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

  Take that!” One shot, and the snooty officer who dared to reprimand him passes into eternal life (or is it eternal death?). Eventually, every time an officer sees a soldier or gives an order, he’ll be practically wetting his pants, because the soldiers have more say-so than he does. Were you able to follow that, or have I been skipping from one subject to another again? I can’t help it, the prospect of going back to school in October is making me too happy to be logical! Oh dear, didn’t I just get through telling you I didn’t want to anticipate events? Forgive me, Kitty, they don’t call me a bundle of contradictions for nothing! Yours, Anne M. Frank TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1944 Dearest Kitty, “A bundle of contradictions” was the end of my previous letter and is the beginning of this one. Can you please tell me exactly what “a bundle of contradictions” is? What does “contradiction” mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within. The former means not accepting other people’s opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I’m known. The latter, for which I’m not known, is my own secret. As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my abthty to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker -- a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate haVing to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to p:ush away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne-to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “light hearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak.

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

  moments when I’m able to write in you. Oh, I’m so alad I brought you along! SUNDAY, JUNE 14, 1942 I’ll begin from the moment I got you, the moment I saw you lying on the table among my other birthday presents. (I went along when you were bought, but that doesn’t count.) On Friday, June 12, I was awake at six o’clock, which isn’t surprising, since it was my birthday. But I’m not allowed to get up at that hour, so I had to control my curiosity until quarter to seven. When I couldn’t wait any longer, I went to the dining room, where Moortje (the cat) welcomed me by rubbing against my legs. A little after seven I went to Daddy and Mama and then to the living room to open my presents, and you were the first thing I saw, maybe one of my nicest presents. Then a bouquet of roses, some peonies and a potted plant. From Daddy and Mama I got a blue blouse, a game, a bottle of grape juice, which to my mind tastes a bit like wine (after all, wine is made from grapes), a puzzle, a jar of cold cream, 2.50 guilders and a gift certificate for two books. I got another book as well, Camera Obscura (but Margot already has it, so I exchanged mine for something else), a platter of homemade cookies (which I made myself, of course, since I’ve become quite an expert at baking cookies), lots of candy and a strawberry tart from Mother. And a letter from Grammy, right on time, but of course that was just a coincidence. Then Hanneli came to pick me up, and we went to school. During recess I passed out cookies to my teachers and my class, and then it was time to get back to work. I didn’t arrive home until five, since I went to gym with the rest of the class. (I’m not allowed to take part because my shoulders and hips tend to get dislocated.) As it was my birthday, I got to decide which game my classmates would play, and I chose volleyball. Afterward they all danced around me in a circle and sang “Happy Birthday.” When I got home, Sanne Ledermann was already there. Ilse Wagner, Hanneli Goslar and Jacqueline van Maarsen came home with me after gym, since we’re in the same class. Hanneli and Sanne used to be my two best friends. People who saw us together used to say, “There goes Anne, Hanne and Sanne.” I only met Jacqueline van Maarsen when I started at the Jewish Lyceum, and now she’s my best friend. Ilse is Hanneli’s best friend, and Sanne goes to another school and has friends there. They gave me a beautiful book, Dutch Sasas and Lesends, but they gave me

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  147 Anti-Semites claimed that Jews did not fit the biological and genetic profile of the Volk, and some argued that they should be eliminated, in the same way as modern medicine cut out a cancer. It was perhaps inevitable that, correctly anticipating an anti-Semitic disaster, some Jews would develop their own national mythology. Loosely based on the Bible, Zionism campaigned for a safe haven for Jews in their ancestral land, but Zionists also drew on varied currents of modern thought—Marxism, secularism, capitalism, and colonialism. Some wanted to build a socialist utopia in the Land of Israel. The earliest and most vociferous Zionists were atheists who were convinced that religious Judaism had made Jews passive in the face of persecution: they horrified Orthodox Jews, who insisted that only the Messiah could lead Jews back to the Promised Land. Like most forms of nationalism, though, Zionism had a religiosity of its own. Zionists who settled in agricultural colonies in Palestine were called chalutzim, a term with biblical connotations of salvation, liberation, and rescue; they described their agricultural work as avodah, which in the Bible had referred to temple worship; and their migration to Palestine was aliyah, a spiritual “ascent.” Their slogan, however, was “A land without a people for a people without a land.” 148 Like other European colonists, they believed that an endangered people had a natural right to settle in “empty” land. But the land was not empty. Palestinians had their own dreams of national independence, and when the Zionists finally persuaded the international community to create the State of Israel in 1948, the Palestinians became a rootless, endangered people without a land of their own in a world that now defined itself by nationality. The First World War (1914–18) destroyed a generation of young men, yet many Europeans initially embraced it with an enthusiasm that shows how difficult it is to resist those emotions long activated by religion and now by nationalism, the new faith of the secular age. In August 1914 the cities of Europe were swept up in a festival atmosphere that, like the rituals of the French Revolution, made the “imaginary community” of the nation an incarnate reality. Total strangers gazed enraptured into each other’s eyes; estranged friends embraced, feeling a luminous cohesion that defied rational explanation. The euphoria has been dismissed as an outbreak of communal madness, but those who experienced it said that it was the “most deeply lived” event of their lives. It has also been called an “escape from modernity” since it sprang from a profound discontent with industrialized society, in which people were defined and classified by their function and everything was subordinated to a purely material end.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  80 There was greater emphasis on drill, discipline, and correct methods of procedure, and between 1700 and 1850 there were no significant developments in military technology. 81 But this peace was shattered when first the revolutionary armies and then Napoleon threw these restraints to the wind. The French state had certainly not become more irenic after eliminating the Church from government. On August 16, 1793, the National Convention issued the levée en masse: for the first time in history, an entire society was mobilized for war. All Frenchmen are permanently requisitioned for service into the armies. Young men will go forth into battle; married men will forge weapons and transport munitions; women will make tents and clothing and serve in the hospitals; children will make lint from old linen; and old men will be brought into the public squares to arouse the courage of the soldiers, while preaching the unity of the Republic and hatred against Kings. 82 Some 300,000 volunteers, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, brought the French army up to a record-breaking million strong. Hitherto peasants and artisans had been tricked or press-ganged into the military, but in this “Free Army” soldiers were well paid and for the first year officers were elected from the ranks on merit. In 1789 over 90 percent of French officers had been aristocrats; by 1794 a mere 3 percent were of noble birth. Even though over a million young men died in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, more were willing to volunteer. These soldiers fought not with professional decorum but with the raw violence they had learned in the revolution’s street battles, and they probably relished the ecstasy of warfare. 83 Because they had to feed themselves, they committed the same kind of atrocities as the mercenaries in the Thirty Years’ War. 84 For nearly twenty years, the French armies seemed unstoppable, overrunning Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany and effortlessly brushing aside the Austrian and Prussian armies that tried to halt this triumphant progress. Revolutionary France did not bring liberty to the peoples of Europe, however; instead, Napoleon, the revolution’s heir, created a traditional tributary empire that threatened the imperial ambitions of Britain. In 1798, to establish a base in Suez that would cut off the British sea routes to India, Napoleon invaded Egypt and at the Battle of the Pyramids inflicted a devastating defeat on the Mamluk army: only ten French soldiers were killed, but the Mamluks lost more than two thousand men. 85 With consummate cynicism, Napoleon then presented himself as the liberator of the Egyptian people.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  Certainly the two earliest Upanishads both reflect this intense intellectual and spiritual excitement. Neither the Brhadaranyaka nor the Chandogya was written by a single author; they were anthologies of separate texts that were put together later by an editor. Authors and editors alike all drew upon a common stock of anecdotes and ideas circulating in the courts and villages. People thought nothing of traveling from Gandhara to Videha, which were a thousand miles apart, to consult one of the distinguished teachers of the day: Sandiliya, who speculated about the nature of the atman; Janaka, king of Videha; Pravahna Jaivali, king of Kuru-Panchala; Ajatashatru, king of Kashi; and Sanatkumara, who was famous for his lifelong celibacy.10 The new ideas may originally have been developed by Brahmin priests, but kshatriyas and kings also took part in the debates and discussions, as did women—notably Gargi Vacaknavi and Maitreyi, Yajnavalkya’s wife. Both women seem to have been accepted by the other contestants in the brahmodya, and their contributions were included by the editors as a matter of course. But the two most important rishis in the early Upanishads were Yajnavalkya of Videha and Uddalaka Aruni, a famous teacher of the Kuru-Panchala region, both of whom were active in the second half of the seventh century.11

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  In India the raja (“chief”) commissioned a sacrifice in a similar spirit.42 He invited the elders of his own tribe and some of the neighboring chieftains to a special sacrificial arena, where he exhibited his surplus of booty—cattle, horses, soma, and crops. Some of these goods were sacrificed to the gods and eaten in a riotous, sumptuous banquet; anything left over was distributed to the other rajas as gifts. This placed an obligation on the patron’s guests to return these favors, and rajas vied with one an-other in putting on ever more spectacular sacrifices. The hotr priest, who chanted hymns to the gods, also sang the praises of the patron, promising that his munificence would bring even greater riches his way. Thus while the patron sought to curry favor with the gods and identify with Indra, who was himself an extravagant host and sacrificer, he also wanted to win praise and respect. At a time when he was supposed to leave his mundane self behind and become one with his heavenly counterpart, he was also engaged in aggressive self-assertion. This paradox in the ancient ritual would be a matter of concern to many of the reformers of the Axial Age. Sacrifice also increased the violence that was already endemic in the region. After it was over, the patron had no cattle left and would have to inaugurate a new series of raids to replenish his wealth. We have no contemporary descriptions of these sacrifices, but later texts contain fragmentary references that give us some idea of what went on. The sacrifice was a solemn occasion, but it was also a large, rowdy carnival. Vast amounts of wine and soma were consumed, so people were either drunk or pleasantly mellow. There was casual sex with slave girls laid on by the officiating raja, and lively, aggressive ritual contests: chariot races, shooting matches, and tugs of war. Teams of dancers, singers, and lute players competed against one another. There were dice games for high stakes. Groups of warriors conducted mock battles. It was enjoyable, but also dangerous. In this highly competitive atmosphere, mock battles between professional warriors, all hungry for fame and prestige, could easily segue into serious fighting. A raja might wager a cow in a game of dice, and lose his entire herd. Carried away by the excitement of the occasion, he could also decide to lead an attack against his “enemy,” a neighboring raja who was on bad terms with him or who was holding a rival sacrifice of his own. The texts indicate that devas and asuras often interrupted each other’s sacrifices and carried off plunder and hostages, which suggests that this kind of violent intrusion was also common on earth.43 A raja who had not received an invitation to a ritual was insulted; he felt honor-bound to fight his way into the enemy camp and carry off booty. In these liturgically inspired raids, people could and did get killed.

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

  that point yet, and I’d hate to anticipate the glorious event. Still, you’ve probably noticed that I’m telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For once, I’m not rattling on about high ideals. Furthermore, Hitler has been so kind as to announce to his loyal, devoted people that as of today all mthtary personnel are under orders of the Gestapo, and that any soldier who knows that one of his superiors was involved in this cowardly attempt on the Fuhrer’s life may shoot him on sight! A fine kettle of fish that will be. Little Johnny’s feet are sore after a long march and his commanding officer bawls him out. Johnny grabs his rifle, shouts, “You, you tried to kill the Fuhrer. Take that!” One shot, and the snooty officer who dared to reprimand him passes into eternal life (or is it eternal death?). Eventually, every time an officer sees a soldier or gives an order, he’ll be practically wetting his pants, because the soldiers have more say-so than he does. Were you able to follow that, or have I been skipping from one subject to another again? I can’t help it, the prospect of going back to school in October is making me too happy to be logical! Oh dear, didn’t I just get through telling you I didn’t want to anticipate events? Forgive me, Kitty, they don’t call me a bundle of contradictions for nothing! Yours, Anne M. Frank TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1944 Dearest Kitty, “A bundle of contradictions” was the end of my previous letter and is the beginning of this one. Can you please tell me exactly what “a bundle of contradictions” is? What does “contradiction” mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within. The former means not accepting other people’s opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I’m known. The latter, for which I’m not known, is my own secret. As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my abthty to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying

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

  In spite of this, I have never used the frequent, long-distance journeys necessitated by my work to collect lovers. I fucked infinitely less when my timetable was more flexible than it is in Paris, and when I could have made the most of those casual relationships with no tomorrows. However hard I try to remember, I can think of only two men that I have met on a journey and with whom I had some form of sexual relationship during the journey itself. And when I say relationship, there was only one instance each time, between breakfast and the first meeting of the morning with one, and during what was left of the night with the other. There are two explanations. Firstly, right at the beginning of my career a more experienced female colleague had led me to understand that symposia, seminars and other meetings held in seclusion with people who were temporarily cut from their ties were God-given opportunities for furtive comings and goings up and down hotel corridors. I was used to sexual rendezvous of a more advanced nature; nevertheless this shocked me to the same extent as the shapeless clothes people wear to show that they are on holiday when they would usually be very particular about their appearance. With the intransigence of the newly converted, I believed that fucking – and by that I meant fucking frequently and willingly whoever was (or were) the partner (or partners) – was a way of life. If not, if this thing were only permitted when certain conditions were met, at pre-determined times, well then it was carnival! (A little aside to put this severe verdict into context. We no longer need to prove that our sexual tendencies can turn inside out like an old umbrella, and the device that protects us when the wind blows with reality can flip the other way and leave us to get soaked in the squalls of our fantasies. Once again in this book, I am bringing together fact and fantasy, in this case to expose a pleasing antinomy: despite the moral stance I have just expressed, I have often been aroused by imagining myself as a spunk bag for a group of stressed executives at a meeting, they would each dump their load on me secretly, at the back of a hotel bar, even in a phone box, with the receiver in one hand as they carried on their ritual conversation with their wife: ‘Yes darling, it’s going well, it’s just the food that’s not …’ etc. That’s a surefire stellar scenario for me to get off on in a state of complete degradation.)

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

  amazing feats. A few of the wounded who are already back in England also spoke on the radio. Despite the miserable weather, the planes are flying dthgently back and forth. We heard over the BBC that Churchill wanted to land along with the troops on D Day, but Eisenhower and the other generals managed to talk him out of it. Just imagine, so much courage for such an old man he must be at least seventy! The excitement here has died down somewhat; still, we’re all hoping that the war will finally be over by the end of the year. It’s about time! Mrs. van Daan’s constant griping is unbearable; now that she can no longer drive us crazy with the invasion, she moans and groans all day about the bad weather. If only we could plunk her down in the loft in a bucket of cold water! Everyone in the Annex except Mr. van Daan and Peter has read the Hunaarian Rhapsody trilogy, a biography of the composer, piano virtuoso and child prodigy Franz Liszt. It’s very interesting, though in my opinion there’s a bit too much emphasis on women; Liszt was not only the greatest and most famous pianist of his time, he was also the biggest womanizer, even at the age of seventy. He had an affair with Countess Marie d’ Agoult, Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, the dancer Lola Montez, the pianist Agnes Kingworth, the pianist Sophie Menter, the Circassian princess Olga Janina, Baroness Olga Meyen- dorff, actress Lilla what’s-her-name, etc., etc., and there’s no end to it. Those parts of the book dealing with music and the other arts are much more interesting. Some of the people mentioned are Schumann, Clara Wieck, Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Beethoven, Joachim, Richard Wagner, Hans von Bulow, Anton Rubinstein, Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Hiller, Hummel, Czerny, Rossini, Cherubini, Paganini, Mendels- sohn, etc., etc. Liszt appears to have been a decent man, very generous and modest, though exceptionally vain. He helped others, put art above all else, was extremely fond of cognac and women, couldn’t bear the sight of tears, was a gentleman, couldn’t refuse anyone a favor, wasn’t interested in money and cared about religious freedom and the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 1944 Dearest Kit,

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  56 Only then did the new colony become a reality: “One becomes a settler when he builds the fire altar,” said one of the later texts, “and whoever are builders of fire altars are settled.” 57 Raiding was built into the Aryan rituals. In the soma ritual, the sacred drink seemed to lift warriors up to the world of the gods. Once filled with the divine power of the god, they felt that they “had surpassed the heavens and all this spacious earth.” But this hymn began: “This, even this was my resolve, to win a cow, to win a steed: have I not drunk of Soma juice?” 58 During the soma ritual, the patron and his guests had to leave the sacrificial ground and raid a nearby settlement to procure cattle and soma for the sacrifice. In the rajasuya, after the new king had drunk the soma juice, he was dispatched on a raid. If he returned with plunder, the officiating priests acknowledged his kingship: “Thou, O King, art brahman !” 59 During the late Vedic period, the Aryans developed the idea of brahman, the supreme reality. Brahman was not a deva, but a power that was higher, deeper, and more basic than the gods, a force that held all the disparate elements of the universe together, and stopped them from fragmenting. 60 Brahman was the fundamental principle that enabled all things to become strong and to expand. It was life itself. 61 Brahman could never be defined or described, because it was all-encompassing: human beings could not get outside it and see it objectively. But it could be experienced in ritual. When the king arrived back safely from his raid, with the spoils of battle, he had become one with the brahman. He was now the axis, the hub of the wheel that would pull his kingdom together, and enable it to prosper and expand. Brahman was also experienced in silence. A ritual often ended with the brahmodya competition to find a verbal formula that expressed the mystery of the brahman. The challenger asked a difficult and enigmatic question, and his opponent answered in an equally elusive manner. The match continued until one of the contestants was unable to respond: reduced to silence, he was forced to withdraw. 62 The transcendence of the brahman was sensed in the mysterious clash of unanswerable questions that led to a stunning realization of the impotence of speech. For a few sacred moments, the competitors felt one with the mysterious force that held the whole of life together, and the winner could say that he was the brahman. By the tenth century some rishis started to create a new theological discourse. The traditional devas were beginning to seem crude and unsatisfactory; they must point to something beyond themselves.

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

  Yours, Anne M. Frank TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1944 My dearest Kitty, “This is D Day,” the BBC announced at twelve. “This is the day.” The invasion has begun! This morning at eight the British reported heavy bombing of Calais, Boulogne, Le Havre and Cherbourg, as well as Pas de Calais (as usual). Further, as a precautionary measure for those in the occupied territories, everyone living within a zone of twenty miles from the coast was warned to prepare for bombardments. Where possible, the British will drop pamphlets an hour ahead of time. According to the German news, British paratroopers have landed on the coast of France. “British landing craft are engaged in combat with German naval units,” according to the BBC. Conclusion reached by the Annex while breakfasting at nine: this is a trial landing, like the one two years ago in Dieppe. BBC broadcast in German, Dutch, French and other languages at ten: The invasion has begun! So this is the “real” invasion. BBC broadcast in German at eleven: speech by Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower. BBC broadcast in English: “This is 0 Day.” General Eisenhower said to the French people: “Stiff fighting will come now, but after this the victory. The year 1944 is the year of complete victory. Good luck!” BBC broadcast in English at one: 11,000 planes are shuttling back and forth or standing by to land troops and bomb behind enemy lines; 4,000 landing craft and small boats are continually arriving in the area between Cher-bourg and Le Havre. English and American troops are already engaged in heavy combat. Speeches by Gerbrandy, the Prime Minister of Belgium, King Haakon of Norway, de Gaulle of France, the King of England and, last but not least, Churchill. A huge commotion in the Annex! Is this really the beginning of the long-awaited

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

  “Because you get dimples in your cheeks. How do you do that?” “I was born with them. There’s also one in my chin. It’s the only mark of beauty I possess.” “No, no, that’s not true!” “Yes it is. I know I’m not beautiful. I never have been and I never will be!” “I don’t agree. I think you’re pretty.” “I am not.” “I say you are, and you’ll have to take my word for it.” So of course I then said the same about him. Yours, Anne M. Frank WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1944 Dearest Kitty, Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister, speaking on the Dutch broadcast from London, said that after the war a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. Of course, everyone pounced on my diary. Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a novel about the Secret Annex. The title alone would make people think it was a detective story. Seriously, though, ten years after the war people would find it very amusing to read how we lived, what we ate and what we talked about as Jews in hiding. Although I tell you a great deal about our lives, you still know very little about us. How frightened the women are during air raids; last Sunday, for instance, when 350 British planes dropped 550 tons of bombs on IJmuiden, so that the houses trembled like blades of grass in the wind. Or how many epidemics are raging here. You know nothing of these matters, and it would take me all day to describe everything down to the last detail. People have to stand in line to buy vegetables and all kinds of goods; doctors can’t visit their patients, since their cars and bikes are stolen the moment they turn their backs; burglaries and thefts are so common that you ask yourself what’s suddenly gotten into the Dutch to make

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  I first realized the value of peak sexual experiences in my work as a therapist. Years later I created the Sexual Excitement Survey so that respondents could write anonymously, and in considerable detail, about their most unforgettable turn-ons. Their sexy tales will serve as fascinating illustrations of the erotic mind in action. If you read this book solely as an interested observer, I’m sure you’ll be informed and entertained. But I hope you’ll use it to embark on a voyage of erotic self-exploration. I will regularly invite you to examine your own peak erotic experiences and show you how to search gently for clues to your eroticism. You’ll open new pathways to sexual satisfaction by reading about other people’s erotic truths—the ones that rarely are given a voice—while simultaneously attending to your own. You’ll identify the factors that make peak experiences stand out and discover that eroticism is dynamic and paradoxical because it springs from the interplay between your attractions and the obstacles that stand in your way. It will become clear that predictable challenges of early life, faced by us all, become the cornerstones of eroticism. You already know how positive emotions can energize arousal, but you’ll see how unexpected aphrodisiacs such as anxiety, guilt, and anger can have similar effects. As your awareness expands you’ll marvel at your erotic mind’s amazing ability to transform life’s inevitable difficulties and emotional wounds into sources of excitation. In Part II, “Troublesome Turn-ons,” we’ll use the paradoxical perspective to gain insight into extremely common but rarely discussed erotic problems. We’ll look at how the same emotions that excite us can turn against us, blocking our enjoyment. We’ll also explore how ingrained erotic patterns can unconsciously draw us into relationships as frustrating as they are intense. Then we’ll discover how erotic conflicts during childhood and adolescence can split our lustful from our tender feelings. And we’ll observe how low self-esteem sometimes links with high arousal to produce the most overwhelming and destructive of all turn-ons. As you study these difficulties they will become understandable rather than frightening. Part II concludes with a practical look at the erotic mind as a potent force for healing and growth, including a seven-step program that anyone can follow to promote positive erotic changes. In Part III, “Positively Erotic,” we’ll explore how your growing self-awareness can guide you toward more joy and satisfaction in your life. The paradoxical perspective will provide you with new insights into the age-old challenge of deepening intimacy while sustaining passion in long-term relationships. While acknowledging the inherent conflict between closeness and sexual excitement, you’ll learn how erotic couples actively cultivate key skills to keep the spark alive between them as their relationships grow. Next we’ll reevaluate the true nature of erotic health. Crucial signposts will help you evaluate your sexual well-being and prepare you for lifelong erotic development. The book concludes with an inspiring look at the rewards of the erotic adventure.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  When Josiah was about sixteen years old, he had some kind of religious conversion, which probably meant that he wanted to worship Yahweh exclusively.100 This principled devotion to the national god could also have been a declaration of political independence. In 622, some ten years later, Josiah began extensive building work on Solomon’s temple, the great memorial of Judah’s golden age. During the construction, the high priest Hilkiah made a momentous discovery, and hurried to Shaphan, the royal scribe, with this exciting news: “I have found the book of the law [sefer torah] in the temple of Yahweh.”101 This, he said, was the authentic Law, which Yahweh had given to Moses on Mount Sinai. At once Shaphan took the scroll to the king and read it aloud in his presence. [image file=image_rsrc5K1.jpg] Most scholars believe that the scroll contained an early version of the book of Deuteronomy, which describes Moses gathering the people together on Mount Nebo in Transjordan shortly before his death, and delivering a “second law” (Greek: deuteronomion). But instead of being an ancient work, as Shaphan and Hilkiah claimed, it was almost certainly an entirely new scripture. Until the eighth century there had been very little reading or writing of religious texts in either Israel or Judah. There was no early tradition that Yahweh’s teachings had been written down. In J and E, Moses had passed on Yahweh’s commands by word of mouth, and the people had responded verbally: “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.”102 J and E did not mention the Ten Commandments; originally the stone tablets—“written with the finger of God”103—probably contained the divinely revealed plans for the tabernacle where Yahweh had dwelt with his people during the years in the wilderness.104 It was only later that the Deuteronomist writers added to the JE narrative, explaining that Moses “wrote down all the words of Yahweh” and “took the scroll of the covenant [sefer torah] and read it in the hearing of the people.”105 Now Shaphan claimed that this was the very scroll that Hilkiah had discovered in the temple. For centuries this precious document had been lost, and its teachings had never been implemented. Now that the sefer torah had been discovered, Yahweh’s people could make a new start.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  This was the most egalitarian polity yet devised, and it had an electrifying effect on the Greek world. Other poleis tried similar experiments, and there was a surge of fresh energy in the region. Cleisthenes was asking a great deal of his citizens. Since the Council of Five Hundred met three times a month, ordinary farmers and merchants were expected to dedicate about a tenth of their time to politics during their year in office. They did not lose their enthusiasm, however, and they learned a great deal from the experience. By the fifth century, the middle classes were able to participate in council debates and follow the thinking of the most intelligent people in Athens. The experiment showed that if citizens were properly educated and motivated, a government did not have to rely on brute force, and that it was possible to reform ancient institutions in a rational manner. The Athenians called their new system isonomia (“equal order”). 70 The polis was now more evenly balanced, with farmers and traders on a more equal footing with the aristocrats. Truth was no longer a secret, esoteric revelation for a select few. It was now en mesoi (“in the center”) of the political domain, 71 but the Greeks still regarded their political life as sacred and the polis as the extension of divinity into human affairs. Athens remained a devoutly religious city, even though it was increasingly a city of logos. As more people participated in government, they began to apply the debating skills they had acquired on the council floor to other spheres of knowledge. Political speeches and laws were now subjected to stringent criticism, and logos, the speech of the hoplites, continued to be aggressive. Debate was characterized by conflict, antithesis, and the desire to exclude an opposing point of view. The philosophy of the period reflected the agonistic quality of political life, as well as the Greek yearning for poise and harmony. This was especially evident in the work of Heraclitus (540–480), a member of the royal family of Ephesus, who was known as the “riddler” because he presented his ideas in lapidary, baffling maxims. “Nature,” he once said, “loves to hide”; things were the opposite of what they seemed. 72 The first relativist, Heraclitus argued that everything depended upon context: seawater was good for fish, but potentially fatal for men; a blow was salutary if delivered as a punishment, but evil if inflicted by a murderer. 73 A restless, unsettling man, Heraclitus believed that even though the cosmos seemed stable, it was in fact in constant flux and a battlefield of warring elements. “Cold things grow hot, the hot cools, the wet dries, the parched moistens.” 74 He was especially fascinated by fire: a flame was never still; fire transformed wood into ash, and water into steam.

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

  Some mysterious philanthropist has been putting hundred-dollar bills in envelopes, stashing them all over San Francisco and New York, and posting clues about how to find them. “I propose we kick it up a notch. We announce that on a certain day we will hide a bag containing five thousand dollars somewhere in San Francisco, say in Golden Gate Park. Or in Central Park, in New York. We create a frenzy. Imagine you have hundreds, or thousands, of people racing around trying to find the money. They all descend on the park at the same time. They’re blocking traffic. They’re causing accidents! It’s like that old movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World , where all the different teams are trying to find the treasure. The press would be all over this. They’d all do stories about the chaos. They’d do stories about whoever finds the money. They’ll do stories about us. We’ll be on national TV.” The thing is, this really isn’t a bad idea. It’s controversial, and maybe crazy, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Nobody likes it. “Okay,” I say, “so we could even take it one step further. We build a money cannon. It’s a big cannon that shoots dollar bills. You just need a big fan, in a box, and then a tube sticking out. We mount the cannon on the back of a Hummer, with HubSpot in huge letters on both sides, and we drive around a city blowing money into the streets. Think of the disruption! People rushing into the streets, trying to grab as many dollar bills as they can. They’d be fighting over the money, like people at Walmart on Black Friday. It would be a nightmare!” They all just sit there, looking down at their hands. Trotsky clears his throat and says, “Okay—anybody else?” We spend an hour listening to various lame ideas. One is called Uber-a-Marketer, and it’s a ripoff of a promotion that Uber did with a vaccine service, where you could have a nurse with a flu shot driven to your door. With Uber-a-Marketer, you’d pay some money, or win some kind of competition, and HubSpot would send one of its marketing people to your office and teach you how to do marketing. After all, we’re the best marketing team on the planet! People would kill to have us teach them about marketing! This idea actually generates some responses. But someone worries that Uber might not want to play ball with us. What happens then? We could go to Lyft, or some other car service. I chime in, saying that I love this idea but maybe there’s a way to kick it up a notch and make it even more dramatic: “Why not have a marketing person parachute in?” I say. “Like Google did at their I/O conference last year, when they had people wearing Google Glass skydive onto the roof of the venue.

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

  ‘Will some of them crap on me too?’ ‘Yes, and you’ll lick their arses afterwards.’ ‘And will I refuse to at first? Will I fight?’ ‘Yes, and they’ll smack you.’ ‘It’s disgusting, but I’ll clean out the folds of their arseholes with my tongue.’ ‘We’ll get there in the evening and you’ll stay there till the following morning.’ ‘But I’ll get tired.’ ‘You will be able to sleep, they’ll carry on fucking you. And we’ll come back that evening, and the hotel manager will bring his dog, and there’ll be someone who’ll pay to see you doing it with the dog.’ ‘Will I have to suck it?’ ‘You’ll see, it’ll have a very red cock and it’ll climb on top of you like on a bitch and stay stuck to you.’ Other times, the events would unroll in the workmen’s shed on a building site and whole teams of workmen would file through, paying no more than five francs a go. As I have suggested, my body sometimes convulsed in response to these images, but not always; the real action and the fantasy scrolled in tandem and only came together sporadically. We spoke in measured tones with all the precision and attention to detail of two scrupulous witnesses helping each other reconstruct a past event. When he came close to orgasm my partner became less talkative. I don’t know whether he was concentrating on one of the images of our imaginary film. As for me, I would sometimes bring the scenario back to a more private situation. The shed on the building site would become a concierge’s loge in a building undergoing repairs. In those cramped quarters, the bed is sometimes just hidden by a curtain. Only my stomach and legs were visible in front of it, and the workmen still kept coming in droves to service me without my seeing them or their seeing me under the gaze of the concierge who regulated the traffic. CommunitiesThere are two ways of envisaging a multitude, either as a crowd in which individual identities become confused, or as a chain where conversely what distinguishes them from each other is also what links them together, as one ally compensates for another’s weaknesses, as a son resembles his father even though he rebels. The very first men I knew immediately made me an emissary of a network in which I couldn’t hope to know all the members, the unwitting link in a family joined as in the bible.

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

  I remember when we arrived at the little stadium at Vélizy-Villacoublay how funny it seemed. The trip there had been so long, the leader of the convoy had been so mysterious about the destination, that when we came upon the place like a great clearing in the middle of a forest it just made us burst out laughing. It was a clear night. When you go to so much trouble to find a place, it’s usually to choose somewhere less exposed, somewhere more appropriate for complicity! On top of that we all realised that we were going to be fornicating amid the ghosts of all the adolescents who came and played football there on Wednesday afternoons. Our guide responded to our questions by admitting that this had indeed been where he came for football training. He looked crestfallen, as if he had been forced to admit to a longstanding fantasy. Who hasn’t dreamed of polluting some ordinary and innocent place they know with a bit of nooky? The group took refuge under the sloping terraces, because it goes so against human nature to copulate in full view of the horizon or in too expansive a space. On the whole, we protect ourselves less from other people’s gazes which can constitute an even more definite barrier than their bodies. People who fuck on the beach on moonlit summer nights think about the intimacy of their situation, and this cuts them off from the immensity around them. Our group was too big and too spread out to create that sort of intimacy itself. I took the cocks standing up, hanging on to some of the posts under the terraces, with my dress lifted up (I didn’t want to take everything off because it was so cold, but my buttocks were still completely exposed). Because I have a very supple waist, I am well suited to this position. So this circle of joyful activity continued, forming a perimeter around my outstretched arse, while I gazed absently through the frame of floorboards to the empty pitch.

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

  going new-school. She took one last glance to make sure that her girls were safely ensconced, pasty-free, in the bustier; that wouldn’t last, but what the hell. She stretched her foot out toward the MP3 player and pressed the PLAY button with her toe, in a move she’d perfected through months of solo dance practice. “Playing something special, are we, Lacy?” “You better believe it,” she said nastily, as the music started with blaring horns and a screaming electric guitar. It was Lacy’s favorite band, the Bindlestiffs, playing “Drink, Rob, and Fuck”, a violent punk homage to corruption in 1920s-era Chicago. She figured it suited the situation. Lacy started dancing with a savagery that she usually reserved for slow nights at The Mustang. It never failed to liven things up. This particular MP3 of “Drink, Rob, and Fuck” was a live recording, so she could hear the roaring of the crowd with each crooned boneheaded obscenity: “Big Al C he rules the street/but I just wanna lick your feet/bathtub gin goes down the hatch/you got a license for that snatch?” Lacy pulled a nasty twirl and went shimmying across the stage with her body undulating viciously; at the back edge, she pulled a scis¢or-move and started climbing up the curtains like they were a stripper-pole, popping out of her bustier, nipples erect and pointing like pistols. Hap would be having a heart- attack about now if he could see her. She did an inverted twirl and came down in a flying pirouette; executing a perfect landing, she brought the filmy peignoir across her chest in a coquettish conceal; she figured fuck the peignoir, fuck the bustier; the skirt was a tearaway, so she cast it at the balcony, though it didn’t make it far. Lacy was down on her hands and knees wearing nothing but fishnet stockings and marabou-fluffed heels. She spun on to her back, scissored up and writhed her way to the chair. Never got used to the smooth look, eh? Here, pal, get a faceful. She started working the chair obscenely, pumping her body in time with the violent music; had she pulled this particular move at The Mustang, she would promptly have been buried under $5 bills and just as promptly been fired for spreading her legs without a G-string. Even with bikini bottoms she would have been pushing the envelope here; obscene pelvic thrusts were as fun to make as they were pleasing to the audience, but too many of them and you sometimes ran afoul of the local cops, so the manager Bobo kept a close eye on things. But her pelvic thrusts had nothing on what she was about to do; in each dance, she found a moment when she knew Bobo wasn’t 132 Thomas S. Roche

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

  very essence of the universe were pulsing through her veins like liquid sunlight. No one was watching or judging — hey, man, get a load of those tits. On ordinary days, Zoe hated the way her breasts jostled when she ran, and she loathed her butt, which remained stubbornly round and full no matter how much she dieted. But this morning she’d somehow escaped the prison of her own body. She was exactly what she wanted to be: long and lean and jazzy, just like Bobby. For once what she looked like was less important than the things her body could do. As she savored each swaggering step, each powerful ripple of muscle in her legs, these words floated into her head: this must be how boys feel inside. Of course, the magic couldn’t last forever. The stairs took her straight to the door of the men’s bathroom. If she really were Bobby, she could saunter right in, but to get to the ladies’ she’d have to follow a long subterranean corridor to the next entryway. The architects who built this dorm a hundred years ago, when the college was all male, probably never dreamed their design would be such a pain in the ass to a young woman creeping down from her boyfriend’s bed to answer nature’s call. Dead white males — that was another thing about college, everywhere you turned they’d left their mark. Zoe glanced down the hallway quickly in each direction. All was quiet and cold, deserted as the Siberian tundra. Go ahead. Do it. No one will see. ‘Throwing her shoulders back, she strode into the men’s room. She half-expected a crash of thunder in divine retribution, but the only sound was a faucet dripping in the far corner and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights. Zoe paused, sniffing the air. The place reeked of boy, as if the walls had sucked in all the secretions of decades of its inhabitants for posterity: sweat and piss and rivers of milky jism swirling down the shower drains. She smiled. ‘Truth be told, this wasn’t the first time Zoe had visited the men’s room in the fourth entryway of Holder Hall. She’d been here just one month before, but with a proper escort. She and Bobby had stayed on campus for a few days of the Christmas break, supposedly to finish up term papers, but really so they could fuck all day long. One morning Bobby talked her into taking a shower with him. He said guys brought their girlfriends here all the time. He’d come down to brush his teeth or whatever, and he’d spot four feet under a shower curtain, two of them smaller, the toenails painted a tell-tale pink Being Bobby 55