins.ca

• From The Boys of My Youth (1998)

  Most of the time Doris would shut up, but occasionally it struck her the wrong way and all manner of hell would break loose. One time she chased Elizabeth into the bathtub and then threw a pop bottle at her. It broke and glass went everywhere except on Elizabeth, who nevertheless screamed bloody murder and threatened to call the police. I snuck home during that one, and Jinn put a pillow over her head. Afterward Doris took to her bed with a bad back and had to be waited on for a week. Elizabeth was supposedly grounded, which, in practice, meant she wasn’t. So, the picnic. Elizabeth and I entertain ourselves by putting Styrofoam cups on the ends of sticks and holding them like marshmallows over the burning coals. They melt and run fantastically, forming odd arty-looking shapes that impress us. We give each one a name and make plans to spray-paint them when we get home. A rowboat full of boys goes by out in the water and we find a reason to wander down there, where we look upriver and downriver but see no other likely suspects. Suddenly we are being summoned, and quickly, from the picnic area. We head back up at an obedient trot and discover that Jinn has gone into labor sometime after the meal. She didn’t say anything, but stopped reading her magazine and began holding her stomach. Pretty soon she was groaning, a big splash occurred, and then everyone was in a hurry. They made us put our art-cups in the trunk along with all the other crammed-in picnic stuff. Jinn sat in the front seat between Elizabeth’s parents, and Elizabeth and I had the back seat to ourselves. Her father actually laid rubber leaving the parking lot but then settled down and drove responsibly through the streets of our city. Most of the way Jinn was silent but every once in a while she would gasp out a long word in Thai that sounded like swearing because it started with an f . None of us were trying to comfort her. Elizabeth and I were slightly out of control, hanging our heads out the car windows and silently screaming We’re having a baby! to each other. Her dad said, in a cheerful voice, “Make way, we’re coming through,” every time a stoplight appeared up ahead, while her mom kept murmuring, “How are we doing,” and casting sidelong glances at Jinn, who had her eyes closed and was saying the Thai swear word quietly over and over. Suddenly she made an oof noise, like someone had punched her, and then produced a muffled scream. Doris glanced at us in the back seat, where we had quieted down and were coming to the mutual, silent conclusion that we’d never have children. Jinn screamed again, a short burst, and Elizabeth said, “Mom,” two syllables, in an accusing voice. “Were doing the best we can do,” Doris said in a defensive voice.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  A movie musical wouldn’t hurt, either. Maybe Danny Thomas would put her in his next picture. Nothing wrong with pulling a few strings while she was dating his brother. “What time’s your plane, babe?” Jimmy asked. “Last time I checked it was two hours late.” She looked down at the watch Paul had given her for her birthday, a pink-gold Bulova. The tiny hands told her it was almost ten-thirty. “Oops, I’m supposed to be at the airport before noon,” she said, collecting her things and paying for the ice cream soda. Jimmy leaned in to give her a goodbye kiss on her cheek. At the last second she turned her face so his kiss landed on her lips, surprising him. “Mmm…strawberry…” Jimmy said, licking his lips, making Ruby laugh. “Have a good trip, babe, and come back soon.” “You know I will.” Ruby blew him a flirty kiss. Ruby loved to travel. Give her an airline ticket and she’d be on the next plane. She liked staying at hotels, where someone made the bed for her every day and brought her clean towels. Even when the hotels were less than classy, even when they were on the sleazy side, which was often, she still liked being on the road. MiriJust before noon Rusty found Miri still asleep in her bed. She shook her gently. “Come on, honey…get up! Let’s go to an early show at the Elmora.” Miri rolled over but didn’t open her eyes. “Hurry or we’re going to miss it.” Being the only child meant Miri was often her mother’s companion. And if Rusty wanted to go to the movies today, she’d go with her. After all, it was her birthday. Miri threw on dungarees, a turtleneck, a heavy sweater over that and thick white socks. She tied her saddle shoes, ran the toothbrush over her teeth, not bothering to brush up and down the way Dr. Osner had taught her, pulled her hair back sloppily and got into her winter jacket, mittens, red and black striped Rutgers scarf and fuzzy earmuffs. Miri and Rusty walked the mile up to the Elmora Theater. No bright winter sun today. Just gray sky and freezing cold. Until this year Miri could still get into the movies for a quarter, but not anymore. This was both good and bad. Good because she looked older, bad because she had to pay full price for a ticket. She’d be the first of her friends to turn fifteen, the age at which she was sure life would fall into place and at least some of her dreams would come true, starting with the strange enchanted boy from last night’s party. At the concession stand Rusty bought a Milky Way for Miri, not bothering to ask if Miri had had a proper breakfast, which she hadn’t, and a box of Goobers for herself.

• From Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again (2021)

  All this has led to some grand claims. For Wednesday Martin in her recent book Untrue, women, at least in their minds, are ‘unfinicky and indiscriminate omnivores’; they are ‘super-freaks’, no less, ‘sexual anarchists’ even. ‘Our libidos don’t give a hoot about the boxes we check.’ For Martin, the findings of women’s excitability are evidence that women need more sexual variety than traditional monogamous relationships allow. Sex coach Kenneth Play agrees that we need to counter the ‘deep misunderstanding’ and ‘cultural myth that women want less sex than men, when really women crave sex as much if not more than men’. Daniel Bergner, in his 2013 book What Do Women Want?, writes that, for the women whose non-concordance Chivers studied, ‘all was discord’. The ‘keypad contradicted the plethysmograph, contradicted it entirely. Minds denied bodies.’ Female sexuality emerges in his book as perverse, perplexing and epistemologically troubling. It is not only much less sociable and respectable than the usual truisms state – it’s also much more strange. And it dismantles the assumption, ‘soothing perhaps above all to men but clung to by both sexes’, that the female eros is better made for monogamy than the male libido. (Bergner’s book, he tells us, ‘scared the bejesus out of’ one editor.) Martin, for her part, waxes lyrical about the research uncovering these truths, peeling back the multiple layers of compromise and constraint that ‘cloak and contort female sexuality so thoroughly as to make women strangers to ourselves and our own libidos’. Sex researchers are, she writes, challenging our ‘most deeply ingrained and dearly held assumptions about who women are, what motivates us, and what we want’. Our sexual selves are ‘being rethought, reexamined, and perhaps finally revealed’. Sex research might be nothing less than the key to sexual fulfilment and political liberation: the full title of Martin’s book is Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women, Lust, and Infidelity Is Wrong and How the New Science Can Set us Free. For these commentators, it is primarily thanks to sex research that, tomorrow, sex will be good again. Sex research will, to use another phrase of Foucault’s, ‘utter truths and promise bliss’, combining the ‘fervor of knowledge’ with the ‘longing for the garden of earthly delights’. And it is by heroically peering into the female body that this truth will be uttered and bliss be promised. These books, it should be emphasized, come from a place of sympathy; they are compassionate about the double standards that shape women’s experience of sex. For any woman who has ever struggled with sex due to feeling self-conscious, judged, ashamed or in danger, the idea that her sexuality is buried under social constraints makes intuitive sense. The language of ‘disconnection’ that commentators routinely use may well resonate.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Now, with finals coming up, they were studying, Kathy wrapped in the hand-knitted afghan her mother had made for her, Jane in her flannel robe. “That was fast,” Jane said. “Where does he go to school?” “Okay, promise not to laugh?” “Promise.” “He’s a senior in high school but he’s coming to Syracuse next year, assuming he gets in.” Jane just looked at her. “He’s mature for his age. Actually, we’re just a few months apart because he has a winter birthday and mine is November. So I want to get home for break after finals to see him again.” “You better make your reservations now.” “Come with me. I’ll introduce you to my cousin Phil. He’s Steve’s best friend. We’ll have fun.” “Where am I supposed to get the money to fly?” “I’ll bet my dad would spring for your ticket,” Kathy said. Her father was an orthopedic surgeon. “Don’t do that. Don’t ask your dad to pay for me. I can take the bus.” “But that would take all day, and another day getting back.” “That’s why I might not come.” “That’d be a disappointment.” “You’re going to see a boy. You don’t need me around.” “But it’s more fun when you’re around.” “Thanks.” “Wish me luck,” Kathy said. “I’m going to call home now.” “Good luck.” Kathy went out to the pay phone in the hall to dial her parents. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00015.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00015.jpg] PELHAM GIRL HAS BEST POSTURECites Muscular ControlJAN. 10 — The annual Posture Queen award at Barnard College was given yesterday to Miss Marjory Schulhoff of Pelham, N.Y. Freshmen were judged on the basis of carriage, poise and ease of movement, both walking and sitting. Miss Schulhoff, a prospective art major, was also queen of the Columbia College rush last fall. She attributed her success to sleep, good food and mus cular control. “Exercise alone won’t do it,” she said. “I know plenty of football players who walk like apes.” “You know,” the newly crowned Posture Queen added, “I’d feel better if it was an academic award.” 10 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] MiriUsually, January was the longest month, dragging on and on, the weather cold and dreary, school routine and boring, everybody’s noses runny, their throats sore. But this January everything was different. Mason called Miri every night, sometime between nine and ten o’clock, whenever he got a break at the bowling alley. If she’d finished her homework she might be watching TV at Irene’s with Rusty and Ben Sapphire, who sometimes slept over on Irene’s couch. Miri would leave the door between her house and Irene’s open so she could hear the phone. When it rang she’d run up the stairs, pick up the phone and drag it by its long knotted cord under the bathroom door, locking it behind her.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  For many women, cybersex is their first experience with actually having public sex—rather than viewing it. You can enter an unmoderated chatroom, “listen” in until you feel comfortable, and then jump into the fray. Cybersex offers a safe introduction to anonymous sex, since you can “pick up” another woman, “go private” by creating a private chatroom for your encounter, and have cybersex—without risk of STDs or unwanted entanglements. What about live sex? Where can a lesbian or bisexual woman go to enjoy live sexual performances? Some women go to strip clubs. You can go in a group, cheer on the erotic dancers, and even pay for a lap dance. Play PartiesI had the most intense orgasm of my life while being caressed, kissed, and penetrated by two women. This was just about the best sex I have ever experienced! A play party is a social gathering where people engage in sex. There are all types of play parties—some are for women only and others are pansexual, welcoming all genders, all sexual styles, and all sexual orientations. Some parties are small, private affairs—a lesbian invites three friends over for a romp in her bed. Others are large public events, hosting as many as 200 women who have learned of the event from a flyer or ad. Most play parties are semipublic. The host draws up an invitation list, encouraging guests to bring their friends, who are then added to the list for future events. Most party hosts charge a fee to cover space rental, safer-sex supplies, food, and other expenses. Parties, of course, come in all flavors, with styles as individual as their hosts. From sensual affairs with hot tubs and scrumptious buffets to dungeon parties where women engage in elaborately negotiated BDSM scenes, you’ll find play parties to suit a wide range of tastes. Some parties begin with games and ice-breakers; others feature rituals intended to create a particular mood. What does a play party look like? Typically, you’ll find a social area with refreshments, an area to change out of street clothes and into fetish wear, and a play area. Some party spaces even have showers. You may find an impressive array of dungeon equipment, including St. Andrew’s crosses, racks, cages, and slings. You may even find a gynecologist’s examination table. Or, you may find a room lined with futons or foam mattresses. You’ll see women naked, or wearing all manner of fetish gear, including corsets, G-strings, dildos and harnesses, chaps, and stiletto heels. You’ll find women watching others having sex, or chatting in small groups, as at any other party. You may see couples in discreet corners, lost in deep kisses; a group of women in a “puppy pile” of jumbled limbs and torsos; or a daisy chain of women engaging in oral sex. You may see women getting fisted in slings. You’ll certainly get to see and hear many women’s orgasms. Twelve Reasons to Go to a Sex Party

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  A natural behaviorContrary to many people’s beliefs, masturbation is healthy sexual behavior. However, many women feel uncomfortable about it. For example, they rarely discuss masturbation among themselves or with their partners. But whoever you are, whether you admit it or not, everybody masturbates. In fact, it has been revealed as the most common human sexual activity. And why not? It feels great, it is good for you, and it is the only sexual activity that is 100 percent safe. What’s more, masturbation can relieve sexual tension, and will teach you about your body’s responses and how to achieve an orgasm. Those who don’t indulge may miss out on achieving maximum pleasure. Get in the moodNow that you have had your anatomy lesson, you should be able to find your hot spots—such as the clitoris and G-spot—with the help of a hand mirror or some explorative touching. But locating these hot spots is just the beginning. Getting yourself into a relaxed state of mind, and then knowing how to stimulate yourself, are equally vital parts of the process. Different strokesWhen it comes to masturbation, most women have their preferences. Some enjoy soft, light brushes, while others enjoy hard, fast strokes. Some women like to use their hands or a vibrator, while other women prefer a handheld showerhead or pillow to reach a climax. In order to discover what you enjoy, make sure you masturbate regularly. Play with different positions and techniques to find out which are the most enjoyable. You will find that self-love can give you some helpful clues for what you will enjoy during sex. Take your timeA wonderfully relaxing way to enjoy your self-love time is in a bathtub full of warm and bubbly water. To create the right mood, light some candles and put on some relaxing music. Savor the moment and, as you bathe, run your hands over your body, and then between your legs. Get carried away with the sensuality of it all. Explore and experiment in order to find out what works best for you—and enjoy the intense sensations of your fingers and the warm water against your genitals. Loving yourselfPlan time alone for yourself and make sure the environment is relaxing. Don’t make an orgasm the goal, or you will become stressed and disappointed if it doesn’t happen. Instead focus on feeling sensual and touching your body in ways that feel pleasurable. Whether or not an orgasm occurs, enjoy this special time alone to relax your mind and body. Touch Zero in on your erogenous zones—breasts, nipples, inner thighs, torso, and stomach. Discover what body part sends chills down your spine. Gently tickle and caress your inner thighs, massage your breasts, and stimulate your nipples. Listen to your body and discover what erotic zones raise your heart rate and get you excited—technically we all have the same hot spots, but we also have our preferences. So take your time and explore every area of your body.

• From Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1997)

  One of the most familiar examples involves vertebrate limbs. The fins of ancestral fishes, used for swimming, evolved into the legs of ancestral reptiles, birds, and mammals, which used them for running or hopping on land. The front legs of certain ancestral mammals and reptile-birds subsequently evolved into the wings, used for flying, of bats and modern birds, respectively. Bird wings and mammal legs then evolved independently into the flippers of penguins and whales, respectively, thereby reverting to a swimming function and effectively reinventing the fins of fish. At least three groups of fish descendants independently lost their limbs to become snakes, legless lizards, and the legless amphibians known as cecilians. In essentially the same way, features of reproductive biology—such as concealed ovulation, boldly advertised ovulation, monogamy, harems, and promiscuity—have repeatedly changed function and been transmuted into each other, reinvented, or lost. The implications of these evolutionary shifts can lend zest to our love lives. For example, in the last novel by the great German writer Thomas Mann, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, Felix shares a compartment on a train journey with a paleontologist, who regales him with an account of vertebrate limb evolution. Felix, an accomplished and imaginative ladies’ man, is delighted by the implications. “Human arms and legs retain the bones of the most primitive land animals! . . . It’s thrilling! . . . A woman’s shapely charming arm, which embraces us if we find favor . . . it’s no different from the primordial bird’s clawed wing, and the fish’s pectoral fin. . . . I’ll think of that, next time. . . . Dream of that shapely arm, with its ancient scaffolding of bones!” Now that Sillén-Tullberg and Møller have unraveled the evolution of concealed ovulation, you can nourish your own fantasy with its implications, just as Felix Krull nourished his fantasy with the implications of vertebrate limb evolution. Wait until the next time that you are having sex for fun, at a nonfertile time of the ovulatory cycle, while enjoying the security of a lasting monogamous relationship. At such a time, reflect on how your bliss is made paradoxically possible by precisely those features of your physiology that distinguished your remote ancestors as they languished in harems, or as they rotated among promiscuously shared sex partners. Ironically, those wretched ancestors had sex only on rare days of ovulation, when they perfunctorily discharged the biological imperative to fertilize, robbed of your leisurely pleasure by their desperate need for swift results. CHAPTER 5

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  It’s amazing how fast I come once the images start flashing and how all I can think of now is a hot chocolate float after the match if my weight is down enough. XVIIIOur junior varsity is down, 19–11. I watch out the wrestling room window as Doug Bowden, our number-two man at fifty-four, shakes hands with some guy I don’t know from Lewis and Clark. I assume Doug will put this guy away in short order. Doug would be number one on a lot of other teams, but the two of us have been in the same weight class these past two and a half years now and I’ve beaten him steady. We both lettered as sophomores because the senior I beat out for number one quit. That left a guy named Warren Morford, who should have wrestled at forty-five but didn’t want to lose the weight. Warren was heavy into anchovy pizzas, and Kuch would treat him to one every chance he got so Warren wouldn’t get to thinking about dropping down to forty-five, where Kuch was number one after Lynn Atkinson broke his neck sledding. Doug and Warren had some real battles. Whoever won would be so beat when it came time to wrestle me that I wasn’t getting enough workout, which was Coach’s motivation for the tough preparation drill we use now. If a guy’s not being pushed enough, or if he has an especially tough match, Coach will run him thirty-second rounds against the number-one men in the weight classes above. All next week, for example, I’ll be wrestling Smith and Balldozer and Otto, one after the other, every thirty seconds, just as fast as we can go. I’m going to ask Coach to put Kuch in when I’m really tired so I’ll have somebody lighter and faster—somebody like Shute—to work against. “Lunchtime!” I yell down to the mats below. “Lunchtime, Dougie. Eat ’im, eat ’im, eat ’im!” Carla contends we wrestlers are all a bunch of suppressed puff-jobbers with our continual references to oral relations. “Burn ’im, Dougie! Sting ’im! Take it to ’im one time!” yells Randy Smith, Doug’s best friend, from the other side of the window. The bleachers are about full and most of the cheerleaders are here. The junior varsity matches usually start with a small crowd, just parents of the wrestlers and the few really interested people who want good seats for the varsity match. But by the time they get to the 154-pound class the gym is usually about full and the crowd is into it. Belle stomps her feet and claps her hands and starts a takedown chant. Now our whole side of the bleachers is chanting at Doug. “Takedown!” Clap, clap, clap. “Takedown!” Clap, clap, clap. “Takedown!” Clap, clap, clap. Both Doug and the L.C. guy shoot for the takedown at the same time. They bump heads and go to the mat. Doug gets the worst of it and L.C. slips behind for the points.