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 36 of 38 · 20 per page

• From The Second Sex (1949)

  For most women—and also for some men—it is a question not only of satisfying their desires but of maintaining their dignity as human beings while satisfying them. When the male gets sexual satisfaction from the woman, or when he satisfies her, he posits himself as the unique subject: imperious victor, generous donor, or both. She wants to affirm reciprocally that she submits her partner to her pleasure and covers him with her gifts. Thus when she convinces the man of her worth, either by the benefits she promises him or by relying on his courtesy or by skillfully arousing his desire in its pure generality, she easily persuades herself that she is satisfying him. Thanks to this beneficial conviction, she can solicit him without feeling humiliated since she claims she is acting out of generosity. Thus in Green Wheat, the “woman in white” who lusts for Phil’s caresses archly tells him: “I only like beggars and the hungry.” In fact, she is cleverly angling for him to act imploringly. So, says Colette, “she rushed toward the narrow and dark kingdom where her pride could believe that a moan is a confession of distress, and where the aggressive beggars of her sort drink the illusion of generosity.” Mme de Warens exemplifies these women who choose their lovers young, unhappy, or of a lower social class to make their appetite look like generosity. But there are also fearless women who take on the challenge of the most robust males and who are delighted to have satisfied them even though they may have succumbed only out of politeness or fear.

• From The Second Sex (1949)

  On the other hand, while the woman who traps the man likes to imagine herself giving, the woman who gives herself wants it understood that she takes. “As for me, I am a woman who takes,” a young woman journalist told me one day. The truth in these cases is that, except for rape, no one really takes the other; but the woman is lying doubly to herself. For the fact is that man does often seduce by his passion and aggressiveness, thereby actively gaining his partner’s consent. Except in special cases—like Mme de Staël, to whom I have already referred—it is otherwise for the woman: she can do little else than offer herself; for most males are fiercely jealous of their role; they want to awaken a personal sexual response in the woman, not to be selected to satisfy her need in its generality: chosen, they feel exploited.4 “A woman who is not afraid of men frightens them,” a young man told me. And I have often heard adults declare: “I am horrified by a woman who takes the initiative.” If the woman proposes herself too boldly, the man flees: he insists on conquering. The woman can thus take only when she is prey: she must become a passive thing, a promise of submission. If she succeeds, she will think she has willingly performed this magic conjuration; she will see herself become subject again. But she runs the risk of being turned into a fixed and useless object by the male’s disdain. This is why she is so deeply humiliated if he rejects her advances. The man also sometimes gets angry when he feels he has been taken in; nonetheless, he has only failed in an enterprise, nothing more. The woman, on the other hand, has consented to make herself flesh through her sexual arousal, anticipation, and promise; she could only win by losing: she remains lost. One must be particularly blind or exceptionally lucid to choose such a defeat. And even when seduction succeeds, victory remains ambiguous; thus, according to public opinion, it is the man who conquers, who has the woman. It does not accept that she can, like the man, assume her desires: she is their prey. It is understood that the male has integrated the forces of the species into his individuality, whereas the woman is the slave of the species.5 She is represented alternately as pure passivity: she is a “slut; open for business”; ready and willing, she is a utensil; she limply gives in to the spell of arousal, she is fascinated by the male who picks her like a fruit. Or else she is seen as an alienated activity: there is a devil raging in her womb, a serpent lurks in her vagina, craving to devour male sperm. In any case, it is out of the question to think of her as simply free. In France especially, the free woman and the easy woman are stubbornly confused, as the idea of easy implies an absence of resistance and control, a lack, the very negation of freedom. Women authors try to combat this prejudice: for example, in Grisélidis (Portrait of Grisela), Clara Malraux emphasizes that her heroine does not let herself be drawn in, but accomplishes an act for which she accepts full responsibility. In America, a freedom is recognized in woman’s sexual activity, which is very favorable to her. But in France, men’s disdain for women who “sleep around,” the very men who profit from their favors, paralyzes many women. They fear the remonstrances they would incite, the remarks they would provoke.

• From The Second Sex (1949)

  Even if the woman scorns anonymous rumors, she has concrete difficulties in her relations with her partner, for public opinion is embodied in him. Very often, he considers the bed the terrain for asserting his aggressive superiority. He wants to take and not receive, not exchange but ravish. He seeks to possess the woman beyond that which she gives him; he demands that her consent be a defeat, and that the words she murmurs be avowals that he extracts from her; if she admits her pleasure, she is acknowledging her submission. When Claudine defies Renaud by her promptness in submitting to him, he anticipates her: he rushes to rape her when she was going to offer herself; he forces her to keep her eyes open to contemplate his triumph in their torment. Thus, in Man’s Fate, the overbearing Ferral insists on switching on the lamp Valérie wants to put out.* Proud and demanding, the woman faces the male as an adversary; she is far less well armed in this battle than he; first of all, he has physical force, and it is easier for him to impose his desires; we have also noted that tension and activity correspond to his eroticism, whereas the woman who refuses passivity breaks the spell that brings her sexual satisfaction; if she mimics domination in her attitudes and movements, she fails to reach a climax: most women who surrender to their pride become frigid. Rare are those lovers who allow their mistresses to satisfy their dominating or sadistic tendencies; and even rarer still are those women who derive full erotic satisfaction from this male docility.

• From What My Bones Know (2022)

  This, of course, was not inspiring. This was barely survival. There was no thriving here. I shrunk in my dim, orange office lighting. How had these symptoms already manifested in my own life? I waded waist-deep through images and hauled them up one by one to reexamine in the context of my brokenness: Blowing up at my boss. Blabbering about my problems during parties. Constantly knocking on co-workers’ doors. Chasing a man around a baseball diamond with a bat in my hand. The wreckage I had wrought, all around me. Different. This is what made me different. I thought of that famous line about trauma: Hurt people hurt people. I didn’t want to hurt people anymore. — I left the office early that day, and the next day, too. Every moment I was there, I felt like a vampire who’d snuck into a morning church service and was about to burst into flames at any moment. Part of me felt guilty for bringing my petty trauma into such an intellectual, fancy space. And another part of me felt betrayed by that space. I’d dedicated so much to my career, gave it so much of my identity, missed dinners with friends, and let relationships die because I had chosen to spend my late nights at work. I had done it all because I thought it would make me respectable. But here I was, still the same nutcase I had been when I was a teenager, just in J.Crew pants. In March, I read parts of the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by author and psychotherapist Pete Walker. He frequently writes about what he calls the obsessive/compulsive flight type: “When [she] is not doing, she is worrying and planning about doing…. These types are also as susceptible to stimulating substance addictions, as they are to their favorite process addictions: workaholism and busyholism. Severely traumatized flight types may devolve into severe anxiety and panic disorders.”[1] Maybe work was not salvation. Maybe it was a symptom. — I could not tolerate this constant state of humiliation, of rehashing the past and being terrified of the future. I had to find one other person who knew how this felt, to prove to me there was another way to live this life. So I tried another trusty story-finding internet technique. I posted on social media, “Do I know anyone who has been diagnosed with C-PTSD?” Nobody hit “like.” I only got one comment on Twitter: “I had to google that [image "Face with crossed-out eyes emoji." file=image_rsrc3E6.jpg] but no…. . doesn’t look nice from what I’ve read [image "Pensive face emoji." file=image_rsrc3E7.jpg] .”[2] I was on the brink of despair when I finally received a response. One acquaintance—a wonderful journalist I’d worked with briefly years earlier whom I’ll call Lacey—sent me a private message. “C-PTSD for the win! Super complicated to diagnose, but once we figured it out, it completely changed my life. I really started to heal!”

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  gave them (over) to Mittini, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and to Sillibel, king of Gaza. Thus I reduced his country, but I still increased the tribute. ( ANET , 288) The biblical account continues, however, with a colorful and problematic narrative. Assyrian emissaries come up to Jerusalem from Lachish and taunt the king. Their speech is surely a Jewish composition, probably Deuteronomistic, but it throws vivid light on ancient perceptions of war. The struggle between nations is a struggle between their gods. The might of the god of Assyria is shown by the actual defeat of a long list of peoples, including northern Israel. These peoples might explain the course of events differently. Israelites might say that their God was angry and did not defend them. It was difficult, however, to refute the Assyrian taunt that their God was not able to deliver them. Moreover, the Assyrians argue that YHWH must be displeased with Hezekiah for tearing down the high places. For the Deuteronomists, the reverse was true. It was true, however, that the Judeans had little hope other than divine intervention. Egypt was a broken reed, which always encouraged the small states in Syria-Palestine to resist the Mesopotamian powers, but never did much to assist them in practice. Hezekiah simply did not have the military power to withstand the Assyrians. Two other features of the Assyrian’s speech should be noted. First, Aramaic was by now the common language of the Near East, and Hezekiah’s officials could speak it. Second, the Assyrian appeal to the Judean soldiers shows a fine irony: he promises to take them to “a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive oil and honey, that you may live and not die” (2 Kgs 18:32). This is a decidedly optimistic view of Assyrian exile! A similar choice between life and death is presented to the people during the Babylonian crisis a century later, in Jer 21:8-9, another passage where Deuteronomistic editing is probable. Faced with humiliation and disaster, Hezekiah consults the prophet Isaiah. This is a rare mention of a canonical prophet in the historical books. (Jonah is mentioned briefly in 2 Kgs 14:25.) Since this material is repeated in the book of

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  (iii) Now let us look at it in the NT. (a) It is used of physical cleanness. The linen sheet in which they laid Jesus’ body was katharos (Matt. 27.59; cp. Matt. 23.26; Rev. 19.8). (b) It is used in the sense of ‘clean’ with the meaning, when used of persons, that they are fit for God’s service and worship, and when used for things, that they are fit for the Christians to use (John 13.10; Luke 11.41; Rom. 14.20; Tit. 1.15). (c) It is used in the sense of ‘innocent of any crime’ (Acts 18.6; 20.26). (d) It is used of ‘the heart and the conscience’ being pure and clean (I Tim. 1.5; 3.9; II Tim. 1.3; 2.22; I Pet. 1.22). (e) It is used of a worship which is fit to be offered to God (James 1.27). But the instance in the NT which means most to us is its use in the Beatitude, ‘Blessed are the katharoi (plural) in heart, for they shall see God’ (Matt. 5.8). How are we to explain this, and what meaning are we to give katharos here? A word is always known by the company it keeps. There are four Greek words with which katharos is often closely associated, (a) There is alēthinos, which means ‘real’, ‘genuine’, as opposed to that which is unreal and, as we would say, a fake. (b) There is amigēs, which means ‘pure’, ‘unmixed’. This word is used, for instance, of pure, unalloyed pleasure. And it is used of a roll which has in it the work of only one author, (c) It is used with akratos. This is the word that describes pure wine or pure milk which has not been adulterated by water. It is pure in the sense of ‘neat’, completely unadulterated, (d) It is used with akēratos, which is the word that describes unalloyed gold, hair which has never been shorn, an unmown meadow, a virgin whose chastity has never been doubted. Now all these words basically describe something which is pure from every taint and admixture of evil. How then shall we translate, Blessed are the katharoi in heart? We must think of it this way—Blessed are those whose motives are absolutely unmixed, whose minds are utterly sincere, who are completely and totally single-minded. What a summons to self-examination is here! Here is the most demanding Beatitude of all. When we examine our motives with honesty, it will humiliate us, for an unmixed motive is the rarest thing in the world. But the blessedness is to the man with the motive that is as pure as clean water, and with the single-mindedness which does everything as to God. That is the standard by which this word and this Beatitude demand that we should measure ourselves.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  It’s just such an amazing moment: Doug and his former pupil going at it in their street clothes, their faces still trying to keep the mood light, as if to convince the onlookers that neither man cares about the result and both are out there in a sort of mock indignation at having to share the team title. But as they continue to circle and grip each other, and the scab over Doug’s right ear—the one he originally cut while wrestling Tyler in the practice room—finally and predictably tears open, the gymnasium grows a little less lighthearted. It gets quiet for just a few seconds, and it appears that even the longtime wrestling folks aren’t exactly sure what to think. Doug is by now dripping blood down the right side of his face and onto his clothes, which he doesn’t even realize. He is completely outmanned by this extra-large human, Doug trying to stay upright while wearing jeans and a collared shirt and beat-up tennis shoes, and before long what began as a joke takes on the proportion—just very briefly, mind you—of something personal and rooted in grudge. When the huge coach finally uses his bulk to throw Doug to the floor, there is an audible “Ooooh” from the crowd, but even before Doug can spring up, the nervous laughter and friendly calls of “Okay, boys, that’s enough” have begun to circulate. You can tell the people want this thing to end before it actually does get personal. And though Doug and the coach both leave the mat smiling and pretending friendliness, the truth is that Doug is burning inside with the fury and embarrassment of being tossed to the mat—even here, now, with nothing on the line, having been snuck up on by a former student who earlier had spoken of his genuine appreciation for what LeClere taught him in that wrestling room back at North-Linn. Someone hands Doug a towel to wipe off the blood. Most of the observers, knowing nothing about the situation, will walk away under the impression that the blood is a product of a wound inflicted by the North Cedar coach. It is a likelihood that only adds to Doug’s seething sense of humiliation—a sense not similarly shared by anyone around him—at being “beaten” by the big guy with the bear hug. It puts an odd, disquieting spin on this day. And it is something that will gall Doug for weeks to come. CHAPTER 7Only Warm in the RoomOn the same final weekend of January, Doug Streicher already has sent his junior varsity to a meet across town. The rest of Linn-Mar High School looks deserted; the mass of students have long since piled their stuff in their lockers and gotten the hell out. The hallways are empty up there. One level below, down in the wrestling room, it’s learning time. For Streicher, having the varsity and nothing but the varsity is an unimaginable luxury.

• From Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)

  To love such an enemy requires reconciliation, the will to re-establish a relationship. It involves confession of error and a seeking to be restored to one’s former place. Doubtless it is this that Jesus had in mind in his charge: “If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar,… and go be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift.” It is with this kind of enemy that the disinherited find it easiest to deal. They accept with good grace the insistence of Jesus that they deal with the rifts in their own world. Here, they are at the center; they count specifically, and their wills are crucial. When one analyzes the preaching and the religious teachings in the churches of his country, he discovers that the term “enemy” usually has this rather restricted meaning. When the Negro accepts the teaching of love, it is this narrow interpretation which is uppermost. I grew up with this interpretation. I dare to say that, in the white churches in my little town, the youths were trained in the same narrow interpretation applied to white persons. Love those who have a natural claim upon you. To those who have no such claim, there is no responsibility. The second kind of enemy comprises those persons who, by their activities, make it difficult for the group to live without shame and humiliation. It does not require much imagination to assume that to the sensitive son of Israel the taxgatherers were in that class. It was they who became the grasping hand of Roman authority, filching from Israel the taxes which helped to keep alive the oppression of the gentile ruler. They were Israelites who understood the psychology of the people, and therefore were always able to function with the kind of spiritual ruthlessness that would have been impossible for those who did not know the people intimately. They were despised; they were outcasts, because from the inside they had unlocked the door to the enemy. The situation was all the more difficult to bear because the tax collectors tended to be prosperous in contrast with the rest of the people. To be required to love such a person was the final insult. How could such a demand be made? One did not even associate with such creatures. To be seen in their company meant a complete loss of status and respect in the community. The taxgatherer had no soul; he had long since lost it. When Jesus became a friend to the tax collectors and secured one as his intimate companion, it was a spiritual triumph of such staggering proportions that after nineteen hundred years it defies rational explanation.

• From Jesus and the Disinherited (1949)

  The woman broke into his retreat with an urgent request in behalf of her child. Jesus said to her, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs.” This was more a probing query than an affirmation. It had in it all the deep frustration which he had experienced, and there flashed through it generations of religious exclusiveness to which he was heir. “What right has this woman of another race to make a claim upon me? What mockery is there here? Am I not humiliated enough in being misunderstood by my own kind? And here this woman dares to demand that which, in the very nature of the case, she cannot claim as her due.” Into the riotous thoughts that were surging in his mind her voice struck like a bolt of lightning: “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” “Go—go, woman, go in peace; your faith hath saved you.” But this was not all. Jesus had to apply his love-ethic to the enemy—to the Roman, the ruler. This was the hardest task, because to tamper with the enemy was to court disaster. To hate him in any way that caused action was to invite the wrath of Rome. To love him was to be regarded as a traitor to Jesus’ own people, to Israel, and therefore to God. As was suggested in the first chapter, it was upon the anvil of the Jewish community’s relations with Rome that Jesus hammered out the vital content of his concept of love for one’s enemy. “The enemy” can very easily be divided into three groups. There is first the personal enemy, one who is in some sense a part of one’s primary-group life. The relationship with such a person is grounded in more or less intimate, personal associations into which has entered conflict. Such conflict may have resulted from misunderstanding or from harsh words growing out of a hot temper and too much pride on either side to make amends. It may have come about because of an old family feud by which those who were never a part of the original rift are victimized. The strained relationship may have been due to the evil work of a vicious tongue. The point is that the enemy in this sense is one who at some time was a rather intimate part of one’s world and was close enough to be taken into account in terms of intimacy.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Last fall, Francesca and another mom teamed up to organize the annual holiday bazaar at their kids’ school. The other mom was a crackerjack at designing signs and banners, planning activity booths, decorating—all the artsy-craftsy things Francesca loved and took pride in doing well. “Every time I saw something that needed to be done, she had done it already and done it beautifully,” said Francesca afterward, wiping away tears. “I’ve never felt so useless.” We’ll get better acquainted with Francesca in chapter 8, when we talk about rewriting the Inner Rulebook. I also see the effects on Carter, a hardworking college student who initially came in for mild depression but quickly uncovered the underlying issue of “I always feel like I’m letting everyone down.” Carter was from a small town in central Massachusetts where, over the decades, textile mills had slowly given way to big-box stores and opioid busts. He was the smart kid, the golden boy, the big fish, bringing home straight As from his underfunded public high school. He was celebrated by the whole town when he got into his dream university, which, after he moved into his dorm, he realized was the biggest of ponds, filled with flashy and accomplished valedictorians. Carter tried mightily not to disappoint anyone—his parents, his friends, his girlfriend, his professors, his entire hometown. But the expectation that he become a big man on campus made him feel like shrinking into a shell. Carter felt like he should be able to do it all, despite the limitations set by a twenty-four-hour day and the fact that he isn’t a machine. He thought everyone expected him to be a brilliant, charismatic success story who could own the dance floor, but he felt chronically overwhelmed, self-conscious, and like he was faking everything. The discrepancy made him distant and unreliable, which put him in the very position he was trying to avoid: on the verge of making everyone upset. We’ll hear more from Carter in chapter 14, when we talk about feeling our authentic emotions. Finally, I see it in Jamila. A straight-shooting college senior, Jamila came to see me because she felt directionless, with no idea what she wanted to do after graduation. “I’m good at going to classes and taking exams,” she said, “but beyond that, I have no idea.” Jamila had ground her way through “should” her whole life, doing everything right to get to the next level, but now that she could pursue any path she wanted, she realized she didn’t know what she liked. “It’s as if I’ve been trying to do someone else’s generic idea of the Right Thing,” she said.

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

  The Dome as a perceived symbol of Jewish humiliation, subjugation, and obliteration fed dangerously into the Jewish history of grievance and suffering, a phenomenon that, as we have seen, can fester dangerously and inspire a violent riposte. Jews had fought back and achieved a superpower status in the Middle East that would once have seemed inconceivable. For the Gush, the peace process seemed to threaten this hard-won status, and like the monks who obliterated the iconic pagan temples after Julian’s attempt to suppress Christianity, they instinctively responded, “Never again.” Hence Jewish radicals, with or without rabbinic approval, continue to flirt with Livni’s dangerous idea, convinced that their political designs have some basis in eternal truth. The Temple Mount Faithful have drawn up plans for the Jewish temple that will one day replace the Dome, which they display in a museum provocatively close to the Haram al-Sharif with the ritual utensils and ceremonial robes that they have prepared for the cult. For many, Jewish Jerusalem rising phoenixlike from the ashes of Auschwitz has acquired a symbolic value that is nonnegotiable. The history of Jerusalem shows that a holy place always becomes more precious to a people after they have lost it or feel that their tenure is endangered. Livni’s plot therefore helped to make the Haram al-Sharif even more sacred to the Palestinians. When Islam was a great world power, Muslims had the confidence to be inclusive in their devotion to this sacred space. Calling Jerusalem al-Quds (“the Holy”), they understood that a holy place belongs to God and can never be the exclusive preserve of a state. When Umar conquered the city, he left the Christian shrines intact and invited Jews to return to the city from which they had been excluded for centuries. But now, as they feel that they are losing their city, Palestinian Muslims have become more possessive. Hence the tension between Muslims and Jews frequently erupts into violence at this holy place: in 2000 the provocative visit of the hawkish Israeli politician Ariel Sharon with his right-wing entourage sparked the Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada.

• From Open (2009)

  I tell him that if he wants it bad enough, and works hard enough, he’ll succeed. When I start talking like a motivational speaker, I know I’m tired. I look at my watch. Three in the morning. Wow, I say, stifling a yawn, if you don’t mind, can you just drop me off at my parents’ house? I live right up here at the corner and I’m exhausted. I can’t drive another minute. Take my car, take yourself home, bring it back to me when you can. I don’t want to take your car. Why not? Fun car. Goes like the wind. I see that. But what if I wreck it? If you wreck it, as long as you’re okay, I would laugh. I don’t give a shit about the car. How long do you want me to—I mean, when should I bring it back? Whenever. He brings it back the next day. Driving to church in this thing was awkward enough, he says, tossing me the keys. But, Andre, I officiate at funerals. You cannot drive up to a funeral in a white Corvette. I INVITE J.P. TO MUNICH for Davis Cup. I look forward to Davis Cup, because it’s not about me, it’s about country. I imagine it’s as close as I’ll ever get to playing on a team, so I expect the trip to be a pleasant diversion, the matches to be easy, and I want to share the experience with my new friend. Early on I find myself pitted against Becker, who’s attained godlike status in West Germany. The fans are bringing down the house, twelve thousand Germans cheering his every swing, booing me. And yet I’m unfazed, because I’m in a zone. Maybe not the zone, but my zone. I can’t miss. Also, I promised myself months ago that I’d never again lose to Becker, and I’m making good on that promise. I jump out to a two-set lead. J.P. and Philly and Nick are the only people cheering for me, and I can hear them. A fine day in Munich. Then I lose my concentration, followed by my confidence. I drop a game and head for my chair during the changeover, discouraged. Suddenly several German officials are gabbling at me. They’re calling me back onto the court. The game isn’t over. Come back, Mr. Agassi, come back. Becker giggles. The audience roars with laughter. I walk back onto the court, feeling my eyes throb. Once again I’m at the Bollettieri Academy, being humiliated by Nick in front of the other kids. I have enough trouble being laughed at in the press, but I can’t handle being laughed at in person. I lose the game. I lose the match. Showered, climbing into a car outside the arena, I ignore J.P. and turn to Nick and Philly. I tell them: The first person who talks to me about tennis is fired.

• From Open (2009)

  For laughs, I decide to play the match in jeans. Not tennis shorts, not warm-up pants, but torn, faded, dirty dungarees. I know it won’t affect the outcome. The kid I’m playing is a chump. I can beat him with one hand tied behind my back, wearing a gorilla costume. For good measure I pencil on some eyeliner and put in my gaudiest earrings. I win the match in straight sets. The other kids cheer wildly. They award me bonus points for style. On the ride back to the Bollettieri Academy I get extra attention, slaps on the back and attaboys. I feel at last as though I’m fitting in, becoming one of the cool kids, one of the alphas. Plus I got the W. The next day, right after lunch, Nick calls a surprise meeting. Everyone gather around, he bellows. He directs us to a back court with bleachers. When all two hundred full-time kids are settled in and quiet he starts pacing before us, talking about what the Bollettieri Academy means, how we should feel privileged to be here. He built this place from nothing, he says, and he’s proud to have it bear his name. The Bollettieri Academy stands for excellence. The Bollettieri Academy stands for class. The Bollettieri Academy is known and respected the world over. He pauses. Andre, would you stand up for a minute? I stand. All that I’ve just said about this place, Andre, you have vi-o-lated. You have defiled this place, shamed it with your little stunt yesterday. Wearing jeans and makeup and earrings during your final? Boy, I’m going to tell you something very important: If you’re going to act like that, if you’re going to dress like a girl, then here’s what I’m going to do. In your next tournament I’m going to have you wear a skirt. I’ve contacted Ellesse, and I’ve asked them to send a bunch of skirts for you, and you will wear one, yes sirree, because if that’s who you are, then that is how we’re going to treat you. All two hundred kids are looking at me. Four hundred eyes, fixed tight on me. Many of the kids are laughing. Nick keeps going. Your free time, he says, is hereby revoked. Your free time is now my time. You’re on detail, Mr. Agassi. Between nine and ten you’ll clean every bathroom on the property. When the toilets are scrubbed, you’ll police the grounds. If you don’t like it, well, it’s simple. Leave. If you’re going to act like you did yesterday, we don’t want you here. If you’re incapable of showing that you care about this place as much as we do, buh-bye. This last word, buh-bye, rings out, echoes across the empty courts. That’s it, he says. Everyone get back to work.

• From Opening Up by Writing It Down (2016)

  As with our other studies, those who were asked to write about their thoughts and feelings were extremely open and honest in their writing. Their essays described the humiliation and outrage of losing their jobs as well as more intimate themes—marital problems, illness and death, money concerns, and fears about the future. The potency of the study was surprising. Within three months, 27 percent of the experimental participants landed jobs compared with less than 5 percent of those in the time management and no-writing comparison groups. By seven months after writing, 53 percent of those who wrote about their thoughts and feelings had jobs compared with only 18 percent of the people in the other conditions. Particularly striking about the study was that the participants in all three conditions had all gone on exactly the same number of job interviews. The only difference was that those who had written about their feelings were offered jobs. Why did writing about getting laid off help these people find jobs more quickly? The key probably has something to do with the nature of anger. Those who had explored their thoughts and feelings were more likely to have come to terms with their extreme hostility toward their previous employer. Recall that these former employees felt betrayed by their company. Even during the initial interviews, it was difficult to stop them from venting their anger. In all likelihood when most of them went on interviews for new jobs, many would let down their guard and talk about how they were treated unfairly and lash out at their former employer—perhaps quite inappropriately so. Those who had written about their thoughts and feelings, on the other hand, were perhaps more likely to have come to terms with getting laid off and, in the interview, came across as less hostile, more promising job candidates. DOES WRITING WORK?: THE FIRST ROUND OF META-ANALYSES The first expressive writing study was published in 1986, and the layoff study came out in 1993. Other labs were now starting to conduct and publish writing studies. Most of the studies worked, but some didn’t. At Stony Brook University, a lab headed by Arthur Stone was beginning to run some interesting writing studies. Arthur was a scientist known for having a critical mind and was keenly capable of finding the flaws and limitations of psychology projects. Unfortunately (or, as it turned out, fortunately), his skeptical eye soon was locked on the expressive writing research. Several of his students were interested in expressive writing work, and one of these was Josh.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Like Moe, you may know firsthand the excruciation of teetering on the edge of speaking. It’s like standing at the end of a ten-meter diving platform, your heart pounding at the prospect of leaping in. Remaining silent invites frustration—“I knew that was the answer,” or, “Dammit, that was my idea,” but the thought of jumping into the abyss of conversation is paralyzing. But after his colleague’s comment, Moe decided it was actually worse to remain silent than to say something. Ongoing silence weighs a person down like a slowly accumulating pile of bricks in the lap. A few moments of silence can easily be shaken off, but hours of silence are nearly impossible to break, particularly without causing turned heads, exclamations of surprise, and crushingly offhand comments of, “Oh, I forgot you were there!” So Moe decided to try to speak sooner rather than later: “So I showed up to the next meeting with some notes jotted in my phone. I thought it would be easier if I wrote out what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t do it. The worst part is that the guy next to me took my phone and read my notes to everyone. I think he thought he was doing me a favor, but I wanted to die. What kind of man can’t read his own notes?” Once humiliated, twice shy. It took Moe a while to work up the courage to try again, but he did. Before the next meeting, he gamely typed out some more notes, but he still couldn’t manage to say anything. “I tried,” he said, “but my vision got blurry; I started to shake. It was horrible. Why does this keep happening to me? What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I do what other people can do so easily?” From working in politics, Moe was used to having to try again. So he decided to push himself—to try one more time. “I had a dinner to go to—just friends—so I thought I’d try giving a toast,” he said. “I rehearsed it over and over in my head, but when I stood up I couldn’t get past the first sentence. I had even worked a joke into it, but once I got past the first line I couldn’t remember the rest of the joke, much less what else I wanted to say, so I just said, ‘Thanks for coming,’ and sat down. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, what an idiot.’”

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  The people of the Hebrew Scripture only gradually begin to emerge into the sort of history we can date and evaluate, aided by external sources, after 1200 BCE – the era echoed in the texts of Joshua and Judges, respectively the sixth and seventh books of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. The people already had a presence in the wedge of Mediterranean territory that they went on to occupy for more than a millennium, ‘the land’, even ‘Promised Land’. It was a time of general upheaval in the eastern Mediterranean, the same era that saw the collapse of institutions far to the north-west around Mycenae, and it may be that the disruption of many power structures gave these folk their opportunity. Behind them was a saga of four centuries of slave labour in Egypt followed by escape, told at length in the previous four biblical books, Exodus to Deuteronomy. This story must have a kernel of truth in it, since its hero, the man who led the people out of Egypt north-eastwards to the very verge of entering the land, is called Moses. This is an Egyptian name, which would have been an unnecessary complication to a purely fictional text; the people’s escape had been a defeat and humiliation for the Egyptians.[18] Even if not all the people gathered in the land had come from Egypt, in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BCE they began coalescing into a single community. Maybe a newly forged religion was all they had to unite them, rather than ethnicity, common origins or a single settled territory of their own; it is interesting how many different names they have carried forward for themselves down to the present day. One of the names that stuck with them was ‘Hebrews’, which is a word that occurs with wider reference in non-biblical sources in forms such as ‘Habiru’. The contexts suggest that ‘Habiru’ were on the fringe of various settled societies, and commonly something of a nuisance. From a territory in the southern part of the land called Judah, Hebrews eventually gained yet another collective name for their future: Judaeans. Another name for them was ‘Israel’, borrowed from one of their ancient legendary leaders or ‘patriarchs’.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  In Matthew, Joseph is the main actor, and in Luke, Mary. Matthew tells the story of Joseph’s initial horror at Mary’s pregnancy; he has to be instructed by an angel in a dream not to follow his instinct to repudiate his young betrothed, for this child is the Messiah (Matt. 1.18–22). Matthew, of all the Gospel writers, is the most concerned to link Jesus’s ministry to the Judaic past, and his narrative here is in dialogue with the terms of Judaic law in Deuteronomy (Deut. 22.20–29), which discusses what should happen when a betrothed virgin is seduced or raped. The penalty in Deuteronomy is execution by stoning: kindly Joseph instead resolves to end the betrothal quietly, even before the angelic intervention. Luke seems more indirect than Matthew, but when in his story the angel Gabriel tells Mary of her pregnancy, she immediately asks him how that can be, since she has no husband (Luke 1.34). In fact, Luke goes much further than Matthew. Among the songs he incorporates into his Infancy Narratives are two hymns of victory, still commonly used in the various Christian regular daily rounds of worship called ‘Offices’. One is attributed to John the Baptist’s father Zacharias (the canticle ‘Benedictus’ used for instance in Anglican Morning Prayer), and the other to Mary herself (the ‘Magnificat’ of Anglican Evensong). Not all their content is relevant to their present context, and it has been plausibly suggested that they are martial songs borrowed from the Maccabean period more than a century before, but their general message of renewal and the overthrow of existing power suits Luke’s purpose.[9] Significant therefore is Mary’s proclamation in the Magnificat that God ‘has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden’ (Luke 1.48). Those Revised Standard Version translations underplay the shock value of these words to their early Christian readers. ‘Low estate’ renders tapeinōsis, which in its many shades of meaning stretches to ‘humiliation’, ‘disgrace’ or ‘baseness’: ‘handmaiden’ hardly hits the essence of doulē, which starkly means ‘female slave’, and which would therefore immediately suggest someone available for the humiliation of sexual assault. It was thus perfectly appropriate for Jane Schaberg to suggest the possibility that, in his use of this vocabulary, Luke is portraying Mary as the victim of rape.[10]

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  With such denunciation in the background, emperors in Constantinople successively tidied up inconsistencies in the repression of same-sex activity, one remarkable inconsistency being that the imperial government continued to benefit financially from a tax on male prostitutes, until it was abolished by the Emperor Anastasios (reigned 491–518).[16] During the reign of Anastasios’s soldier-successor Justin, real imperial power passed to a nephew of Justin’s, Justinian. Even before Justinian began his long, hyperactive and transformative reign (527–65), the regime in 521 unleashed a set-piece punitive action against various prominent men accused of same-sex activity; they included two bishops from widely dispersed parts of the Eastern Empire. These were changed times in more than one sense, for such bishops were now part of the political establishment: one of them, Isaiah, Bishop of Rhodes, had previously been the imperial official in charge of security in the city of Constantinople. Whatever the truth of their activities, and whatever political element there was in scapegoating these significant public figures, their fate spelled out Justinian’s Christian values on sex. Bishop Alexander of Diospolis in Thrace and a number of other offenders were taken to Constantinople, sexually humiliated in public with exceptional sadism and then castrated, although Bishop Isaiah merely suffered torture and exile for life.[17] What motivated this brutal political theatre in the name of morality? The answer may be found in texts incorporated in the huge collection of centuries of Roman law undertaken during Justinian’s long reign: the Corpus juris civilis, which shaped the future of Byzantine law and was to have a similar effect in the West when Western scholars rediscovered it in the eleventh century. On homosexual acts, the Corpus consolidated the legislative beginnings made under the two Emperors Theodosius. Justinian amplified the Emperor Augustus’s harsh legislation on adultery and divorce to extend the death penalty from adultery to those ‘who give themselves up to works of lewdness with their own sex’ (we have already seen Theodosius I adding Jewish–Christian marriages to the original Augustan provisions). To that remodelling of a central pre-Christian text, Justinian added newly created legislation, gathered in his Novellae or Novels, which displayed Christian reference and which reflected the natural crises blighting the Empire in Justinian’s time: a concentration of unusually catastrophic earthquakes on the Empire’s Mediterranean tectonic fault lines, and then, beginning in 541, one of the most severe known plague pandemics in human history.

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

  The BJP, however, had made large gains at the polls, and the following year its president, L. K. Advani, began a rath yatra (“chariot pilgrimage”), a thirty-day journey from the west coast to Ayodhya, that was to culminate in the rebuilding of the Rama temple. His Toyota van was decorated to resemble Arjuna’s chariot in the last battle of the Mahabharata and was cheered by fervent crowds lining the route.67 The pilgrimage began, significantly, at Somnath, where, legend has it, Sultan Mahmud of the Central Asian kingdom of Ghazni had slaughtered thousands of Hindus way back in the eleventh century, razing Shiva’s ancient temple to the ground and plundering its treasure. Advani never made it to Ayodhya, because he was arrested on October 23, 1990, but thousands of Hindu nationalists from every region of India had already assembled at the site to begin the mosque’s demolition. Scores of them were shot down by the police and hailed as martyrs, and Hindu-Muslim riots exploded throughout the country. The Babri mosque was finally dismantled in December 1992, while the press and army stood by and watched. For Muslims, its brutal destruction evoked the horrifying specter of Islam’s annihilation in the subcontinent. There were more riots, the most notorious being a Muslim attack on a train conveying Hindu pilgrims to Ayodhya, which was avenged by a massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. Like the Islamists, Hindu nationalists are lured by the prospect of rebuilding a glorious civilization, one that will revive the splendors of India before the Muslims’ arrival. They have convinced themselves that their path to this utopian future is blocked by the relics of Moghul civilization, which have wounded the body of Mother India. Countless Hindus experienced the demolition of the Babri mosque as a liberation from “slavery”; but others argue that the process is far from complete and dream of erasing the great mosques at Mathura and Varanasi.68 Many other Hindus, however, were religiously appalled by the Ayodhya tragedy, so this iconoclasm cannot be traced to a violence inherent in “Hinduism,” which has, of course, no single essence, either for or against violence. Rather, Hindu mythology and devotion had blended with the passions of secular nationalism—especially its inability to countenance minorities.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  He sipped. It didn’t burn as much as it had before. “Did you hear me?” She whispered, “Yes, I did, sir.” He moved close. She smelled the liquor. “I don’t want a whisper.” He invaded her space. Got real personal. “I want the boardroom beast. I want the wild wife that can’t get what she needs from her husband. I want the bitch that I know you can be. Can you give me that voice?” Her voice reached a higher decibel. “Yes, you can get that woman, sir.” “Well, why do you want to be a part of this?” he growled. “Because my husband can’t fuck, sir,” she shouted. Pretty lost his composure. “Huh?” She stood proud even though she gave away part of her family’s secret. “He cannot fuck, sir.” “So, why me?” She gave no eye contact. The schoolgirl in her came out. “I said, why me, bitch!” Her answer was short and aggressive. “Because you’re black, sir.” He pointed toward the door. “There are a few black men out there. You could have any one of them. Why did your husband call me into his office?” “Because I asked him to.” She paused. Irritation flared. “Sir.” “And how do you know me?” “I don’t.” “Well, why did you ask for me?” “Because you are the one that they call Pretty, sir.” “Who are they?” She stepped out of character. “Does it matter who they are?” “I ask the questions, bitch!” She fell back into place. “I’m sorry, sir.” She warmed to his commands. She ate his voice. “The they that I refer to is my good friend Mrs. Charleston, sir.” Pretty coughed. He knew Mrs. Charleston as the lady with the unenviable task of time sheets. She was in Human Resources. She was Oriental and built like a sumo wrestler. How she knew his nickname was Pretty, he didn’t know. “I know Mrs. Charleston. And she told you what?” “She told me that they call you Pretty, sir.” “Do you know why they call me Pretty?” “I can guess. But I would love for you to show me why they call you Pretty, sir.” Pretty moved to her ear. He tugged it his way before words found the inside. “I’ll show you why, but not here.” Her body language showed hesitation. He took it as defiance. They got their signals crossed. “We fuck at my place.” He checked his watch. His tone was disrespectful. “I parked in back. Tell Geronimo that you’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He pulled her near. “No questions. We do it my way. Understand?” His question was obviously rhetorical, because he didn’t wait for an answer. He strolled out. Her horse turned into a pumpkin.