Guilt

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 History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  It set forth the ideal of righteousness, and was thus fitted most effectually to awaken the sense of man’s great departure from it, the knowledge of sin and guilt.58 It acted as a schoolmaster to lead men to Christ59 that they might be justified by faith."60 The same sense of guilt and of the need of reconciliation was constantly kept alive by daily sacrifices, at first in the tabernacle and afterwards in the temple, and by the whole ceremonial law, which, as a wonderful system of types and shadows, perpetually pointed to the realities of the new covenant, especially to the one all-sufficient atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. God in his justice requires absolute obedience and purity of heart under promise of life and penalty of death. Yet he cannot cruelly sport with man; he is the truthful faithful, and merciful God. In the moral and ritual law, therefore, as in a shell, is hidden the sweet kernel of a promise, that he will one day exhibit the ideal of righteousness in living form, and give the penitent sinner pardon for all his transgressions and the power to fulfil the law. Without such assurance the law were bitter irony. As regards the law, the Jewish economy was a religion of repentance. 2. But it was at the same time, as already, hinted, the vehicle of the divine promise of redemption, and, as such, a religion of hope. While the Greeks and Romans put their golden age in the past, the Jews looked for theirs in the future. Their whole history, their religious, political, and social institutions and customs pointed to the coming of the Messiah, and the establishment of his kingdom on earth. Prophecy, or the gospel under the covenant of the law, is really older than the law, which was added afterwards and came in between the promise and its fulfilment, between sin and redemption, between the disease and the cure.61 Prophecy begins in paradise with the promise of the serpent-bruiser immediately after the fall. It predominates in the patriarchal age, especially in the life of Abraham, whose piety has the corresponding character of trust and faith; and Moses, the lawgiver, was at the same time a prophet pointing the people to a greater successor.62 Without the comfort of the Messianic promise, the law must have driven the earnest soul to despair. From the time of Samuel, some eleven centuries before Christ, prophecy, hitherto sporadic, took an organized form in a permanent prophetical office and order.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  If you were lucky enough to grow up in a reasonably healthy environment, you eventually learned to experience guilt as an emotional component of conscience. Now, as an adult, when you stray too far from the values and principles you live by, guilt nudges you back on track. A certain amount of guilt benefits you as an individual and as a member of the groups with which you affiliate. In this way, healthy guilt is a social emotion that keeps you attuned to the rules and expectations you have absorbed from your community and culture and is neither debilitating nor demeaning. Be thankful for this kind of guilt. Truly guiltless people are sociopaths—those who commit monstrous acts without a shred of discomfort. Unfortunately, most guilt is neurotic guilt in which impossible, superhuman standards produce a harsh, merciless conscience and, in the most extreme cases, a lifetime of unrelenting self-condemnation. Neurotic guilt demands that its victims suffer for all kinds of imaginary crimes of omission or commission.12 The most extreme form is shame, a conviction held by many people that they are fundamentally and irreparably flawed. Shame is a common result of severe emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Whereas guilt comes from the sense of doing, thinking, or feeling bad things, shame reflects an inner certainty of being a bad person. Societies and families who are uncomfortable with the sexuality of their children inevitably encourage them to feel guilty whenever they have sexual thoughts or feelings. Sexual guilt converts a child’s natural curiosity about the body and its wonderful sensations into something uncomfortable. The association of guilt with sexuality either completely squelches the innocent sex play that is an important part of healthy erotic development or else drives it underground to become a dirty little secret. Every sex therapist observes daily how guilt causes sexual dysfunctions, inhibits desire, and keeps erotic fulfillment frustratingly out of reach. To put it bluntly: guilt is second only to anxiety as the world’s foremost antiaphrodisiac. However, the erotic equation reminds us that whatever tries to block our urges can also intensify them. Guilt can be the great disrupter of sex, but it can also be the great titillater, an obstacle that heightens attraction and desire. It’s an amazing paradox: guilt as the cheerleader for sexual excitement.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  This is my fault. Isaac shouldn’t be here. I’ve ruined his life. I never read Nick’s book. Just those few chapters that Isaac read to me while sitting on the edge of my hospital bed. I didn’t want to see how the story ended. That’s why I swallowed it. But, now I do. I suddenly have the urge to know how Nick ended our story. What he had to say about the way things between us dissolved. It was his story that compelled me to write an answer, and get myself imprisoned in the middle of the fucking South Pole. With my doctor. Who shouldn’t be here. I make dinner. It’s difficult to focus on anything other than the gift that the zookeeper left for me, but Isaac’s hurt outweighs my obsession. I open three cans of vegetables, and boil pasta shaped like bow ties. I mix them together, adding a little canned chicken broth. I carry the plates to the living room. We can’t eat at the table anymore, so we eat here. I call up to Isaac. He comes down a minute later, but he only pushes the food around on his plate, stabbing a different vegetable on each prong of his fork. Is this what he felt when he watched me slip into darkness? I want to open his mouth and pour the food down his throat. Make him live. Eat, Isaac. I mentally plead. But he doesn’t. I save his plate of food, setting it in the fridge, which doesn’t quite work since he stripped off the rubber sealant to make a pedal for his drums. I hobble up to the carousel room using my new crutch. The room smells musty and there is a faint sweet smell of piss. I eye the black horse. The one who shares my pierced heart. He looks meaner today. I lean into him, resting my head against his neck. I touch his mane lightly. Then my hand goes to the arrow. I grip it in a fist, wishing I could break it off and end both of our suffering. More than that—wishing I could end Isaac’s. My eyelids flutter as my brain trills. When did I decide that the zookeeper was a man? It doesn’t fit. My publishing company has done research on my reader base, and it consists mostly of women in their thirties and forties. I have male readers. I get e-mails from them, but to go this far … I should see a woman. But I don’t. I see a man. Either way, I’m in his head. He’s just a character to me; someone I can’t really see, but I can see how his mind works by the way he’s playing games with me. And the longer I’m here, the more he’s taking form. This is my job; this is what I’m good at. If I can figure out his plot, I can outsmart him. Get Isaac out of here. He needs to meet his baby.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It’s easier to sit on the stairs and lift myself backward, sticking my injured leg straight out while I use my arms and good leg to lift myself. I toss my sack up ahead of me. I feel every bump, every movement. The pain is so intense I am beyond screaming. It is taking concentration not to pass out. I’m sweating. I can feel fat rivulets rolling down the sides of my face and the back of my neck. I use the railing to lift myself up on the top step, then I hop to the ladder. This is going to be the hard part. Unlike the ladder in the well, this one angles straight up. There is nothing to lean on and the rungs are narrow and slippery. I sob with my face pressed against the wall. Then I pull myself together and drag myself up Mt. Everest. I lay the logs. I light them. Just one at first, then I add a second. I put his head in my lap and rub his chest. I’ve done so much research as a writer; I know that when someone has hypothermia you’re supposed to focus on building heat in the chest, head and neck. Rubbing their limbs will push cold blood back toward the heart, lungs and brain, making things worse. I know I’m supposed to give him the heat from my body, but I can’t get my pants off, and even if I could I wouldn’t know how and where to put my body with a bone sticking out of it. I feel so much guilt. So much. Isaac was right. I knew the zookeeper was playing a game with me. I knew it when I saw the lighters and the carousel room. But I shut down and refused to help him figure things out. I shut down. Why? God. If I’d put two and two together, we could have found that well weeks ago. If he dies it’s my fault. He’s here and it’s my fault. I don’t even know why. But I want to. This is a game, and if I want to get out, I have to find the truth. The CarouselThere is a carousel in Mukilteo. It sits in a copse of evergreens at the bottom of a hill called The Devil’s Backbone. The animals impaled on that ride are angry, their eyes rolling, heads kicked back like something has spooked them. It’s what you would expect from a ride that sits on the devil’s tailbone. Isaac took me there for my thirtieth birthday, on the last day of winter. I remember being surprised that he knew it was my birthday, and that he knew where to take me. Not to a pretentious dinner, but to a clearing in the woods where a little bit of dark magic still lived.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  The fund-raiser was a big success. When there was no longer a reason for us to meet, I was able to cut off the affair (except for once or twice). The affair was such agony, I hope I never do anything like that again. But there’s a happy ending. Three years ago, I somehow found the courage to get a divorce. Bill helped me realize what I was missing. June raises an important point with her last remark. She implies that had she been unwilling to have the affair and tolerate the guilt it caused, she might have stayed in an unhappy marriage. Sometimes we have no choice but to violate the rules we set for ourselves. Perhaps part of what made June’s guilty pleasures so irresistible was an unconscious realization that they would act as a catalyst for a much-needed change. PLAYING WITH GUILTRather than suffering over guilt, people commonly use it deliberately and playfully to spice up sex. Let’s say, for instance, that you and your lover decide to sneak away from a party to fool around behind the garage. A little nervousness about getting caught adds to the fun, as do thoughts such as, “We shouldn’t be doing this,” or “How sleazy can I get,” or maybe even, “What would my mother think?” Perhaps you flash back to an earlier time when playing “doctor” behind a similar garage really did make you feel guilty. Your reminiscence adds a welcome titillation. For a moment you might even pretend that you are running the risk of being caught and reprimanded by a parent, minister, policeman, or some other guardian of traditional morality. Yet you also hold in the back of your mind the knowledge that you are now grown and can enjoy the anticipation of punishment while avoiding the real thing. Whenever you deliberately introduce an element of raunchiness into an encounter or fantasy, some of your enthusiasm comes from a subtle undercurrent of guilt, perhaps recalled from an earlier time. Chances are you won’t be thinking about guilt consciously because you have succeeded in neutralizing its negative, inhibiting qualities by taking control of it, claiming it as your own, and mastering it by using it for your own sexy purposes. Your disobedience becomes a demonstration that your desires are superior to the pitiful prohibitions that dare to dampen your enthusiasm. Guilt reveals its richest aphrodisiac potential when it is not forgotten, but vanquished. ANGER AND AROUSALOf all the feelings that find expression in erotic life, anger and its related emotions—hostility, hatred, resentment, and revenge—are the most difficult to accept. Anger is such an unpleasant emotion that most of us wish it could be excluded from the sexual arena. And yet we are regularly confronted with the intersection of anger and sexuality in everyday language in which the word “fuck” not only means to have sex, but is also a widely used expression of hostility and mistreatment, as in “fuck you” or “I got fucked over.”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Which he was not. “How’d you know?” “It was on the radio.” The full measure of Sonny’s disgrace was becoming apparent. “They were gonna turn him into dog food,” he explained. But Lola turned on her heel and marched back into the house. “We’re in trouble now,” Sonny confided, as he fed Joaquin a peanut butter cookie, his favorite. But he couldn’t help feeling relieved as he watched Joaquin gambol off and take possession of his pasture. The place where he belonged. Joaquin represented the future, if there was a future to be had. Vistas in this part of the country are so immense you can see the storms a hundred miles away. The norther was bringing heavy weather —lowering clouds and lightning over the mountains, thunder grumbling like timpani and the wind whipping up dust devils on the parched prairie. Over dinner, Sonny bet Lola five dollars it would finally rain. “You’ve lost enough money already today,” she observed. Sonny looked into his bowl of chili as if it might contain a reply to that observation, but there was none. Lola of course was well acquainted with Sonny’s shortcomings. Had she been at the auction she could have sized it up before he unloaded the trailer. He certainly knew how much they were counting on that money. There wasn’t much left to sell, except the ranch itself, which had belonged to her mother. All they really had in the world. It wouldn’t do any good to make him feel worse than he already did, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Ten thousand dollars!” Lola said for about the twentieth time. “It’s not like I had to pay all that,” he said. “It was just the auction fee, like two hundred bucks.” “Ten thousand we would have had if you’d just kept your hands in your lap.” “I know. It’s all my fault. I’m really sorry.” Lola wasn’t finished but she could see that nothing she said was going to make the money magically reappear. “Oh, don’t go so hangdog,” she said. “It’s just, I’m so sick of pinching pennies. I know you’re working hard, but we’re on the brink of disaster here.” And then, under her breath, one last time, “Ten thousand dollars!” There was nothing soft about Lola’s life. Compared to city girls she was sparely constructed, with long, ropy muscles. She didn’t consider herself attractive, but she was certainly arresting, with unflinching blue eyes and a scar on her right cheek that came from a tumble in her barrel-racing days. Except for one ill-considered tattoo she was flawless. She often wore her honey-colored hair in a ponytail to keep from having to fuss with it, braiding it through the back of a trucker hat, where it bobbed about like the tail of a palomino. Anyone with experience in the West would instantly recognize her as a cowgirl.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  **Voice — June:** I hate to admit it, but I had my most exciting sex during a two-month affair I had with a handsome man who worked with me on a fund-raising event. Most of our meetings were spent in intimate conversation, with very little real work accomplished. We were both unhappy in our marriages and found solace in each other. At first we just hugged and kissed which for me was more than enough to bring on torrents of guilt. Many times we vowed to keep our relationship platonic. But each time we broke our vow our passion grew more reckless. In contrast to my husband who no longer found me attractive anymore (I’m not sure he ever did), “Bill” was excited by me. He was sensuous, romantic, and passionate—everything my husband wasn’t. These reasons explain what I did, but for me they can never justify it. My affair was wrong but neither of us was willing to stop it. The fund-raiser was a big success. When there was no longer a reason for us to meet, I was able to cut off the affair (except for once or twice). The affair was such agony, I hope I never do anything like that again. But there’s a happy ending. Three years ago, I somehow found the courage to get a divorce. Bill helped me realize what I was missing.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  Paul does not mean, surely cannot mean, that desire (“covetousness”) only arises from, because of, in reaction to, and in opposition to the law against it, as if the desire for murder only arose from the law against it and would never have happened without that proscription. It is simply that law establishes knowledge, asserts that we now know this or that is wrong, this or that should not be done. If, for example, a people declare that all have equal and inalienable rights, they already know too much, have admitted that they know too much, and, unless thereafter they follow through, their very own law condemns them. Second, then, although law gives the power of knowledge (we should not do this), it does not bring inherently with it the power of obedience (we will not do this). “I do not understand my own actions,” says Paul in the name of law, “for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (7:15). This is not at all a personal or individual confession by Paul before Jewish Torah, but a structural or systemic confession by humanity before its best laws and most sincere ideals. Law establishes information but not transformation, says Paul. But he is both right and wrong on that one. He is right that law coming from the outside in does not establish faith from the inside out. Of course not. But imagine the case of discrimination against some minority. When the law finally forbids it, some say that law will not change people’s minds. But might not their children or their children’s children grow up with different minds? Third, Paul’s description of the human conscience as divided, so that it can say, personified, “I do what I do not want” (7:20), should not be understood as the subjective feeling of guilt, but as the objective status of sin. Earlier he equated or at least collated the written covenantal law of the Jews and the unwritten natural law of the pagans. That is still how law is understood throughout this entire section and its law/works versus grace/faith dichotomy. But the term that dominates Romans 5–8 is not the plural and lowercase sins, but the uppercase and singular Sin. Indeed, Paul never uses the plural, sins, anywhere in Romans save when quoting from scripture in 11:27. His focus is on Sin, that is, quite simply, on disobedience to God’s law acknowledged as known and admitted as just. Finally, Paul does not seriously consider that law and faith might be both from inside and from outside in a dialectical or reciprocal relationship. He said in Galatians 3:24, “The law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.” But maybe that law as disciplinarian and justification by faith are not just successive phases for any person or any religion, but are permanent dialectical interactions. Like two sides of the one coin?

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Even when the importance of giving and receiving consent is recognized, ambiguities still occur. Some lovers are ambivalent, simultaneously wanting and not wanting sex. Others enjoy being seduced while feigning reticence. Still others prefer not to give explicit verbal consent—when, for example, they want their partners to take total control—requiring the participants to interpret subtle nonverbal cues. There are also ambiguities about who can legally or psychologically give consent. The age of consent is set by law, even though some young people are obviously better equipped than some adults to know and state clearly what they want, Many factors undermine one’s capacity for giving consent, including severe emotional distress, intellectual impairment, or the excessive use of alcohol and other drugs. Inequities of power also complicate consent, often enormously. There will always be attempts to remove the ambiguities of consent through laws and regulations, some of which are, of course, essential.1 But in the final analysis only a heartfelt respect for ourselves and others can guide us through eros’s ambiguities—precisely because we recognize their inevitability. Self-respect requires that we speak up when sexual advances are unwanted, while vigorously resisting any temptation to perceive ourselves as helpless victims. To respect the other means simply that we listen to his or her wishes and, if we are uncertain about what they are, to ask for clarification. There are also occasions, which are difficult to evaluate, when respecting others requires us to figure out a way to intervene if we observe someone being mistreated who seems unable to prevent it themselves. FACING YOUR EROTIC SHADOWIf we always knew exactly what was ethically right and emotionally healthy, we wouldn’t need to think about values. Our actions and principles would coexist in perpetual—and undoubtedly boring—harmony. But this isn’t the case, certainly not with eroticism. Even the most virtuous among us occasionally experiences urges to violate his or her own values, no matter how freely chosen or enthusiastically embraced. Our explorations have shown that both love and lust have dark sides, which all who care about sexual health must confront head-on. People who face their own imperfections tend to be more conscious of the implications of their actions than those who deny that they have an erotic shadow or pretend their motives are always pure. Unless we are aware of our capabilities—for good and ill—even the most well-intentioned values become detached from the rough-and-tumble of real life and slip into irrelevancy. It is extremely beneficial to take an unflinching look at when, how, and why you have resorted to manipulation, deceit, or other predatory practices in the pursuit of sexual gratification, no matter how subtle you may have been about it. The purpose of these acknowledgments is not confessional. And self-flagellation only makes matters much worse. The aim is to confront your shadow impulses consciously and use your discoveries as sources of self-knowledge.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  “From that moment on,” Ryan proclaimed, “I knew I must restrain myself. Soon I also knew I was obsessed with my little prick, how good it felt, and how bad I was for wanting to touch it.” He went on to explain that, with plenty of twists and variations, he still felt essentially the same way as a middle-aged man. He craved love yet was driven by an insatiable appetite for nasty sex. In the past he had often hired prostitutes but not since meeting Janet. Thus far, though, he had been unable to resist even stronger urges to masturbate while talking on telephone sex lines. And he still sneaked out to X-rated bookstores in the black of night in search of pornographic videos and magazines. He was fascinated by graphic depictions of down-and-dirty sleaze. He was the first person I ever met who called himself a “sex addict,” at least ten years before the term became fashionable. The connotations of addiction accurately captured the out of control, compulsive quality of his behavior. But his insistence on casting himself as an addict who had to “kick the habit” only intensified the grueling struggle that fueled his obsession. Like most of today’s “sex addicts” Ryan was less hooked on sex than on fighting with it. He felt the helplessness of a drug addict because for him forbidden desires escalated in tandem with the need to resist them. His excitation was always ultra-hot, but there was little or no lasting enjoyment. For as long as he could remember, he had most assuredly been a prisoner of prohibition. No wonder Ryan was easily orgasmic while masturbating to porn or with anonymous phone partners. He considered his fantasy women sluts with whom he could freely express his depraved, lusty self. The fact that his fantasy partners weren’t actually present also made it easier for him to express his impulses in unedited form, although he worried that one day someone would recognize his voice and expose his secret. Because he admired and respected Janet, he felt self-conscious and inhibited—cut off from the roots of his eroticism. Although their shared affection and sensuality felt marvelous and usually produced an erection, he was unable to surrender to lust and generate sufficient erotic intensity to push himself “over the top” to orgasm. Once Ryan understood his conflict he asked Janet to join him in couple’s therapy. He wisely decided that telling Janet about his lusty exploits outside their relationship would only hurt her, so he kept those details to himself. But he was determined to tell Janet about the inner conflict that was preventing him from feeling sexy with the woman he loved.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  If you were lucky enough to grow up in a reasonably healthy environment, you eventually learned to experience guilt as an emotional component of conscience. Now, as an adult, when you stray too far from the values and principles you live by, guilt nudges you back on track. A certain amount of guilt benefits you as an individual and as a member of the groups with which you affiliate. In this way, healthy guilt is a social emotion that keeps you attuned to the rules and expectations you have absorbed from your community and culture and is neither debilitating nor demeaning. Be thankful for this kind of guilt. Truly guiltless people are sociopaths—those who commit monstrous acts without a shred of discomfort. Unfortunately, most guilt is neurotic guilt in which impossible, superhuman standards produce a harsh, merciless conscience and, in the most extreme cases, a lifetime of unrelenting self-condemnation. Neurotic guilt demands that its victims suffer for all kinds of imaginary crimes of omission or commission.12 The most extreme form is shame, a conviction held by many people that they are fundamentally and irreparably flawed. Shame is a common result of severe emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Whereas guilt comes from the sense of doing, thinking, or feeling bad things, shame reflects an inner certainty of being a bad person. Societies and families who are uncomfortable with the sexuality of their children inevitably encourage them to feel guilty whenever they have sexual thoughts or feelings. Sexual guilt converts a child’s natural curiosity about the body and its wonderful sensations into something uncomfortable. The association of guilt with sexuality either completely squelches the innocent sex play that is an important part of healthy erotic development or else drives it underground to become a dirty little secret. Every sex therapist observes daily how guilt causes sexual dysfunctions, inhibits desire, and keeps erotic fulfillment frustratingly out of reach. To put it bluntly: guilt is second only to anxiety as the world’s foremost antiaphrodisiac. However, the erotic equation reminds us that whatever tries to block our urges can also intensify them. Guilt can be the great disrupter of sex, but it can also be the great titillater, an obstacle that heightens attraction and desire. It’s an amazing paradox: guilt as the cheerleader for sexual excitement.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Isaac finds me lying on my back on the floor. He stands over me with a leg on each side of my body, and hauls me to my feet. His eyes briefly explore the puddle of vomit beside me before he reaches up and feels my forehead. When he finds it cool, he asks me, “What did you read?” I turn my face away. “Nick’s book?” I shake my head. He looks at the pile closest to where I was lying. “Do you know who wrote it?” I can’t look at him, so I close my eyes and nod. “My mother,” I say. I hear his breath catch. “How do you know?” “I know.” I hobble into the kitchen. I need water to wash out my mouth. Isaac follows behind me. “How do I know it wasn’t you who did this?” He takes a threatening step toward me. I back into a bag of rice. It falls over. I watch, horrified, as the grains spill across the floor, flowing around my bare foot. “I brought you here? You think I brought us here to starve and freeze? For what?” “It was convenient that you were the one to cut me free. Why weren’t you the one tied up and gagged?” “Listen to yourself,” I say. “It wasn’t me who did this!” “How do I know that?” His words are sharp, but he says them slowly. I shift my feet and rice fills the spaces between my toes. My chin trembles. I can feel my bottom lip shaking with it. I clutch it between my teeth. “I guess you have to trust me.” He points to the living room where the chest is, where the books lay in piles. “Your book, Nick’s book, and now your mother’s book? Why?” “I don’t know. I didn’t even know my mother wrote a book. I haven’t seen her since I was a kid!” “You know who did this,” he says. “Deep down, you know.” I shake my head. How can he possibly believe that? I have searched—wracked—my brain for answers. He backs up, covering his eyes with his palms. His back hits the wall and he bends at the waist with his hands on his knees. It looks like he can’t breathe. I reach a hand out to him, and then drop it to my side. It’s no use. No matter what I say, I took his wife and baby away. I birthed this psycho’s obsession.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  For prisoners of prohibition every opportunity for enjoyment sets off a frantic inner conflict. When they feel aroused they’re awash with guilt. If their inhibitions are temporarily swept aside by desire, they pay later with remorse and shame. This conflict is so unpleasant that some people develop sexual aversions and go to great lengths to avoid becoming aroused. In the worst cases perfectly normal sexual stirrings actually trigger panic attacks. The opposite reaction takes place in those who become obsessed with sex, compulsively reenacting the very behaviors that were most forbidden. They keep their eroticism alive by sustaining a hidden sex life, cut off and thus protected from antisexual judgments. If these secret sex lives are eventually exposed, it is often to the amazement of shocked friends, family, constituents, or congregations. Many sex offenders are prisoners of prohibition who can only become aroused when they are actually violating laws, risking legal punishment and social censure. But most prisoners of prohibition are not sex offenders—and never will be. Instead the perpetual tension between antierotic training and persistent forbidden desires fuels an internal struggle as compelling as it is grueling. They harm no one except themselves and those who try to love them. In most cases their torturous secret comes fully to light only when they try to form an enduring sexual bond. Ryan and Janet: Too close for lust Ryan was distraught over his relationship with Janet, his new girlfriend. He told me how important she was to him, how doubtful he was about his ability to succeed at romance, and how determined he was to make a go of it. Ryan’s relationship with Janet was the most affectionate and tender he had ever known. “But,” he continued with a deep sigh, “I’m not handling it very well.” He was embarrassed to admit that even though he found her very attractive, he had never been able to ejaculate with Janet. As we discussed his predicament it soon became apparent that his inhibited ejaculations were a manifestation of a much more serious problem: a gaping chasm between his lusty urges and his desire for love and affection. I asked him to recall his earliest feeling or experience that seemed, in retrospect, to have been sexual. Most clients need to think about this question for a while, but Ryan knew his answer instantly. Around age four or five he had been casually playing with himself, enjoying the warm, tingling sensations between his legs. This simple memory became permanently etched in his mind when his father walked in on Ryan’s sensuous reverie, flew into a rage, ranted about hell and evil, and commanded him never ever to do that again, terrifying little Ryan half to death.

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

  Because she loved me, she was tender and affectionate, but because of the difficult situations I put her in, and the sad circumstances in which she found herself, she was nervous and irritable, so I can understand why she was often short with me. I was offended, took it far too much to heart and was insolent and beastly to her, which, in turn, made her unhappy. We were caught in a vicious circle of unpleasantness and sorrow. Not a very happy period for either of us, but at least it’s coming to an end. I didn’t want to see what was going on, and I felt very sorry for myself, but that’s understandable too. Those violent outbursts on paper are simply expressions of anger that, in normal life, I could have worked off by locking myself in my room and stamping my foot a few times or calling Mother names behind her back. The period of tearfully passing judgment on Mother is over. I’ve grown wiser and Mother’s nerves are a bit steadier. Most of the time I manage to hold my tongue when I’m annoyed, and she does too; so on the surface, we seem to be getting along better. But there’s one thing I can’t do, and that’s to love Mother with the devotion of a child. I soothe my conscience with the thought that it’s better for unkind words to be down on paper than for Mother to have to carry them around in her heart. Yours, Anne THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1944 Dearest Kitty, Today I have two things to confess. It’s going to take a long time, but I have to tell them to someone, and you’re the most likely candidate, since I know you’ll keep a secret, no matter what happens. The first is about Mother. As you know, I’ve frequently complained about her and then tried my best to be nice. I’ve suddenly realized what’s wrong with her. Mother has said that she sees us more as friends than as daughters. That’s all very nice, of course, except that a friend can’t take the place of a mother. I need my mother to set a good example and be a person I can respect, but in most matters she’s an example of what not to do. I have the feeling that Margot thinks so differently about these things that she’d never be able to understand what I’ve just told you. And Father avoids all conversations having to do with Mother. I imagine a mother as a woman who, first and foremost, possesses a great deal of tact, especially toward her adolescent children, and not one who, like Momsy, pokes fun at me when I cry. Not because I’m in pain, but because of other things. This may seem trivial, but there’s one incident I’ve never forgiven her for. It happened one day when I had to go to the dentist.

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  There is also a closely related way in which the rejection of qualitative distinctions can be seen as a liberation , whi c h we can understand if we explore moral phenomeno logy a bit furt h er. I mentioned in section 2..2. that we cannot but crave to be rightl y p laced in relation to the goods we recognize. But precisely this craving can be the source of much suffering, o r alternatively o f self-delusion, or smug s elf-satisfaction. That is, I can feel the demand to incorporate the good in my life as crushing; it is a demand that I feel utterly una ble to li ve up to, which I constantly measure up badly on, and which leads t o an o verwhelming depreciation of myself. This, besides bei ng uncomfort a ble, c an be immensely restricting and even destructive. To break my a lle gi a nce t o this good can therefore be experienced as a liberation, and this i s wha t it is often represented as in m u ch of t he human potential literature of o ur d ay. 48 In p articular, Christianity has been attacked ever since the En lig hten ment for laying a crushing burden on t hose in whom it inculcates a s e ns e of sin; or, in contemporary language, f or "layin g a guilt trip" on its d ev ot ees. T o br eak with a goo d to which one cannot really subscribe is of c ou r s e a liber ation in anyone's lang uage. The issue i s whether flight is the o nly a nswe r to unhealthy guilt. But we can r eadil y see· how, in a confus ed w ay , the possibili ty of such a libera tion could seem to ac credit the rejectio n o f qu al itat ive di stinctions as such . ( Thoug h generally not, it must b e said, i n t h e p op ula r writings concerne d today with human potential; these usually e s p ou se th eir own crucial distinctions, around such goods as fulfil ment o r s el f -ex pres sion.) Al t erna tively, of course, my craving to be well placed to the good can rna ke me a prey to illusions, can eithe r lead me to espouse a standard on 82 • IDENTITY AND THE GOOD wh ich I measure well, but which I cannot ultimately really defen d, or can mak e me blin d to how poorly I actually do compare. And to illusion is ofte n added a certain smug satisfaction in contrasting myself to others.

• From The Great Transformation (2006)

  That fulfils the sacrifice to brahman.” 19 By these minimal actions, the householder not only paid his “debts” to the gods, but made reparation for the inescapable violence of his daily life. The Axial ideal of ahimsa was now deeply rooted in the Indian religious consciousness. People were acutely aware of the harm that could be inflicted upon apparently inanimate objects. These new texts noted that the householder had five “slaughterhouses” in his home—the hearth, the grinding stone, the broom, the mortar and pestle, and the water jar—that “bind” him every day with the sin of “killing.” The conscious performance of these scaled-down domestic rites constituted an act of “redemption.” 20 These texts also record a development that diverged sharply from the Axial ideal. 21 There had probably long been an “untouchable” caste in India; it has been suggested that the Brahmin and the “untouchable” classes had been established at about the same time, as opposite poles of the hierarchy. 22 But the Law of Manu did not reject this archaic idea, and affirmed the degradation of the three lowest ranks. The carpenters, carvers, and fierce “untouchables” (candelas) were the result of mixed marriages between vaishyas, kshatriyas, and Brahmins, respectively. They must be totally excluded from Vedic society, live on the outskirts of the villages, and perform such menial and polluting tasks as leatherwork and sweeping dung from the village. 23 The bhakti revolution tried to adapt the austere religion of the Brahmanas and renouncers to the ordinary people. The popularity of these devotional cults revealed the new hunger for theism. Not everybody wanted to merge with the impersonal brahman; they preferred a more human encounter with a god to whom they could relate. Bhakti was defined as “the passionate longing for the Lord from one’s whole heart”; the love of the Lord would take people beyond their selfishness, making them “perfect, satisfied, free from hatred, pride and self-interest.” 24 Bhakti was, therefore, another way of emptying the heart of egotism and aggression. People who could not model their lives on an interior, intellectualized paradigm of humanity could imitate a god whose love and selflessness were easily apparent. Thus Krishna had instructed Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita: Focus your mind on me, Let your understanding enter me; Then you will dwell In me without doubt. If you cannot concentrate Your thoughts firmly upon me Then seek to reach me, Arjuna, By discipline in practice. 25 The bhakti religions recognized that not everybody had the same powers of concentration; some might find the disciplined imitation of Krishna in their daily lives easier than long hours of meditation.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  We could and did work around the conditions imposed on us by inventing cultural forms of life management to complement the basic variety. The result was the discoveries we continue making about universes within and around us and our extraordinary ability to accumulate knowledge in both internal memory and external records. Here the situation is different. We can reflect on the knowledge, think through it, manipulate it intelligently, and invent all sorts of responses to nature’s rules. On occasion, our knowledge, which includes, ironically, the discovery of life regulation rules that we cannot modify, lets us do something about the cards we have been dealt. Cultures and civilizations are the names we give to the cumulative results of these efforts. It has been so difficult to manage the gulf between the naturally imposed life regulation and the responses we invent that the human condition has often resembled a tragedy and, perhaps not often enough, a comedy. The ability to invent solutions is an immense privilege but prone to failure and quite costly. We can call this the burden of freedom or, more precisely, the burden of consciousness. 17 Had we not known of the condition—had we not subjectively felt it—we would not have cared. But once our subjectively driven care took charge of responding to our condition, we biased the process toward our understandable individual interests, which, left to themselves, include the circle of those nearest to us and barely extend to our cultural group. The move has undermined our efforts, at least in part, and actually disrupted homeostasis at different points of a global cultural system. But here is a possible place for remedy: controlling the relentless pursuit of our self-interests so that we make broader homeostasis efforts possible. Eastern philosophies have long considered this goal, and the Abrahamic religions have aimed at some curbing of selfish interests. Christianity has even advanced forgiveness and redemption and in the process emphasized compassion and gratitude. Can societies finally succeed at introducing, by secular or religious means, an intelligent and well-rewarded form of altruism such that it would replace the self-absorption that now reigns? What will it take for such efforts to succeed? 18 The particularity of the human condition, then, comes from this odd combination. On the one hand, life specifications that we never had a hand in designing—such as needs, risks, and the exuberant driving forces of pain, pleasure, desire, and reproductive urge—hail from ancient times and from nonhuman ancestors whose intellectual reach was nonexistent or limited and who could not comprehend to any substantial degree the situation that they were in. Their fate, and that of their species, was left to the fortunes of their biological endowment, notably to the genes that construed them and largely governed their behavior.

• From The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures (2018)

  It has been so difficult to manage the gulf between the naturally imposed life regulation and the responses we invent that the human condition has often resembled a tragedy and, perhaps not often enough, a comedy. The ability to invent solutions is an immense privilege but prone to failure and quite costly. We can call this the burden of freedom or, more precisely, the burden of consciousness.17 Had we not known of the condition—had we not subjectively felt it—we would not have cared. But once our subjectively driven care took charge of responding to our condition, we biased the process toward our understandable individual interests, which, left to themselves, include the circle of those nearest to us and barely extend to our cultural group. The move has undermined our efforts, at least in part, and actually disrupted homeostasis at different points of a global cultural system. But here is a possible place for remedy: controlling the relentless pursuit of our self-interests so that we make broader homeostasis efforts possible. Eastern philosophies have long considered this goal, and the Abrahamic religions have aimed at some curbing of selfish interests. Christianity has even advanced forgiveness and redemption and in the process emphasized compassion and gratitude. Can societies finally succeed at introducing, by secular or religious means, an intelligent and well-rewarded form of altruism such that it would replace the self-absorption that now reigns? What will it take for such efforts to succeed?18

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  But the very rarity of these cases, which contri butes to their saliency, is eloquent testimony to the general agreement. To see how much o u r con sensus embrace s, we need only comp are any strand in our culture with basi c beliefs held earlier and outside it : we may think, for instance, o f judicial torture, or mutilation for crimes of theft, or even of an openl y declared (as against hidden and unavowed) racism. So why worry that we disagree on the reasons, as long as we're united a round the norms? It's not the disagreement wh ich is the problem. Ra t h e r t h e issue is what sources can support our far-reachin g moral commitments to benevolence a nd justice. In our public debates standards which a re unprecedentedly stringent ar e put forward in respect of these norms and are not openly challenged. We are m eant to be concern ed for the life and well-being of all humans on t h e face of the earth; w e are called on to further global justice between peoples; w e subscribe to universal declarations of rights. Of course, these standards are regularly e vaded . Of course, we subscribe to them with a g reat deal of hypocrisy and mental reservation. It remains that they are the publ icly accepted standa r ds. And they do from time to time g alvanize people into a ction-as in the great television-inspired campaigns for famine relief or in movements like Band-Aid. To the exte nt t ha t we take these standards seriously (and that varies fr o m person to person), how are they experienced? They can just be felt as p eremptory d emands, standards that we feel inadequate, bad, or gu ilty for failing to mee.t. No doubt many people, probably almost all of us some of the time, experience them this way. Or perhaps we can get a 'high' when w e do sometimes meet them, from a sense of our own worth or, more likely, from the momentary relief from the mar gi nal but oppressive sense we usually have of failing to meet them. But it is quite a different thing to be moved b y a strong sense that human beings are eminently worth helping or treating with justice, a sense of their dignity or value. Here we have come into contact with the moral sourc e s whic h originally underpin these standa rds. These s ource s ar e p lur al, as we saw. B ut they have in common that they JI6 • CONCLUSION all offer positive underpinni n g of this kind. The original Christian notion of agape is of a love that God has for humans which is connected with their g oodness as c reatures (though we don't have to decide whether they are loved because good or g o od because loved).

• From Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989)

  " All es G ute a b er, das nicht auf moralisch-gute Gesin n ung 366 • THE VOICE OF NATURE gepropft ist, ist nichts als lauter Schein und Schimmerndes Elend" ("But all' good enterprises which are not grafted onto a morally good attitude of min d a re nothing but illusion and outwardly glittering miserf'). 30 Ka nt thus draws heavily on Augustine's model of th e two l oves, the two directions of human motivation. Indeed, the influence of Augustinian thinkin g on Kant is at times overpowering, via its Protestant and Pietist formulations. Kant had a lively s en se of h uman evil, of the distorted and crooked state of human nature. 3 1 He speaks of the 'radical evil' in human nature, 32 which surprised and shocked some of his contemporaries in such a prominent defender of t he Enlightenment . 33 The theory has deep roots in Christian theology, and Kant remained a believing Christian. But his conception is radica l ly anthropocentric. The p roximate source of this transformation of the will is not God, but the demands of rational agency itself which lie within me. The fact that ultimately, in Kant's view, it is God who designed things this way doesn't mitigate the central status given to human dignity. Kant remained a man of the Enlighte n ment. But he gave it a n ew definition. I n the Anglo-French-Scottish conception, progress in enlighten ment meant both the advance of self-responsible reason and of the arrange ments which ensure human happiness. Kant's definition of enlightenment focusses on t he first line of march exclusively. His well-known essay on the subject opens: "Aufklarung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbst verschuldeten Unmiindigkeit" ("Enlightenment is man's emergence f rom his s elf-incurred immaturity"). And he continues a few lines on: "Sapere aude. Habe Muth dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! ist a lso der Wahlspruch der Aufklarung!" ("The ·motto of enlighte nment is therefor e : Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!") 34 The crucia l issue is the growth in moral freedom and responsibility . But this new definitio n enables Kant t o give a clear and explicit basis to o ne of the central assumptions of Enlightenment thinking, the belief tha t the g rowth in ra t ionality brought along with it an increase in benevolence, tha t it somehow releases a fund of benevolence in us. We saw that this assu mptio n seems already present wi th Locke, and is strongly if confusedly a nd half implicitly operative in the writings of the naturalists.