Fear

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 Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  As we left the crowded, shop-brightened streets behind us and crossed into the exclusive quiet of Holland Park I yawned and looked out with pleasure at the deserted pavements, glistening where a street-lamp stood, the overhanging budding branches of trees in front gardens, the unthinking stability which wealth lent the small mansions behind them, where occasional windows, with curtains it was felt unnecessary to draw, revealed books reaching to coved ceilings, figures holding glasses moving about, discreet lighting picking out pictures in dull gold frames. I paid off the cabby at the gate, and jogged across the short gravel sweep to the door at the side of the dark house which gave access to the stairs to my apartment. A small lamp glowed above it, and the wet dripped down from the bare twigs of the creeper which surrounded the recessed porchway. My heart leapt when I saw there was a figure slumped in the shadow on the ground, sheltering from the rain. It was with an unsteady lurch into jocularity that I said, ‘Arfer, what the fuck are you doing there?’ ‘Man, I thought you was never coming,’ he said in a tense voice, and sniffed heavily. ‘I been sitting here fucking ages waiting for you.’ ‘But I didn’t know you were coming back tonight.’ He didn’t reply but stood up and moved towards me. I felt his heavy breath on my face, and annoyance that he was there. I suppose it was because he had frightened me. He gripped my upper arms with his long, strong hands, and pressed himself against me. The rain fell on us, but as I lifted my hands to embrace him, I realised that he was already soaked through, his body warming the damp clothes just as they were chilling him. ‘Baby, you’re really wet,’ I said in a practical tone. ‘You should have said you were coming.’ I freed myself and felt for my keys. ‘Come in and take everything off,’ I exclaimed, adjusting to the idea that he had returned, and not unmoved that he couldn’t keep away. I stepped past him and unlocked the door, flicking on the light, and passing into the hallway at the foot of the back-stairs. He hesitated, then followed me in, his feet squelching in his sodden trainers, and pushed the door to.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Sheriff Tate drove Walter to Holman Correctional Facility, a short ride away in Atmore, Alabama. Before the trip, the sheriff again threatened Walter with racial slurs and terrifying plans. It’s unclear how Tate was able to persuade Holman’s warden to house two pretrial detainees on death row, although Tate knew people at the prison from his days as a probation officer. The transfer of Myers and McMillian from the county jail to death row took place on August 1, 1987, less than a month before the scheduled execution of Wayne Ritter. — When Walter McMillian arrived on Alabama’s death row—just ten years after the modern death penalty was reinstituted—an entire community of condemned men awaited him. Most of the hundred or so death row prisoners who had been sentenced to execution in Alabama since capital punishment was restored in 1975 were black, although to Walter’s surprise nearly 40 percent of them were white. Everyone was poor, and everyone asked him why he was there. Condemned prisoners on Alabama’s death row unit are housed in windowless concrete buildings that are notoriously hot and uncomfortable. Each death row inmate was placed in a five-by-eight-foot cell with a metal door, a commode, and a steel bunk. The temperatures in August consistently reached over 100 degrees for days and sometimes weeks at a time. Incarcerated men would trap rats, poisonous spiders, and snakes they found inside the prison to pass the time and to keep safe. Isolated and remote, most prisoners got few visits and even fewer privileges. Existence at Holman centered on Alabama’s electric chair. The large wooden chair was built in the 1930s, and inmates had painted it yellow before attaching its leather straps and electrodes. They called it “Yellow Mama.” The executions at Holman resumed just a few years before Walter arrived. John Evans and Arthur Jones had recently been electrocuted in Holman’s execution chamber. Russ Canan, an attorney with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee in Atlanta, had volunteered to represent Evans. Evans filmed what became an after-school special for kids where he shared the story of his life with schoolchildren and urged them to avoid the mistakes he had made. After courts refused to block the Evans execution following multiple appeals, Canan went to the prison to witness the execution at Evans’s request. It was worse than Russ could have ever imagined. He later filed a much-reviewed affidavit describing the entire horrific process:

• From Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

  “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And when he was finished the lights went out and they slowly closed their eyes. And the first day had ended. * * * (Lights flash, flash, flash standing by my rack now) sir! the private requests to make an emergency sitting head call WHAT DO YOU WANT KOVIC? sir! o god o jesus yessir aye aye sir one two aye aye sir If I die in a combat zone pack me up and ship me home COUNTDOWN—READY—SEATS! GET IN THE PASSAGEWAY SWEETPEA AND GIVE ME FIVE HUNDRED BENDS AND THRUSTS—DO IT! BY THE LEFT FLANK—one two three four I love the Marine Corps THIS IS YOUR RIFLE LADIES I WANT YOU TO KNOW IT ALL OF IT EVERY PART OF IT! CAN’T YOU READ SWEETPEA? this is my rifle this is my gun this is for fighting this is for fun, Ask not what your country (the formation now) remember i can talk no i can’t talk no i can’t bring back by the river—with the rifle—America. America. God shed His grace on thee, Eenie meenie mynie moe catch a nigger by the toe EYES RIGHT! I WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THIS AFTERNOON THAT THIS THING OUT THERE IS A COMMIE SONOFABITCH and wops and spics and chinks and japs and GET IN FRONT OF YOUR RACKS!! THAT’S NOT QUICK ENOUGH! (never quick enough, eighteen i’m eighteen now) UP! DOWN! GET IT! OUT! GET IT! o mom o please o someone someone help now somebody BY THE RIGHT FLANK! GET DOWN! GET UP! (hot deck parades faces mirror face still pimples now boots and socks) o lights flashes GET THE FUCK UP! We will bear any burden by your leave sir excuse me sir pardon me sir suffer any hardships i’m sorry sir o yessir no sir aye aye sir, sir! (push-ups push-ups clanking sounds steel) READY—SEATS! (plates forks and) EAT AND HURRY UP AND RUN AND HURRY UP AND EAT AND HURRY UP AND RUN AND HURRY UP HURRY UP! There is something I believe—we’ll be home by Christmas Eve sir my service number is two-oh-three-oh-two-six-one sir the president of the united states is the honorable lyndon baines johnson sir the vice president is Our Father, Who art in heaven PREPARE TO MOUNT aye aye sir hallowed be Thy name MOUNT! Thy kingdom come, if I die on the Russian front bury me with a Russian cunt DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! Thy will be done DO IT! DO IT! DO IT IN YOUR SLEEP ON THE FLOOR ON YOUR HEAD DO IT NOW WANT TO BECOME MEN WANT TO BECOME MEN WANT TO BECOME MEN oh, become, marines oh god bless the marine corps god bless america TIGHTEN UP! TIGHTEN UP! god bless my senior drill instructor god bless the president PLATOON HALT!

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  This is poignantly illustrated in Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut. Bill and Alice have just returned from a lavish black-tie Christmas party that has sparked a conversation about sex. Bill has always assumed that Alice, like him, is essentially incapable of infidelity. “You’re my wife and my child’s mother and I’m sure of you. You’d never be unfaithful. I’m sure of you.” Alice, outraged at his presumption and emboldened by a joint they have just smoked, decides to enlighten him. She describes in agonizing detail just how powerful the presence of the other can be, even when it is nothing more than a mirage. She tells him of her febrile fantasy about a naval officer she desired from a distance. They never met; nonetheless, his instant hold on her was so strong she would have given up everything if he’d only asked. She also says that this happened on a day when she and Bill had just made love, and Bill had never been dearer to her. Bill is devastated by his wife’s revelation, and he spends the rest of the film trying to avenge the betrayal and restore order to his broken world. What struck me is that, for Bill, a fantasy could generate the same sense of violation as an actual affair. Bill is like many of the partners I meet. His security rests not only on what Alice does but also on what she thinks. Her fantasies are proof of her freedom and separateness, and that scares him. The third points to other possibilities, choices we didn’t make, and in this way it’s bound up with our freedom. Laura Kipnis says, “What is more anxiogenic than a partner’s freedom, which might mean the freedom not to love you, or to stop loving you, or to love someone else, or to become a different person than the one who once pledged to love you always and now…perhaps doesn’t?” If she can think about others, she might love others, and that is intolerable. Fortress Love The menace of the third is intrinsic to the experience of love, and even the most controlling marriage may not be able to allay our anxieties. Nevertheless, many of us do try. “You were with that guy for a while. What were you talking about?” “You spend a lot of time on the computer. Is it all work?” “Where have you been?” “Who was there?” “Did you miss me?” Many of our inquiries hover at the border between intimacy and intrusiveness. We want to know, but we don’t want to be too obvious. We say that we ask because we care, but often it’s because we’re afraid.

• From In the Dream House (2019)

  When you arrive at the house party, your friends all stare at you and ask if you’re okay. “I need a drink,” you say. “And then I need to tell you a story.” Dream House as Schrödinger’s CatWas it the arc of the universe? The natural result of centuries, millennia of wrongheaded politics? Was she trained to find you, or were you trained to be found? Was it the fact that you’d already been tenderized like a pork chop by: never having been properly in love, being told you should be grateful for anything you get as a fat woman, getting weird messages that relationships are about fighting and being at odds with each other? The fact that your heart had been broken that one time and you desperately wanted to feel it unbreak? That you felt complete with someone loving you? That you just straight-up loved being desired, desiring someone, coming all the time? That you got addicted to her smell, her voice, her body? That you figured this was what you deserved? The superpredictable result of a religion that pathologized sex but never talked about relationships? Terrible sex ed? Bad timing? You feel as if there is a box you can open to find the answer, but with the lid closed the answer is all of these things, all at once. Dream House at Newton’s AppleEarly in the summer, this guy drops you a line. When you first got to Iowa, he had flown into town and the two of you spent a weekend in bed together and it was a nice culmination of a few years of light internet flirtation. It turns out he’s in town for a conference for work, and he asks if you want to get dinner. You agree, even though you don’t really want to see him. You even agree to pick him up from his hotel—his request—although you don’t want to do that, either. Even as you’re driving to his hotel, you’re thinking about how you’re just doing what he’s asking you, the same way you’d respond to the woman in the Dream House, even though he’s just this random guy. You think about that as you pull up under the awning, as you drive him to the restaurant. He is talking to you. Even as you’re responding to him, even as you’re ordering and making small talk, you’re marveling at the fact that his maleness—the generic fact of it—has as much pull as a carefully curated, long-term abusive relationship. It’s as if one scientist spent decades developing a downward-facing propulsion system to get an apple to descend to the ground and another one just used gravity. Same result, entirely different levels of effort. You refuse to get a drink, pick at your meal. He insists on paying. You drive him back to the hotel. You pull in front of the entrance, and he smiles at you. “Why don’t you park so we can say good-bye?” he asks.

• From Untrue (2018)

  It’s hard to ignore that one of the things that drew Robert to Sally was what he called her “independence.” She was married, and it didn’t stop her. And it was clear that sex was on the agenda. These factors also draw the utterly witting and willing Walter Neff into Phyllis Dietrichson’s orbit and are his ultimate undoing as she (barely) backseat drives him into killing her wealthy husband. “That’s a honey of an anklet,” Walter says to Phyllis at their first, sexually charged meeting rife with double entendre. At the time, anklets were known to connote that a woman was possibly “loose,” having long been associated with courtesans and prostitutes. Thus we know who has the power, and how it will end. Meanwhile, Robert ultimately heeded the cultural script that married women belong to their husbands. That script remained very much in place when Sally told Robert that she wanted to be his wife. She basically wanted to switch up the players. Robert’s fear made sense to me, and Sally’s husband’s rage is all too familiar, the endless repetition of the same old song. But I was surprised to learn, as I interviewed and read, that there are men utterly unlike Sally’s husband, men who want to be Robert and Sally’s husband at the same time. These men don’t merely tolerate their wives stepping out or look the other way when it happens. They want and frequently beg them to do so. These men have a particular and fascinating fetish: a deep need to watch their wives cheat. They are the antithesis of Peter the Great, who beheaded his wife’s supposed lover, then is rumored to have ordered that the unfortunate man’s head, preserved in alcohol in a jar, be displayed in the faithless woman’s bedroom, where she would be forced to contemplate it every night. No, these men are not possessive, and they are not driven to violence by their women straying. In fact, nothing excites them more than being married to an adulteress. They welcome, celebrate, and engineer female infidelity for their own sexual delectation. I first learned about such men and partnerships via social media, and it was an education.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  We want your watch.’ I said rather crossly, ‘Well, you can’t have it.’ At this point a third youth, that I hadn’t spotted in the narrow shaft of the bin-yard on the right, clambered rapidly up one of the six-foot-high bins and sat throned on the top among the black bags of rubbish, banging his heels against the side of the container. ‘Fucking poof!’ he said, with a kind of considered anger. Angry myself, I wanted simply to get away—but as I tried to do so was challenged with ‘Um—excuse me—no one said you could go.’ ‘You can tell he’s a fuckin’ poof,’ said the one on top of the bin. It was an old problem: what to say, what was the snappy putdown? Clever, but not too clever. I acted out a weary sigh, and said, tight-lipped: ‘Actually, poof is not a word I would use.’ ‘Isn’t it, actually? ’ said the leader, again with a smile that seemed to say he knew my game, he knew what I liked. ‘Look, excuse me,’ I said tetchily, nervous, hearing my own voice in my ears as though they had played it to me on a tape-recorder. I felt I mustn’t flatten it, or pretend, but to them it must have sounded a parody voice, pickled in culture and money. The jittery one, skinny, pecking forward with his oddly vulnerable neck and gulping Adam’s apple, said: ‘Yeah! What’s ’is game, any’ow? What’s ’e doin’ ’ere?’ His eyes ran up and down over me, as if wondering where to strike. I knew I needn’t answer and blustered inwardly about a ‘lawless tribunal’. At the same time I had a terrible certainty that I was lost. They had decided on my fate and were nerving themselves up to it by humiliating me. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve come to see a friend.’ I was hopeless at this, and my looking about showed how I wanted to escape. ‘Fuckin’ shit-hole wanker,’ the skinhead on the bin said, then spat, hitting the ground just in front of me. The leader took in his boys with an ironic glance, and said: ‘I think his friend must be one of our little coloured brothers, don’t you?’ The other one rocked his head about and punched at the air just in front of me several times. ‘Yeah! Fuckin’ nigger-fucker,’ he said, with an excited little laugh, then froze his features again. On his thin, hairless head he needed the biggest expressions if he was to make an effect, like actors in old silent films. He concentrated his malice in a frown, the lips slightly apart and firm. My fat interrogator rested his swastikaed hand on my shoulder. He might have been going to give me advice, and checked the passageway in both directions to make sure we were alone. No one appeared, and the sounds of the kids playing went on riotously and unconcerned not far off.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  He told us about being pressured by the sheriff and the ABI and threatened with the death penalty if he didn’t testify against McMillian. He made accusations of official corruption, talked about his involvement in the Pittman murder, and revealed his earlier attempts to recant. He ultimately admitted that he had never known anything about the Morrison murder, had no clue what had happened to her or anything else at all about the crime. He said that he had told lots of people—from the D.A. on down—that he had been coerced to testify falsely against Walter. If even half of what he said was true, there were a lot of people involved in this case who knew, from the mouth of his sole accuser, that Walter McMillian had had nothing to do with the murder of Ronda Morrison. Ralph was on his third Sunkist Orange when he stopped his stream of confessions, leaned forward, and beckoned us closer. He spoke in a whisper to Michael and me. “You know they’ll try to kill you if you actually get to the bottom of everything.” We would learn that Ralph could never let a meeting end without dropping some final dramatic insight, observation, or prediction. I reassured him that we would be careful. — On the drive back to Montgomery, Michael and I debated how much we could trust Myers. What he told us about the McMillian case all made sense. His story at trial was so implausible that it was easy to believe that he had been pressured to testify falsely. The corruption narrative that he seemed intent to expose was harder to assess. Myers claimed to have committed the Vickie Pittman murder under the direction of another local sheriff; he laid out to us a widespread conspiracy involving police, drug dealing, and money laundering. It was quite a tale. We spent weeks following up on the leads that Myers had provided. He admitted to us that he had never met Walter and only knew of him through Karen Kelly. He also confirmed that he had been spending time with Karen Kelly and that she was involved in the Pittman murder. So we decided to confirm the story with Kelly herself, now a prisoner at the Tutwiler Prison for Women, where she was serving a ten-year sentence for the Pittman murder. Tutwiler is one of the state’s oldest prisons and the only prison in the state for women. It has fewer security restrictions than the men’s prisons.

• From Untrue (2018)

  Parish told me there was another, even darker side to female dominance among bonobos. Male bonobos are often reluctant in the face of female pursuit. So reluctant, in fact, that Parish says without reservation, “The situation of male-female sex sometimes looks coercive to me.” That is, the females force males to have sex with them. This might seem impossible, but males get erections from anxiety, so it is easy enough, mechanically speaking, for females to force the males to mate with them. A female bonobo tends to be the initiator of sex. She does so by putting her arm around a male as if to say, “How about it?” The males who appear coerced will try to shake the female off repeatedly. During sex, they may give distress vocalizations and try to escape. As Mike Bates told me, “It’s in your face. You can’t not notice it. They will pick out a male and just stay on him. A female will be all over a male so that he can’t get away from her solicitations. She’ll keep walking around with her arm around him, again and again. It’s well documented.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  The misgiving of those who hesitate as to whether they may be able to attain to perfection by entering religion is shown by many examples to be unreasonable. Hence Augustine says (Confess. viii, 11): “On that side whither I had set my face, and whither I trembled to go, there appeared to me the chaste dignity of continency . . . honestly alluring me to come and doubt not, and stretching forth to receive and embrace me, her holy hands full of multitudes of good examples. There were so many young men and maidens here, a multitude of youth and every age, grave widows and aged virgins . . . And she smiled at me with a persuasive mockery as though to say: Canst not thou what these youths and these maidens can? Or can they either in themselves, and not rather in the Lord their God? . . . Why standest thou in thyself, and so standest not? Cast thyself upon Him; fear not, He will not withdraw Himself that thou shouldst fall. Cast thyself fearlessly upon Him: He will receive and will heal thee.” The example quoted of David is not to the point, because “the arms of Saul,” as a gloss on the passage observes, “are the sacraments of the Law, as being burdensome”: whereas religion is the sweet yoke of Christ, for as Gregory says (Moral. iv, 33), “what burden does He lay on the shoulders of the mind, Who commands us to shun all troublesome desires, Who warns us to turn aside from the rough paths of this world?” To those indeed who take this sweet yoke upon themselves He promises the refreshment of the divine fruition and the eternal rest of their souls. To which may He Who made this promise bring us, Jesus Christ our Lord, “Who is over all things God blessed for ever. Amen.” THIRD PART (TP) OF THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA (QQ[1]-90) PROLOGUEForasmuch as our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, in order to “save His people from their sins” (Mat. 1:21), as the angel announced, showed unto us in His own Person the way of truth, whereby we may attain to the bliss of eternal life by rising again, it is necessary, in order to complete the work of theology, that after considering the last end of human life, and the virtues and vices, there should follow the consideration of the Saviour of all, and of the benefits bestowed by Him on the human race. Concerning this we must consider (1) the Saviour Himself; (2) the sacraments by which we attain to our salvation; (3) the end of immortal life to which we attain by the resurrection. Concerning the first, a double consideration occurs: the first, about the mystery of the Incarnation itself, whereby God was made man for our salvation; the second, about such things as were done and suffered by our Saviour—i.e. God incarnate.

• From Untrue (2018)

  In other words, Sarah wasn’t just exercising restraint when she decided not to sleep with Paul. She was encountering what anthropologists call “constraint”—those ecological and environmental realities that determine our options and roadblocks. In general, constraint includes factors like predation, disease, or the relative difficulty of procuring calories. Sarah didn’t have to fear being eaten by a jaguar, of course, and vaccines kept her and her kids safe from pathogens. And living in the industrialized West, she didn’t have to hunt or gather—she could buy food from the grocery store. In the parlance of anthropology, Sarah, like most of us in the United States, lives in a state of ecological release. Nonetheless, she faced tremendous constraint—both internal and external—when it came to her sexual autonomy. The fear of “blowing things up” with her husband was just one of her considerations when it came to Paul. She added that she would find it especially humiliating if her community—the other parents at her kids’ school, for example—thought she had had an affair. “The Scarlet Mom,” she joked as she picked at a piece of toast. Sarah was no prude—she had slept with a number of men before marrying and didn’t pass judgment on a friend who’d had a fling with a coworker while her husband was out of town. But like many of the women I spoke with, Sarah also felt certain—and she wasn’t necessarily wrong—that not only her peers but also family and divorce court judges were not always immune to bias against “cheating wives and mothers” and that a custody hearing might not have gone her way had she been accused of infidelity, even though her state’s “no-fault” divorce law was supposed to protect her from such prejudice. In addition, Sarah had the kind of shoddy social safety net typical of many women in the US. Her parents lived all the way across the country. She couldn’t count on them if her husband, say, tossed her out as Sarah Jessica Parker’s character’s husband attempted to do in an early episode of Divorce. (Sarah had plenty of friends, but living with them with her kids was simply out of the question in a culture where we live in nuclear families and privacy is highly valued.) These were the reasons, Sarah explained, that she had “wanted” to remain in an unnourishing marriage and hadn’t been able to have sex with Paul in the hotel room that day. She had, albeit largely unconsciously, run a kind of mental calculus about upsides and downsides—anthropologists call these “life-history trade-offs”—and decided that, no, she wouldn’t. The burden of “what if” was everywhere. What if my husband finds out? What if Paul’s wife finds out? What if I fall for him even harder and it complicates my life terribly?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: As Chrysostom says (Hom. i super Matth. [*Opus Imperfectum among the supposititious works ascribed to St. Chrysostom]) the Blessed Virgin was so espoused to Joseph that she dwelt in his home: “for just as she who conceives in her husband’s house is understood to have conceived of him, so she who conceives elsewhere is suspect.” Consequently sufficient precaution would not have been taken to safeguard the fair fame of the Blessed Virgin, if she had not the entry of her husband’s house. Wherefore the words, “not willing to take her away” are better rendered as meaning, “not willing publicly to expose her,” than understood of taking her to his house. Hence the evangelist adds that “he was minded to put her away privately.” But although she had the entry of Joseph’s house by reason of her first promise of espousals, yet the time had not yet come for the solemnizing of the wedding; for which reason they had not yet consummated the marriage. Therefore, as Chrysostom says (Hom. iv in Matth.): “The evangelist does not say, ‘before she was taken to the house of her husband,’ because she was already in the house. For it was the custom among the ancients for espoused maidens to enter frequently the houses of them to whom they were betrothed.” Therefore the angel also said to Joseph: “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife”; that is: “Fear not to solemnize your marriage with her.” Others, however, say that she was not yet admitted to his house, but only betrothed to him. But the first is more in keeping with the Gospel narrative. OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (FOUR ARTICLES)We now have to consider the Blessed Virgin’s Annunciation, concerning which there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether it was befitting that announcement should be made to her of that which was to be begotten of her? (2) By whom should this announcement be made? (3) In what manner should this announcement be made? (4) Of the order observed in the Annunciation. Whether it was necessary to announce to the Blessed Virgin that which was to be done in her?Objection 1: It would seem that it was unnecessary to announce to the Blessed Virgin that which was to be done in her. For there seems to have been no need of the Annunciation except for the purpose of receiving the Virgin’s consent. But her consent seems to have been unnecessary: because the Virginal Conception was foretold by a prophecy of “predestination,” which is “fulfilled without our consent,” as a gloss says on Mat. 1:22. There was no need, therefore, for this Annunciation.

• From The Songs of Bilitis (1894)

  All alone I fell asleep like a partridge in the heather.... The light wind, the murmuring of the waters, the sweetness of the night, all held me there. Imprudently I slept and awakened with a cry, and I struggled, and I wept. But already it was too late. What can the hands of a child do? He would not leave me. Rather, with greater tenderness, he pressed me closer to him, and I saw in all the world neither the earth nor the trees but only the light in his eyes.... To thee, Cypris victorious, I consecrate these offerings still moist with the dew, vestiges of the pains of virginity, witnesses of my sleep and of my resistance. XXXV THE WASH-WOMEN Wash-women, say not that you have seen me! I confide in you; do not repeat it! Between my tunic and my breasts, I bring you something. I am like a little frightened hen.... I know not whether I dare tell you.... My heart beats as though I would die.... It is a veil that I bring you. A veil and the ribbons from my legs. You see: there is blood upon them. By Apollo, it was in spite of me! I defended myself well; but the man who loves is stronger than we. Wash them well; spare neither the salt nor the chalk. I will place four oboli for you at the feet of Aphrodite; even a drachma of silver. XXXVI SONG When he returned, I hid my face with my two hands. He said to me: “Fear nothing. Who has seen our kissing?--Who has seen us? the night and the moon.” “--And the stars and the first dawn. The moon has mirrored herself in the lake and has told it to the water under the willows. The water of the lake has told it to the oar. “And the oar has told it to the boat and the boat has told it to the fisher. Alas; alas! if that were all! But the fisher has told it to a woman. “The fisher has told it to a woman: my father and my mother and my sisters and all Hellas will know it.” XXXVII BILITIS One woman may envelop herself in white wool. Another may clothe herself in silk and gold. Another cover herself with flowers, with green leaves and grapes. Me, I enjoy life only when naked. My lover, take me as I am: without robes or jewels or sandals. Here is Bilitis, quite alone. My hair is black with its own blackness and my lips red of their own color. My locks float about me, free and round, like feathers. Take me as my mother made me in a night of love long past, and if I please thee so, forget not to tell me. XXXVIII THE LITTLE HOUSE

• From Untrue (2018)

  “I very rarely see that rules create security in these situations. How can we possibly anticipate all the possibilities? It’s an attempt to control, but it might make people feel more out of control,” he said. He told us that in his work with couples practicing CNM, he kept the focus on their attachment bond and let them come up with the rules without getting too involved in that himself. In his experience, he said, the rules might change or even fade out in time if the relationship security is sufficiently strong. “My job is to help people who have decided not to be monogamous keep turning back to each other if they feel insecure or flooded with fear. That way a negative becomes a positive. What might weaken or sink a relationship strengthens it.” Kaupp then told us there are three types of non-monogamy, and while they might overlap, their practitioners belonged to quite different tribes. There are people in “open relationships,” arrangements in which the couple agrees to see others but might not want to talk about it, or even know. “You go play, but I don’t want to hear about it” is how Kaupp summarized this practice, putting his hands over his ears to make his point. Meanwhile, swingers—I couldn’t help thinking of the 1970s and kept flashing, for some reason, on the fireworks display in the opening credits of Love, American Style, a show I watched as a kid—are committed to having sex with others, both individually and as a couple. They talk with each other about what they are doing, they do things with others together and sometimes separately, and they might go to conventions, cruises, or sex clubs where they can meet like-minded others committed to what they call “the lifestyle.” As with open relationships, the dyad is the primary relationship for swingers; they invite others into their established relationship whose boundaries, while sometimes malleable, are more or less clear. The hierarchy is unambiguous: the established pair bond is the home base.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  When the van finally returned late that night to the Queens center, I was completely exhausted and wanted only to go home and sleep. But I was still not permitted to leave. Jaap Van Rossum, the house director, insisted that I stay and talk with him for a while. I wanted desperately to go. He was emphatic. He sat me down in front of a crackling fire and read me the biography of a humble Korean man I had never heard of before, Sun Myung Moon. The story was that Moon had suffered through tremendous hardships and tribulations to proclaim the truth of God and to fight Satan and communism. When he had finished, Jaap begged me to pray about what I had just heard. He told me that I was now responsible for the great truth I had been taught. If I turned my back on it, I would never forgive myself and God would be heartbroken. He then tried to persuade me to stay in the house overnight. My insides were screaming at me, “Get out! Get out! Get the hell away from these people! You need time to think.” In order to escape I had to get angry and yelled, “No! Get off my case!” and charged out into the night. Nevertheless, I felt guilty for being rude to those sincere and wonderful people. I drove home, almost in tears. When I arrived home, my parents (they told me later) thought I had been drugged. They said I looked awful: my eyes were glassy, and I was obviously very confused. I tried to explain to them what had just happened. I was exhausted and semi-coherent. When I told them the workshop was affiliated with the Unification Church, my parents became upset and thought I was turning my back on our Jewish heritage and wanted to become a Christian. My mom said, “Let’s go talk with the rabbi tomorrow.” I was happy to agree. Unfortunately my rabbi had never heard of the Unification Church, nor had he ever dealt with anyone involved with a cult. He thought I was interested in becoming a Christian. He didn’t know what to say or do. I came away telling myself, “The only way I can get to the bottom of this thing is investigate it myself.” Still, I was afraid. I wished I could speak with someone who knew about this group but wasn’t a devoted member. In February 1974, no one I knew had ever heard of the Moonies.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  When I thought about what I would have done when I was sixteen years old or nineteen or even twenty-four, I was scared to realize that I might have run. The more I thought about it, the more concerned I became about all the young black boys and men in that neighborhood. Did they know not to run? Did they know to stay calm and say, “It’s okay”? I detailed all of my concerns. I found Bureau of Justice statistics reporting that black men were eight times more likely to be killed by the police than whites. By the end of the twentieth century the rate of police shootings would improve so that men of color were “only” four times more likely to be killed by law enforcement, but the problem would get worse as some states passed “Stand Your Ground” laws empowering armed citizens to use lethal force as well. I kept writing my memo to the Atlanta Police Department and before I knew it I had typed close to nine pages outlining all the things I thought had gone wrong. For two pages I detailed the completely illegal search of the vehicle and the absence of probable cause. I even cited about a half-dozen cases. I read over the complaint and realized that I had done everything but say, “I’m a lawyer.” I filed my complaint with the police department and tried to forget about the incident, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking about what had happened. I began to feel embarrassed that I hadn’t asserted more control during the encounter. I hadn’t told the officers I was a lawyer or informed them that what they were doing was illegal. Should I have said more to them? Despite the work I’d done assisting people on death row, I questioned how prepared I was to do really difficult things. I even started having second thoughts about going to Alabama to start a law office. I couldn’t stop thinking about how at risk young kids are when they get stopped by the police. My complaint made it through the review process at the Atlanta Police Department. Every few weeks I’d get a letter explaining that the police officers had done nothing wrong and that police work is very difficult. I appealed these dismissals unsuccessfully up the chain of command. Finally, I requested a meeting with the chief of police and the police officers who had stopped me. This request was denied, but the deputy chief met with me. I had asked for an apology and suggested training to prevent similar incidents. The deputy chief nodded politely as I explained what had happened. When I finished, he apologized to me, but I suspected that he just wanted me to leave. He promised that the officers would be required to do some “extra homework on community relations.”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: As Ambrose says on Lk. 1:11: “We are disturbed, and lose our presence of mind, when we are confronted by the presence of a superior power.” And this happens not only in bodily, but also in imaginary vision. Wherefore it is written (Gn. 15:12) that “when the sun was setting, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a great and darksome horror seized upon him.” But by being thus disturbed man is not harmed to such an extent that therefore he ought to forego the vision of an angel. First because from the very fact that man is raised above himself, in which matter his dignity is concerned, his inferior powers are weakened; and from this results the aforesaid disturbance: thus, also, when the natural heat is drawn within a body, the exterior parts tremble. Secondly, because, as Origen says (Hom. iv in Luc.): “The angel who appeared, knowing hers was a human nature, first sought to remedy the disturbance of mind to which a man is subject.” Wherefore both to Zachary and to Mary, as soon as they were disturbed, he said: “Fear not.” For this reason, as we read in the life of Anthony, “it is difficult to discern good from evil spirits. For if joy succeed fear, we should know that the help is from the Lord: because security of soul is a sign of present majesty. But if the fear with which we are stricken persevere, it is an enemy that we see.” Moreover it was becoming to virginal modesty that the Virgin should be troubled. Because, as Ambrose says on Lk. 1:20: “It is the part of a virgin to be timid, to fear the advances of men, and to shrink from men’s addresses.” But others says that as the Blessed Virgin was accustomed to angelic visions, she was not troubled at seeing this angel, but with wonder at hearing what the angel said to her, for she did not think so highly of herself. Wherefore the evangelist does not say that she was troubled at seeing the angel, but “at his saying.” Whether the Annunciation took place in becoming order?Objection 1: It would seem that the Annunciation did not take place in becoming order. For the dignity of the Mother of God results from the child she conceived. But the cause should be made known before the effect. Therefore the angel should have announced to the Virgin the conception of her child before acknowledging her dignity in greeting her. Objection 2: Further, proof should be omitted in things which admit of no doubt; and premised where doubt is possible. But the angel seems first to have announced what the virgin might doubt, and which, because of her doubt, would make her ask: “How shall this be done?” and afterwards to have given the proof, alleging both the instance of Elizabeth and the omnipotence of God. Therefore the Annunciation was made by the angel in unbecoming order.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  For girls, the window of time between physical maturity and marriage was fleeting; by contrast, young men in the ancient Mediterranean spent a formless eternity between puberty and marriage. Male age at marriage varied widely, but the vast majority of young men married in their twenties, most of them in their late twenties. In both Greek and Roman tradition, boys crossed the threshold between puerility and manhood around the age of fourteen. The moment was recognized by ancient rites of passage and, in the Roman case, by the weighty assumption of the toga virilis. Sexual experience presumptively followed on the heels of nascent maturity. Philo of Alexandria has left the most indelicately precise description of this sexual initiation. His hero, the biblical Joseph, utters words that are aimed at contemporary Alexandria, a city famous for its ebullient eroticism. “We descendants of the Hebrews live according to a special set of customs and norms. Among other peoples, it is permitted for young men after their fourteenth year to use with complete shamelessness whores, brothel hags, and other women who make a profit with their body.… Indeed, before legitimate marriage, we [Jews] know no sexual intercourse with other women but enter marriage as pure men with pure virgins.”63 Philo’s tribal righteousness foreshadows a Christian moralism that will cut, with pitiless severity, across the soft zones of pagan indulgence. For the Greeks and Romans, any hard restrictions on male sexual exertion in the years after puberty were considered implausible; through subtle but decisive evasions, this stretch of life was left unregulated. In the first years after sexual maturity, the moral faculty was too light and porous even to act as the receptacle of ethical prescription. This was the age of Venus, when the seminal channels were formed and the impulse for sex began to course throughout a young man’s whole being. “Something like frenzy arises in the soul, the will is powerless, there is lust for sex however it may be had, the guile of one who is on fire with passion and the blindness of one who is reckless.” The most that could be hoped for was that the young man, in this frantic period, did nothing to impair his manhood; he needed to pass through “that slippery time” without doing permanent damage to his reputation. Marcus Aurelius, a little cryptically, was grateful that he had managed “to keep safe the bloom of youth and not to become a man before the right hour, in fact to wait a little.” In other words, he had never submitted to a lover, nor did he rush headlong into the aphrodisia at puberty, though even this dreary Stoic had given way to “erotic passions” for a time, before returning to sound control of himself.64

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  It’s not clear who decided to put both Myers and McMillian on death row before trial to create additional pressure, but it was a nearly unprecedented maneuver that proved very effective. It is illegal to subject pretrial detainees like Walter and Myers to confinement that constitutes punishment. Pretrial detainees are generally housed in local jails, where they enjoy more privileges and more latitude than convicted criminals who are sent to prison. Putting someone who has not yet been tried in a prison reserved for convicted felons is almost never done. As is putting someone not yet convicted of a crime on death row. Even the other death row prisoners were shocked. Death row is the most restrictive punitive confinement permitted. Prisoners are locked in a small cell by themselves for twenty-three hours a day. Condemned inmates have limited opportunity for exercise or visitation and are held in disturbingly close proximity to the electric chair. Sheriff Tate drove Walter to Holman Correctional Facility, a short ride away in Atmore, Alabama. Before the trip, the sheriff again threatened Walter with racial slurs and terrifying plans. It’s unclear how Tate was able to persuade Holman’s warden to house two pretrial detainees on death row, although Tate knew people at the prison from his days as a probation officer. The transfer of Myers and McMillian from the county jail to death row took place on August 1, 1987, less than a month before the scheduled execution of Wayne Ritter. — When Walter McMillian arrived on Alabama’s death row—just ten years after the modern death penalty was reinstituted—an entire community of condemned men awaited him. Most of the hundred or so death row prisoners who had been sentenced to execution in Alabama since capital punishment was restored in 1975 were black, although to Walter’s surprise nearly 40 percent of them were white. Everyone was poor, and everyone asked him why he was there. Condemned prisoners on Alabama’s death row unit are housed in windowless concrete buildings that are notoriously hot and uncomfortable. Each death row inmate was placed in a five-by-eight-foot cell with a metal door, a commode, and a steel bunk. The temperatures in August consistently reached over 100 degrees for days and sometimes weeks at a time. Incarcerated men would trap rats, poisonous spiders, and snakes they found inside the prison to pass the time and to keep safe. Isolated and remote, most prisoners got few visits and even fewer privileges. Existence at Holman centered on Alabama’s electric chair. The large wooden chair was built in the 1930s, and inmates had painted it yellow before attaching its leather straps and electrodes. They called it “Yellow Mama.” The executions at Holman resumed just a few years before Walter arrived.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Serm. in Mont. ii. 23.) When the Lord had said that there were few that find the strait gate and narrow way, that heretics, who often commend themselves because of the smallness of their numbers, might not here intrude themselves, He straightway subjoins, Take heed of false prophets. CHRYSOSTOM. Having taught that the gate is strait, because there are many that pervert the way that leads to it, He proceeds, Take heed of false prophets. In the which that they might be the more careful, He reminds them of the things that were done among their fathers, calling them false prophets; for even in that day the like things fell out.