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 Emotional Beats: How to Easily Convert your Writing into Palpable Feelings (2018)

  Ways to Describe WritingAuthor Lucy Mitchell (aka Blondewritemore) has come up with these exciting ways of describing her writing progress: “Tonight I wrote 456 words!”“Today I nailed 1,290 words!”“This afternoon I banged out 1,456 words!”“I only managed to cobble together 45 words today”“I scraped together 100 words this afternoon”“Today I conjured up 2,500 words!”“Tonight I rattled off 567 words!”“This morning I whipped up 800 words!”“Today I pumped out 765 words!”“Tonight I hammered home 987 words!”“I churned out 309 words!““Today I could only squeeze out 154 words”“This afternoon 1,300 words gushed out of me!”“Today I belted out 1,899 words!”“Today I pounded out 1,900 words”“This afternoon I blew past my goal with 1,300 words”“This morning I coughed up 456 words”“Today 2,300 words shot out of me”“Boom!” (exploding fist hand action) “2,090 words!” AcknowledgmentsAmong many others, this book contains beats by: Alicia DeanAngela AckermanBeem WeeksBlondewritemoreCharles E. YallowitzCristina MallinChristine PlouvierC.S. LakinD. Wallace PeachDavid WindDon MassenzioEamon GosneyElizabeth GeorgeElle BocaJennifer OwenbyLara EakinsMacMillan Dictionary (visit for more ways to describe looks)Mark NicholMMJayePaula CappaQuoteTVRayne HallSue ColettaWriteWorld (click for more alternatives to “walking”)Writing Helpers (click for more ways to describe voices)The definition of Emotional Beats comes from the Writer’s Digest article, How to Amp up Dialogue with Emotional Beats by Todd A. Stone. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words with us. I am also grateful to Elle Boca , D.G. Kaye , Maria Messini , Rachael Ritchey , and Gabriele for pointing out the mistakes in the original manuscript. Once again, I have Alex Saskalidis and Dimitris Fousekis to thank for their beautiful art. I should also mention all fellow Indie authors—I know how hard it is what you do—and my wonderful social media followers. To them, to my wife, my parents, and to the many teachers who have taught me so much in this life, as well as to my readers, without whose support this endeavor would matter but little, I offer my deep gratitude. About the author [image file=Image00002.jpg] Nicholas Rossis lives to write and does so from his cottage on the edge of a magical forest in Athens, Greece. When not composing epic fantasies or short sci-fi stories, he chats with fans and colleagues, writes blog posts, walks his dog, and enjoys the antics of two silly cats and his daughter, all of whom claim his lap as home. Nicholas is all around the Internet, but the best place to connect with him would be on his blog, http://nicholasrossis.me/ You can check out his books on Amazon: http://author.to/rossis Notes from the authorAlso available from Nicholas C.

• From What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (2013)

  Not that this would solve men’s problems, not that it should calm their worries. One morning he lectured his undergraduates on the Coolidge effect, a standard in sexuality textbooks, an expression of what Pfaus scorned as evolutionary psychology’s “shtick.” The Coolidge effect comes from a tale that goes like this: One day President Coolidge and his wife were visiting an experimental government farm. They took separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge came to the chicken yard she noticed the rooster’s frequent mating and asked the attendant how often this went on. “Dozens of times each day,” he informed her, to which she replied, “Please tell that to the president when he comes by.” The attendant did as she requested when the president arrived. “Same hen every time?” the president asked. “Oh, no,” the man answered, “different hen every time.” And the president said, “Please tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.” The tale is used to hammer home the principle that male lust feeds on multiple partners. Pfaus mocked the faith that this is somehow less so for females. Rodent females, he informed his undergrads, do more hopping and darting to score with new mates. And they dip their spines deeper, so the new male has an easier time thrusting in. During one of our talks, Pfaus swerved from the evidence he’d accumulated; he careened down a road of speculation. “When this generation of young people is fully studied,” he said, words gathering speed, “we’re going to see more supposedly male-like behavior, more women picking up men, more women getting laid and leaving, having sex without waiting to bond, more girls up in their rooms at their computers clicking on porn and masturbating before they get started on their homework.” It wasn’t clear which age group he was thinking about, whether he meant girls who were now twelve or women who were now twenty-four, and it wasn’t clear how he explained the unfettering he believed was underway, though it seemed to have partly to do with the Internet. Were there any concrete signs, I wondered, that the trend he imagined was real? Were girls and women staring more and more at the X-rated? Was their porn-surfing nearing that of men? There were only scattered answers, slivers of evidence. The most credible came from Nielsen, the consumer tracking company, in a report that one in three online porn users was female—four years earlier, the figure had been one in four. And porn-addiction counselors were quoted in the press saying that their ratios of female clients were rising. Yet the most vivid clue was probably James Deen’s fan base.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Please God, Wendy thought on the stately paths of Silver Meadow, not another winter night of New Canaan conversation … So, back at the country club. Mike gazed at her vagina—its concealments and complexities—and froze. The sounds of the country club swept over them like an orchestral tuning. She could hear caddies suggesting a particular iron, kids arguing about who got to go off the high dive first, mothers hurrying children up to the snack bar. He smelled like coconut. She smelled like sweat and chlorine and generations of good breeding. The day smelled like hot pavement. Then Mike Williams untied the knot in his maroon swimming trunks and revealed his own inheritance. He was no more like Sandy than she was. It was a big, sprawling thing, a garter snake coiled in his swimming trunks, or one of those Fourth of July snakes, the kind that unfurled themselves—from a little black chip—in a thick, stinky, sulfuric haze. A small down of auburn hairs adorned its base where the little fellow was now swelling forth as though she had used its secret name. —This is it, Wendy, Mike said. They embraced. And parted. Wendy laughed and laughed and laughed. For a couple of weeks after that Mike was pretty shy. Well, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Watergate was heating up. Saturday Night Massacre. Wendy had started watching Watergate more closely than even Dark Shadows or The 4:30 Movie . She liked to see Nixon sweating under the cameras; she liked the relentless glare of network news. But Mike came back eventually, like he was coming up Valley Road, now, on his Fuji bicycle. Finally, she had led him from his chewing-gum counting house and down to the little graveyard on Silvermine Road, where lost souls from the nineteenth century slept fitfully—Sereno Ogden, Capt. Ebenezer Benedict, and S. Y. St. John—where none came to mourn, where kids practiced their French inhaling. When the dizziness from their own pack of Larks was too much, Wendy lay across his chest. And he held her there. She could see his erection in the tan corduroys, straining like the kid in math who always had the answer. And they undressed there in the graveyard, their clothes piled neatly on some family mausoleum, and then they stopped just short, each with the other’s smell on his or her hands, each like an overwound watch. They just stopped. Who knew why? So the graveyard, for Wendy and Mike, inaugurated the tradition of dry humping. —Where have you been? she called across the gloomy landscaped expanses of Silver Meadow. —Something with my mom, Mike said, hauling his bike alongside him.

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

  How to Have Fun at a Sex PartyHow can you have a good time at a sex party? Lower your expectations. If your goal for the evening is to have sex with a particular individual or to meet the woman of your dreams, you may go home disappointed. Set a reasonable goal for yourself. For instance, just showing up and watching a scene, or saying hello to one person you don’t know, is a reasonable objective for a first play party. Play parties can be great places to learn how the principles of negotiation and safer sex work in “real” life. In your everyday life, you might feel awkward asking for sex or turning down an offer of a date. Being surrounded by women who boldly state their erotic interests and preferences gives you support for asking for what you want, too. You can practice saying “Would you like to…” and “I’d love to…” and “No, thanks” in an erotic context. Give yourself permission to seek out any form of pleasure that feels right to you. You can get a foot rub. You can be fed strawberries as you watch women engage in sex. You can try new sexual activities, experiment with roles and costumes, and have sex with six women—if you find willing participants and have the stamina. You can play with women or men, or both, if you so desire. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right to you. Attendance at a pansexual party doesn’t necessarily mean you’re interested in having sex with men—regardless of whether you identify as lesbian or bisexual. In fact, going to a play party doesn’t obligate you to have sex at all. You may be wholeheartedly appreciated as an enthusiastic voyeur. Don’t want to go to a party alone? So take a friend or lover—just be sure you discuss your expectations for the evening before you get to the party. Will you be having sex with each other? With others as well? Is it OK if one of you goes off on her own to engage in sex play? Can the other watch? What happens if one of you wants to leave? What if you witness a scene so erotically compelling you just have to join in? Can you join a group engaged in sex? You can make your presence known subtly without interrupting or crowding the scene. Wait until you have an opportunity to make eye contact. Smile. Let the women involved in the scene initiate communication. If there’s no interest, move on. If there is, ask: “May I join you?”

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  She pressed the tip against him and he shivered. She pressed and eased back, pressed and eased back, until she felt the head of the dildo breach the narrowest ring and slide forward unimpeded. Ed groaned as she thrust more deeply, and a wave of arousal hit her so hard she trembled nearly as much as he did. The sight was unbelievably hot, the gleaming purple silicone disappearing into Ed’s ass, his hole stretching to accept it. He dropped one hand from his butt and reached beneath his body, and when he pulled on his cock she matched the tempo she could see and feel. It was supposed to be about Ed this time, but she came first because she couldn’t help it. She ground her pelvis against the resistance when she pushed all the way inside him. The shift in rhythm took Ed with her, and he jerked under her hands as he finished himself off. Groaning in unison, they slumped together in a heap of postcoital exhaustion. * * * Ed’s muscles were noodle-limp, his mind oddly clear. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in Beth’s bed, to wake in the morning and watch her sleep if she was still sleeping. What did he do? He asked me to marry him. And in retaliation against that notion, she had taken Ed. He’d more than liked it. The act itself and the way it had made him feel strangely powerful to let Beth do it. Her ex hadn’t been willing or able to do that for her, to give the things she wanted to take, or to take the things she needed to give. Ed had done that for her, and it had strengthened them both. Now, though, when he most wanted to bask in afterglow and contemplate what it would feel like to do that to Beth, he stared into a dark part of his soul and wondered if it would eventually take over. Perhaps it was the ebbing endorphins that made him so sad. Perhaps it was just his inherently practical, skeptical nature. He knew things weren’t right yet, and he knew he needed to leave. Beth had gone and come back already once, with a warm wet washcloth. By the time she returned from the bathroom again, he was sitting on the foot of the bed, fully clothed and tying his shoes. Her expression cloaked her more effectively than a robe could have. Naked, she had more natural defenses than Ed had ever possessed. He admired the hell out of her strength, and hated that she seemed to be using it against herself in this case. Depriving herself of happiness. Nobody should get to deprive his Beth of happiness, not even Beth. “Why?” He tied off the bow, braced his hands on his knees, sighed. “I’m not Aaron.” “I’m absurdly well aware of that.”

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  And I was scheduled to do a television show about that tortured relationship. All I really wanted to do was rent a big red classic Cadillac like Hunter Thompson and pretty much reenact Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And have somebody else pay for it. At the end of the day, it was a pretty hard place to hate. Unsurprisingly, I had a lot of fun (most of it not described in the article). And despite serious doubts and suspicions, I was encouraged by what some of the chefs I admired were doing there. The first draft/original version appears here, with my friend Michael Ruhlman mentioned by name. My editors at Gourmet —sensibly—gutted much of the piece for publication. The shameless duping of Thompson's masterwork is, of course, no accident. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas changed my life when it first appeared in serial form in the pages of Rolling Stone, and here I was, at forty-nine, finally able to live it. Homage or cheesy imitation? You decide. I had a helluva time. And if you've never jumped out of an airplane with a flying Elvis? I highly recommend it. ARE YOU A CRIP OR A BLOOD? More and more frequently in my travels, I find out that everything I know is wrong, or at least very much in question. After sneering relentlessly at "fusion"—having experienced so much of the worst of it—I'd started coming across some more interesting and virtuous expressions. In Sydney, I'd been dazzled by Tetsuya Wakuda's Australian/Japanese. In Miami, Norman Van Aken had astonished me with a menu consisting of ingredients that were almost entirely unfamiliar. I recognized the dogma in my own relentless sneering about the evils of fusion, and didn't like the feeling of repeatedly finding myself in rooms filled with people who agreed with me. As much as I admired and appreciated the slow-food movement and the increased interest in better, more seasonal ingredients, there was a whiff of orthodoxy about it all that I felt contradicted the chef's basic mission: to give pleasure. I'd met a lot of very hungry people in recent years, and I doubted very much whether they cared if their next meal came from the next village over or a greenhouse in Tacoma. The notion of "terroir" and "organic" started to seem like the kind of thinking you'd expect of the privileged—or isolationist. The very discussion of "organic" vs. "nonorganic," I knew, was a luxury. I've since come to believe that any overriding philosophy or worldview is the enemy of good eating. This was an early slap back at a perfectly respectable point of view. VIVA MEXICO! VIVA ECUADOR! I'd regrettably agreed to be a presenter at the annual James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony just a few weeks before writing this piece. There I was, at the Oscars of the food world. I stood up on that stage, reading from the teleprompter and looking out at a huge audience of America's foodie and restaurant-industry elite.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Please go on,” I cried, “don’t be afraid, I can stand any criticism and profit by it—I hope.” “Your accent is a little English, isn’t it?” he said, “and that prejudices both judge and jury against you, especially the jury: if you had Barker’s accent, you’d be the best pleader in the State—” “I’ll get the accent,” I exclaimed, “you’re dead right: I had already felt the need of it; but I was obstinate, now I’ll get it: you may bet on that, get it within a week” and I did. There was a lawyer in the town named Hoysradt who had had a fierce quarrel with my brother Willie. He had the most pronounced Western American accent I had ever heard and I set myself the task every morning and evening of imitating Hoysradt’s accent and manner of speech. I made it a rule too, to use the slow Western enunciation in ordinary speech and in a week, no one would have taken me for any one but an American. Sommerfeld was delighted and told me he had fuller confidence in me than ever and from that time on our accord was perfect, for the better I knew him, the more highly I esteemed him: he was indeed able, hardworking, truthful and honest—a compact of all the virtues, but so modest and inarticulate that he was often his own worst enemy. * * * WORK AND SOPHY. Chapter XIV. Now began for me a most delightful time. Sommerfeld relieved me of nearly all the office work: I had only to get up the speeches, for he prepared the cases for me. My income was so large that I only slept in my office-room for convenience sake, or rather for my lechery’s sake. I kept a buggy and horse at a livery stable and used to drive Lily or Rose out nearly every day. As Rose lived on the other side of the river, it was easy to keep the two separate and indeed neither of them ever dreamed of the other’s existence. I had a very soft spot in my heart for Rose: her beauty of face and form always excited and pleased me and her mind, too, grew quickly through our talks and the books I gave her. I’ll never forget her joy when I first bought a small bookcase and sent it to her home one morning, full of the books I thought she would like and ought to read. In the evening she came straight to my office, told me it was the very thing she had most wanted and she let me study her beauties one by one; but when I turned her round and kissed her bottom, she wanted me to stop: “You can’t possibly like or admire that”, was her verdict.

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

  1. You can nurture your inner exhibitionist. You can perform for an audience of eager voyeurs. 2. You can indulge in sensory overload, watching and hearing others engage in sexual activities—while you’re having sex. 3. You can leave your inhibitions at the door and try sexual activities you’ve only imagined. Nothing like a change of venue to make you feel adventurous. 4. Your body image will get a big boost when you see women of all shapes and sizes being admired erotically. 5. You can scream out your pleasure (or pain) without worrying about your neighbors. 6. You’ll get plenty of encouragement for being a slut. You may even get a round of applause when you come. 7. You can make friends and find sex partners. 8. You can have group sex, and you can have sex with strangers in a safe environment. 9. You can play on good equipment—like a St. Andrew’s cross or sling. You can play with that new 6-foot single-tailed whip you can’t safely swing in your living room. 10. You can enact your favorite public sex fantasy without the risk of encountering cops and queer-bashers. 11. You can have sex without the complications of dating. 12. You can heat up your relationship. Even if you and your partner wish to have sex exclusively with each other, you can enjoy an entirely new erotic environment. At a BDSM party, you’ll find women tied to whipping posts, crosses, bondage tables, racks, and (in standing bondage) to eyebolts in a low ceiling. You’ll hear the crack of single-tailed whips, the smack of paddles on buttocks, and, of course, lots of sighs and screams. You’ll see women practicing safer sex, too. You can learn how to introduce latex and other barriers into a scene. You may see a woman erotically teasing her partner as she slowly slips on a glove or licking a partner’s thighs as she spreads a dental dam over her vulva. You’ll see women lube up condom-covered dildos and butt plugs, and slip gloves over the heads of electric vibrators. Many party hosts post safer-sex rules. They may be as simple as “no exchange of bodily fluid” or quite detailed, specifying when gloves and condoms are to be used. You may find etiquette rules posted as well. Hosts may remind guests to ask before touching and to refrain from interrupting others’ play. Often S/M parties employ dungeon monitors who can help guests with safety concerns. In many communities, safeword has itself become the universal safeword—if you call out “safeword,” folks will come running.

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  Beth couldn’t believe she was actually doing it. She had tried on the harness more than once, checking her cock-wielding self in the mirror and liking what she saw and how the idea of penetrating someone with the thing made her feel. But this time her fingers trembled as she buckled the leather straps into place around her hips and ensured that the dildo was seated firmly. “Okay. Give me your hands. No, don’t look back here, give me your hands!” He ignored her, staring in open awe at the black leather harness, and the faux cock in all its sparkly purple glory. “You look amazing. And I need to scoot back a little because my dick’s about to drill into your mattress.” “Oh. Okay, after that, give me your hands.” He scooted, then lifted his hands behind his back. She took them, placing them on his rear cheeks. “Now pull.” “Really? Because I already feel very, very exposed back there. In fact there’s a draft in this room and I can feel it swooshing by.” “There’s no draft, Ed. Spread ‘em.” “Ew.” But he did, and Beth rewarded his effort with a hefty squeeze of lube. “Not ew. It’s very hot. Almost as hot as it will be in a little while when I make you my bitch.” He laughed at that, but winced when she worked the first finger in, and clenched so hard her finger hurt. “Shh. Relax. Bear down. I know that sounds strange but it helps.” “I guess I’ll take your word for it.” He bore down. She gained a fraction of an inch. She stroked the small of his back, pressing down to soothe the muscles. He was unbelievably tight, and if he didn’t relax, they’d never work through the painful part to get to the good stuff. “Bear down and think of staying like that. Letting your muscles loosen into that position instead of contracting again.” It was enough this time. Angling her finger and slipping it fully inside him, she brushed over a ridged spot and Ed gasped. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” “Bad oh my God, or good oh—” “Good, good, keep going. Do it again. Please do it again.” He’d gotten the knack of it now, and she was able to work a second finger in. Scissoring her digits back and forth made Ed moan, and pumping gently loosened him even more and got his hips moving in sync with her actions. “Needs to be soon. I need to come soon,” he murmured into the mattress after another few moments of playing. Beth pulled out and grabbed a wipe, cleaning her hands as thoroughly as possible before she gripped Ed’s hip and lined the cock up with his well-lubed hole.

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  She took her clothes off, stripped the comforter from the bed, and gathered supplies from the special box in her closet, periodically checking to make sure Ed wasn’t peeking. Then she bundled the assortment of stuff into her skirt and stuck it on her nightstand so she’d have it at the ready. “All righty. Open your eyes.” “Will I get a big surprise?” “In a bit, quite possibly. For now I want you to service my needs like a good boy should.” She made a show of crawling onto the bed, wiggling her ass, feeling his gaze like a touch on her skin. When she rolled to her back, Ed was already there, kissing his way up the inside of her thigh, already half-hard. He must have shaved right before he came to the club, because his face was baby-smooth. When he finally stopped teasing and slotted his mouth over her pussy, Beth forgot everything, forgot her agenda for the evening, who was supposed to be on top, everything. Only Ed’s mouth mattered, his lips grazing her clit, pausing to suck, his tongue parting her folds and slipping inside to explore. She’d never had much trouble holding off orgasms when ordered to, when Aaron went down on her. Quite the opposite in fact. He knew exactly how to bring her up to the edge, when he wanted to, but mostly he indulged himself more than her. Ed was new, unpredictable, keying his behavior to her responses in a glorious sensual feedback loop, and before Beth knew it she was tipping over. Breaking under Ed’s gentle onslaught, shattered by the delicate persuasion of his tongue and fingers. He’s really very good at that. It was all she could think for a few moments, while her body buzzed with happy reverberations and Ed worked his way up to her mouth. Oh yes. That other thing. She had plans, and she had equipment. Shiny new equipment she’d never had a chance to use. And a willing bottom to try it all out on. After a few seconds of delectable sex-flavored kissing, Beth pushed Ed away and rolled out from under him. “Good boy. Very well done.” “Thank you. I try. Where you goin’?” “Not far. Hey, come here, big boy, swing your legs over the edge of the bed and bend over for me.” “Oh fuck. Fuck. Tonight?” “You know you want to.” “Fuck.” He buried his face in his hands for a few heartbeats, and Beth was about to give up on her beloved plan when Ed cursed again under his breath and kicked his legs over the side of the bed, shimmying into position in front of her. “Be gentle with me. No, seriously, extremely gentle.” Laughing, a little nervous, she reached past him for the bundled skirt and tugged it out of his line of sight before unfolding it. Harness. Dildo. Lube. Wet wipes. All ready to go.

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

  In the next two types of decision, the final fiat occurs before the evidence is all 'in.' It often happens that no paramount and authoritative reason for either course will come. Either seems a case of a Good, and there is no umpire as to which good should yield its place to the other. We grow tired of long hesitation and inconclusiveness, and the hour may come when we feel that even a bad decision is better than no decision at all. Under these conditions it will often happen that some accidental circumstance, supervening at a particular movement upon our mental weariness, will upset the balance in the direction of one of the alternatives, to which then we feel ourselves committed, although an opposite accident at the same time might have produced the opposite result. In the second type of case our feeling is to a certain extent that of letting ourselves drift with a certain indifferent acquiescence in a direction accidentally determined from without, with the conviction that, after all, we might as well stand by this course as by the other, and that things are in any event sure to turn out sufficiently right. In the third type the determination seems equally accidental, but it comes from within, and not from without. If often happens, when the absence of imperative principle is perplexing and suspense distracting, that we find ourselves acting, as it were, automatically, and as if by a spontaneous discharge of our nerves, in the direction of one of the horns of the dilemma. But so exciting is this sense of motion after our intolerable pent-up state, that we eagerly throw ourselves into it. 'Forward now!' we inwardly cry, 'though the heavens fall.' This reckless and exultant espousal of an energy so little premeditated by us that we feel rather like passive spectators cheering on the display of some extraneous force than like voluntary agents, is a type of decision too abrupt and tumultuous to occur often in humdrum and cool-blooded natures. But it is probably frequent in persons of strong emotional endowment and unstable or vacillating character. And in men of the world-shaking type, the Napoleons, Luthers, etc., in whom tenacious passion combines with ebullient activity, when by any chance the passion's outlet has been dammed by scruples or apprehensions, the resolution is probably often of this catastrophic kind. The flood breaks quite unexpectedly through the dam. That is should so often do so is quite sufficient to account for the tendency of these characters to a fatalistic mood of mind. And the fatalistic mood itself is sure to reinforce the strength of the energy just started on its exciting path of discharge.

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

  The laws of stimulation and of association may well be indispensable actors in all attention's performances, and may even be a good enough 'stock-company' to carry on many performances without aid; and yet they may at times simply form the background for a 'star-performer,' who is no more their 'inert accompaniment' or their 'incidental product' than Hamlet is Horatio's and Ophelia's. Such a star-performer would be the voluntary effort to attend, if it were an original psychic force. Nature may , I say, indulge in these complications; and the conception that she has done so in this case is, I think, just as clear (if not as 'parsimonious' logically) as the conception that she has not. To justify this assertion, let us ask just what the effort to attend would effect if it were an original force. It would deepen and prolong the stay in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly away. The delay thus gained might not be more than a second in duration—but that second might be critical ; for in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the mind, where two associated systems of them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain force to occupy the field and develop itself, and exclude the other, or be excluded itself by the other. When developed, it may make us act; and that act may seal our doom. When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. This appearance, which makes life and history tingle with such a tragic zest, may not be an illusion. As we grant to the advocate of the mechanical theory that it may be one, so he must grant to us that it may not . And the result is two conceptions of possibility face to face with no facts definitely enough known to stand as arbiter between them.

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  But if the window was less than ten minutes or longer than six hours, it did return. It thus seems that some rapid molecular mechanism is engaged and opens the reconsolidation window, and then lasts several hours. Monfils’s initial study implicated a subgroup of glutamate receptors; later, in Richard Huganir’s laboratory at Johns Hopkins, Roger Clem clarified in detail how glutamate receptors participate in this process of triggering memory lability and stabilizing a new (updated) version of the memory by using state-of-the-art molecular genetic techniques. 155 Figure 11.6 : Improving Extinction by Combining Extinction and Reconsolidation in Rats and Humans. (BASED ON FINDINGS REPORTED BY MONFILS ET AL [2009] AND SCHILLER ET AL [2010].) We then set up a collaboration with Liz Phelps’s laboratory, with Daniela Schiller taking the lead. The studies confirmed the rat findings in college students who underwent conditioning and then received one retrieval trial followed by an extinction procedure ten minutes, one hour, or six or more hours later. The ten-minute and one-hour time periods prevented recovery even when tested a year later, but the later time period had no effect. 156 Studies by Schiller and others in the Phelps laboratory extended the psychological findings but also implicated the PFC VM —in fact, the same region involved in extinction and implicit reappraisal—in this use of extinction to update the memory of the threat stimulus as safe rather than dangerous. 157 Based on the studies by Monfils and Schiller, extinction during the reconsolidation window has been proposed as a mechanism of action underlying a novel approach for treating combat PTSD. 158 Addiction researchers also picked up on Monfils and Schiller’s work, and tested the effects on drug cue–induced relapse in addicted rats and people. 159 In both rats and humans, the procedure produced a persistent prevention of relapse. This is an impressive application of a simple but powerful procedural change. Other behavioral manipulating to facilitate extinction are also emerging from the Phelps lab. 160 It should be stressed that all that was done in these studies was to change the amount of time between the first and second trial of extinction. No drug manipulation was involved, but only a procedural change that inadvertently took advantage of the reconsolidation window opened by a single retrieval trial. It’s very exciting that a very simple adjustment in the timing of stimulus exposures has the potential to greatly improve the effectiveness of exposure therapy. Although not all studies have found the effect as described, 161 there have been a number of successful replications in different species and different kinds of tests. Additional research will have to clarify the conditions under which the effect can be expected to occur. Any future clinical applications of these methods should follow the laboratory procedures as closely as possible, including the minimization of explicit cognition. This will make it easier to replicate the animal findings in humans and may also be significant for preventing interference when multiple processes compete for brain resources.

• From American Swing (2008)

  SO THEY HAD SPECIAL PARTIES-- SOMETIMES THEY WOULD HAVE KINKY NIGHTS. I, UH, USE THE... UH, THE PUSSY PROPULSION WHICH IS THE BASIS FOR ALL SPACE TRAVEL. Man: BELLE DU JOUR PRESENTS AN S&M COSTUME BALL AND DINNER PARTY. DO THEY HAVE TO BE IN COSTUME? NOT NECESSARILY, BUT IT WOULD BE FUN. I'M HERE EVERY TUESDAY AND IT STARTS AT 8:15. AND I FULFILL ALL THEIR FANTASIES IN S&M... AND ALL EROTIC FANTASIES. SOUNDS GOOD TO ME. I'M DANNY THE WONDER PONY. I GIVE WOMEN PONY RIDES. I DANCE IN A FASHION THAT MAKES THEM LOOK AND FEEL LIKE THEY'RE RIDING A PONY, EXCEPT TO THE MUSIC. AND IF YOU'VE EVER WATCHED A WOMAN RIDE A HORSE, IT'S VERY EROTIC. ( crowd shouting ) HE HAD FOXY BOXING, WHICH WAS GIRLS FIGHTING EACH OTHER. OKAY, STICK AROUND. NEXT MATCH COMING SOON. Lincoln: THE AMUSING PART OF THAT IS IN BETWEEN EACH ROUND THE GIRLS WOULD THROW UP IN A BUCKET. THERE WERE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THOSE THINGS WEREN'T AS TABOO AS THEY ARE NOW. ♪ IF YOU LIKE WHAT WE'RE DOING WHEN WE'RE DOING WHAT WE'RE DOING ♪ ♪ COME ON, CLAP YOUR HANDS ♪ ♪ IF YOU LIKE WHAT WE'RE DOING WHEN WE'RE DOING WHAT WE'RE DOING ♪ ♪ HEY-YYYY! ♪ Stewart: I REMEMBER THEY HAD GIRLS UP THERE-- I THINK THEY WERE PORNO STARS-- PERFORMING, DOING MUSICAL FEATS. ♪ PARTY PARTY ♪ ♪ PARTY PARTY... ♪ Stewart: AND THERE WERE MEN IN THE AUDIENCE WHO WERE MASTURBATING-- IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECT. Man: DON'T YOU, ON CERTAIN LEVELS, FEEL THAT SWINGING SORT OF HAS SHOT ITS LOAD? THAT IT'S A TIRED PHENOMENA THAT DATES BACK MORE TO THE '60s AND '70s? - AND FOR THE '80s NOBODY REALLY GIVES A SHIT? - NO, ON THE CONTRARY. I THINK SWINGING IS JUST NOW REALLY COMING INTO ITS OWN. Jeremy: WHILE LARRY WAS IN JAIL HE DID THESE LITTLE WEEKLY ANNOUNCEMENTS THAT WERE REALLY CUTE. WHAT ABOUT YOUR JOB? - DID YOU SAY YOU WORKED IN THE SEWER SYSTEM? - YEAH. WE WOULD SET UP A TAPE RECORDER THAT WAS ATTACHED TO THE TELEPHONE. ( laughs ) HE WANTS TO BE HEARD FROM PRISON OR NO. - WHAT DO YOU DO? - I TEST THE... THE GARBAGE, WHAT? DO YOU EAT IT? YEAH, THE WASTE AND EVERYTHING. NO, THE AMOEBA EATS IT. HE HAD SENATORS THERE WITH HIM. HE HAD JUDGES THERE WITH HIM. HE HAD LAWYERS THERE WITH HIM. IT WAS NOT A TERRIBLE PLACE TO BE. WHEN THAT WATER GOES INTO THE RIVER, YOU CAN ACTUALLY DRINK IT. ♪ HAPPINESS! ♪ I GOT A PHONE CALL FROM A FRIEND OF MINE WHO SAYS, "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.

• From The Fixed Stars (0)

  I’d pried myself out of a frame that didn’t fit, and now Nora and I would fit me for a new one. We worked to make the facts of me—a mother, a wife, someone who had lived her whole life in the straight world—square up alongside her. Could I be polyamorous? Could I be someone’s lover? Could I be queer? Who would decide? I wanted to put my ear to her body like a shell, let her echo tell me who I was. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] Can I go down on you? I asked. It had taken weeks to work up the guts. She seemed to consider. I’m usually a top, she said. Not a stone top, not entirely. But a top. What do you mean by “stone top”? I said. I mean, I don’t really want to be touched. I don’t need it. I’d rather touch you. I’d rather give than receive. Is this queer sex? If she’s a top, do I have to be a bottom? What if I want to be both? What if I want to be neither? I said, I just want to be a person in bed with you. 16One afternoon, June came home pouting. When I asked what was wrong, she said a girl in her class had called her a baby. I murmured sympathies. I wanted to drive back to school and pummel the kid. What do you think? I asked her. Do you think you’re a baby? June shook her head, dragged the back of her hand across her dripping nose. She was not quite four years old. Then there you go, I said. You’re not a baby, Junie. You know who you are. Easier to say it to her than to say it to myself. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] “Birth is not merely that which divides women from men,” writes author Rachel Cusk. “It also divides women from themselves. . . . Another person has existed in her, and after their birth they live within the jurisdiction of her consciousness. When she is with them she is not herself; when she is without them she is not herself.”25 [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] September 7, 2012: I went into labor late on a Friday night. Each time a contraction came, I wrapped my arms around Brandon’s neck and clung to him, hung from his chest in a perverse and painful slow dance. At five the next evening, sixteen hours into labor, I asked for an epidural. Another twelve hours later—twenty-eight hours into labor—I was ten centimeters dilated. As the sun rose that Sunday morning, I started to push.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  After a moment or so, I say, You really need an agent. The problem that comes up over and over again is that these people want to be published. They kind of want to write, but they really want to be published. You’ll never get to where you want to be that way, I tell them. There is a door we all want to walk through, and writing can help you find it and open it. Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up. But publishing won’t do any of those things; you’ll never get in that way. My son, Sam, at three and a half, had these keys to a set of plastic handcuffs, and one morning he intentionally locked himself out of the house. I was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper when I heard him stick his plastic keys into the doorknob and try to open the door. Then I heard him say, “Oh, shit.” My whole face widened, like the guy in Edvard Munch’s Scream . After a moment I got up and opened the front door. “Honey,” I said, “what’d you just say?” “I said, ‘Oh, shit,’ ” he said. “But, honey, that’s a naughty word. Both of us have absolutely got to stop using it. Okay?” He hung his head for a moment, nodded, and said, “Okay, Mom.” Then he leaned forward and said confidentially, “But I’ll tell you why I said ‘shit.’ ” I said Okay, and he said, “Because of the fucking keys!” Fantasy keys won’t get you in. Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram—it’s the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar. What’s real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you’ll get better. At times when you’re working, you’ll sit there feeling hung over and bored, and you may or may not be able to pull yourself up out of it that day. But it is fantasy to think that successful writers do not have these bored, defeated hours, these hours of deep insecurity when one feels as small and jumpy as a water bug. They do. But they also often feel a great sense of amazement that they get to write, and they know that this is what they want to do for the rest of their lives. And so if one of your heart’s deepest longings is to write , there are ways to get your work done, and a number of reasons why it is important to do so.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  So I tell them everything I’ve been thinking or talking about lately that has helped me get my work done. There are some quotes and examples from other writers that have inspired me and that I hand out every session. There are some things my friends remind me of when I call them, worried, bored, discouraged, and trying to scrounge together cab fare to the bridge. What follows in this book is what I’ve learned along the way, what I pass along to each new batch of students. This is not like other writing books, some of which are terrific. It’s more personal, more like my classes. As of today, here is almost every single thing I know about writing. Part OneWriting Getting StartedThe very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out. Year after year my students are bursting with stories to tell, and they start writing projects with excitement and maybe even joy—finally their voices will be heard, and they are going to get to devote themselves to this one thing they’ve longed to do since childhood. But after a few days at the desk, telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat. Some lose faith. Their sense of self and story shatters and crumbles to the ground. Historically they show up for the first day of the workshop looking like bright goofy ducklings who will follow me anywhere, but by the time the second class rolls around, they look at me as if the engagement is definitely off. “I don’t even know where to start,” one will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can. Flannery O’Connor said that anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life. Maybe your childhood was grim and horrible, but grim and horrible is Okay if it is well done. Don’t worry about doing it well yet, though. Just start getting it down. Now, the amount of material may be so overwhelming that it can make your brain freeze. When I had been writing food reviews for a number of years, there were so many restaurants and individual dishes in my brainpan that when people asked for a recommendation, I couldn’t think of a single restaurant where I’d ever actually eaten.

• From On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy (1961)

  These are some of the changes which we now know come about in individuals who have completed a series of counseling interviews in which the psychological atmosphere approximates the relationship I described. Each of the statements made is based upon objective evidence. Much more research needs to be done, but there can no longer be any doubt as to the effectiveness of such a relationship in producing personality change. A BROAD HYPOTHESIS OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS To me, the exciting thing about these research findings is not simply the fact that they give evidence of the efficacy of one form of psychotherapy, though that is by no means unimportant. The excitement comes from the fact that these findings justify an even broader hypothesis regarding all human relationships. There seems every reason to suppose that the therapeutic relationship is only one instance of interpersonal relations, and that the same lawfulness governs all such relationships. Thus it seems reasonable to hypothesize that if the parent creates with his child a psychological climate such as we have described, then the child will become more self-directing, socialized, and mature. To the extent that the teacher creates such a relationship with his class, the student will become a self-initiated learner, more original, more self-disciplined, less anxious and other-directed. If the administrator, or military or industrial leader, creates such a climate within his organization, then his staff will become more self-responsible, more creative, better able to adapt to new problems, more basically cooperative. It appears possible to me that we are seeing the emergence of a new field of human relationships, in which we may specify that if certain attitudinal conditions exist, then certain definable changes will occur. CONCLUSION Let me conclude by returning to a personal statement. I have tried to share with you something of what I have learned in trying to be of help to troubled, unhappy, maladjusted individuals.

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

  The Mistress offered a sliding scale of from $150 to $250—fees would be considerably higher now—for a two-to-three-hour scene, plus a 45-minute phone conversation in which they negotiated the scene. (A session with a professional dominatrix is not prostitution—since it does not involve the exchange of sex for money. “Sex” is usually defined as involving some form of direct genital contact.) The day after the session, my friend was dancing in her seat at the café where we met for coffee. Her eyes sparkled with excitement and her face glowed. Soon after we sat down, she asked if I wanted to see the marks from her play piercing, and before I could say Story of O she had pulled down the neckline of her jersey to reveal the two little red dots where the needle had entered and then exited her chest. My friend was three times a virgin: She had never been naked in front of a stranger (in an erotic context), she had never negotiated a “real” scene, and she had never paid for an erotic encounter. As I admired her marks, she chattered on, telling me of the Mistress’s private dungeon, the whole wall just of multicolored and textured whips, and the rack to which she had been bound. Images and snippets of memory came tumbling out—the Mistress commanding her to select one whip she would like and one that frightened her;the elaborate rope bondage embracing her thighs, arms, and torso; the mixture of devotion and arousal the Mistress stirred in her; the tears that came finally as she released the grief over the loss of her lover/top. “At some point during the whipping, she let me suck her hand—and I was gone.” Toys for BDSM PlayIn your BDSM play you can use toys ranging from homemade and appropriated items (see “Home Despot,” above) to beautifully handcrafted leather and wooden implements. You can choose from whips, canes, crops, bondage furniture, hoods, restraints, and many, many other items. It’s not unusual for a well-equipped dungeon to boast thousands of dollars’ worth of toys and other devices. So how can an ordinary girl play on a budget? For starters, check the resources for mail-order companies that offer inexpensive BDSM toys. Then, make some choices. Which toys must you have in your collection? Which can you improvise? Or borrow before you buy? Canes and riding crops are relatively inexpensive. Impact toys like paddles and straps can be easily improvised with common household items. Of course, if you’re talented, you can learn to make your own toys. That Sounds Dangerous!Yes, there is danger in S/M play. You can’t restrict movement or stress the body without some risk. And if you also administer punishment, make demands for extreme levels of obedience and patience, concoct humiliating or embarrassing scenarios, or otherwise toy with a person’s emotional resilience, you’re playing the edge indeed.

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

  No measurements are as yet performed (it is safe to say none ever will be performed) which can show that it contributes energy to the result. We may then regard attention as a superfluity, or a 'Luxus,' and dogmatize against its causal function with no feeling in our hearts but one of pride that we are applying Occam's razor to an entity that has multiplied itself 'beyond necessity.' But Occam's razor, though a very good rule of method, is certainly no law of nature. The laws of stimulation and of association may well be indispensable actors in all attention's performances, and may even be a good enough 'stock-company' to carry on many performances without aid; and yet they may at times simply form the background for a 'star-performer,' who is no more their 'inert accompaniment' or their 'incidental product' than Hamlet is Horatio's and Ophelia's. Such a star-performer would be the voluntary effort to attend, if it were an original psychic force. Nature may, I say, indulge in these complications; and the conception that she has done so in this case is, I think, just as clear (if not as 'parsimonious' logically) as the conception that she has not. To justify this assertion, let us ask just what the effort to attend would effect if it were an original force. It would deepen and prolong the stay in consciousness of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly away. The delay thus gained might not be more than a second in duration—but that second might be critical; for in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the mind, where two associated systems of them are nearly in equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain force to occupy the field and develop itself, and exclude the other, or be excluded itself by the other. When developed, it may make us act; and that act may seal our doom. When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago.