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 Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  Or tell him that you would like to put your lipstick on him and watch how fast he runs off in the other direction. In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self. But it is not enough for us to empower femaleness and femininity. We must also stop pretending that there are essential differences between women and men. This begins with the acknowledgment that there are exceptions to every gender rule and stereotype, and this simply stated fact disproves all gender theories that purport that female and male are mutually exclusive categories. We must move away from pretending that women and men are “opposite” sexes, because when we buy into that myth it establishes a dangerous precedent. For if men are big, then women must be small; and if men are strong then women must be weak. And if being butch is to make yourself rock-solid, then being femme becomes allowing yourself to be malleable; and if being a man means taking control of your own situation, then being a woman becomes living up to other people’s expectations. When we buy into the idea that female and male are “opposites,” it becomes impossible for us to empower women without either ridiculing men or pulling the rug out from under ourselves. It is only when we move away from the idea that there are “opposite” sexes, and let go of the culturally derived values that are assigned to expressions of femininity and masculinity, that we may finally approach gender equity. By challenging both oppositional and traditional sexism simultaneously, we can make the world safe for those of us who are queer, those of us who are feminine, and those of us who are female, thus empowering people of all sexualities and genders. PART 1 Trans/Gender Theory 1 Coming to Terms with Transgenderism and Transsexuality MOST NON-TRANS PEOPLE are unfamiliar with the words that we in the transgender community use to describe ourselves, our experiences, and our most pressing issues. Books and websites that discuss transgenderism and transsexuality often include some kind of glossary, where these terms are laid out and defined in a nice, orderly, alphabetical fashion. However, a potential problem with the glossary approach is that it gives the impression that all of these transgenderrelated words and phrases are somehow written in stone, indelibly passed down from generation to generation. This is most certainly not the case. Many of the terms used these days to describe transgender people did not exist a decade ago.

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

  But the incident was pure Rogers. If it was for the kids, it had to be right. With such exacting standards, one might think that Rogers would be difficult, an unreasonable autocrat, or at least deadly boring. But Fred Rogers wasn’t any of those things. Instead, he magically merged high standards with flexibility, responsibility with creativity. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he devoted himself to service, seamlessly combining rectitude with approachability and humility. Rogers’s mentor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, the chain-smoking Dr. William Orr, taught Rogers the principle of “guided drift”: staying the course of one’s principles while embracing the flow of life. Uphold your integrity but take chances. Be open to change and serendipity rather than being confined by a rigid set of rules. This philosophy showed up in the show and in life. During one taping, for instance, Rogers began as usual by swapping his blazer for a cardigan and buttoning it up, only to realize that he was one button off—the Monday button was in the Tuesday hole. Familiar with Rogers’s standards, the crew expected him to call, “Cut!” and start over, but instead he ad-libbed a line and re-buttoned the sweater, noting that mistakes happen and, moreover, they can be corrected. Another time, the script called for a shot of the fish in the set’s tank eating their food. A production assistant fed the fish during rehearsal in order to calibrate the camera and avoid glare on the tank, so when actual taping came around, the fish were full. They just stared at the food as it sank unceremoniously to the bottom of the tank. Everyone settled in for a long day, assuming they’d have to wait for the fish to get hungry again so the scene could be shot as scripted. But, recalled longtime producer Elizabeth Seamans, “Fred just looked at it. And he looked at the camera and said, ‘I guess the fish aren’t hungry right now; you know sometimes we’re not hungry.’” It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, and he trusted his young viewers to be accepting of the circumstances. The moment became a mantra for the crew: “Do the fish really need to eat?” It reminded them that rolling with the punches made for a better TV show than shoehorning fish—and by extension, life—into a preconceived script. Despite his flexibility with others, Rogers could be hard on himself. In 1979, after more than a decade on the air, Rogers rolled a piece of paper into his typewriter and tapped out his thoughts in a clickety-clack stream of consciousness: “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again? ... Why don’t I trust myself? ... AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, IT’S JUST AS BAD AS EVER. I wonder if every creative artist goes through the tortures of the damned trying to create? GET TO IT, FRED!” But what truly pushed Fred Rogers was something much deeper than self-castigation.

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

  But his attention to it changed. After his treadmill experiments, Jake built up the confidence to station himself near the cell phones—the most popular section of the store. Over the next few months, he doubled his commissions and earned a “Rising Star” sales award at the next all-team meeting. As he accepted his certificate, Jake blushed, but this time it was with pride. 13 “I Have to Sound Smart/Funny/Interesting”: How Perfectionism Holds Us Back Rosie stood in a circle of six other conference attendees, growing increasingly quiet as the talk volleyed back and forth above her head. As she picked absently at the name tag stuck to her shirt she thought of things she’d like to say, but by the time she worked it out in her head the topic had changed. She felt her resolve shrinking. When she had walked up and joined this circle, she had felt brave. But now she felt invisible. So far during the conference, Rosie hadn’t felt brave very often. She arrived at presentations just as they started and left as soon as they ended, feeling unable to face the small talk before and after. She worked on her own presentation during lunch breaks. It had been ready for days, but the fiddling made her feel like she was doing something productive while avoiding the lunchtime gatherings. At a networking session for fellow grad students, she approached a couple of groups but immediately felt overwhelmed and intimidated, eventually stealing away under the pretense of going to the bathroom, getting an urgent alert on her phone, or suddenly remembering she had to be somewhere. Worse, Rosie could feel everyone around her connecting—people hugged old colleagues and fell into easy conversation. She had come to present her graduate work and to network for her next position—maybe a postdoc, maybe an instructorship. She was acutely aware of how few positions there were in academia, so she told herself exactly how she wanted to come off to potential future colleagues: witty and charming, funny but also sensitive, competent and smart, but not overbearing or bossy. It was a tall order, and standing silently in the circle absently shredding her name tag, she felt utterly unable to rise to the occasion. “I remember actually thinking to myself, ‘I have no idea how to be a normal person,’” she said, remembering the conference. “I felt that awkward. I was convinced something was wrong with me.” Soon after the conference, Rosie came in for an appointment, asking me to put her through a social boot camp. “I never figured out how to be normal,” she said flatly.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  It is no longer enough for feminism to fight solely for the rights of those born female. That strategy has furthered the prospects of many women over the years, but now it bumps up against a glass ceiling that is partly of its own making. Though the movement worked hard to encourage women to enter previously male-dominated areas of life, many feminists have been ambivalent at best, and resistant at worst, to the idea of men expressing or exhibiting feminine traits and moving into certain traditionally female realms. And while we credit previous feminist movements for helping to create a society where most sensible people would agree with the statement “women and men are equals,” we lament the fact that we remain light-years away from being able to say that most people believe that femininity is masculinity’s equal. Instead of attempting to empower those born female by encouraging them to move further away from femininity, we should instead learn to empower femininity itself. We must stop dismissing it as “artificial” or as a “performance,” and instead recognize that certain aspects of femininity (and masculinity as well) transcend both socialization and biological sex—otherwise there would not be feminine boy and masculine girl children. We must challenge all who assume that feminine vulnerability is a sign of weakness. For when we do open ourselves up, whether it be by honestly communicating our thoughts and feelings or expressing our emotions, it is a daring act, one that takes more courage and inner strength than the alpha male facade of silence and stoicism. We must challenge all those who insist that women who act or dress in a feminine manner take on a submissive or passive posture. For many of us, dressing or acting feminine is something we do for ourselves, not for others. It is our way of reclaiming our own bodies and fearlessly expressing our own personalities and sexualities. It is not us who are guilty of trying to reduce our bodies to mere playthings, but rather those who foolishly assume that our feminine style is a signal that we sexually subjugate ourselves to men. In a world where masculinity is assumed to represent strength and power, those who are butch and boyish are able to contemplate their identities within the relative safety of those connotations. In contrast, those of us who are feminine are forced to define ourselves on our own terms and develop our own sense of self-worth. It takes guts, determination, and fearlessness for those of us who are feminine to lift ourselves up out of the inferior meanings that are constantly being projected onto us. If you require any evidence that femininity can be more fierce and dangerous than masculinity, all you need to do is ask the average man to hold your handbag or a bouquet of flowers for a minute, and watch how far away he holds it from his body.

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

  Again, counter to the myth of I have lousy social skills, we don’t need more skills, we just need less inhibition. But guess what? You already know what to do to lower your inhibition: Like the assertive study participants, play a role—give yourself a mission. Dare to be average. Fake it until you are it. And finally, drop your safety behaviors. Step away from the body spray. * * * Looking back, Derrick realized the new gym wasn’t full on opening day for the simple reason that businesses don’t get up to speed overnight. After a while, he also realized business success wasn’t just a cult of personality, as he had assumed. His father’s success wasn’t due only to his social skills. Instead, it was a combination of location, marketing, hard work, time, and luck. The problem wasn’t Derrick’s social skills at all. If anything held him back, it was his anxiety, which kept him from accessing his skills. A year or so after the empty opening, Derrick surveyed the no-longer-new gym one Saturday morning. The place was packed. Guys in long athletic shorts drubbed the punching bags. Two blond women, one with pink gloves, sparred nearby. A dozen people gathered in the central ring for the start of a fundamentals class. The kids’ class Derrick had started was under way. The kids’ program was Derrick’s pride and joy. “Shy kids learn confidence. Cocky kids learn to tone it down. There’s a wait list for this class.” Just then a prospective member walked up to the desk, and Derrick went over to greet him. Derrick didn’t try to be his father. He didn’t try to have someone else’s skills. He could be himself. As Derrick discovered, he already had it in him. 15 The Myth of Hope in a Bottle Many of us find another way to feel less awkward and less inhibited. Someone really did bottle it, and it really does make billions. It’s liquid courage, survival juice, awesome water. Indeed, for the socially anxious among us, alcohol has many names and, surprisingly, just as many functions. It’s not just a way to feel less inhibited (“Hey, whiskey says I can dance!”) or less awkward (“Must. Grip. Beer bottle. For dear life!”). While the science of the complex relationship between social anxiety and alcohol is still emerging, I’ve encountered at least four types of socially anxious drinkers. Let’s call the first the Pre-Gamer.

• From Bold Move

  Everyone is part of our family,” he tells me. Diego is proud of himself for explaining his rationale to me and has a smug smile on his face that almost says, “I am smarter than you.” David looks at me and says, “I told you: we are confusing him” . . . at which we both laugh. Although Diego’s logic would not make sense to a fully developed brain like yours, it turns out that his brain was functioning very well based on his developmental age. Let’s understand why, as this is at the core of our brain’s primary function: predictions. The Brain’s Primary Function Is Its Greatest Strength (and Weakness) As our brain develops, one of the core functions is to make predictions. 1 The brain uses two pieces of information to make predictions: 1) sensory information about what is happening around us and 2) our past experiences. Based on those two pieces of information, we guess what will happen next, and then adjust our behavior accordingly. To be able to predict quickly and efficiently, our brain’s processing system learns to create categories. 2 From an early age, we are constantly looking out at the world and forming categories of people, places, things, events, and so on. We sort through millions of pieces of new information every day and sort the data into these categories, and then use the categories to make our guesses of what will happen next. This is just what was happening to Diego when he believed that everyone in the world was part of our family. In Latin culture we have the custom of calling close friends uncles and aunts (tios and tias) regardless of whether they are biologically related to us or not. So, from Diego’s early years, we had introduced our close friends as aunts and uncles. I must confess, I often correct him if he calls someone by their first name alone. Think about this as the equivalent of adding Mr., Mrs., or Ms. in the US: it is a sign of respect—and in Latin cultures, also closeness. So, for Diego to be able to predict who is part of our family or not, he created a category that basically lumped all aunts and uncles together under “family.” By doing so, Diego’s brain can quickly discern who is in and who is out. Unfortunately in his case, I had inadvertently told him that everyone was in. Here is another example of the brain creating categories early on in life. One of the first animals Diego learned to identify was a dog. However, for Diego, “dog” was anything with four legs. Chairs, cows, and various farm animals were all “dogs” until Diego learned to sort information into more nuanced categories. Even as adults we use rudimentary categories to understand new information.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  His death changed my whole life, though I didn’t dream at the time it could have any effect upon me. One day I was in court arguing a case before Judge Bassett. Though I liked the man, he exasperated me that day by taking what I thought was a wrong view. I put my point in every light I could; but he wouldn’t come round and finally gave the case against me. When I had collected my papers and looked up, he was smiling: “I shall take this case to the Supreme Court at my own expense”, I explained bitterly, “and have your decision reversed.” “If you want to waste your time and money,” he remarked pleasantly, “I can’t hinder you.” I went out of the court and suddenly found Sommerfeld beside me: “You fought that case very well”, he said, “and you’ll win it in the Supreme Court, but you shouldn’t have told Bassett so, in his own—‘domain’”, I suggested, and he nodded. When we got to our floor and I turned towards my office, he said, “Won’t you come in and smoke a cigar, I’d like a talk—” Sommerfeld’s cigars were uniformly excellent and I followed him very willingly into his big, quiet office at the back that looked over some empty lots. I was not a bit curious; for a talk with Sommerfeld usually meant a rather silent smoke. This time, however, he had something to say and said it very abruptly: “Barker’s gone,” he remarked in the air, and then: “Why shouldn’t you come in here and take his place?” “As your partner?” I exclaimed. “Sure”, he replied, “I’ll make out the briefs in the cases as I did for Barker and you’ll argue them in court. For instance”, he added in his slow way, “there is a decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio that decides your case today almost in your words, and if you had cited it, you’d have convinced Bassett”, and he turned and read out the report. “The State of Ohio,” he went on, “is one of the four States, as you know, (I didn’t know it) that have adopted the New York Code—New York, Ohio, Kansas and California”—he proceeded, “the four States in a line across the continent; no one of these high courts will contradict the other. So you can be sure of your verdict—well, what do you say?” he concluded. “I shall be delighted,” I replied at once, “indeed I am proud to work with you: I could have wished no better fortune.” He held out his hand silently and the thing was settled. Sommerfeld smoked a while in silence and then remarked casually, “I used to give Barker a hundred dollars a week for his household expenses: will that suit you?” “Perfectly, perfectly”, I cried, “I only hope I shall earn it and justify your good opinion—” “You are a better advocate than Barker even now,” he said, “but you have one—drawback”—he hesitated.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  The haste of this narrative has many unforeseen drawbacks: it makes it appear as if I had had conquest after conquest and little or no difficulty in my efforts to win love. In reality my half dozen victories were spread out over nearly as many years, and time and again I met rebuffs and refusals quite sufficient to keep even my conceit in decent bounds. But I want to emphasize the fact that success in love, like success in every department of life, falls usually to the tough man unwearied in pursuit. Chaucer was right when he makes his Old Wyfe of Bath confess: And by a close attendance and attention Are we caught, more or less the truth to mention. It is not the handsomest man or the most virile who has most success with women, though both qualities smooth the way; but that man who pursues them most assiduously, flatters them most constantly and cleverly, and always insists on taking the girl’s “No” for consent, her reproofs for endearments and even a little crossness for a new charm. Above all, it is necessary to push forward after every refusal, for as soon as a girl refuses, she is apt to regret and may grant then what she expressly denied the moment before. Yet I could give dozens of instances where assiduity and flattery, love-looks and words were all ineffective, so much so that I should never say with Shakespeare: “he’s not a man who cannot win a woman.” I have generally found, too, that the easiest to win were the best worth winning for me, for women have finer senses for suitability in love than any man. Now for an example of one of my many failures which took place when I was still a student and had fair opportunity to succeed. It was a custom in the University for every professor to lecture for forty-five minutes, thus leaving each student fifteen minutes at least free to go back to his private class-room to prepare for the next lecture. All the students took turns to use these classrooms for their private pleasure. For example, from 11:45 to noon each day I was supposed to be working in the Junior Class-room and no student would interfere with me or molest me in any way. One day, a girl Fresher, Grace Weldon by name, the daughter of the owner of the biggest department store in Lawrence, came to Smith when Miss Stevens and I were with him, about the translation of a phrase or two in Xenophon. “Explain it to Miss Weldon, Frank!” said Smith and in a few moments I had made the passage clear to her. She thanked me prettily and I said, “If you ever want anything I can do, I’ll be happy to make it clear to you, Miss Weldon; I’m in the Junior class-room from 11:45 to noon always.”

• From Bold Move

  For many of us, our values exist like a painting inside a home: they are nice to look at and reflect upon, but they don’t play an active daily role. We sort of know our values (or at least have a gut feeling about what they could be), but we don’t actually refer to them often. When we ignore our values, we are back to the GPS life, whereby we let an external source (culture, society, friends, family) tell us how to move forward, all the while never really being clear on why we are doing what we’re doing—and that is how we all get lost. Common Values Achievement Adventure Ambition Authenticity Beauty Belonging Charisma Commitment Community Compassion Courage Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Dependability Directness Discipline Diversity Equality Excellence Fairness Faith Fame Family Financial freedom Forgiveness Friendship Frugality Generosity Gratitude Growth Health Honesty Humility Humor Impact Inclusiveness Individuality Justice Kindness Love Loyalty Open-mindedness Optimism Passion Patience Perseverance Playfulness Pragmatism Presence Productivity Recognition Risk-taking Security Self-expression Self-respect Simplicity Sustainability Teamwork Tradition Vulnerability Wealth Wisdom How I Lost My Way Early on in my career, I had a clear value by which I guided most of my actions, both personally and professionally: ambition. To me, ambition meant working hard to be successful, and I believed that by being ambitious I could prevent any chance of ever falling back into poverty. When you’re raised in such challenging conditions as I was, all you can think of is getting the hell out of that situation once and for all. It may not be the most spiritually enlightened stance, but depending on how far toward the bottom you’re starting out, money really can buy happiness. Even more than that, I realized that if I could make it professionally, I could eventually be in a position to support my family. So ambition drove me and was one of the main forces that got me all the way to the United States. Ambition is a legitimate value, and research shows that when we make moves in life that reflect our values, our feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression decrease. 4 And that is exactly what I experienced as a graduate student and in the early days of my academic career. I would actually get a high from doing the hard work, and the more ambitious I got, the better it felt. Though I’m not a runner, it probably wasn’t that dissimilar to the famous runner’s high that endurance runners are always going on about. From the perch of my ambition, I would set clear goals such as “get into a PhD program” or “work at the most prestigious department of psychiatry in the US,” and many others. So, in a very real sense, ambition kept me focused on my goals, and in those early days of my career this was not at all avoidance. I really was living in line with my values—at that time.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  She came half scared, half angry, on the defensive, I could see; so I spoke first, smiling: “Oh Rose”, I said, “Professor Smith has been telling me of your trouble: but you ought not to be angry: for you are so pretty that no wonder a man wants to kiss you: you must blame your lovely eyes and mouth”— Rose laughed outright: she had come expecting reproof and found sweet flattery. “There’s only one thing, Rose”, I went on: “the story would hurt Mrs. Kellogg if it got out and she’s not very strong, so you must say nothing about it, for her sake: that’s what Professor Smith wanted to say to you”, I added. “I’m not likely to tell”, cried Rose: “I’ll soon forget all about it: but I guess I’d better get another job: he’s liable to try again though I gave him a good hard slap”, and she laughed merrily. “I’m so glad for Mrs. Kellogg’s sake”, said Smith gravely, “and if I can help you to get another place, please call upon me.” “I guess I’ll have no difficulty”, said Rose flippantly with a shade of dislike of the Professor’s solemnity: “Mrs. Kellogg will give me a good character” and the healthy young minx grinned; “besides I’m not sure but I’ll go stay home a spell: I’m fed up with working and would like a holiday, and mother wants me—” “Where do you live, Rose?” I asked with a keen eye for future opportunities; “On the other side of the river”, she replied, “next door to Elder Conklin’s, where your brother boards—” she added smiling. When Rose went I begged Smith to pack his boxes for I would get him the best room at the Gregorys’ and I assured him it was really large and comfortable and would hold all his books, etc., and off I went to make my promise good. On the way I set myself to think how I could turn the kindness I was doing the Gregorys to the advantage of my love. I decided to make Kate a partner in the good deed, or at least a herald of the good news. So when I got home I rang the bell in my room and as I had hoped, Kate answered it. When I heard her footsteps I was shaking, hot with desire and now I wish to describe a feeling I then first began to notice in myself. I longed to take possession of the girl, so to speak, abruptly, ravish her in fact, or at least thrust both hands up her dress at once and feel her bottom and sex altogether; but already I knew enough to realise certainly that girls prefer gentle and courteous approaches: why? Of the fact I’m sure. So I said, “Come in, Kate!” gravely; “I want to ask you whether the best bedroom is still free and if you’d like Professor Smith to have it, if I could get him to come here?”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “Why?” he asked, “why!” I only just restrained myself in time or I’d have given him the true reason. “You’ll come much nearer winning the Scholarship”, he said at length, “than any of them guesses.” After the “Exams” came the athletic games, much more interesting than the beastly lessons. I won two first prizes and Jones four, but I gained fifteen “seconds”, a record, I believe, for according to my age I was still in the Lower School. I was fully aware of the secret of my success and strange to say, it did not increase but rather diminished my conceit. I won, not through natural advantages but by will-power and practice. I should have been much prouder had I succeeded through natural gifts. For instance, there was a boy named Reggie Miller, who at sixteen was five feet ten in height, while I was still under five feet: do what I would, he could jump higher than I could, though he only jumped up to his chin while I could jump the bar above my head. I believed that Reggie could easily practice and then outjump me still more. I had yet to learn in life that the resolved will to succeed was more than any natural advantage. But this lesson only came to me later. From the beginning I was taking the highway to success in everything by strengthening my will even more than my body. Thus, every handicap in natural deficiency turns out to be an advantage in life to the brave soul, whereas every natural gift is surely a handicap. Demosthenes had a difficulty in his speech, practising to overcome this, made him the greatest of orators. The last day came at length and at eleven o’clock all the school and a goodly company of guests and friends gathered in the schoolroom to hear the results of the examinations and especially the award of the scholarships. Though most of the boys were early at the great blackboard where the official figures were displayed, I didn’t even go near it till one little boy told me shyly: “You’re head of your Form and sure of your remove.” I found this to be true, but wasn’t even elated. A Cambridge professor, it appeared, had come down in person to announce the result of the “Math” Scholarship.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  No one in the hall seemed to understand this “obvious reform”; but the speech called forth a hurricane of cheers and I concluded that there were a great many students from the State University in the audience. I don’t know what possessed me but when Smith returned to his seat behind me between the two girls and they praised him to the skies, I got up and walked to the platform. I was greeted with a tempest of laughter and must have cut a ludicrous figure. I was in cowpuncher’s dress as modified by Reece and Dell: I wore loose Bedford cord breeches, knee-high brown boots and a sort of buckskin shirt and jacket combined that tucked into my breeches. But rains and sun had worked their will on the buckskin which had shrunk down my neck and up my arms. Spurred on by the laughter I went up the four steps to the platform and walked over to the Mayor who was Chairman: “May I speak?” I asked: “Sure”, he replied “your name?” “My name is Harris,” I answered and the Mayor manifestly regarding me as a great joke announced that a Mr. Harris wished to address the meeting and he hoped the audience would give him a fair hearing even if his doctrines happened to be peculiar. As I faced them, the spectators shrieked with laughter: the house fairly rocked. I waited a full minute and then began: “How like Americans and Democrats”, I said, “to judge a man by the clothes he wears and the amount of hair he has on his face or the dollars in his jeans.” There was instantaneous silence, the silence of surprise at least, and I went on to show what I had learned from Mill that open competition was the law of life, another name for the struggle for existence; that each country should concentrate its energies on producing the things it was best fitted to produce and trade these off against the products of other nations; this was the great economic law, the law of the territorial division of labor. “Americans should produce corn and wheat and meat for the world”, I said, and exchange these products for the cheapest English woolen goods and French silks and Irish linen. This would enrich the American farmer, develop all the waste American land and be a thousand times better for the whole country than taxing all consumers with high import duties to enrich a few Eastern manufacturers who were too inefficient to face the open competition of Europe. “The American farmers,” I went on, “should organize with the laborers, for their interests are identical and fight the Eastern manufacturer who is nothing but a parasite living on the brains and work of better men.”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “I guess Mr. Locker is all right”, I cried laughing; “I propose he should help us and take two or three hundred head as payment, or the value of them—” “Now you’re talking”, said Locker. “I call that sense. There is a herd of mine about a mile further on; if two or three hundred of your José steers join it, I can’t hinder ’em; but I’d rather have dollars; cash is scarce!” “Are they herded?” asked Bob. “Sure”, replied Locker. “I am too near the river to let any cattle run round loose though nobody has interfered with me in the last ten years.” Bob and I began moving the cattle on leaving Bent with Locker to conclude the negotiations. In an hour we had found Locker’s herd that must have numbered at least six thousand head and were guarded by three herdsmen. Locker and Bent had soon come to a working agreement. Locker it turned out had another herd some distance to the east from which he could draw three or four herdsmen. He had also a couple of boys, sons of his, whom he could send to rouse some of the neighboring farmers if the need was urgent. It turned out that we had done well to be generous to him for he knew the whole of the countryside like a book and was a good friend in our need. Late in the afternoon, Locker was informed by one of his sons, a youth of about sixteen, that twenty Mexicans had crossed the river and would be up to us in a short time. Locker sent him after the younger boy to round up as many Texans as possible but before they could be collected, a bunch of greasers, twenty or so, in number, rode up and demanded the return of the cattle. Bent and Locker put them off and as luck would have it, while they were arguing, three or four Texans came up, and one of them, a man of about forty years of age named Rossiter, took control of the whole dispute. He told the Mexican leader, who said he was Don Luis, a son of Don José, that if he stayed any longer he would probably be arrested and put in prison for raiding American territory and threatening people. The Mexican seemed to have a good deal of pluck, and declared that he would not only threaten but carry out his threat. Rossiter told him to wade right in. The loud talk began again, and a couple more Texans came up and the Mexican leader realizing that unless he did something at once he would be too late, started to circle round the cattle, no doubt thinking that if he did some thing his superior numbers would scare us.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  As winter drew down and the bitter frost came, outdoor work almost ceased. I read from morning till night and not only devoured Mill, but saw through the fallacy of his Wage-Fund theory. I knew from my own experience that the wages of labor depended primarily on the productivity of labor. I liked Mill for his humanitarian sympathies with the poor; but I realized clearly that he was a second-rate intelligence, just as I felt pretty sure that Carlyle was one of the Immortals. I took Carlyle in small doses, for I wanted to think for myself. After the first chapters I tried to put down first, chapter by chapter, what I thought or knew about the subject treated, and am still inclined to believe that that is a good way to read in order to estimate what the author has taught you. Carlyle was the first dominant influence in my life and one of the most important: I got more from him than from any other writer. His two or three books learned almost by heart, taught me that Dell’s knowledge was skimpy and superficial and I was soon Sir Oracle among the men on all deep subjects. For the medical books, too, turned out to be excellent and gave me almost the latest knowledge on all sex-matters. I was delighted to put all my knowledge at the disposal of the boys, or rather to show off to them how much I knew. That fall brought me to grief: early in October I was taken by ague; “chills and fever” as it was called. I suffered miseries and though Reece induced me to ride all the same and spend most of the daytime in the open, I lost weight till I learned that arsenic was a better specific even than quinine. Then I began to mend, but, off and on, every fall and spring afterwards, so long as I stayed in America, I had to take quinine and arsenic to ward off the debilitating attacks. I was very low indeed when we started down on the Trail; the Boss being determined, as he said, to bring up two herds that summer. Early in May he started north from near St. Anton’ with some five thousand head, leaving Reece, Dell, Bob, Peggy the cook, Bent, Charlie and myself to collect another herd. I never saw the Boss again; understood, however, from Reece’s cursing that he had got through safely, sold the cattle at a good price and made off with all the proceeds, though he owed Reece and Dell more than one-half. Charlie’s love-adventure that ended so badly didn’t quiet him for long. In our search for cheap cattle we had gone down nearly to the Rio Grande and there, in a little half-Mexican town, Charlie met his fate.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Next day I led Reece and the Boss straight to the farmer’s place, but to my surprise he told me that I had agreed to give him two dollars a head, whereas I had bargained with him for only one dollar. His son backed up the farmer’s statement and the Irish helper declared that he was sorry to disagree with me, but I was mistaken; it was two dollars I had said. They little knew the sort of men they had to deal with. “Where are the cattle?” Ford asked, and we went down to the pasture where they were penned. “Count them, Harris,” said Ford, and I counted six hundred and twenty head. Fifty odd had disappeared, but the farmer wanted to persuade me that I had counted wrongly. Ford went about and soon found a rough lean-to stable where there were thirty more head of Texan cattle. These were driven up and soon disappeared in the herd; Reece and I began to move the herd towards the entrance. The farmer declared he would not let us go, but Ford looked at him a little while and then said very quietly, “You have stolen enough cattle to pay you. If you bother with us, I will make meat of you—see!—cold meat”, and the farmer moved aside and kept quiet. That night we had a great feast and the day after Ford announced that he had sold the whole of the cattle to two hotel proprietors and got nearly as much money as if we had not lost a hoof. My five thousand dollars became six thousand, five hundred. The courage shown by the common people in the fire, the wild humor coupled with the consideration for the women, had won my heart. This is the greatest people in the world, I said to myself, and was proud to feel at one with them. * * * ON THE TRAIL! Chapter VIII. Prompted by Dell, before leaving Chicago I bought some books for the winter evenings, notably Mill’s “Political Economy”; Carlyle’s “Heroes and Hero Worship” and “Latter Day Pamphlets”; Col. Hay’s “Dialect Poems”, too and three medical books, and took them down with me to the ranch. We had six weeks of fine weather, during which I broke in horses under Reece’s supervision, and found out that gentleness and especially carrots and pieces of sugar were the direct way to the heart of the horse; discovered, too, that a horse’s bad temper and obstinacy were nearly always due to fear. A remark of Dell that a horse’s eye had a magnifying power and that the poor, timid creatures saw men as trees walking, gave me the clue and soon I was gratified by Reece saying that I could “gentle” horses as well as anyone on the ranch, excepting Bob.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Strangely enough, at that time the idea was generally accepted that a man or woman could only live three days without food. It was years before Dr. Tanner showed the world that a man could fast for forty days or more. Everyone I met acted as if he believed that if he were fully three days without food, he must die incontinently. I laughed at the idea which seemed to me absurd, but so strong was the universal opinion and the influence of the herd-sentiment, that on the third day I too felt particularly empty and thought I had better take my place in the bread line. There were perhaps five thousand in front of me and there were soon fifty or sixty thousand behind me. We were five deep moving to the depot where the bread trains were discharging, one after the other. When I got pretty close to the food wagons, I noticed that the food supply was coming to an end, and next moment I noticed something else. Again and again women and girls came into our bread line and walked through the lines of waiting men, who, mark you, really believed they were going to die that night if they could not get food, but instead of objecting they one and all made way for the women and girls and encouraged them: “Go right on, Madam, take all you want:” “This way, Missee, you won’t be able to carry much, I’m afraid”;—proof on proof, it seemed to me, of courage, good humor and high self-abnegation. I went into that bread line an Irish boy and came out of it a proud American, but I did not get any bread that night or the next. In fact, my first meal was made when I ran across Reece on the Friday or Saturday after: Reece, as usual, had fallen on his feet and found a hotel where they had provisions—though at famine prices. He insisted that I should come with him and soon got me my first meal. In return, I told him and Ford of the cattle I had saved. They were, of course, delighted and determined next day to come out and retrieve them. “One thing is certain,” said Ford, “six hundred head of cattle are worth as much today in Chicago as fifteen hundred head were worth before the fire, so we hain’t lost much.”

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  17 As for this self-mastery as a moral precondition for leading others, Nicocles starts out by proving that he has it: unlike so many tyrants, he has not used his power to possess himself of other men’s wives and children by force; he has been mindful of how attached men are to their spouses and their progeny and of how often political crises and revolutions originated in abuses of this nature; 18 * he has therefore taken the greatest care to avoid such reproaches: no one can charge him with having had physical relations “with any person other than his wife” from the time he took the supreme office. 20 Nicocles has more positive reasons for being moderate, however. First, he wants to be an example to his fellow citizens; doubtless this does not mean that he expects the inhabitants of his country to practice the same sexual faithfulness as he; it is unlikely that he intends to make a general rule of it; the strictness of his morals should be understood as a general invitation to be virtuous and as a model standing against the laxity that is always harmful to the state. 21 This principle of a rough analogy between the morals of the prince and those of the people was alluded to in the address to Nicocles: “Let your own self-control [ sōphrosynē ] stand as an example to the rest, realizing that the manners [ ēthos ] of the whole state are copied from its rulers. Let it be a sign to you that you rule wisely if you see all your subjects growing more prosperous and more temperate [ euporōterous kai sōphronesterous gignomenous ] because of your oversight [ epimeleia ].” 22 But Nicocles would not be content merely to make the majority behave like him; at the same time, and without there being a contradiction, he wants to be distinguished from others, from the elite and even from those who are the most virtuous. What we are dealing with, therefore, is the moral formula of example (to be a model for everyone by being better than the best) combined with the political formula of competition for personal power in an aristocracy and the principle of a stable basis for wise and moderate tyranny (to be, in the eyes of the people, better endowed with virtue than the most virtuous): “I saw that while the majority of people are masters of themselves in other matters, even the best are slaves to the passions whose objects are boys and women; and therefore I wanted to show that I could be strong in those things in which I should be superior, not merely to people in general, but even to those who pride themselves on their virtue.” 23 But it is essential to understand that this virtue that functions as an example and a sign of superiority does not owe its political value simply to the fact that it is an honorable behavior in everyone’s eyes.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  Nicocles will therefore dwell at some length on the qualities he sees himself as having: first, the justice— dikaiosynē —he has manifested in financial affairs, in matters of penal jurisdiction, and in the good relations he has established or reestablished with the foreign powers; 13 next, his sōphrosynē , his moderation, which he speaks of as if it were nothing but the control of sexual pleasures. And he explains the forms and reasons of this moderation in direct connection with the sovereign authority he exercises in his country. The last consideration he invokes concerns his lineage and the necessity of a bastardless race that can claim the distinction of a noble birth and the continuity of a genealogy that can be traced all the way back to the gods: “Nor was I of the same mind as most kings in regard to the begetting of children. I did not think I should have some children by a woman of humbler station and others by one of higher degree, nor that I should leave after me bastard progeny, as well as progeny of legitimate birth; but that all my children should be able to trace their lineage back through the same father and the same mother to Evagoras, my father, among mortals, to the Aeacides among the demigods, and to Zeus among the gods, and that not one of the children sprung from my loins should be cheated of this noble origin.”

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  But it was a lesson given emphasis in some philosophical currents such as late Stoicism; it was also a conduct that was valued as a manifestation of virtue, inner strength, and self-mastery. Thus, the younger Cato was praised because, up to the age at which he decided to marry, he still had not had relations with any woman; or better yet, there was Laelius: “in the course of his long life, he knew but one woman, the wife of his youth.” 5 One can go back even further in the definition of this model of mutual conjugal fidelity. Nicocles, in the speech attributed to him by Isocrates, shows the moral and political importance he accorded to the achievement of not “having approached any woman but my own wife” from the time of his marriage. 6 And in his ideal city, Aristotle would have sexual relations of a husband with another woman, or the wife with another man, considered “dishonorable … in any circumstances whatsoever.” 7 The sexual “fidelity” of a husband with respect to his legitimate wife was not required either by law or by custom; it was nevertheless a question that people raised and a form of austerity on which some moralists set a high value. 3. An image . In nineteenth-century texts there is a stereotypical portrait of the homosexual or invert: not only his mannerisms, his bearing, the way he gets dolled up, his coquetry, but also his facial expressions, his anatomy, the feminine morphology of his whole body, are regularly included in this disparaging description. The image alludes both to the theme of role reversal and to the principle of a natural stigma attached to this offense against nature. It was as if “nature herself had become an accessory to sexual mendacity.” 8 One could doubtless trace the long history of this image (to which actual behaviors may have corresponded, through a complex play of inductions and attitudes of defiance). In the deeply negative intensity of this stereotype, one might read the age-old difficulty, for our societies, of integrating these two phenomena—different phenomena at that—of the inversion of sexual roles and intercourse between individuals of the same sex. Now this image, with the repulsive aura that surrounds it, has come down through the centuries. It was already clearly delineated in the Greco-Roman literature of the imperial age. One encounters it in the portrait of the Effeminatus drawn by the author of an anonymous treatise on physiognomy of the fourth century; in the description of the priests of Atargatis, whom Apuleius makes fun of in The Golden Ass; in the symbolization that Dio Chrysostom offers for the daimōn of immoderation in one of his lectures on monarchy; in the fleeting evocation of the petty orators, with their perfume and their curls, whom Epictetus calls on at the back of his class, asking them if they are men or women.

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

  A sculptor carved the figure, endowing the stone with all her sōphrosynē .… Regilla: the Council, as if to call you ‘Tychē’ has erected this marble image in front of the sanctuary.” Ordinary women may not have hoped to merge with the divine in the way that an imperial scion like Regilla could, but in the monuments and images that surrounded them they saw memorialized the sublime value of feminine chastity, as an ideal somewhere between a moral attribute and an endowment of fate. Regilla embodied, in a superlative form, the hopes, values, and sufferings out of which Roman women could make their lives. 58 From Shame to Sin MODERATION: THE SEXUAL LIFE COURSE FOR MEN The ancient novels have been hailed as messengers of a new erotic sensibility focused on “sexual symmetry.” No literary genre had so valorized the mutual devotion and shared attraction between two young lovers, nearly equal in age, whose love triumphs in marriage. But symmetry of passion did not mean equality of experience, and Achilles Tatius exploits the distinction with his usual sardonic enthusiasm. When Leucippe reemerged after her apparent beheading to find her lover engaged to Melite, she furtively sent him a letter, scolding him in the most pathetic terms. Pierced by her accusations, Clitophon defends his sexual comportment as impeccable. “You will find that I have mimicked your maidenhood, if there is also a maidenhood for men.” This precious claim preceded the “cure” that Clitophon offered Melite, but the reader remembers that Clitophon has already delivered a well-informed paean to the female orgasm. At the end of the novel, when recounting his adventures, Clitophon would omit details of the favor he performed for Melite, while to Leucippe’s father he would boast, “Throughout our exile we have behaved like philosophers … If men have a maidenhead, I have kept it with Leucippe up to the present.” With an artful turn of phrase, and a whole culture’s indifference toward male chastity, Clitophon could stare past his inconsequential sexual dalliances into the exalted light of his love for Leucippe. 59 There was no natural word for male virginity in Greek or Latin. Parthenia meant “maidenhead,” and the ordinary sense of parthenos was “maiden.” The continent men of the incipient Christian movement searched, awkwardly, for an expression adequate to their unusual ideal. On rare occasions authors would simply appropriate the language of maidenhood for men: the canonical Revelation, for example, or Joseph and Aseneth, in which both protagonists are called parthenos. Virgo, too, primarily meant “maiden” or “young, unmarried girl,” though it would later be adapted by Christians and applied to males.