Humiliation

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 29 of 38 · 20 per page

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  The sexual revolution had done a great deal to free female sexuality. An admirably astute politician, Lawrence saw in this two possibilities: it could grant women an autonomy and independence he feared and hated, or it could be manipulated to create a new order of dependence and subordination, another form of compliance to masculine direction and prerogative. The frigid woman of the Victorian period was withholding assent, the “new woman,” could, if correctly dominated, be mastered in bed as everywhere else. The Freudian school had promulgated a doctrine of “feminine fulfillment,” “receptive” passivity, the imaginary “adult” vaginal orgasm which some disciples even interpreted as forbidding any penile contact with the clitoris. Notions of this kind could become, in Lawrence’s hands, superb instruments for the perfect subjection of women. In thanksgiving for her lover’s sexual prowess, Lady Chatterley goes out into the rain before their hut to dance what the reader recognizes to be a mime of King David’s naked gyrations before the Lord. Watching her, Mellors understands her to be performing a “kind of homage toward him,” while “repeating a wild obeisance.”14 Such satisfaction as she is granted by the lordly gamekeeper has converted her to a “wonderful cowering female” whose flashing haunches Mellors perceives in terms of prey. Accordingly, he stirs himself to the chase. Having pursued and caught her, “he tipped her up and fell with her on the path, in the roaring silence of the rain, short and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal.”15

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “I am sorry you are going,” she said when I was already standing on the threshold. “It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my trial, to cease tormenting me—” I pleaded. “Do you imagine that this compulsion isn’t a torment for me, too,” Wanda interjected. “Then end it,” I exclaimed, embracing her, “be my wife.” “Never, Severin,” she said gently, but with great firmness. “What do you mean?” I was frightened in my innermost soul. “You are not the man for me.” I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which was still about her waist; then I left the room, and she—she did not call me back. * * * * * A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss them aside again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which I declared our relationship dissolved. My hand trembled when I put on the seal, and I burned my fingers. As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to give way. The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of curling-papers. “I haven’t had my hair dressed yet,” she said, smiling. “What have you there?” “A letter—” “For me?” I nodded. “Ah, you want to break with me,” she exclaimed, mockingly. “Didn’t you tell me yesterday that I wasn’t the man for you?” “I repeat it now!” “Very well, then.” My whole body was trembling, my voice failed me, and I handed her the letter. “Keep it,” she said, measuring me coldly. “You forget that is no longer a question as to whether you satisfy me as a man; as a slave you will doubtless do well enough.” “Madame!” I exclaimed, aghast. “That is what you will call me in the future,” replied Wanda, throwing back her head with a movement of unutterable contempt. “Put your affairs in order within the next twenty-four hours. The day after to-morrow I shall start for Italy, and you will accompany me as my servant.” “Wanda—” “I forbid any sort of familiarity,” she said, cutting my words short, “likewise you are not to come in unless I call or ring for you, and you are not to speak to me until you are spoken to. From now on your name is no longer Severin, but Gregor.” I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I also felt a strange pleasure and stimulation. “But, madame, you know my circumstances,” I began in my confusion. “I am dependent on my father, and I doubt whether he will give me the large sum of money needed for this journey—” “That means you have no money, Gregor,” said Wanda, delightedly, “so much the better, you are then entirely dependent on me, and in fact my slave.” “You don’t consider,” I tried to object, “that as man of honor it is impossible for me—”

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  As she is self-conscious and without confidence (Miriam’s sense of inferiority is the key to her character), she cannot learn well: “Things came slowly to her. And she held herself in a grip, seemed so utterly humble before the lesson, it made his blood rouse.”61 Blood roused is, of course, the Lawrentian formula for sexual excitement and an erection; the algebra lesson is something of a symbol for the couple’s entire relationship. The sight of Miriam suffering or humiliated (she later gives Paul her virginity in a delirium of both emotions) is the very essence of her attractiveness to him, but his response is never without an element of hostility and sadism. His reaction here is typical: “In spite of himself, his blood began to boil with her. It was strange that no one else made him in such a fury. He flared against her. Once he threw the pencil in her face. There was a silence. She turned her face slightly aside.”62 Of course, Miriam is not angry, for one does not get angry at God. “When he saw her eager, silent, as it were, blind face, he felt he wanted to throw the pencil in it…and because of the intensity with which she roused him, he sought her.”63 The reader is made uncomfortably aware that “pencil” is etymologically, and perhaps even in the author’s conscious mind as well, related to “penis” and both are instruments which have here become equated with literacy and punishment. Miriam’s aspirations are not respected; her failures are understood to be due to inferiority of talent. There are also a great many explanations provided the reader that she is frigid, and everything in her situation would seem to confirm this. Her mother’s literal Victorian repugnance toward sexuality is the most plausible explanation, even without our knowledge of Miriam’s debilitating insecurity. When she thinks of giving herself to Paul, she foresees beforehand that “he would be disappointed, he would find no satisfaction, and then he would go away.” The chapter where Paul finally brings her to bed is entitled, “The Test on Miriam.” Needless to say, she does not measure up, cannot pass his demanding examination. So her prediction comes true and Paul throws her away and takes up Clara. Yet the situation is somehow not this simple; even within the muddled explanations of Lawrence’s text, it is several times made clear that Paul withholds himself quite as much as does Miriam.64 Her famous frigidity appears to be his excuse. In the classic dilemma of the lily/rose choice Paul has been provided with an alibi which passes responsibility on to his mother.

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

  She had always been revered as a holy land, and her seas, rivers, and mountains were sacred, but for centuries she had been desecrated by foreigners and would shortly be raped by partition. Traditionally, the Mother Goddess had embraced everyone, but with its new nationalist intolerance of minorities, RSS insisted that she could no longer admit Muslims or East Asian Buddhists. Hedgewar was an activist rather than an intellectual, his thinking deeply influenced by V. D. Savarkar, a brilliant radical imprisoned by the British whose classic Hindutva (“Hinduness”) had been smuggled out of prison and published in 1923. It defined the Hindu as a person who acknowledged the integrity of Greater India (which stretched from the Himalayas to Iran and Singapore) and revered her not only as Motherland, as other nationalists did, but also as Holy Land. 15 This fusion of religion and secular nationalism was potentially toxic. In Savarkar’s books, the emerging Hindu national identity depended upon the exclusion of Islam: the whole complex history of India was presented as a struggle to the death with Muslim imperialism. Even though Hindus had always been the majority population, they had been conditioned by centuries of imperial domination to see themselves as an embattled, endangered minority. 16 Like so many subject peoples, they had developed a history of injury and humiliation, which can corrode a religious tradition and incline it toward violence. Some experienced their long oppression as a national disgrace. During the 1930s M. S. Golwalkar, the second leader of the RSS, felt an affinity with the ideals of National Socialism, in part the product of Germany’s humiliation by the Allies after the First World War. Foreigners in India had only two options, Golwalkar argued: “The foreign races must lose their separate existence … or [they] may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.” Golwalkar praised the Germans for “purging the country of the Semitic Races”; India, he believed, had much to learn from this Aryan “Race pride.” 17 The horror of partition could only inflame the history of grievance that was so dangerously poisoning relations between Muslims and Hindus. As the psychologist Sudhir Kakar has explained, for decades hundreds of thousands of Hindu and Muslim children have listened to tales of the violence of that time, which “dwell on the fierceness of the implacable enemy. This is a primary channel through which historical enmity is transmitted from one generation or the next.” It also created a rift between secularist and religious Hindus. 18 Secularists convinced themselves that this violence could never happen again. Many blamed the British for the tragedy; others regarded it merely as a terrifying aberration. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, believed that the industrialization of the country and the spread of scientific rationalism and democracy would counter these communal passions. But there was a disturbing portent of future trouble.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white satin dress, and the red kazabaika edged with ermine; her hair was white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She drew me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful hours. She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was entirely a fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of Lermontov’s poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she placed her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes were filled with tender pleasure. “Are you happy?” “Not yet.” She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her kazabaika. But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You are driving me mad.” I stammered. “Come!” I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me with her tongue, when again she whispered, “Are you happy?” “Infinitely!” I exclaimed. She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers run down by back. “You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on your knees!” I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung doubtingly on hers. “You can’t believe it,” she said, looking at me with her arms folded across her breast. “I am bored, and you will just do to while away a couple of hours of time. Don’t look at me that way—” She kicked me with her foot. “You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal—” She rang. The three negresses entered. “Tie his hands behind his back.” I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the southern boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a plough. The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me with their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before Wanda appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my neck, and harnessed me to the plough.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I ran upstairs, and at the top lost courage again. I knocked very lightly. She didn’t say come-in, but opened the door herself, and stood on the threshold. “Where is my slipper?” “It is—I have—I want,” I stammered. “Get it, and then we will have tea together, and chat.” When I returned, she was engaged in making tea. I ceremoniously placed the slipper on the table, and stood in the corner like a child awaiting punishment. I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and there was an expression of hardness and dominance about her lips which delighted me. All of a sudden she broke out laughing. “So—you are really in love—with me?” “Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?” “You suffer?” she laughed again. I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was quite useless. “Why?” she continued, “I like you, with all my heart.” She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the friendliest fashion. “And will you be my wife?” Wanda looked at me—how did she look at me? I think first of all with surprise, and then with a tinge of irony. “What has given you so much courage, all at once?” “Courage?” “Yes courage, to ask anyone to be your wife, and me in particular?” She lifted up the slipper. “Was it through a sudden friendship with this? But joking aside. Do you really wish to marry me?” “Yes.” “Well, Severin, that is a serious matter. I believe, you love me, and I care for you too, and what is more important each of us finds the other interesting. There is no danger that we would soon get bored, but, you know, I am a fickle person, and just for that reason I take marriage seriously. If I assume obligations, I want to be able to meet them. But I am afraid—no—it would hurt you.” “Please be perfectly frank with me,” I replied. “Well then honestly, I don’t believe I could love a man longer than—” She inclined her head gracefully to one side and mused. “A year.” “What do you imagine—a month perhaps.” “Not even me?” “Oh you—perhaps two.” “Two months!” I exclaimed. “Two months is very long.” “You go beyond antiquity, madame.” “You see, you cannot stand the truth.” Wanda walked across the room and leaned back against the fireplace, watching me and resting one of her arms on the mantelpiece. “What shall I do with you?” she began anew. “Whatever you wish,” I replied with resignation, “whatever will give you pleasure.” “How illogical!” she cried, “first you want to make me your wife, and then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with.” “Wanda—I love you.” “Now we are back to the place where we started. You love me, and want to make me your wife, but I don’t want to enter into a new marriage, because I doubt the permanence of both my and your feelings.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a violent attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself strapped on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still alive— Then the executioner slapped my face. No, it wasn’t the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on with it. There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar. When she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one mad. * * * * * Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery, reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the silvery evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in the face. I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I feel that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn’t even find it worth while to torture or maltreat me any further. Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me. “You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and am afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman, and lie down on the bearskin at my feet.” Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into bed. “Don’t stir, so as not to wake me.” I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long time. I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying on her back on the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and listened to see whether she needed me. But she did not require me. No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-lamp, or a revolver which one places under one’s pillow. * * * * *

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “Don’t—you are not a man—” “And you,” I flared up. “I am stubborn,” she said, “you know that. I haven’t a strong imagination, and like you I am weak in execution. But when I make up my mind to do something, I carry it through, and the more certainly, the more opposition I meet. Leave me alone!” She pushed me away, and got up. “Wanda!” I likewise rose, and stood facing her. “Now you know what I am,” she continued. “Once more I warn you. You still have the choice. I am not compelling you to be my slave.” “Wanda,” I replied with emotion and tears filling my eyes, “don’t you know how I love you?” Her lips quivered contemptuously. “You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than you are; you are good and noble by nature—” “What do you know about my nature,” she interrupted vehemently, “you will get to know me as I am.” “Wanda!” “Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?” “And if I say no.” “Then—” She stepped close up to me, cold and contemptuous. As she stood before me now, the arms folded across her breast, with an evil smile about her lips, she was in fact the despotic woman of my dreams. Her expression seemed hard, and nothing lay in her eyes that promised kindness or mercy. “Well—” she said at last. “You are angry,” I cried, “you will punish me.” “Oh no!” she replied, “I shall let you go. You are free. I am not holding you.” “Wanda—I, who love you so—” “Yes, you, my dear sir, you who adore me,” she exclaimed contemptuously, “but who are a coward, a liar, and a breaker of promises. Leave me instantly—” “Wanda I—” “Wretch!” My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her feet and began to cry. “Tears, too!” She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was frightful. “Leave me—I don’t want to see you again.” “Oh my God!” I cried, beside myself. “I will do whatever you command, be your slave, a mere object with which you can do what you will—only don’t send me away—I can’t bear it—I cannot live without you.” I embraced her knees, and covered her hand with kisses. “Yes, you must be a slave, and feel the lash, for you are not a man,” she said calmly. She said this to me with perfect composure, not angrily, not even excitedly, and it was what hurt most. “Now I know you, your dog-like nature, that adores where it is kicked, and the more, the more it is maltreated. Now I know you, and now you shall come to know me.” She walked up and down with long strides, while I remained crushed on my knees; my head was hanging supine, tears flowed from my eyes.

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  To love is to lose. In his one honest book, Nexus, Miller reveals that he lost very badly. His beloved Mara turned out to be a lesbian who inflicted her mistress upon him in a nightmarish ménage à trois, a female variant of the rigged triangle Lawrence aspired to but never achieved. It would be fascinating to speculate on how much of Miller’s arrogance toward “cunt” in general is the product of this one lacerating experience. For those convinced of the merits of the game, nearly any occasion can be exploited. Here is the redoubtable Henry paying a visit of condolence to a widow he once foolishly reverenced and admired, stammering and blushing before her, fatuously imagining she couldn’t be “had.” Scrupulously, he first sets the scene, welcoming his comrades to the setting of his triumph: “a low sofa,” “soft lights”; the drink is catalogued and then the dress—“a beautiful low-cut morning gown.”47 Halfway through a eulogy of her late husband, Miller is suddenly inspired: “Without saying a word I raised her dress and slipped it into her.”48 The moment of truth is at hand; will the widow balk? As in a dream, this surprise attack meets with instantaneous success: “As I got it into her and began to work it around she took to moaning like…sort of delirious…with gasps and little shrieks of joy and anguish.”49 Finally the moral: “I thought to myself what a sap you’ve been to wait so long. She was so wet and juicy down there…why, anybody could have come along and had what’s what. She was a pushover.”50 So are they all, and the joke is that such opportunities are missed only for lack of enterprise or through adherence to false ideals. They are not only pushovers, they are puppets. Speaking boy to boy about another “fuck,” Miller remarks, “I moved her around like one of those legless toys which illustrate the principle of gravity.”51 Total victory is gratuitous insult; the pleasure of humiliating the sexual object appears to be far more intoxicating than sex itself. Miller’s protégé, Curley, is an expert at inflicting this sort of punishment, in this instance, on a woman whom both men regard as criminally overambitious, disgracefully unaware she is only cunt:

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  There was a horribly comic element in the situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating. It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw his athletic limbs. “You are indeed cruel,” he said, turning to Wanda. “Only inordinately fond of pleasure,” she replied with a wild sort of humor. “Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets death like a friend. “But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not his affair whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin. He must always remember this, that if they had him in their power, as he has them they would act in exactly the same way, and he would have to pay for their pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That was the world of the ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went hand in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish-ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them.” Her words brought back my complete self-possession. “Unloosen me!” I exclaimed angrily. “Aren’t you my slave, my property?” replied Wanda. “Do you want me to show you the agreement?” “Untie me!” I threatened, “otherwise—” I tugged at the ropes. “Can he tear himself free?” she asked. “He has threatened to kill me.” “Be entirely at ease,” said the Greek, testing my fetters. “I shall call for help,” I began again. “No one will hear you,” replied Wanda, “and no one will hinder me from abusing your most sacred emotions or playing a frivolous game with you.” she continued, repeating with satanic mockery phrases from my letter to her. “Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and merciless, or am I also about to become cheap?

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  In this way the night passes. I haven’t had time to eat a mouthful and I can’t sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony air with Polish peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers. When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying stretched out on cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up with the skins of animals. She is like an oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian deities, straight upright against the walls and scarcely dare to breathe. * * * * * She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly to buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look, and laden down like a donkey I pant along behind. Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them to the hotel waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a Cracovian costume in her colors, light-blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap, ornamented with peacock-feathers. The costume is rather becoming to me. The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the feeling of having been sold or of having bonded myself to the devil. My fair demon leads me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and greasy-haired Jews, my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a magnificent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami and cheese. Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a rack; my arms and legs seem broken. But there nevertheless is an element of poetry in the affair. The stars sparkle round about, the Italian sergeant has a face like Apollo Belvedere, and the German painter sings a lovely German song. “Now that all the shadows gather And endless stars grow light, Deep yearning on me falls And softly fills the night.” “Through the sea of dreams Sailing without cease, Sailing goes my soul In thine to find release.” And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in regal comfort among her soft furs. * * * * * Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cab-drivers. Wanda chooses a carriage, and dismisses the porters. “What have I a servant for,” she says, “Gregor—here is the ticket—get the luggage.” She wraps herself in her furs and sits quietly in the carriage while I drag the heavy trunks hither, one after another. I break down for a moment under the last one; a good-natured carabiniere with an intelligent face comes to my assistance. She laughs. “It must be heavy,” said she, “all my furs are in it.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Great God I in view of the experience I had acquired, how was I able thus to reason! Toward noon we were given a two-hour respite, which we always used to good advantage to go for a little individual rest and food in our cells; at two o'clock we were reattached to the wheel and were made to work till nightfall; never were we allowed to enter the chateau; if we were naked, 'twas not only because of the heat, but so as better to be able to receive the bull's pizzle beatings our savage master periodically came to inflict upon us; in winter we were given pantaloons and a light sweater which so closely hugged the skin that our bodies were not the less exposed to the blows of a villain whose unique pleasure was to beat us halfsenseless. A week passed during which I saw no sign of Roland; on the ninth day he visited us at work and maintained Suzanne and I were improperly applying ourselves to our task; he distributed thirty cuts with the pizzle upon each of us, slashing us from back to calf. At midnight on that same day, the evil man came to get me in my kennel and, warmed by the sight of what his cruelties had produced, he once again introduced his terrible bludgeon into the shadowy lair I exposed by the posture he made me assume in order to inspect the vestiges of his rage.

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  I hold a distinct image of Lecia’s face, the distant sister as referee. She is standing in the doorway, grinning and shaking her head about how hard I am making things. (Being spanked is never near as bad as being laughed at during the spanking. Trust me. The presence of another kid ups the humiliation quotient exponentially.) Mother’s arm makes a shadow on the wall rising and falling with the flyswatter, and with every turn I make, Lecia’s smile slides off of me as if she’s saying, You don’t have the sense to pour piss from a boot —then I wheel around the room one more time before coming back to that weary grin of hers— with the instructions on the heel. I almost felt a weird power over Mother during such a time. She had ahold of me, at least. And her grip felt like she would hang on no matter what I yanked her through. By this time it was hurricane season. And just the way the weatherman on TV explained how hot and cold air fronts could smack up against each other over open water and make a wild-assed storm that turned around a still center of blue sky miles wide, so I felt almost calm during these whippings, as if all the misery in our house whirled around me somehow. Getting spanked at least brought some motion and force to the surface of the household. You could see us spinning around the room crazy instead of just walking through the day quiet and fretting about how miserable everybody felt and wondering where the ghost of that misery would pop up, and in what form. In school when I stumbled on the famous Yeats poem about things falling apart, it was the spin of those spankings I thought back to, where the falcon breaks loose from its tether and from the guy who’s supposed to be holding it: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. I always loved that last part, about the best lacking all conviction, which phrase made me think of Mother. And the worst being full of passionate intensity always put me in mind of Grandma, who was nothing if not intense. Of course, at that time, Mother was still hanging on to the shreds of what she thought right, a grip she would lose entirely after Grandma died. One morning, while Mother was plaiting my hair, the old woman got all pumped up about some project she had read about once in a magazine. She only took about two bites from a bowl of buttered grits before she hauled herself off to Kitty’s Hobby Shop. She didn’t even strap on her leg or bother with the wheelchair.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "For everything, Monsieur," was the humble reply; "you know full well I am your victim and you have but to command me. ' Monsieur de Gernande thereupon told me to undress his wife and lead her to him. Whatever the loathing I sensed for all these horrors, you understand, Madame, I had no choice but to submit with the most entire resignation. In all I have still to tell you, do not, I beseech you, do not at any time regard me as anything but a slave; I complied simply because I could not do otherwise, but never did I act willingly in anything whatsoever. I removed my mistress' simar, and when she was naked conducted her to her husband who had already taken his place in a large armchair: as part of the ritual she perched upon this armchair and herself presented to his kisses that favorite part over which he had made such a to-do with me and which, regardless of person or sex, seemed to affect him in the same way. "And now spread them, Madame," the Count said brutally. And for a long time he rollicked about with what he enjoyed the sight of; he had it assume various positions, he opened it, he snapped it shut; with tongue and fingertip he tickled the narrow aperture; and soon carried away by his passions' ferocity, he plucked up a pinch of flesh, squeezed it, scratched it. Immediately he produced a small wound he fastened his mouth to the spot. I held his unhappy victim during these preliminaries, the two boys, completely naked, toiled upon him in relays; now one, now the other knelt between Gernande's thighs and employed his mouth to excite him. It was then I noticed, not without astonishment, that this giant, this species of monster whose aspect alone was enough to strike terror, was howbeit barely a man; the most meager, the most minuscule excrescence of flesh or, to make a juster comparison, what one might find in a child of three was all one discovered upon this so very enormous and otherwise so corpulent individual; but its sensations were not for that the less keen and each pleasurable vibration was as a spasmodic attack. After this prologue he stretched out upon a couch and wanted his wife, seated astride his chest, to keep her behind poised over his visage while with her mouth she rendered him, by means of suckings, the same service he had just received from the youthful Ganymedes who were simultaneously, one to the left, one to the right, being excited by him; my hands meanwhile worked upon his behind: I titillated it, I polluted it in every sense; this phase of activities lasted more than a quarter of an hour but, producing no results, had to be given up for another; upon her husband's instructions I stretched the Countess upon a chaise longue: she lay on her back, her legs spread as wide as possible.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  And while he spoke the libertine nimbly pulled up my skirts. I recoiled, fended him off, horrified, but, having reeled backward into Cardoville's arms, the latter grasped my hands and thereupon exposed me, defenseless, to his colleague's assaults. The ribbons holding up my skirts were cut, my bodice torn away, my kerchief, my blouse, all were removed, and in no time I found myself before those monsters' eyes as naked as the day I came into the world. "Resistance..." said one. "Resistance," chimed in the other, both proceeding to despoil me, "the whore fancies she can resist us...." and not a garment was ripped from my body without my receiving a few blows. When I was in the state they wished, they drew up their chairs, which were provided with protruding armrests; thus a narrow space between the chairs was left and into it I was deposited; and thus they were able to study me at their leisure: while one regarded my fore end, the other mused upon my behind; then they turned me round, and turned me again. In this way I was stared at, handled, kissed for thirty minutes and more; during this examination not one lubricious episode was neglected, and I thought it safe to conjecture, upon the basis of those preliminaries, that each had roughly the same Idiosyncrasies.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Man, I was going to have to fight. Shit, my whole life is a fight. “Hey,” Roger said. “Hey,” I said. “Who was that on the bike?” he asked. “Oh, that was my dad’s best friend.” “That was a cool bike,” he said. “Vintage.” “Yeah, he just got it.” “You ride with him a lot?” “Yes,” I said. I lied. “Cool,” Roger said. “Yeah, cool,” I said. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll see you around.” And then he walked away. Wow, he didn’t kick my ass. He was actually nice. He paid me some respect. He paid respect to Eugene and his bike. Maybe Grandma was right. Maybe I had challenged the alpha dog and was now being rewarded for it. I love my grandmother. She’s the smartest person on the planet. Feeling almost like a human being, I walked into the school and saw Penelope the Beautiful. “Hey, Penelope,” I said, hoping that she knew I was now accepted by the dog pack. She didn’t even respond to me. Maybe she hadn’t heard me. “Hey, Penelope,” I said again. She looked at me and sniffed. SHE SNIFFED! LIKE I SMELLED BAD OR SOMETHING! “Do I know you?” she said. There were only about one hundred students in the whole school, right? So of course, she knew me. She was just being a bitch. “I’m Junior,” I said. “I mean, I’m Arnold.” “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You’re the boy who can’t figure out his own name.” Her friends giggled. I was so ashamed. I might have impressed the king, but the queen still hated me. I guess my grandmother didn’t know everything. Tears of a Clown When I was twelve, I fell in love with an Indian girl named Dawn. She was tall and brown and was the best traditional powwow dancer on the rez. Her braids, wrapped in otter fur, were legendary. Of course, she didn’t care about me. She mostly made fun of me (she called me Junior High Honky for some reason I never understood). But that just made me love her even more. She was out of my league, and even though I was only twelve, I knew that I’d be one of those guys who always fell in love with the unreachable, ungettable, and uninterested. One night, at about two in the morning, when Rowdy slept over at my house, I made a full confession. “Man,” I said. “I love Dawn so much.” He was pretending to be asleep on the floor of my room. “Rowdy,” I said. “Are you awake?” “No.” “Did you hear what I said?” “No.” “I said I love Dawn so much.” He was quiet. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked. “About what?” “About what I just said.” “I didn’t hear you say anything.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  And, as we were entering, she had no time to say more. The apartment into which I was made to pass was lit with equal sumptuousness and magnificence; at the further end, reclining upon an ottoman, was a man of about forty, wearing a billowing taffeta dressing robe. "Monseigneur," said Dubois, presenting me to him, "here is the young lady you wanted, she in whom all Grenoble has become interested... the celebrated Therese, to be brief, condemned to hang with the counterfeiters, then delivered thanks to her innocence and her virtue. Acknowledge that I serve you with skill, Monseigneur; not four days ago you evinced your extreme desire to immolate her to your passions; and today I put her into your hands; you will perhaps prefer her to that pretty little pensionnaire from the Benedictine convent at Lyon you also desired and who should be arriving any minute: the latter has her physical and moral integrity this one here has nothing but a sentimental chastity; but it is deep-grained in her being and nowhere will you find a creature more heavily ballasted with candor and honesty. They are both at your disposition, Monseigneur: you'll either dispatch each this evening, or one today and the other tomorrow.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  No, it wasn’t the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on with it. There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar. When she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one mad. * * * * * Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery, reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the silvery evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in the face. I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I feel that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn’t even find it worth while to torture or maltreat me any further. Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me. “You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and am afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman, and lie down on the bearskin at my feet.” Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into bed. “Don’t stir, so as not to wake me.” I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long time. I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying on her back on the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and listened to see whether she needed me. But she did not require me. No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-lamp, or a revolver which one places under one’s pillow. * * * * * Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton woman’s brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters who take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm, human beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs? What have I experienced?

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Chapter 33Having uttered these words, to which Roland gave me no opportunity to reply, he summoned two valets who upon his instructions seized me, despoiled me, and shackled me next to my companions, so was I set to work at once, without a moment's rest after the fatiguing journey I had just made. Then Roland approaches me, he brutally handles all those parts of me designation of which modesty forbids, heaps sarcasms upon me, makes impertinent reference to the damning a brand Rodin printed upon me, then, catching up a bull's pizzle always kept in readiness nearby, he applies twenty cuts to my behind. "That is how you will be treated, bitch," says he, "when you lag at the job; I'm not giving you this for anything you've already done, but only to show you how I cope with those who make mistakes." I screamed, struggled against my manacles; my contortions, my cries, my tears, the cruel expressions of my pain merely entertained my executioner.... "Oh, little whore, you'll see other things," says Roland, "you're not by a long shot at the end of your troubles - and I want you to make the acquaintance of even the most barbaric refinements of misery." He leaves me. Located in a cave on the edge of that vast well were six dark kennels; they were barred like dungeons, and they served us as shelters for the night, which arrived not long after I was enlisted in this dreadful chain gang. They came to remove my fetters and my and dry bread Roland had mentioned, we were locked up. I was no sooner alone than, undistracted, I abandoned myself to contemplating my situation in all its horror. Is it possible, I wondered, can it be that there are men so hardened as to have stifled in themselves their capacity for gratitude? This virtue to which I surrender myself with such charm whenever an upright spirit gives me the chance to feel it... can this virtue be unknown to certain beings, can they be utter strangers to it? and may they who have suppressed it so inhumanly in themselves be anything but monsters? I was absorbed in these musings when suddenly I heard the door to my cell open; 'tis Roland: the villain has come to complete his outraging of me by making me serve his odious eccentricities: you may well imagine, Madame, that they were to be as ferocious as his other proceedings and that such a man's love-makings are necessarily by his abhorrent character. But how can I abuse your patience by relating these new horrors? Have I not already more than soiled your imagination with infamous recitations ? Dare I hazard additional ones? "Yes, Therese," Monsieur de Corville put in, "yes, we insist upon these details, you veil them with a decency that removes all their edge of horror; there remains only what is useful to whoever seeks to perfect his understanding of enigmatic man.

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

  [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] A collective memory of humiliation and imperial domination has also inspired a desire for a national character of strength in India.64 When they look back in history, Hindus are divided. Some see a paradise of coexistence and a culture in which Hindu and Muslim traditions combine. But Hindu nationalists see the period of Muslim rule as a clash of civilizations, in which a militant Islam forced its culture on the oppressed Hindu majority.65 The structural violence of empire is always resented by subject peoples and can persist long after the imperialists have left. Founded in the early 1980s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the “Indian National Party,” an affiliate of RSS (Hedgewar’s nationalist religious party), feeds on this bitterness and enhances it. It campaigned for a militarily strong India, a nuclear arsenal (whose warheads are named after Hindu gods), and national distinctiveness. At first, however, it made no headway in the polls, but its fortunes changed dramatically in 1989, when the issue of the Babri mosque once again hit the headlines.66 In India as in Israel, sacred geography has become emblematic of the nation’s disgrace. Here too, the spectacle of a Muslim shrine atop a ruined temple aroused huge passions, because it so graphically symbolized the Hindu collective memory of Islamic imperial dominance. In February 1989 activists resolved to build a new temple to Ram on the site of the mosque and collected donations from the poorer castes throughout India; in the smallest villages bricks for the new shrine were cast and consecrated. Not surprisingly, tensions flared between Muslims and Hindus in the north, and Rajiv Gandhi, who had tried to mediate, lost the election.