Pride

Passages

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

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• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Under the Land Revenue Rules, if the crop was four annas or under, the cultivators could claim full suspension of the revenue assessment for the year. According to the official figures the crop was said to be over four annas. The contention of the cultivators, on the other hand, was that it was less than four annas. But the Government was in on mood to listen, and regarded the popular demand for arbitration as #lese majeste#. At last all petitioning and prayer having failed, after taking counsel with co-workers, I advised the Patidars ro resort to Satyagraha. Besides the volunteers of Kheda, my principal comrades in this struggle were Sjts. Vallabhbhai Patel, Shankarlal Banker, Shrimati Anasuyabehn, Sjts. Indulal Yajnik, Mahadev Desai and others. Sjt. Vallabhbhai, in joining the struggle, had to suspend a splendid and growing practice at the bar, which for all practical purposes he was never able to resume. We fixed up our headquarters at the Nadiad Anathashram, no other place being available which would have been large enough to accommodate all of us. The following pledge was signed by the Satyagrahis: ‘Knowing that the crops of our villages are less than four annas, we requested the Government to suspend the collection of revenue assessment till the ensuing year, but the Government had not acceded to our prayer. Therefore, we, the undersigned, hereby solemnly declare that we shall not, of our own accord, pay to the Government the full or the remaining revenue for the year. We shall let the Government take whatever legal steps it may think fit and gladly suffer the consequences of our non-payment. We shall rather let our lands be forfeited than that by voluntary payment we should allow our case to be considered flase or should compromise our self-respect. Should the Government, however, agree to suspend collection of the second instalment of the assessment throughout the district, such amongst us as are in a position to pay will pay up the whole or the balance of the revenue that may be due. The reason why those who are able to pay still withhold payment is that, if they pay up, the poorer ryots may in a panic sell their chattels or incur debts to pay their dues, and thereby bring suffering upon themselves. In these circumstances we feel that, for the sake of the poor, it is the duty even of those who can afford to pay to withhold payment of their assessment.’ I cannot devote many chapters to this struggle. So a number of sweet recollections in this connection will have to be crowded out. Those who want to make a fuller and deeper study of this important fight would do well to read the full and authentic history of the Kheda Satyagraha by Sjt. Shankarlal Parikh of Kathlal, Kheda. 150‘THE ONION THIEF’Champaran being in a far away corner of India, and the press having been kept out of the campaign, it did not attract visitors from outside.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  But most importantly, Pat had wowed the trial judge. One has to appreciate that the judge came to the Little Sister’s trial with a tabula rasa. I don’t pretend to know his background, but I suspect he is very straight and had no experience with gay and lesbian pornography. But the trial was long, which provided us with the opportunity to educate the judge about the importance of gay and lesbian literature, and I believe that for him, like many of us, the trial was a transformative experience. The following passages from the trial judge’s decision were to me quite remarkable, and I credit Pat, perhaps more than anyone else in the trial, for moving Canadian law to the point where depictions or descriptions of S/M sexual practices were simply no longer per se obscene as Canada Customs and the courts had previously held them to be. The trial judge set the stage as follows: Considerable evidence and argument was directed to the topic of homosexual sado-masochism. The plaintiffs established that sado-masochism is a theatrical, ritualistic practice in which the consent of the participants is inherent, although they conceded consent is not necessarily always present. Customs officers routinely prohibit depictions and descriptions of sadomasochistic practices on the ground that they involve either explicit sex with violence or sex without violence that subjects persons to degrading or dehumanizing treatment. He then referred expressly to Macho Sluts to support his finding that sado-masochistic works should not be considered per se obscene: “Macho Sluts (Boston: Alyson Publications Inc., 1988), by Pat Califia, illustrates this point. The book is concerned with lesbian, sado-masochistic practices … The author’s introduction to the work is informative: “Liberty is the right not to lie.” —Albert Camus The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-affirming to me seem ugly, hateful, and ludicrous to most other people. This may be the most painful part of being a sado-masochist: this experience of radical difference, separation at the root of perception. Our culture insists on sexual uniformity and does not acknowledge any neutral differences—only crimes, sins, diseases, and mistakes. This smug erotic totalitarianism does hidden violence to dissidents and perverts. It distorts our self-images, ambitions, and dreams. We think we are alone, or crazy, or ridiculous. Our desire learns to curb itself, and we come to depend on the strength of self-repression for our safety. We live in fear of being known, and such fear stifles the nascent erotic wish before the image of what is wished for can be fully formed. We know we are ugly before we have even seen ourselves, and the injustice of this, the falsehood, chokes me. What, then, are my choices, as a writer and a sadomasochist? I could keep my sexuality private, write about other issues, other sorts of people, and tell myself that these are more important themes, more universal characters, more valid as literature. That involves telling a lie by omission—becoming invisible as a pervert, assuming an undeserved mantle of normalcy and legitimacy.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  But I could not make my friends appreciate the beauty of self-help. In course of time I became an expert washerman so far as my own work went, and my washing was by no means inferior to laundry washing. My collars were no less stiff or shiny than others. When Gokhale came to South Africa, he had with him a scarf which was a gift from Mahadeo Govind Ranade. He treasured the memento with the utmost care and used it only on special occasions. One such occasion was the banquet given in his honour by the Johannesburg Indians. The scarf was creased and needed ironing. It was not possible to send it to the laundry and get it back in time. I offered to try my art. ‘I can trust to your capacity as a lawyer, but not as a washerman,’ said Gokhale; ‘What if you should soil it? Do you know what it means to me ? ‘ With this he narrated, with much joy, the story of the gift. I still insisted, guaranteed good work, got his permission to iron it, and won his certificate. After that I did not mind if the rest of the world refused me its certificate. In the same way, as I freed myself from slavery to the washerman, I threw off dependence on the barber. All people who go to England learn there at least the art of shaving, but none, to my knowledge, learn to cut their own hair. I had to learn that too. I once went to an English hair-cutter in Pretoria. He contemptuously refused to cut my hair. I certainly felt hurt, but immediately purchased a pair of clippers and cut my hair before the mirror. I succeeded more or less in cutting the front hair, but I spoiled the back. The friends in the court shook with laughter. ‘What’s wrong with your hair, Gandhi? Rats have been at it ? ‘ ‘No. The white barber would not condescend to touch my black hair,’ said I, ‘so I preferred to cut it myself, no matter how badly.’ The reply did not surprise the friends. The barber was not at fault in having refused to cut my hair. There was every chance of his losing his custom, if he should serve black men. We do not allow our barbers to serve our untouchable brethren. I got the reward of this in South Africa, not once, but many times, and the conviction that it was the punishment for our own sins saved me from becoming angry. The extreme forms in which my passion for self-help and simplicity ultimately expressed itself will be described in their proper place. The seed had been long sown. It only needed watering to take root, to flower and to fructify, and the watering came in due course. 66.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  We decided early on in our preparation for the trial that we would adopt an approach that was singularly different than the standard civil libertarian take, which would amount to a concession of sorts that the material in question was indeed inferior but, “holding our noses,” we would “defend to the death” the right of the author to produce or publish the work in question. Rather, it was our position that the court should be persuaded that the material that Customs was banning from Canada had real importance and value. In other words, we wanted the Court to conclude that sexual expression and imagery—we didn’t shy away from calling it pornography—far from being a base form of expression, was every bit as important as political expression and was therefore entitled to the highest protection in law. I had decided that one of the best ways to defend Macho Sluts was to call its author as a witness to explain to the Court why she had written it. Pat was a wonderful witness. I knew she would be, as I had spent quite a bit of time talking to her before the trial and met her in person for the first time the night before. But I have to admit I was a bit worried about how she would present in court as she did appear as a “macho slut”—butch hairstyle, many tattoos and piercings, and decked out in leather. When I called her as my “next witness,” I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was wearing a dress—a long-sleeved one, so there were no tattoos showing—and she had also taken out her piercings and had a completely different hairstyle. When I asked her about it later, she said she went and got the dress especially for the occasion—it may had been the only one she had ever worn—and that she wanted to look like a librarian, which she did. Some may consider this a bit of a cop-out, but Pat understood the rules of the game. She was appearing in a conservative forum before a very conservative judge; the stakes were high, and she knew that presentation mattered. As it turned out, I don’t know how much it mattered, because Pat was one of the most articulate and persuasive witnesses in the trial. Pat the person appeared very differently from Pat the writer. And to some extent, this bore out one of our main arguments in the case, which was that there is a world of difference between our imagination (and the work that is the product of it) and who we are and what actually happens in real life. And yet that is probably too simplistic a dichotomy, since Pat did tell the judge that while Macho Sluts was a work of fiction, it did to a large extent tell the truth about her sexuality and those of other lesbians who practiced S/M. The following exchange took place during her testimony:

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  CLIENTS TURNED CO-WORKERS The distinction between the legal practice in Natal and that in the Transvaal was that in Natal there was a joint bar; a barrister, whilst he was admitted to the rank of advocate, could also practise as an attorney; whereas in the Transvaal, as in Bombay, the spheres of attorneys and advocates were distinct. A barrister had the right of election whether he would practise as an advocate or as an attorney. So whilst in Natal I was admitted as an advocate, in the Transvaal I sought admission as an attorney. For as an advocate I could not have come in direct contact with the Indians and the white attorneys in South Africa would not have briefed me. But even in the Transvaal it was open to attorneys to appear before magistrates. On one occasion, whilst I was conducting a case before a magistrate in Johannesburg, I discovered that my client had deceived me. I saw him completely break down in the witness box. So without any argument I asked the magistrate to dismiss the case. The opposing counsel was astonished, and the magistrate was pleased. I rebuked my client for bringing a false case to me. He knew that I never accepted false cases, and when I brought the thing home to him, he admitted his mistake, and I have an impression that he was not angry with me for having asked the magistrate to decide against him. At any rate my conduct in this case did not affect my practice for the worse, indeed it made my work easier. I also saw that my devotion to truth enhanced my reputation amongst the members of the profession, and in spite of the handicap of colour I was able in some cases to win even their affection. During my professional work it was also my habit never to conceal my ignorance from my clients or my colleagues. Wherever I felt myself at sea, I would advise my client to consult some other counsel, or if he preferred to stick

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE BAR Before coming to a narrative of the course my life took in India, it seems necessary to recall a few of the South African experiences which I have deliberately left out. Some lawyer friends have asked me to give my reminiscences of the bar. The number of these is so large that, if I were to describe them all, they would occupy a volume by themselves and take me out of my scope. But it may not perhaps be improper to recall some of those which bear upon the practice of truth. So far as I can recollect, I have already said that I never resorted to untruth in my profession, and that a large part of my legal practice was in the interest of public work, for which I charged nothing beyond out- of-pocket expenses, and these too I sometimes met myself. I had thought that in saying this I had said all that was necessary as regards my legal practice. But friends want me to do more. They seem to think that, if I described however slightly, some of the occasions when I refused to swerve from the truth, the legal profession might profit by it. As a student I had heard that the lawyer’s profession was a liar’s profession. But this did not influence me, as I had no intention of earning either position or money by lying. My principle was put to the test many a time in South Africa. Often I knew that my opponents had tutored their witnesses, and if I only encouraged my client or his witnesses to lie, we could win the case. But I always resisted the temptation. I remember only one occasion when, after having won a case, I suspected that my client had deceived me. In my heart of hearts I always wished that I should

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  Contrary to this theory, I had Malcolm. I had my mother and father. I had my readings of every issue of The Source and Vibe. I read them not merely because I loved black music—I did—but because of the writing itself. Writers Greg Tate, Chairman Mao, dream hampton—barely older than me—were out there creating a new language, one that I intuitively understood, to analyze our art, our world. This was, in and of itself, an argument for the weight and beauty of our culture and thus of our bodies. And now each day, out on the Yard, I felt this weight and saw this beauty, not just as a matter of theory but also as demonstrable fact. And I wanted desperately to communicate this evidence to the world, because I felt—even if I did not completely know—that the larger culture’s erasure of black beauty was intimately connected to the destruction of black bodies. What was required was a new story, a new history told through the lens of our struggle. I had always known this, had heard the need for a new history in Malcolm, had seen the need addressed in my father’s books. It was in the promise behind their grand titles—Children of the Sun, Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire, The African Origins of Civilization. Here was not just our history but the history of the world, weaponized to our noble ends. Here was the primordial stuff of our own Dream—the Dream of a “black race”—of our own Tolstoys who lived deep in the African past, where we authored operas, pioneered secret algebra, erected ornate walls, pyramids, colossi, bridges, roads, and all the inventions that I then thought must qualify one’s lineage for the ranks of civilization. They had their champions, and somewhere we must have ours. By then I’d read Chancellor Williams, J. A. Rogers, and John Jackson—writers central to the canon of our new noble history. From them I knew that Mansa Musa of Mali was black, and Shabaka of Egypt was black, and Yaa Asantewaa of Ashanti was black—and “the black race” was a thing I supposed existed from time immemorial, a thing that was real and mattered.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Men in full leather are usually conspicuous. But the spoiler’s appearance was so neat, his lines so clean, his bearing so modest that he often passed through crowds of the bourgeoisie without changing the topic of their conversation. In the self-consciously masculine bars and rotting piers he frequented, other men relied on flashy, cheap metal to signal their presence in the darkness, or a heavy tread that would make their keys and other accoutrements jangle. He, on the other hand, was rarely noticed unless he chose to be. Nearly every leatherman in the city had been elbow to elbow with him in some club or alley, but few recognized him on sight. Of the elite handful who acknowledged him with a bare nod, the kind of minimal gesture that was harder to get from them than a knighthood, one man wore only cowboy fringes, conchos, and suede; one man wore no leather at all; and one was not a man. But each of these folks have legends of their own. Only his boots glittered, and that was a mirror-bright shine, the kind that takes months of work to complete. Even a USMC drill instructor can’t force someone to get that kind of sheen on a pair of boots. It takes constant caressing. Your brush has to touch the boots as often and as lightly as you touch someone who has just made you fall in love. He had never been in love, but his boots were perfect. He kept his pants tucked into them. They went up to the knee, glossy as a frozen lake at midnight. The absence of right/left signals should also have made him conspicuous. Instead, he was often discounted as a tourist or an amateur. Only one youngster, drunk enough to think he was the most attractive boy in the bar and thus immune to snubs, ever had the nerve to accost him and demand, “What are you?” The spoiler replied (perhaps amused because of what he was planning to turn himself into for the sake of his latest conquest), “A man.” “No, I mean what are you into? Which role do you play?” “I don’t play,” he said. The look in his eye momentarily sobered the curious, intoxicated kid; made him want to ask another, better question. But those eyes were too deep, it was too far to fall—so he chose instead to get drunk enough to fall off his bar stool. Not that the spoiler noticed; taking out the trash was not his job.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution. Why may not society regard as retrogression what the reformer holds dear as life itself ? Nevertheless the result of this agitation was that the Indian community learnt to recognize more or less the necessity for keeping their houses and environments clean. I gained the esteem of the authorities. They saw that, though I had made it my business to ventilate grievances and press for rights, I was no less keen and insistent upon self-purification. There was one thing, however, which still remained to be done, namely, the awakening in the Indian settler of a sense of duty to the motherland. India was poor, the Indian settler went to South Africa in search of wealth, and he was bound to contribute part of his earnings for the benefit of his countrymen in the hour of their adversity. This the settler did during the terrible famines of 1897 and 1899. They contributed handsomely for famine relief, and more so in 1899 than in 1897. We had appealed to Englishmen also for funds, and they had responded well. Even the indentured Indians gave their share to the contribution, and the system inaugurated at the time of these famines has been continued ever since, and we know that Indians in South Africa never fail to send handsome contributions to India in times of national calamity. Thus service of the Indians in South Africa ever revealed to me new implications of truth at every stage. Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit, the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings for an ever greater variety of service. 68.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  forward, the subordinate organizations were not only fully competent, but were in duty bound to do so, if they had in them the necessary girt and confidence. No permission, I argued was needed to try to enhance the prestige of the parent institution, provided one did it at one’s own risk. The proposition was then discussed on its merits, the debate being marked by its keenness no less than the atmosphere of ‘sweet reasonableness’ in which it was conducted. On the ballot being taken the resolution was declared carried by an overwhelming majority. The successful passage of the resolution was due not a little to the personality of Sjt. Vallabhbhai and Abbas Tyabji. The latter was the president, and his leanings were all in favour of the non-co- operation resolution. The All-India Congress Committss resolved to hold a special session of the Congress in September 1920 at Calcutta to deliberate on this question Preparations were made for it on a large scale. Lala Lajpat Rai was elected President . Congress and Khilafat specials were run to Calcutta from Bombay. At Calcutta there was a mammoth gathering of delegates anad visitors. At the request of Maulana Shaukat Ali I prepared a draft of the non- co- operation resolution in the train. Up to this time I had more or less avoided the use of the word non-vilent in my drafts. I invariably made use of this word in my speeches. My vocabulary on the subject was still in process of formation. I found that I could not bring home of the Samskrit equivalent for non- violent. I therefore asked Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad to give me some other equivalent for it. He suggested the word ba-aman; similarly for non-co-operation he suggested the phrase tark-i- mavalat. Thus, while I was still busy devising suitable Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu phraseology for non-co- operation, I was called upon to frame the non-co- operation resolution for that eventful Congress. In the original draft the word ‘non-violent’ had been left out by me. I had handed over the draft to Maulana

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The book was enormously popular, and even though there were still some of the same stereotypically hysterical reviews, there were also some good ones. See, I told you. Activism works. Some people were always going to think that S/M was pathological, violent, fascist, racist, anti-feminist, done only by women who’d been brainwashed by the patriarchy, and, oh yes, the Spawn of Satan. But there were other voices now, reviewers who could tell the difference between a sexual fantasy and an assault. The book got at least some of the credit that it deserved for being thought-provoking, well-written (says the person who revised every story till my eyes bled), unique, and arousing. It was especially wonderful to see reviews that recognized the worth of erotic literature as a form of writing that could challenge the status quo and take readers to a place of liberation as well as help them get horny for a little solo sex or an adventure with a partner (or two or three). But Canada Customs had no sense of humor, no respect for queer sexuality, and above all else, no feminist consciousness. Macho Sluts got confiscated at the border, and became one of the key books defended in a major censorship case. I have no idea how the folks at Little Sister’s Bookstore in Vancouver fought their federal government for so many years. The Supreme Court of Canada eventually agreed that customs officials had indeed overstepped their bounds and were systematically censoring gay literature. They had confiscated issues of The Advocate, gay sex manuals like The Joy of Gay Sex, fiction by Edmund White, John Preston, John Rechy, the books of anti-porn stalwart Andrea Dworkin, and a long list of other gay and lesbian authors. Little Sister’s is still defending queer literature from the bonfire-happy homophobes at the border. Next time you are having trouble buying gifts, consider giving them a donation on behalf of the Lipstick Lesbian or the Club Kid Who Has Everything.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He began to read again his technical works on the coal-mining industry, he studied the Government reports, and he read with care the latest things on mining and the chemistry of coal and of shale which were written in German. Of course the most valuable discoveries were kept secret as far as possible. But once you started a sort of research in the field of coal-mining, a study of methods and means, a study of by-products and the chemical possibilities of coal, it was astounding, the ingenuity and the almost uncanny cleverness of the modern technical mind, as if really the devil himself had lent fiend's wits to the technical scientists of industry. It was far more interesting than art, than literature, poor emotional half-witted stuff, was this technical science of industry. In this field, men were like gods, or demons, inspired to discoveries, and fighting to carry them out. In this activity, men were beyond any mental age calculable. But Clifford knew that when it did come to the emotional and human life, these self-made men were of a mental age of about thirteen, feeble boys. The discrepancy was enormous and appalling. But let that be. Let man slide down to general idiocy in the emotional and "human" mind, Clifford did not care. Let all that go hang. He was interested in the technicalities of modern coal-mining, and in pulling Tevershall out of the hole. He went down to the pit day after day, he studied, he put the general manager, and the overhead manager, and the underground manager, and the engineers through a mill they had never dreamed of. Power! He felt a new sense of power flowing through him: power over all these men, over the hundreds and hundreds of colliers. He was finding out: and he was getting things into his grip. And he seemed verily to be reborn. _Now_ life came into him! He had been gradually dying, with Connie, in the isolated private life of the artist and the conscious being. Now let all that go. Let it sleep. He simply felt life rush into him out of the coal, out of the pit. The very stale air of the colliery was better than oxygen to him. It gave him a sense of power, power. He was doing something: and he was _going_ to do something. He was going to win, to win: not as he had won with his stories, mere publicity, amid a whole sapping of energy and malice. But a man's victory. At first he thought the solution lay in electricity: convert the coal into electric power. Then a new idea came. The Germans invented a new locomotive engine with a self-feeder, that did not need a fireman. And it was to be fed with a new fuel, that burnt in small quantities at a great heat, under peculiar conditions.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Never mind that the term “pornography” was coined by Victorians, not by the ancient Greeks. (This was first pointed out to me by Gayle Rubin. More information on the etymology of the term appears in Walter Kendrick’s The Secret Museum , Viking, 1987.) Never mind that the anti-porn movement has done at least as much as “the male system” to make “whores” seem vile in the popular imagination. This book is available to anyone, male or female, who can pay for it or steal it. It will certainly seem vile to many people. Therefore, this book is a whore. And I wrote it, knowing that meant being a pornographer, being a whore. After all, “Being her [the whore] means being pornography.” What’s one more stigmatized identity? In my time, I’ve even been a lesbian housewife. Feminists who believe there was once a matriarchy say that prostitutes were once also priestesses. In some societies, every woman had to enter the temple of the goddess and receive payment for her sexual services before she could marry. Some women never left the temple. These priestesses did not simply perform rituals to guarantee the fertility of people, their herds and fields. They taught the receiving and giving of pleasure. I don’t know if I believe this. But I do believe the flesh should not be despised. If the flesh is not sacred, holy, then we are trapped in the muck of the profane, because the body is all we have. All knowledge, reason, truth, beauty, it is all reducible to physical sensation and actions performed by the agency of the flesh. Now that the goddess has no more temples, now that prostitutes are defiled women who represent the epitome of the patriarchy’s power instead of sacred women who represent the power of the Triune Goddess, it is surely ironic that it is someone who resembles nothing so much as the Venus of Willendorf in overalls, who rises up to rebuke us. It’s a feminist cliché that women are divided into virgins and whores, and set against each other. There is no mention in anti-porn rhetoric of how much the hatred voiced by “respectable” women puts the slut in danger, how much “nice” women’s jealousy and fear of being identified with her isolates the slut and makes it possible for her to be exploited and abused. Some of us hate this polarization, and would like other choices, something in between virgin and whore. Sexual exploration would be so much easier if this were not such a highly charged arena.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  considered the best way for the Saints to secure some measure of sovereignty. After all that had happened in Nauvoo, however, officials in Washington were leery of giving Brigham autonomy. So the Mormons were granted territorial status for their homeland instead of statehood, which allowed Washington, in theory, to keep the Latter-day Saints on a much tighter leash. Utah Territory was formally established on September 9, 1850, with Brigham appointed governor. * On February 4, 1851, the new governor finally felt secure enough about the Saints’ prospects to come clean about the number of wives he had. “I have many,” he boasted during an address to the territorial legislature, “and I am not ashamed to have it known.” * It was his first public admission that Mormons practiced polygamy. A year later, he decided it was time to announce the “peculiar doctrine” to an even wider audience. On August 29, 1852, at a churchwide assembly in Salt Lake City, he told of Joseph Smith’s 1843 revelation concerning “celestial marriage,” predicting that one day it would be “fostered and believed in by the more intelligent portions of the world, as one of the best doctrines ever proclaimed to any people.” The cat was out of the bag. To Brigham’s dismay, very quickly it proved to be a public-relations disaster for the Mormon Church. In France and England, recently converted Mormons were shocked and appalled by the revelation. The once-robust flow of fresh converts from Europe to Utah slowed to a trickle. A missionary reported that 1,776 British Saints abandoned the church during the six months following the 1852 announcement. Most of the Utah Mormons, on the other hand, were amenable to the idea of plural marriage once it was made known to them. Although polygamy was never practiced by more than a minority of Saints, it would have been hard to find many inhabitants of Deseret in the mid-1850s who didn’t consider plural marriage a lofty ideal to which all righteous men and women should aspire. By 1855, polygamy was not only being practiced openly, it was being urged on the faithful with an unrelentingly hard sell that included dire warnings to the recalcitrant. “If any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so,” Brigham threatened, “I promise that you will be damned.” This adamant promotion of polygamy grew out of a white-hot burst of religious fanaticism known as the Mormon Reformation, which peaked in the years 1856 and 1857. As Will Bagley observed in his provocative, meticulously

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  But Abdulla Sheth disapproved of the idea. He said, ‘If you do anything of the kind, it will have a very bad effect. You will compromise those insisting on wearing Indian turbans. And an Indian turban sits well on your head. If you wear an English hat, you will pass for a waiter.’ There was practical wisdom, patriotism and a little bit of narrowness in this advice. The wisdom was apparent, and he would not have insisted on the Indian turban except out of patriotism; the slighting reference to the waiter betrayed a kind of narrowness. Amongst the indentured Indians there were three classes Hindus, Musalmans and Christians. The last were the children of indentured Indians who became converts to Christanity. Even in 1893 their number was large. They wore the English costume., and the majority of them earned their living by service as waiters in hotels. Abdulla Sheth’s criticism of the English hat was with reference to this class. It was considered degrading to serve as a waiter in a hotel. The belief persists even today among many. On the whole I liked Abdulla Sheth’s advice. I wrote to the press about the incident and defended the wearing of my turban in the court. The question was very much discussed in the papers, which described me as an ‘unwelcome visitor.’ Thus the incident gave me an unexpected advertisement in South Africa within a few days of my arrival there. Some supported me while others severely criticized my temerity. My turban stayed with me practically until the end of my stay in South Africa. When and why I left off wearing any head-dress at all in South Africa, we shall see later. 35.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  A KNIGHT IN THE KING'S SERVICE OF SPAIN THINKING HIMSELF ILL GUERDONED, THE KING BY VERY CERTAIN PROOF SHOWETH HIM THAT THIS IS NOT HIS FAULT, BUT THAT OF HIS OWN PERVERSE FORTUNE, AND AFTER LARGESSETH HIM MAGNIFICENTLY "Needs, honourable ladies, must I repute it a singular favour to myself that our king hath preferred me unto such an honour as it is to be the first to tell of magnificence, the which, even as the sun is the glory and adornment of all the heaven, is the light and lustre of every other virtue. I will, therefore, tell you a little story thereof, quaint and pleasant enough to my thinking, which to recall can certes be none other than useful. You must know, then, that, among the other gallant gentlemen who have from time immemorial graced our city, there was one (and maybe the most of worth) by name Messer Ruggieri de' Figiovanni, who, being both rich and high-spirited and seeing that, in view of the way of living and of the usages of Tuscany, he might, if he tarried there, avail to display little or nothing of his merit, resolved to seek service awhile with Alfonso, King of Spain, the renown of whose valiance transcended that of every other prince of his time; wherefore he betook himself, very honourably furnished with arms and horses and followers, to Alfonso in Spain and was by him graciously received. Accordingly, he took up his abode there and living splendidly and doing marvellous deeds of arms, he very soon made himself known for a man of worth and valour.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  Your route will be different. It must be. You knew things at eleven that I did not know when I was twenty-five. When I was eleven my highest priority was the simple security of my body. My life was the immediate negotiation of violence—within my house and without. But already you have expectations, I see that in you. Survival and safety are not enough. Your hopes—your dreams, if you will—leave me with an array of warring emotions. I am so very proud of you—your openness, your ambition, your aggression, your intelligence. My job, in the little time we have left together, is to match that intelligence with wisdom. Part of that wisdom is understanding what you were given—a city where gay bars are unremarkable, a soccer team on which half the players speak some other language. What I am saying is that it does not all belong to you, that the beauty in you is not strictly yours and is largely the result of enjoying an abnormal amount of security in your black body. Perhaps that is why, when you discovered that the killer of Mike Brown would go unpunished, you told me you had to go. Perhaps that is why you were crying, because in that moment you understood that even your relatively privileged security can never match a sustained assault launched in the name of the Dream. Our current politics tell you that should you fall victim to such an assault and lose your body, it somehow must be your fault. Trayvon Martin’s hoodie got him killed. Jordan Davis’s loud music did the same. John Crawford should never have touched the rifle on display. Kajieme Powell should have known not to be crazy. And all of them should have had fathers—even the ones who had fathers, even you. Without its own justifications, the Dream would collapse upon itself. You first learned this from Michael Brown. I first learned it from Prince Jones.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  shown more pluck, determination and bravery than had been expected ; and our services were ultimately needed. Our corps was 1,100 strong, with nearly 40 leaders, About three hundred were free Indians, and the rest indentured. Dr. Booth was also with us, The corps acquitted itself well. Though our work was to be outside the firing line, and though we had the protection of the Red Cross, we were asked at a critical moment to serve within the firing line. The reservation had not been of our seeking. The authorities did not want us to be within the range of fire. The situation, however, was changed after the repulse at Spion Kop, and General Buller sent the message that, though we were not bound to take the risk, Government would be thankful if we would do so and fetch the wounded from the field. We had no hesitation, and so the action at Spion Kop found us working within the firing line. During these days we had to march from twenty to twenty-five miles a day, bearing the wounded on stretchers. Amongst the wounded we had the honour of carrying soldiers like General Woodgate. The corps was disbanded after six weeks’ service. After the reverses at Spion Kop and Vaalkranz, the British Commander-in-Chief abandoned the attempt to relieve Ladysmith and other places by summary procedure, and decided to proceed slowly, awaiting reinforcements from England and India. Our humble work was at the moment much applauded, and the Indians’ prestige was enhanced. The newspapers published laudatory rhymes with the refrain, ‘We are sons of Empire after all.’ General Buller mentioned with appreciation the work of the corps in his despatch, and the leaders were awarded the War Medal. The Indian community became better organized. I got into closer touch with the indentured Indians. There came a greater awakening amongst them, and the feeling that Hindus, Musalmans, Christians, Tamilians, Gujaratis and Sindhis

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I have never been able to endure this drudgery and finish a piece that I did not care about passionately. If there isn’t enough lustful electricity in the work to keep my batteries charged during the false starts, tedious revisions, and backtracking away from dead ends to come up with a proper finish, I run down like a neglected wind-up toy. These short stories are attempts to tell the truth about my own desire, and they are written for people who understand what I need and value what I see. I would rather be a tribal storyteller than a self-conscious member of the literati or a leather missionary churning out tracts for a bunch of people who will never think of themselves as heathens. This book will be accused of being pornographic and thus misogynistic, a piece of hate literature. So let me say explicitly, at the risk of sounding foolish, that this is a valentine in its original form, a cunt held open by a woman’s trusting fingers. It is a visible act of love, written for any reader who is not a traitor to her own cunt. (It has something to do with hatred, too, but not what you assume.) It was meant to generate some of the hope that leather dykes need as much as they need raw courage to survive in a hostile world. I want more of us to make it to adulthood without being driven mad or driven normal or driving off a cliff. And I want more of us, period. So this book is also a recruitment poster, as flashy and fast and seductively intimidating as I could make it. You might not like the women in my stories, but all of them—tops and bottoms—are strong women. They are not completely autonomous human beings (even I can’t suspend disbelief to that extent), but they chafe under any restrictions. You won’t get any charity fucks out of them because they don’t feel sorry for you. Nor will they say something that will make you feel bad about yourself under the guise of upgrading your id and your politics. They are selfish bitches, but they know how to have a good time, and if you amuse them, they could show you a good time as well. They don’t want to save the whole world, but they know it’s essential to be able to save your own ass. These are women who get to be heroes, have adventures, kick up their heels and kick butt. Under the guise of keeping you entertained, Reader Mine, I wanted to get some social criticism flowing as well as some j/o grease. Why exactly is it that pornography (especially pornography about sexual minorities) is assumed to be either worthless trash or toxic waste?

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  We were literally changing the definition of what it meant to be women. We were experimenting with new social forms—triads, nonmonogamy, sex parties, fetishes, role-playing. There was nobody else to give us advice, tell us how to do that, or patch us up when we got hurt. As pioneers out on the black-leather-and-silver-studs edge, we did some wild things, and I don’t regret a single episode of excess or misguided experimentation. For some reason, it’s easier to remember the frustrating business meetings than it is to remember all the great sex, but the latter definitely occupied more of my time than the former. You can’t expect things to go smoothly when you gather a group of self-professed deviants and outlaws together, can you, now? Our tumultuous process wasn’t solely due to the shortcomings of 1970s lesbian morés and culture. I was no great shakes at group participation. I was a self-centered kid, sure that my way was always the grandest and most glorious, and I got stoned way too often to be a reliable witness at a traffic accident. It’s just sad to think that we’ll never have a reunion where we swap reminiscences or congratulate each other for surviving. When you have only a handful of people who understand your way of life, their support becomes so important that no forgiveness for betrayal is ever possible. Or so it would seem thus far. It took five years after the publication of Sapphistry [in 1980] for me to have the time and the guts to try again with another book. I hoped—prayed—that it would get a slightly less overblown reception. By now, there were groups organizing in several cities to oppose the anti-porn movement’s lunatic idea to pass laws that defined pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights. Sex-positive feminism was a reality, thanks to the efforts of many courageous women who thought censorship was not the answer to the subjugation of women. I had been writing short stories steadily over the years, sometimes to court a woman I had a crush on, or to examine a conundrum that amused me, or to be shocking. I wanted to be able to write about kinky sex for fun, without constantly stopping the action to talk about whether you could really do that. Goddess knows I’ve made a fetish out of being a sex educator, but enough, already! After the success of Coming to Power , Alyson Publications was willing to do another book in that newly-coined genre, so I typed it all up on my KayPro computer and sent it in on about a dozen eight-inch floppy discs. The book was enormously popular, and even though there were still some of the same stereotypically hysterical reviews, there were also some good ones. See, I told you. Activism works. Some people were always going to think that S/M was pathological, violent, fascist, racist, anti-feminist, done only by women who’d been brainwashed by the patriarchy, and, oh yes, the Spawn of Satan.