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.

Page 38 of 182 · 20 per page

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  for Crusades led to such atrocities.39 Inhibitions in every section of the crusader army broke down at the climax of the expedition. In 1099 Western soldiers, exhausted but triumphant from winning the great city of Antioch after an epic siege, captured Jerusalem itself in a frenzied attack. Aware of a rapidly approaching Fatimid relief force, they indulged in hasty and vicious slaughter, and later more calculated executions of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Jewish inhabitants and defenders. The scale of this massacre has been recently challenged,40 but whatever qualifications one makes, it was savage enough to arouse astonishment and fury in the Islamic world. The Temple site, for the first time in its chequered history, became given over to Christian worship; the Al-Aqsa Mosque became a church, the Dome of the Rock a cathedral. Muslims were bewildered at the sudden incursion of Western Europeans into the Middle East. In fact the crusading armies of this first expedition had hit unawares on a moment of peculiar weakness and disarray in Islamic states.41 In that window of opportunity, Western Europeans were able to establish a Latin kingdom in Jerusalem and a territorial presence in the eastern Mediterranean which was only finally extinguished when the Ottoman Turks completed their capture of the island of Crete from the Venetians in 1669. By then the Holy Land itself was long lost. Jerusalem had fallen in 1187 to the armies of the Kurdish military hero Saladin (Salāh al-D n); its inhabitants were treated with ostentatious magnanimity to contrast with the atrocities of 1099. It was only temporarily restored to Christian rule between 1229 and 1244, and in 1291 Islamic armies pushed Westerners out of their last strongholds in Palestine. Despite prodigious expenditure of heroism and resources over two centuries, no crusade equalled the success of the first. The Latin kingdom, at its greatest extent approximately the size of the modern State of Israel, was chronically unstable in government. That character in itself was hardly much different from many of its prototypes in the Latin West, but the kingdom was never a very robust political entity, relying on a constant infusion of financial and military resources from Western enthusiasts. One symptom of its provinciality and marginality was its lack of any institution of Latin higher education such as were beginning to emerge back home; moreover, no single holy figure emerged from its society with sufficient charisma to join the growing list of saints of the Western Church. The crusaders’ initial success in 1099 was actually a disastrous chimera; it held out the prospect that God would repeat his favour, and the piling up of evidence to the contrary did not prevent the triumph of hope over experience, prolonging the efforts to achieve new victories. Ironically, as we will see, one of the most permanent achievements of the crusaders was fatally to

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Khomeini could, Rafsanjani suggested, cite the Islamic principle of maslahah (“public necessity”), which allowed a jurist to legislate “secondary ordinances” about issues not directly provided for in the Koran and the Sunnah, if the welfare of the people demanded it. But Khomeini did not wish to do this. He was beginning to realize that the position of the Supreme Faqih could weaken the authority of the institutions that the Islamic republic needed if it was to survive in the modern world. He was an old man. If he kept intervening and overturning the decisions of government institutions on the basis of his personal charisma, the Majlis and Council would lose their credibility and integrity, and the Islamic constitution would not survive his death. The impasse between the Council and the Majlis continued. Khomeini tried to shame the ulema by pointing to the example of the Iranian children who were dying every day as martyrs in the war with Iraq. These child martyrs show the moral dangers of translating a mystical insight into practical policy. From the moment war was declared, adolescents had crowded into the mosques begging to be sent to the front. Many of them came from the slums and shantytowns and had been radicalized during the Revolution. Afterward, they found their inevitably dull and grim lives an anticlimax. Some had joined the Foundation for the Downtrodden or worked for Construction Jihad, but this could not compare with the excitement of the battlefield. Iran was technically ill-equipped for the war; there had been a population explosion, and the youth formed the majority group in the country. The Foundation for the Downtrodden became the nucleus of an army of twenty million young people who were eager for action. The government passed an edict which allowed male children from the age of twelve to enlist at the front without their parents’ permission. They would become the wards of the Imam, and could be assured of a place in paradise in the event of their death. Tens of thousands of adolescents, wearing crimson headbands (the insignia of a martyr), poured into the war zone. Some cleared minefields, running ahead of the troops and often getting blown to pieces. Others became suicide-bombers, attacking Iraqi tanks kamikaze-style. Special scribes were sent to the front to write their wills, many of which took the form of letters to Imam Khomeini, and spoke of the light he had brought into their lives and of the joy of fighting “alongside friends on the road to Paradise.”

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  acquisition of knowledge, the huge size of Islamic libraries compared with collections in the Christian West and the general sophistication of Abbasid administration were such that, from the eighth century, the mass of texts encouraged a new copying technology imported from China along the trade routes which the Eastern Christians dominated: instead of papyrus or expensive parchment, cloth rags were transformed into paper, durable and comparatively easy to make and cheap as a writing material to cope with the demand.24 The late eighth and early ninth centuries were promising times for the Church of the East, aided by the fact that through forty years from the 780s its patriarch, Timothy I, was an outstanding diplomat in his dealings with caliphs who continued to be erratic in their attitude to the Church. It has been suggested that in his time around a quarter of all the world’s Christians saw Timothy as their spiritual leader – probably as many as looked to the then pope in the decaying city of Rome, far away in the West.25 The Patriarch’s Church increasingly looked east beyond the Abbasid borders. The vigour of Church life combined with the increasing awareness of the Dyophysite bishops that they had less and less room for manoeuvre within the caliphate: conversions from Islam were forbidden and other potential converts who were not People of the Book were diminishing in numbers, so the Church would have to look elsewhere to spread its message. Patriarch Timothy is known to have consecrated a bishop for Tibet, at a time when its Buddhist identity was still in flux, and he could look much further east than that, to the Christian Church which had flourished there for more than a century.26 THE CHURCH IN CHINA The Chinese Empire had been ruled since 618 by the Tang dynasty, which in the years of its power and prosperity was ready to give a place to any religion which did not seem to threaten its security, providing Bishop Alopen with the opportunity for success on his mission of 635 (see pp. 252–3). Christianity’s fortunes in China thereafter were mixed, depending on the whims or foreign policies of successive emperors, but in the mid-eighth century, thanks to the patronage of one general victorious in civil wars, Christians found themselves over several decades in a position of advantage in China which would not be repeated for some centuries. It was from this hopeful time that there survives one of the most remarkable and beautiful monuments of the Church of the East: a black limestone stele standing nearly ten feet tall, which caused justifiable excitement among the Jesuits of a later Christian mission when, in the early

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  characters. Plenty of candidates were lined up or fearlessly stepped forward: Popes Julius II, Leo X and Clement VII had their advocates, while Cardinal Mercurino di Gattinara saw his young master, Charles V, as one of the heralds, the Last World Emperor – an insight which had not hindered him winning high office as Imperial Chancellor, under a youth who needed some means of understanding his staggering accumulation of thrones and territories.66 There were plenty who in due course transferred the identification on to Martin Luther and the early Protestant Reformers. For over three decades from the 1490s, much of Europe was in high excitement about the future, ranging in expression from decorous humanist editing of hermetic and cabbalistic texts to prophecies from wild-eyed women in Spanish or Italian villages and angry sermons of respected clergy. When a would-be reforming council was convened by the Pope (with initial great hopes and widespread goodwill) to the Lateran Palace in 1512–17, one of its many ineffective provisions was to forbid preaching on apocalyptic subjects. A literary fashion emerged for imagining ideal societies and how they might work. The English humanist Thomas More invented a word to describe them all in the title of his enigmatic and straight- faced description of such a place: Utopia – in cod-Greek, that means ‘nowhere’. ERASMUS: NEW BEGINNINGS? One man seemed to offer the possibility of a reasonable, moderate outcome to Europe’s excitements and fears in the early 1500s: Desiderius Erasmus. His life and achievements combine so many themes of European renewal. The supreme humanist scholar came from the Netherlands, home of the Devotio Moderna. He became a friend not merely to princes and bishops, but to any clever, wealthy or attractive well-educated European who shared his passion for ideas. All Europe wanted Erasmus as its property: Cardinal Ximénes made vain overtures to get him to Spain, and the cultivated humanist Bishop of Cracow Pietr Tomicki had just as little success with his invitation to Poland – in a curious superstition, Erasmus would never travel very far east of the Rhine, although he was frequently prepared to risk the English Channel. Instead, people came to Erasmus as devotees. He constructed a salon of the imagination, embracing the entire continent in a constant flow of letters to hundreds of correspondents, some of whom he never met face to face. Erasmus should be declared the patron saint of networkers, as well as of freelance writers. It is interesting that we habitually refer to Erasmus as ‘of Rotterdam’: in reality, he was indifferent to where he lived, as long as he had a good fire, a

• From Action (2014)

  I was at an after-party for an out-of-town work conference, and everyone was standing outside on the sidewalk because watching a group of writers dancing can begin to seem cruel after the first few minutes (keep in mind that mine is a breed of people who spend most of their time alone indoors). This should also persuade you that if I, a native to this taciturn, housebound clan, can get laid by a coincidental chance meeting, it should be cake for everybody else. On this particular evening, two editors walked up to my friends and me. One of these men I had not previously met. I interjected my hand and misunderstood the introduction proffered as he shook it: “Brafe? It’s ‘Brafe’?” I actually asked this, even though in no conceivable dialect or tongue is that an intelligible name for a human male, furthering the point that my getting laid can serve as a font of hope for the rest of the general population, and that maybe if, as a writer by career, I also lack the basic facilities of speech, maybe the dancing thing is more of a “me” problem than a professional one. The human male in question corrected me graciously: He was really called Jake, but we agreed that he’d keep my updated appellation, and that he, in turn, would call me “Emro,” close in pronunciation to “Elmo.” I noticed he was fiddling with his hair, which fell to his shoulders, and also that he had an abdomen reminiscent of an Italian sculpture. He watched me take stock of both and asked me for a ponytail holder, which he sent me a picture of after sleuthing out my contact information the next day. (I never give out my contact when I know someone can find it—it’s part of the fun, and they almost always make good on it.) As far as Brafe and I were concerned: It was absolutely on. Or, it would be. We met up later at a different party, and he rented a luxury sports car so we could drive through some nearby snowcapped mountains (?!??!?!!!), but I had an unforeseen conflict come up preventing the joyride. (I have cursed not having just canceled those less-fun plans for the rest of eternity.) All was not lost. A week or so later, when we had both returned to our home city, I agreed to meet him at his apartment. It was a mansion of a unit. The building had the name TRUMP emblazoned on its edifice, and it was dim and choked with paintings and pianos inside. Brafe emerged into the doorjamb, and he looked even better than I remembered—and my mental configuration of his features and body was already in its fullest overactive thrall. We didn’t even have time to say hello.

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  have started merely by seeking a purer, less worldly form of ministry before official repression turned their sympathies towards visiting dualists from the eastern Mediterranean (see pp. 387–8). Certainly other dissenters began in a perfectly orthodox fashion and were marginalized by circumstance. Such were the Waldensians, a movement started around 1170 in Lyons by a wealthy man called Valdes, who gave away all his wealth to the poor and ministered to a group who also valued poverty as the basis for Christian life.2 Church authorities were not prepared to make a distinction between this affirmation of poverty and that of the dualist Cathars in the same region, and from 1184 a solemn papal pronouncement (a bull) condemned them both. The Waldensians went on expanding, but were increasingly estranged from the episcopate of the Church on one vital issue: they were convinced that every Christian had a vocation to preaching, and that fatally clashed with the clerical priorities of the Gregorian reforms. Elsewhere, there were more extreme forms of dissent. From at least the beginning of the thirteenth century, self-appointed leaders roamed Europe preaching that individuals could meet God through an inner light; it might be that God’s Spirit could be found in all things, in a form of pantheism. These very loosely organized and often totally independent ‘Brethren of the Free Spirit’ could whip up mass support in times of crisis, often announcing that such disruptions heralded the beginning of Christ’s reign on earth; much of their excitement became mixed up with the later crusades and the increasingly hopeless struggle to defend the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. So it shaded off without an easily definable break into the religious innovation which previously had brought so much of the official structures into being.3 The ferment of the age seemed in danger of slipping from the Church’s control. Nor in the ‘Age of the Cathedrals’ were Benedictine monasteries any longer at the heart of Europe’s cultural activity. They had first been displaced by the rapid development during the eleventh century of schools of higher education attached to certain notable cathedrals. It was in such settings that the systematic study of Christian teaching was first undertaken, generating an increasingly diverse literature that explored the problems and questions which the propositions of Christianity generated, particularly in the form of commentary on that endlessly fascinating and diverse library of texts, the Bible. This organized exploration was christened ‘theology’, a concept essentially an invention of the Western Church: the word was first given currency in the 1120s by the Paris theologian Peter Abelard when he used it as title of a controversial discussion of Christian thought, his Theologia Christiana.4 At least such cathedral schools were part of the clerical institutions of the

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  The fatwa was rational, pragmatic, and effective, but made sense only in the old mythical context, deriving as it did from the Imam’s authority. In Egypt too, modern Europe was regarded as exciting and inspiring during the 1870s, It was also seen as congenial to the Islamic spirit, and this despite the difficulties and pain of the modernization process. This enthusiasm is clearly reflected in the work of the Egyptian writer Rifah al-Tahtawi (1801–73), 48 who was a great admirer of Muhammad Ali, had studied at the Azhar, and served as an imam in the new Egyptian army, an institution for which Tahtawi had the deepest respect. But in 1826, Tahtawi became one of the first students sent by Muhammad Ali to study in Paris. It was a revelation to him. For five years, he read French, ancient history, Greek mythology, geography, arithmetic, and logic. He was particularly enthralled by the ideas of the European Enlightenment, whose rational vision he found very similar to Falsafah. 49 Before returning home, Tahtawi published his diary, which gives us a valuable early glimpse of the modern West as seen by an outsider. Tahtawi had his reservations. He found the European view of religion reductive and modern French thinkers arrogant in their lofty assumption that their rational insights were superior to the mystical inspiration of the prophets. But Tahtawi loved the way everything worked properly in Paris. He praised the clean streets, the careful education of French children, the love of work, and the disapproval of laziness. He admired the rational acuity and precision of French culture, noting that the Parisians “are not prisoners of tradition, but always love to know the origin of things and the proofs of them.” He was impressed that even the common people could read and write, “and enter like others into important matters, every man according to his capacity.” He was also intrigued by the passion for innovation, the essential ingredient of the modern spirit. It could make people changeable and erratic, but not in such serious matters as politics. “Everyone who is master of a craft wishes to invent something which was not known before, or to complete something which has already been invented.” 50 When he returned to Egypt and became director of the new Bureau of Translation, which made European works available to Egyptians, Tahtawi insisted that the people of Egypt must learn from the West. The “gates of ijtihad” (“independent reasoning”) must be opened, the ulema must move with the times, and the Shariah adapt to the modern world. Doctors, engineers, and scientists should have the same status as Muslim religious scholars. Modern science could be no threat to Islam; Europeans had originally learned their science from the Muslims of Spain, so when they studied Western sciences the Arabs would simply be taking back what had originally belonged to them.

• From Action (2014)

  • The Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey. Please just trust me on this one, and exponentially more so when it comes to the Ruby Tuesday’s on the premises, in specific. Heed my word and do not fuck at this mall. • If you are me: the dating internet. Tinder is convenient if you’re traveling and want to get it on with a stranger, but so, too, are the long-running industry standard for traveling dirtbags, aka—all together on this one, now—bars. If you don’t meet anyone there, you can at least have a vodka and maybe some small plates (buffalo wings), and Tinder still exists, should you not feel contented making out with buttery hot sauce exclusively. No matter the course you set, the beginning of that path is easy to follow: Go outside. Smile at someone who looks like your interpretation of the term “super-babe.” If they smile back, all you have to do is refer to our trusty old prompt: “Hey. How’s your day going?” Then see if you just happen to have the best sex of your life (mishearing your partner’s name: optional). No, I Still Want to Lick a Face from the Web [image file=image_357.jpg] If you remain unconvinced of the superiority of physical encounters and you’re still looking for a technological helping hand: I often ghostwrite my friends’ profiles and messages back and forth with hot .jpg-havers and have been described identifiably on my city’s Missed Connections page enough that you could probably make an identical composite sketch of my face from the combined information within the listings. (I responded once—enormous error on my part. I thought the dude was cute and the moment we shared on the train borderline romantic, but he texted me asking me for my best “cow jokes” [???] for nearly six months.) I feel conflicted about abetting the probable shucking-off of kismet/coincidence/mystery by giving you the following information, but look: I will get you laid on the computer, Luddite or not—although the fact that I unwittingly just wrote “on the computer” like your granddad, instead of the infinitely less geriatric “the internet” or “online,” should be proof enough of my technological proficiency and tastes. Whatever. Let’s hit the ol’ digital web for some sensual cyber-chat!!! While the internet has its fungal pockets, so, too, does EVERY OTHER COLLECTION OF PEOPLE GROUPED IN ONE PLACE. There are many lovelinesses who are, at this moment, saying, “OK, Cupid—I guess, dude.” That name has always seemed SO ambivalent, when the precipice of sex = more than just an “okay” state in which to spend time, in my estimation. This is a digression, but how the heck am I supposed to be enthusiastic if the COMPANY ITSELF is all passively like, “Eh, it’ll kill twenty minutes, this whole multitudinous-possibilities-for-interpersonal-connection thing.”

• From Action (2014)

  [image file=image_963.jpg] Have a new sex-cohort you intend to kick it with for a minute or two? When you’re ready to broach the subject of adding new routines to your shared sexual repertoire, empty your bedside table’s drawer and invest in some new sex-based equipment, if that’s what you two are into. If you’re unsure and want to find out what your common stances are there, hit the sex store together. Yes: Take a romantic stroll along the walls of cock rings and scads of blow-up dolls for whom the only variable is hair color, but whose packaging makes the lewd and unconvincing promise that the delights within match exactly the experience of a carnal tryst with your most jerked-off-over celebrity. Visiting an erotic supermarket as a couple follows the “perfect date” model, after all—it’s a “joke” outing that can, surprise surprise, accelerate your blood at warp speed and find you fucking desperately in the parking lot before you know it. This is the handiwork of a dyed-in-the-wool and classic iteration of the “wouldn’t it be funny if” going-out structure. Stopping into a retailer rated XXX is king of the form. You’re familiar with this template, I bet. Wouldn’t it be funny if we got high and went to the planetarium? molts to reveal its true skin: You didn’t know it yet, but your actual motivation was gawping at the universe’s majesty, plus that of this human comet beside you, and, bing big-bang boom, you’re carfucking. Wouldn’t it be funny if we went to that Halloween party in sheets we drew our invented, two-person cult’s insignia on and insisted to everyone that it was real in the 1970s? Oh, now you two share the furtive alliance that comes with a secret no one else is allowed to know, plus you’re creating it by literally wrapping yourselves in bedclothes, aka what you regularly have sex on? How novel! Why, is that a car fuck I spy just beyond the fake-cobwebbed bushes out front? No joke is ever really a joke, and this is especially true at the sex store. When you make your first shared venture to the grocery store with a partner, it can feel awkward: an immediate, accursed, Oh, God, does this mean they think I want to marital-bliss it up with them or something? GAK! hyper-commitment. Going to an adult store is that errand, depressurized, but ends up drawing you closer than considering the merits of less figurative hot dogs and cherry pies together would. (I love when gastronomic euphemisms skew super-patriotic and lewd.)

• From Action (2014)

  You do—abundance is just dizzying! Freak boutiques are less stultifying, in part, because the variety is winnowed: You’re working with a pretty static set of categories here, and though their manufacturers have done their best to try to swindle you into thinking that the variance of bumps, speeds, colors, and shapes of a specific item will have the greatest of bearings on your ability to come, this is true only some of the time, and if you’re on a budget, cheap toys are basically all the same—with some exceptions, which we’ll go into in a bit. It is imperative that you shop for your sexual toolkit in the flesh, not online, where you might not be as inclined to browse. The internet is rife with smutty weirdness, but you typically have more control over what area of that you’re seeing. Let yourself be surprised! If you pick a toy that’s a dud? Note what you/your person disliked about it, and on your next sex-shop spree, tell an employee, and they can help you find something more to your liking. This past year, I was walking through the West Village in New York City, a neighborhood where window mannequins in harnesses, latex masks, and stretch teddies represent 51 percent of the population: Sex stores are everywhere. A person I was fond of happened to be in town, and our agreement was, Let’s try everything, as frequently as possible, save for a few acts that aren’t to our tastes. As he summarized our sex life: “We don’t care who’s in charge, as long as someone’s in charge.” We tried just about everything we could think of, but even sexual geniuses (like this guy was) can exhaust their mental capacities. In need of a muse in the form of a storefront mannequin wearing a chain-mail thong and pasty set, we took to the Village. We were looking for, at least, the basics. For us, this meant: cloth restraints that attached with Velcro, a plain rubber six-inch dildo, a whip, and an uncomplicated three-speed, phallic six-inch vibrator. We made that last purchase because it’s really fun for someone to pick out a new solo sex toy for you to use with them on the brain: “You know what would be hot? If you picked out the vibrator that you want me to use when I’m touching myself and thinking of you.” I watched as my dude’s eyes exploded, then promised him I’d send pictures of myself using it.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  thousands were fixed upon him as though hypnotized by his power." Once irresistible hero is worth again, it was the sound of the voice and the poetic connotations of the singling out, for it words that seduced the masses. Arguing that modern Italy should reclaim illustrates a curious change in our sensibility. Don the greatness of the Roman Empire, D'Annunzio would craft slogans for Juan did not become the audience to repeat, or would ask emotionally loaded questions for them irresistible to women until to answer. He flattered the crowd, made them feel they were part of some the Romantic age, and I drama. Everything was vague and suggestive. am disposed to think that it is a trait of the female The issue of the day was the ownership of the city of Fiume, just across imagination to make him the border in neighboring Yugoslavia. Many Italians believed that Italy's re- so. When the female voice ward for siding with the Allies in the recent war should be the annexation began to assert itself and even, perhaps, to dominate of Fiume. D'Annunzio championed this cause, and because of his status as in literature, Don Juan a war hero the army was ready to side with him, although the government evolved to become the opposed any action. In September of 1919, with soldiers rallying around women's rather than the man's ideal. . . . Don him, D'Annunzio led his infamous march on Fiume. When an Italian gen- Juan is now the woman's eral stopped him along the way, and threatened to shoot him, D'Annunzio dream of the perfect lover, opened his coat to show his medals, and said in his magnetic voice, "If you fugitive, passionate, daring. must kill me, fire first on this!" The general stood there stunned, then He gives her the one unforgettable moment, the broke into tears. He joined up with D'Annunzio. magnificent exaltation of When D'Annunzio entered Fiume, he was greeted as a liberator. The the flesh which is too often next day he was declared leader of the Free State of Fiume. Soon he was denied her by the real husband, who thinks that giving daily speeches from a balcony overlooking the town's main square, men are gross and women holding tens of thousands of people spellbound without benefit of loud- spiritual. To be the fatal speakers. He initiated all kinds of celebrations and rituals harking back to Don Juan may be the dream of a few men; but to the Roman Empire. The citizens of Fiume began to imitate him, particu- meet him is the dream of larly his sexual exploits; the city became like a giant bordello. His popu- many women. larity was so high that the Italian government feared a march on Rome, —OSCAR MANDEL,"THE which at that point, had D'Annunzio decided to do it—and he had the LEGEND OF DON JUAN," THE support of a large part of the military—might actually have succeeded; THEATRE OF DON JUAN

• From Action (2014)

  I look for toys that do that first and foremost, and then consider which of other criteria I’ll compromise on or account for in order to pick an accessory that fulfills my most legs-pressed-together needs. Having done research beforehand, I asked the Babeland employee about a vibrator I had heard didn’t come to play around, the Hitachi Magic Wand. She pulled out what looked like a half sonogram wand, half white microphone, except twice the size of either—it had a circular, softish head, a simple-looking black switch on its side, and a corded end. It looked unsexy, and as we talked about it, I had some questions: I was supposed to hitch myself to an outlet each and every time I wanted to masturbate with it? Yes. There’s no setting on which it’s quieter than a whole landscaping company’s fleet of lawn mowers growling in unison… meaning I would have to be discreet about when I used it? Nah, it’s just that loud. Oh my god, that’s the LOW setting? Yeah, now put out your other hand and I’ll show you the higher speed. WHOA. THIS IS GOING TO BE MY RIDE-OR-DIE FOREVER, HUH? Yeah… yeah, it is. The Hitachi Magic Wand is phenomenal used by myself or with any number of lovely assistants, but when it comes to using vibrators with partners, I either put this behemoth away or use it in tandem with something that can be inserted comfortably into them or me—or both. If you’re easing into this whole concept, you can choose a small vibrator, or super-controllable ones, like finger vibrators—these slip on like fingertip rings and can go into whatever orifices your hands would without them, or intensify any kind of touching. ROUTINE MAINTENANCE [image file=image_1020.jpg] I like to clean my vibrator three times a month if I’m using it alone, plus after every new partner. I think this is a pretty good rule for toys that don’t involve penetration—and in those cases, I clean them nearly every time I use ’em. All-natural disinfecting wipes are good for stuff taken vaginally, but I give anything involving anal the full top-down scrub. Check the packaging for the materials used to make your sex toy: If it’s silicone or Pyrex through and through, you can boil it submerged in a pot of water for three or so minutes, and you’re all good. Alternatively, you can even wash it in a dishwasher if it has a hot-water setting, so this can easily become a regular part of your tidying-up routine. (“To Do: Vacuum. Wash windows. Remember to load vibrator next to the dirty plates.”) If there are electrical elements, use the next method, avoiding the parts that might be damaged or could shock ya when met with cleaning solvent on them.

• From Action (2014)

  • Tasteful midafternoon parties at an accomplished colleague’s or associate’s house. For me, these situations are rare enough that I feel it’s my duty to capitalize on them each and every time they go down. Here’s what to do: Compliment the wristwatch/necklace of the person with the crispest-looking pocket square or pastel lipstick if you’re into an older, august sexual partner. If you choose to become the conduit for a member of the bourgeoisie’s “normal-person” fetish, that usually guarantees very very very scandalous sex or your white wine with one ice cube back. If getting off on condescension and class rage is not your thing, which, HIGHLY understandable: You are surrounded by a supremely hot waitstaff composed of peers from class and age brackets that, in all likelihood, are more closely concentric to your own. These heroes are bored, stoned, and used to being alternately verbally pissed on/hit on by the aforementioned upper-crusters. Given all three conditions, you will be an even more welcome refreshment than the pitchers of mint julep set jauntily on each wicker table. Depending on how flossy your venue is, there may even be additional needless help-for-hire around: I fooled around with a twenty-four-year-old event photographer with literally nothing else to do on a lawn swing at a super-tony house last summer, thanks to the misguided largesse of the overstaffed host, and it was the most memorable fete of the summer… maybe the host was cannier than I realized at the time? Was this just another way in which they provided for their guests? Crafty. • Non-bourgeois-friends’ parties. This interpersonal configuration is a winsome option because you’ve got prior intelligence as to whom the guest list might roll call. If you don’t, that’s lovely just the same: You already know that your friend is a mensch, so by the laws of the transitive property, they almost definitely mix with others whom you’ll find beguiling, too. Save for public cement walkways, this is my preferred venue when it comes to traversing a landscape rife with french-worthy individuals. I have met scads of hookups on my one friend John’s roof alone—in the summertime, he has a party every week or two on average, and you likely have some analogous person like this in your life: Go see who’s around. Here’s a list of less-advisable spots where I’ve made introductions to, or been approached by, sensual collaborators. Forging a connection is feasible nearly anywhere on earth—with some caveats in place. Let’s talk context about the following meeting spots:

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  exciting and satisfying as any fictional style of construction, because it represents the flotsam from a host of individual stories of human beings like ourselves. Most of them are beyond recall or can only be tantalizingly glimpsed, with the aid of the techniques which historians have built up over the last three centuries. It has been calculated, for instance, that in the half-acre of one English village churchyard, Widford in Hertfordshire, there are more than five thousand corpses, laid to rest over at least nine centuries. We could never know as much as the names of more than a few hundred of them, let alone much else about them, and there is a special excitement in gathering up the fragments of past lives where we can.6 I hope that this book will help readers stand back from Christianity, whether they love it or hate it, or are simply curious about it, and see it in the round. The book is self-evidently not a work of primary-source research; rather, it tries to synthesize the current state of historical scholarship across the world. It also seeks to be a reflection on it, a way of interpreting that scholarship for a larger audience which is often bewildered by what is happening to Christianity and misunderstands how present structures and beliefs have evolved. It can be no more than a series of suggestions to give shape to the past, but the suggestions are not random. At some points in it, I have developed further the text of my previous book, Reformation, which was an attempt to tell part of this wider story, but which led me on to this attempt to put shapes on the greater picture. My aim is to tell as clearly as possible an immensely complicated and varied tale, in ways which others will enjoy and find plausible. Furthermore, I am not ashamed to affirm that although modern historians have no special capacity to be arbiters of the truth or otherwise of religion, they still have a moral task. They should seek to promote sanity and to curb the rhetoric which breeds fanaticism. There is no surer basis for fanaticism than bad history, which is invariably history oversimplified. I have been given great privileges in my career, which now demand their price. I have enjoyed the precious opportunity of research, teaching and discussion in the understanding and serene environment of world-class universities, Cambridge and Oxford. Many may think of such settings as an ivory-tower retreat from reality, and they will have some justification for their opinion if those within the university do not extend the discussion out beyond its walls. That is what I seek to do here. Equally, I feel immensely privileged to have been trained as a professional historian, because my training is a call to discipline my strong feelings of both affection and anger towards my own inheritance. That training may help me tell a story which readers can consider fair and sympathetic, even if they have very different personal standpoints on

• From Action (2014)

  [image file=image_462.jpg] My home is, on occasion, piled high with refuse. You get it: We exult in our careers (and look great doing it! HAH, I’m wearing two towels as a bikini right now), are busy, and/or are beholden to excessive sloth! All three are true of my situation. But if the bastion of human sexuality just texted you, “I’d love to see you; how about I come over in 30?” great job on landing a dreamboat who uses a semicolon in casual communication, seriously, and HOLY SHIT, you have a graveyard of tallboys and magazines and broken sunglasses for carpeting. IS THAT A LIVING PIGEON IN THE CORNER, DUDE? Looks like it’s time for another round of… HIDE! THAT! GARBAGE! [studio audience whips itself into a near-to-deafening frenzy] Hide! That! Garbage A fake quiz show I just invented to make a cleaning spree seem like less of the frightful punishment we all know it is Round One: Trashcatcher! This is like when contestants have to snatch money out of the air as it precipitates inside a little booth, but so much worse. Have two colors of garbage bags on hand to separate actual rubbish from the clutter you just need to stash real quick-like. Pack your various litter/belongings in these, respectively, and hurl them into a closet to deal with at some distant point after you’ve had ten zillion orgazmzzz—your main priority, doye. Verify that the following items are properly concealed: visibly cashed dirty underwear; condom wrappers; Post-its with self-affirming messages written on them in manic penmanship (“YOU ARE A WORTHY CHILD OF THE SUN” = not great to explain, in terms of pillow talk, or also ever, at any other time); empty champagne cans; old copies of Hustler (again, you are a stranger to me and I don’t know your tastes, ya depraved archduke). Round Two: Obstacle Recourse! Light a candle and open a window. Stuff all available dresser drawers with whatever non-scuzzy possessions are taking up the most surface area. DO NOT PAUSE TO ORGANIZE. YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME. Throw all remaining stray clothes underneath your bed and excavate them later (this goes for any other floor-eating lumps of stuff you aren’t relegating to plastic-bag purgatory, too). Empty the litter box, if applicable. Make your bed and flip over its top layer if you recently ate, painted, or bled on it. Wipe down surfaces.

• From Action (2014)

  Who knew this kind of orgasm was possible?!, she exclaimed over a hypothetical that doesn’t have to stay one. Oh—normal normalsons who converse maturely and autonomously, instead of dunces operating under the self-congratulatory, self-concerned mindset that they are TOTALLY SLAMMIN’ ROCK ’N’ ROLL SEX-HEROES WHO KNOW PRECISELY HOW TO WORK THAT BOD, aka those people who are usually excessively terrible in bed. Everyone’s got their own specifications on what constitutes a rock ’n’ roll sex-hero. (Mine is Debbie Harry of Blondie.) It is stupidly easy to be the kind of person who is, or is in the process of becoming over time, a formidable lay. All you have to do is utter some close approximations of the question “Do you like it?” and sometimes add the word “how” in front of it. You can very steamily interrogate them beforehand and kill two birds with one bone: Sexual tension is my favorite way to get high (besides a couple of other ones). I recommend the entrance interview below for this, and because it helps you work toward the real-world application of its answers. It sets the precedent that they’ll do the same for you, too. How does the adage go? Right: Lead by (devastatingly erotic) example. If someone’s response to “How do you like to be touched?” is the sincere, yet kinda-irksomely opaque classic that goes, “Whatever you do feels good,” or if they’re not down with announcing what they like out loud (and that’s keen, too!), here are some devastatingly erotic examples of how to give the performance of a lifetime until you’ve supplied your own understanding of what that means for you two. In the following suggested courses of action, you will not find the syllabi provided by women’s magazines that ask you to lingually slip an ice cube or a hair tie over the penis of your poor, unsuspecting mark, or the misguided vaginal slapping that occurs with peculiar regularity in machismo-fogged pornos. Sorry and/or you’re welcome. The next part of this book establishes, instead, general tactics for performing a few run-of-the-mill acts, and variations on how to personalize sex. Try all of it. No matter what you’re doing, do it like the entire meaning of life can be translated through your sexual talent… because, if you do, that’s kind of true. KISSING’S NOT DEAD [image file=image_696.jpg] Kissing may seem so chaste, in the context of sex that involves more body parts than your lips alone. It’s not. Being a good kisser is elemental to almost every other sexual undertaking, even if it’s only because you know what’s up when it comes to using pressure well. How you make out with one person might be totally different from how you french another, so it doesn’t get boring as long as you’re curious about that.

• From Action (2014)

  Even the most diplomatic of sexual tastes, however eagerly a person wants to express them, can take some time to announce themselves, as I have so often experienced firsthand. One great shortcut: Plunk yourselves in front of their accoutrements. You will find yourself Astro-gliding right over to where the wares of your SECRET INNERMOST DESIRES are housed eventually, if not with great if subconscious haste, and the same will be true of your companion. Ha-ha, oh boy, handcuffs? What is this, a sitcom doing a “kink” episode where our prudish heroes, Larry and Linda, decide to “spice things up a little”? How hilarious would it be if we bought those? Well, all right, but make sure to keep track of their key, or else you’re going to have a strained interaction with the AAA after you’re auto-erotically manacled to the steering wheel four minutes later. You can and probably will drop the yuk-yuk pretense a few minutes into your jaunt. Going to the sex store doesn’t have to masquerade as pure and simple folly—some of you are self-possessed people who don’t stumble clumsily around their desire, and that rules. If you’re reticent to go sex-browsing because you’re worried someone will laugh at you, however: Look over there. There’s a whole row of penis-shaped candy that does not appear to have a hint of novelty about it. Self-serious dick lollipops! What!!! That’s hilarious. If you note the ad copy on the packaging surrounding you, the word “rod” is used in earnest a lot. You are in the company of a merchant who sells more Fifty Shades of Grey “starter kits” than everything else in the store combined. (Sex-shop employees at all different dildo-purveyors have insisted to me that this is true, and while I think it’s fucking rad that so many people are inspired to step up their sexual exercises by those books and movie, I still can’t quite get over seeing a rack of silver clip-on ties marketed as the height of carnality.) If you’re into one of the things I poked fun at above? Guess what? I would be totally game and encouraging if we were sexual teammates and you proposed utilizing one of those things—anything new to me is also scintillating to me. The most difficult-seeming aspect of this—the proliferation of choice—isn’t even all that complex! You know how, upon being presented with the heaping rows of shelves at a bookstore when you didn’t go in with a particular volume in mind, you blank out? Jesus H. Cam’Ron, where do I start? What do I like? Do I even like ANYTHING?

• From Action (2014)

  Go places you love, or suspect you could love, by yourself whenever possible. This practice guarantees, if not all new avenues of romantic or sexual possibility right then and there, that you possess the three lodestars of being an attractive personage: You are intrigued by the world, motivated to pause and examine the parts of it on which your surprise and fascination snag, and you don’t need anyone else to cosign your tastes in order for you to adore them. Overfeeding your day planner with the interests you find most fulfilling means you are also courting a ratcheted-up likelihood of encountering people with whom conversations will “warm up” (I know, I sound like a horny women’s magazine—just go with it) quicker than the microwaved repast you’d be preparing at home if you chose ease and familiarity over discovering new shit. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating out of a plastic tray. It’s one of my own dearest pastimes! Albeit one that doesn’t quite work for this purpose (nor, for that matter, the health tip just preceding it). Make friends of all stripes. I used to have this problem where I held people to the loftiest of heaven-high standards for friendship. I wanted my friends to be kind, sexy party angels with spooky genius craniums, all the time, in every area of life. For the most part, I still do, and they are! But that’s because I figured out the major caveat that allows the successful execution of that wish in reality: Mentally allow people to embody one or more of the above qualifiers, but not necessarily all of them, and observe the characteristics by which they emit light into the world before you do the omissions of the other ones you like in a cohort. Expecting perfection of EVERY LAST PAL, ALL OF THE TIME, TO THE END OF MEETING EACH OF YOUR SOCIAL NEEDS AND HOPES will find you alone as heck, plus sourer than you have to be. I got tired of being unfairly let down that people were people. Trust me: Do you know how many more barbecues I got to go to once I stopped treating friendship like a military drill where, if a compatriot made one misstep, they had flunked the non-exam of “having a relationship with me”? Also, do you know how much better I feel as a person, and not just because I get to eat far more grilled meats? To demand perfection is to play yourself. Flirt with everyone (and everything). I don’t mean “flirt” as in “sleazily try to bed”—that would be extremely troublesome in this context. Flirting, to me, can mean noticing and communicating the shimmering qualities of each of life’s entities. I believe the ways in which they add to the net luminosity of your day are worth big-upping.

• From Action (2014)

  • Pretend you’re starring in a stop-action blue movie. When I was a blow-jobber on the make, I behaved like the body-double—or, I guess, head-double—of Ms. Pac-Man: I used to get so into how MUCH of a person’s cock I could take into my mouth in the fastest possible sequence. Giving oral sex had become one of my favorite things, and since it was new to me, I was a bit overeager. After some careful meditations on the responses I was getting from my partners and the ancient wisdoms foretold in video smut, I realized that it was probably worth trying out pacing myself. While Ms. Pac-Man is one of my style/life icons in so many ways—we have the same beauty mark and affinity for elegant hair bows and soft pretzels—she’s not a good model for how to suck a dick. It’s easy to slow down: How good a dick feels in your mouth often indicates that your mouth feels good to that dick. Acting on how the giving-of-head is nice for you is better for your partner, too. • Try using just your tongue for a moment. Hold your partner’s penis inside your mouth, curve your tongue around it, and use the tip to massage the base of your partner’s dick. Slide the top of your tongue up along the center vein on the bottom of the penis as you go. The wide flatness of your tongue creates a pleasant suction and some of the filthiest sound effects known to your thread count. Don’t bear down TOO hard with your tongue—it shouldn’t feel like you’re trying to PUSH the person’s dick with it—or too wimpily. Laconically wind your tongue around the head—try clockwise, then reverse your circles, then back again. Since this is the most sensitive area, the more you touch it, the more expeditious your partner’s orgasm might be. If you’re treating head as a precursor to penetrative sex, it’d serve you well to keep this in mind so that you can fuck for longer than about seven seconds.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  The school doesn’t want your parents to think you became a fuckup here any more than you want your parents to think you’re a fuckup.” He blew a thin stream of smoke forcefully toward the lake. I had to admit: He looked cool doing it. Taller, somehow. “Anyway, when you get in trouble, just don’t tell on anyone. I mean, I hate the rich snots here with a fervent passion I usually reserve only for dental work and my father. But that doesn’t mean I would rat them out. Pretty much the only important thing is never never never never rat.” “Okay,” I said, although I wondered: If someone punches me in the face, I’m supposed to insist that I ran into a door? It seemed a little stupid. How do you deal with bullies and assholes if you can’t get them into trouble? I didn’t ask Chip, though. “All right, Pudge. We have reached the point in the evening when I’m obliged to go and find my girlfriend. So give me a few of those cigarettes you’ll never smoke anyway, and I’ll see you later.” I decided to hang out on the swing for a while, half because the heat had finally dissipated into a pleasant, if muggy, eighty-something, and half because I thought Alaska might show up. But almost as soon as the Colonel left, the bugs encroached: no-see-ums (which, for the record, you can see) and mosquitoes hovered around me in such numbers that the tiny noise of their rubbing wings sounded cacophonous. And then I decided to smoke. Now, I did think, The smoke will drive the bugs away. And, to some degree, it did. I’d be lying, though, if I claimed I became a smoker to ward off insects. I became a smoker because 1. I was on an Adirondack swing by myself, and 2. I had cigarettes, and 3. I figured that if everyone else could smoke a cigarette without coughing, I could damn well, too. In short, I didn’t have a very good reason. So yeah, let’s just say that 4. it was the bugs. I made it through three entire drags before I felt nauseous and dizzy and only semipleasantly buzzed. I got up to leave. As I stood, a voice behind me said: “So do you really memorize last words?” She ran up beside me and grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back onto the porch swing. “Yeah,” I said. And then hesitantly, I added, “You want to quiz me?” “JFK,” she said. “That’s obvious,” I answered. “Oh, is it now?” she asked. “No. Those were his last words. Someone said, ‘Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you,’ and then he said, ‘That’s obvious,’ and then he got shot.” She laughed. “God, that’s awful. I shouldn’t laugh. But I will,” and then she laughed again. “Okay, Mr. Famous Last Words Boy.