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.

Page 154 of 174 · 20 per page

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  It looks askance at figurative language, which, so long as its symbols and metaphors are vital, can open—promiscuously in the eyes of the strict literalist—the world and its imaginative possibilities. For his part, Dan scoffs at this sort of pointy-headed exegesis. “I was just on a quest,” he insists. “A quest to find the truth.” After seeking guidance through prayer and receiving confirmation that he was acting in accordance with the Lord’s wishes, Dan sent his driver’s license back to the state of Utah, revoked his marriage license, and returned his Social Security card. He ignored posted speed limits, which he believed were illegal, and simply drove “wisely and carefully” instead. And he quit paying taxes of any kind—including the sales tax when he shopped in local stores, which provoked frequent confrontations with cashiers. Energized by the self-evident righteousness of his crusade, in the summer of 1982 Dan declared himself a candidate for sheriff of Utah County and embarked on a lively political campaign, speaking at public forums, writing letters to the Provo newspaper, doing radio interviews, and riding in small-town parades. He promised, if elected, to enforce the laws according to a scrupulously literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. As he explained, “My motive in running was to restore the primacy of Common Law juries, and to restore the fundamentals of the Constitution.” On October 4, 1982, Dan was driving home after meeting with another candidate for sheriff (the American Fork police chief, with whom Dan had hoped to engage in a public debate), when he was stopped on Interstate 15 by a Utah state trooper for speeding and not having a vehicle inspection sticker. “I had already had some confrontations with the officer who pulled me over,” Dan allows. “He knew I would be driving home from this debate meeting, and he had set a trap for me. They wanted to get a felony against me so I couldn’t run for office, and they swarmed me on the freeway. I had just published an important article in the paper—a very important article—which had really unnerved a lot of people, about how the powers of government were being improperly used through improper warrants of arrest—how it was unconstitutional to stop a person on the freeway and arrest them. “When the officer pulled me over, he told me he had read my article—‘I’ve got it right here in my car,’ he said. So I told him, ‘Well, if you’ve read the article, you understand why you can’t arrest me right now.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Groesbeck’s assessment, on March 13 the still small voice of the Lord spoke to Ron once again, revealing, And the thing that ye have thought concerning the One Mighty and Strong is correct, for have I not said that in these the last days I will reveal all things unto the children of men? For was not Moses the One Mighty and Strong, and was not Jesus the One Mighty and Strong, and was not My servant Onias the One Mighty and Strong, and art thou not One Mighty and Strong, and will I not yet call others Mighty and Strong to set in order My church and My kingdom? For it was never meant that there should be only one One Mighty and Strong, for there are many, and they who have thought otherwise have erred. In Dr. Groesbeck’s learned opinion, this revelation was a delusional artifact, as were all Ron’s revelations, spawned by depression and his deeply entrenched narcissism, with no basis whatsoever in reality. Which is, of course, what nonbelievers typically say about people who have religious visions and revelations: that they’re crazy. The devout individuals on the receiving end of such visions, however, generally beg to differ, and Ron is one of them. Ron knows that the commandments he’d received were no mere figment of his imagination. The Lord spoke to him. And he wasn’t about to believe the words of some faithless, pencil-neck shrink over the voice of the Almighty. That, after all, would really be crazy. Before actually carrying out the murders of Brenda and Erica Lafferty, Ron hadn’t done anything that was terribly outlandish, or unique, according to the cultural norms of Utah County. Ron’s revelations can be viewed, in one sense, simply as a time-honored response to a major life crisis—a response exhibited by many a religious fanatic before him. In Feet of Clay, a study of self-proclaimed prophets, English psychiatrist Anthony Storr points out that such gurus often receive momentous revelations and profound insights immediately following a period of mental distress or physical illness, in which the guru has been fruitlessly searching for an answer to his own emotional problems. This change is likely to take place in the subject’s thirties or forties, and may warrant the diagnosis of mid-life crisis. Sometimes the revelatory answer comes gradually; at other times, a new insight strikes like a thunderbolt. . . . The distress of chaos followed by the establishment of a new order is a typical course of events which takes place in all creative activity, whether in the arts or the sciences. This Eureka pattern is also characteristic of religious revelation and the delusional systems of people we label insane. * Prompted by Onias’s instruction, throughout February and March Ron received approximately twenty revelations.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  He dug a bunch of irrigation ditches that drained water out of the Colorado River to grow lettuce and grapes and broccoli right there in the middle of all the cactus and sagebrush. Dad got disgusted every time we drove past one of those farm fields with their irrigation ditches wide as moats. “It’s a goddamn perversion of nature,” he’d say. “If you want to live in the farmland, haul your sorry hide off to Pennsylvania. If you want to live in the desert, eat prickly pears, not iceberg pansy-assed lettuce.” “That’s right,” Mom would say. “Prickly pears have more vitamins anyway.” Living in a big city like Blythe meant I had to wear shoes. It also meant I had to go to school. School wasn’t so bad. I was in the first grade, and my teacher, Miss Cook, always chose me to read aloud when the principal came into the classroom. The other students didn’t like me very much because I was so tall and pale and skinny and always raised my hand too fast and waved it frantically in the air whenever Miss Cook asked a question. A few days after I started school, four Mexican girls followed me home and jumped me in an alleyway near the LBJ Apartments. They beat me up pretty bad, pulling my hair and tearing my clothes and calling me a teacher’s pet and a matchstick. I came home that night with scraped knees and elbows and a busted lip. “Looks to me like you got in a fight,” Dad said. He was sitting at the table, taking apart an old alarm clock with Brian. “Just a little dustup,” I said. That was the word Dad always used after he’d been in a fight. “How many were there?” “Six,” I lied. “Is that split lip okay?” he asked. “This lil’ ol’ scratch?” I asked. “You should have seen what I did to them.” “That’s my girl!” Dad said and went back to the clock, but Brian kept looking over at me. The next day when I got to the alley, the Mexican girls were waiting for me. Before they could attack, Brian jumped out from behind a clump of sagebrush, waving a yucca branch. Brian was shorter than me and just as skinny, with freckles across his nose and sandy red hair that fell into his eyes. He wore my hand-me-down pants, which I had inherited from Lori and then passed on to him, and they were always sliding off his bony behind. “Just back off now, and everyone can walk away with all their limbs still attached,” Brian said. It was another one of Dad’s lines. The Mexican girls stared at him before bursting into laughter. Then they surrounded him. Brian did fairly well fending them off until the yucca branch broke. Then he disappeared beneath a flurry of swinging fists and kicking feet.

• From Action (2014)

  • Don’t feel like you need to “identify,” but feel free to check out places where people do. I’ve never identified as a “polyamorous person” or involved myself in communities based on a shared rejection of monogamy—I don’t like to assign names to anything about my love life, period—but if I had to pick a descriptor for my situation, “non-monogamous” probably fits best. I’m just not that into the identity-based language I’ve seen used by other non-monoggos (ooh, I’m kind of into this newfound term after typing it just now—it sounds like something the Flintstones would eat). This is not to disparage “polyamorous” or what have you communities—I understand that the big city where I live, and my friends in it, afford me the comfort of knowing others who happen to also be non-monoggo (sticking with this prehistoric delicacy), and that giving a name to any non-mainstream thing you do can help you find others who are into it wherever you are. Polyamory, which most often refers to having more than one long-term partner at a time, mostly isn’t what I do—but continued blessings to anyone who chooses that. To say I was in an “open relationship” also feels like a misnomer, because, although I’m talking about it publicly here in the service of this book, for the most part, my bond with Wes was private—we were in love, and our particular love was occupied by only the two of us. We kept our extracurricular sex casual—it never impacted the inside jokes he and I made about our stupid-looking cat, or the way we confided in each other about the stuff we were scared of as kids, or how we always seemed to want to do the same things at the same time (narrowing our eyes at crosswords at the diner, playing Boggle, performing impromptu Roy Orbison duets—everything) without talking about it first. In writing this, I also briefly imagined how hilariously inappropriate it would be if I called myself a SWINGER, a word that makes me feel kind of like someone’s aggressively mystical aunt who dresses exclusively in clothing that could be characterized as “flowing,” or like the boastful, hot tub–dwelling LOVERS from Saturday Night Live who force stories of their earthy, open lovemaking onto everyone they meet. You’re just not ever gonna catch me waxing poetic in some mineral spring about the fact that I sleep around because I think I’m a more spiritually—and oh-so-sensually—enlightened being than everyone else! My life is totally quotidian ’n’ normal to me, and I don’t need to make a show of this part of it or ask for permission to have it feel valid/okay that I adore being a total Runaround Sue. For me, it’s all very “I woke up like this (in someone else’s bed).”

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Nephi at first resists the commandment: “I said in my heart, never at any time have I shed the blood of man, and I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.” But then God speaks to Nephi again: “Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth His righteous purposes: It is better that one man should perish, than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.” Thus reassured, Nephi says in The Book of Mormon, “I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.” * Thanks to a revelation Ron had received back on February 28, the story of Nephi slaying Laban was imbued with special significance for Dan. In this revelation, God had commanded: Thus saith the Lord unto My servant Dan. . . . Thou art like unto Nephi of old for never since the beginning of time have I had a more obedient son. And for this I will greatly bless thee and multiply thy seed, for have I not said if ye do what I say I am bound[?] Continue in My word for I have great responsibility and great blessings in store for thee. That is all for now. Even so Amen. This revelation had a tremendous impact on Dan: after God had declared that he was like Nephi, according to Mark Lafferty, Dan “was willing to do anything that the Lord commanded him.” In the fundamentalist worldview, a sharp dividing line runs through all of creation, demarcating good from evil, and everybody falls on one side of that line or the other. After much praying, Ron and Dan decided that the four individuals God had commanded them to remove must, a priori, be wicked—they were “children of perdition,” as Dan phrased it—and therefore deserved to be murdered. Having determined that the so-called removal revelation was true and valid, the Lafferty brothers further concluded that “it would be wise to act on the things it suggested.” Whenever a member of the School of the Prophets received a revelation, it was standard procedure for the commandment to be presented to the other members for evaluation. On March 22, just before the school’s weekly meeting at Claudine Lafferty’s home, Ron took Bernard Brady into a side room and handed him the removal revelation. “He asked me to look it over,” says Brady, “and then he left the room. As I read it, my hands began to shake. I got cold all over. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.” When Ron returned a few minutes later, Brady told him, “This scares me to death. I don’t want to have anything to do with anything like that. I think it is wrong.” When the meeting commenced a few minutes later, neither Ron nor Brady said anything to the other members about the revelation.

• From The Girls (2016)

  Her daughter, who had always been good, even if that was more disappointing than being great. I’m surprised that I felt so little guilt. On the contrary—there was something righteous in the way I hoarded my mother’s money. I was picking up some of the ranch bravado, the certainty that I could take what I wanted. The knowledge of the hidden bills allowed me to smile at my mother the next morning, to act like we hadn’t said the things we’d said the night before. To stand patiently when she brushed at my bangs without warning. “Don’t hide your eyes,” my mother said, her breath close and hot, her fingers raking at my hair. I wanted to shake her off, to step back, but I didn’t. “There,” she said, pleased. “There’s my sweet daughter.” —I was thinking of the money while I kicked in the pool, my shoulders above the waterline. There was a purity to the task, amassing the bills in my little zip purse. When I was alone, I liked to count the money, each new five or ten a particular boon. I folded the crisper bills on top, so the bundle looked nicer. Imagining Suzanne’s and Russell’s pleasure when I brought the money to them, lulled into the sweet wayward fog of daydreams. My eyes were closed as I floated, and I only opened them when I heard thrashing beyond the tree line. A deer, maybe. I tensed, stirring uneasily in the water. I didn’t think that it could be a person: we didn’t worry about those kinds of things. Not until later. And it was a dalmatian anyway, the creature that came trotting out of the trees and right up to the pool’s edge. He regarded me soberly, then started to bark. The dog was strange looking, speckled and spotted, and it barked with high, human alarm. I knew it belonged to the neighbors on our left, the Dutton family. The father had written some movie theme song, and at parties I had heard the mother hum it, mockingly, to a gathered group. Their son was younger than me—he often shot his BB gun in the yard, the dog yelping in agitated chorus. I couldn’t remember the dog’s name. “Get,” I said, splashing halfheartedly. I didn’t want to have to haul myself out of the water. “Go on.” The dog kept barking. “Go,” I tried again, but the dog just barked louder. —My cutoffs were damp from my swimsuit by the time I made it to the Dutton house. I’d put on my cork sandals, grimed with the ghost of my feet, and taken the dog by the collar, the ends of my hair dripping. Teddy Dutton answered the door. He was eleven or twelve, his legs studded with scabs and scrapes. He’d broken his arm last year falling from a tree, and my mother had been the one to drive him to the hospital: she’d muttered darkly that his parents left him alone too much.

• From The Vagina Monologues (1998)

  I call it cunt. I've reclaimed it, "cunt." I really like it. "Cunt." Listen to it. "Cunt." C C, Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come — closed c — closed inside, inside ca — then u — then cu — then curvy, inviting sharkskin u — uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u — then n then cun — snug letters fitting perfectly together — n — nest, now, nexus, nice, nice, always depth, always round in uppercase, cun, cun — n a jagged wicked electrical pulse — n [high-pitched noise] then soft n — warm n — cun, cun, then t — then sharp certain tangy t — texture, take, tent, tight, tantalizing, tensing, taste, tendrils, time, tactile, tell me, tell me "Cunt cunt," say it, tell me "Cunt." "Cunt."

• From The Vagina Monologues (1998)

  "What's special about your vagina?" "Somewhere deep inside it I know it has a really really smart brain." "What does your vagina smell like?" "Snowflakes." "What does your vagina remind you of?" "A pretty dark peach. Or a diamond I found from a treasure and it's mine."

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Part of him was desperately eager to please his superiors, while another part raged inwardly against anyone who held power over him. Every now and then Ron felt compelled to let his keepers know that they didn’t own him. In those days, missionaries were required to wear hats. According to Dr. Wootton, who is Mormon, Ron “refused to wear a hat. In the summertime when it was hot and muggy in Florida, as it is, they were supposed to wear coats. He wouldn’t wear a coat. He made a statement at one time that he ‘wasn’t down there to make a fashion statement.’ He ‘was down there to convert people and fulfill a mission.’ ” Every morning Ron would roll out of bed at 6:00 A .M ., don black slacks, a crisply pressed white shirt, and an ugly clip-on tie, and then study scripture for two or three hours before hitting the streets to troll for prospective converts. Like all LDS missionaries, to accomplish the latter he had to endure insults, threats of physical violence, flying spit, and callous rejection; typically he would have a door slammed in his face forty or fifty times a day. Ron, however, turned out to be astonishingly good at this line of work. Nothing fazed him. The incessant rain of ridicule and dismissal glanced off him as though he had a Teflon hide. Ron knew the LDS Church was God’s One True Church, and he was determined to share this glorious fact with as many people as he could. Typically, an especially dedicated missionary might convert no more than three or four people a year—and feel justly satisfied for this accomplishment. * Ron, in marked contrast, had baptized more than fifty people into the LDS Church by the time his two-year mission was over. While saving souls in Florida, Ron met a sweet young nursing student, fell in love, and married her at the conclusion of his mission. He then took his new wife, Dianna, to Utah, so they could live near his parents and siblings. Ron landed a good job operating heavy equipment for a construction company owned by a fellow Mormon, and settled down to raise a family of faithful Saints. Comfortably reestablished in Utah County, Ron functioned as the emotional anchor for the greater Lafferty clan. His younger brothers and sisters had looked up to him for counseling and emotional support since they were small children; he had tended to be the one who mediated family disagreements. One of Ron’s siblings affectionately characterized him as “a mother-hen type,” and he relished the role. For the two decades after he returned from his mission, he made certain he was available whenever his mother or his brothers and sisters needed him. By mid-1982 it was apparent to Dianna that several of Ron’s siblings were in acute need of some brotherly guidance.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  She was careful not to let the clay drop onto her chenille robe, as warm and comfy as a childhood blanky. Her suitcase sat open on her bed, a pale-pink cardigan sweater with pearl buttons thrown on top. Her family was going to celebrate Christmas tonight, ten days early, because she was leaving tomorrow morning, on her way to Miami to dance at the Vagabond Club on Biscayne Boulevard. She’d just appeared at Café Society in New York, though she was still waiting for her check on that one. All in all, not bad for a local girl. Her gifts for her mother and father were wrapped. She just needed to tie them with ribbon. For her mother, the same pink cardigan with pearl buttons as the one in her suitcase but in a larger size. Her mother loved wearing the same things as Ruby, something about being a twin, Ruby thought. When she was little her mother made them mother-daughter dresses. But the day she’d turned ten Ruby had balked. “I’m not your twin!” “I know that, Ruby. You’re my daughter.” “I don’t want to wear the same clothes as you.” “Well, if that’s the way you feel, you don’t have to.” “You and Aunt Emmy can wear the same clothes. You’re twins.” “Yes, we are. But we’re grown-up twins now and we only wear the same clothes if we’re going to a family party.” Even that struck Ruby as strange, but as long as she didn’t have to wear matching dresses anymore, she was satisfied. Funny, because now that she’d grown up herself, she didn’t mind, from time to time, buying two of something, since her mother’s life was difficult and it gave her so much pleasure. For her father, she’d found a large magnifying glass in a leather case. Her father was confined to a wheelchair since his foot was amputated in August, a complication of diabetes. Now, with his failing eyesight, another complication, her mother had had to quit her job to stay at home and take care of him. These days Ruby was their sole support. Not that she brought in much, even when she had a steady job, but she was sure that was about to change. She felt a twinge of guilt for leaving her parents over the holidays but she had a career to think about. Her aunt was coming from New Jersey, from Elizabeth, where she and her mother had grown up singing in the church choir. The singing Konecki twins. Emmy and Wendy. At least she wouldn’t be leaving her parents completely alone. Her mother and father could argue about anything and everything and having Aunt Emmy in the house would help. Her father liked Emmy. He called her the reasonable twin, which sometimes infuriated her mother and other times made her laugh. From downstairs she heard her mother call, “Ruby…do you need me to iron your white blouse?” “Thanks, Mom, but I’ll do it later.

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  If you want a dildo you can wear as a cock, check out these models: • Want a realistic feel? Cyberskin now comes in several models—the basic realistic dildo, a vibrating version, and a stretchy sleeve you can pull over any dildo or cylindrical vibe. • Want a realistic look? Realistic dildos feature detailed glans, veins, and balls. You can emulate Jeff Stryker with a dildo modeled after the porn star himself. Or try the Johnny—7½ inches long and almost 2 inches in diameter. Why would a lesbian buy a dildo with balls? Aside from the realistic look and feel, the balls provide extra stimulation for the receptive partner—when thrusting in a rear-entry position, they slap against her vulva. • Do you pack? You’ll find packing dildos to create a realistic bulge in your pants in silicone and Cyberskin. Some are intended for penetration as well. Many Cyberskin dildos bend easily enough to tuck into your briefs. You’ll find a variety of dildos made from soft “fleshy” material—comfortable enough to wear under clothing, plus you won’t look like you’ve got a baseball bat in your pants. Aslan Leather sells what might be the most realistic soft cock you’ll ever find. Mr. Right is made from silicone with detailed balls and lifelike shaft and head. They also sell a packing strap (fits up to 50-inch hip size) to go with it. Packing somehow completes me. It makes me feel real. Do You Want to Explore BDSM?You’ll find discussion of a number of BDSM toys and devices in chapter 15, Play Nice! (…or Else). Make sure your toys are well made and come from reputable sources. Many makers of whips and other S/M toys are truly artisans; their passion for the erotic exchange of power translates into their products. Some of the mail-order and retail outlets listed in the resources section have fabulous websites with photos of toys (and gorgeous models). Others offer print catalogs. Blowfish, JT’s Stockroom, Extreme Restraints, and Purple Passion, among others, carry a full line of bondage and S/M toys. Some websites offer helpful information on toy care and safety as well. Sex and Disability: Toy Accessibility “Toys are imperfect,” write the authors of The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability, “and the best approach to take is that you can make them your own, sometimes by the things you do with them, sometimes by the things you do to them.” Here’s their advice: Make your sex toys your own—be inventive in adapting and playing with your toys. If you want help adapting your toys, consult an occupational therapist. Although some occupational therapists may not share your sexual politics (and may even blush at your request to build up the handle on your vibrator), they do have the training and materials to help you make your sex toys more functional.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  Almost all these groups advocate decriminalization of prostitution rather than any legislated controls or regulation, including government-controlled brothels and zones such as are found in Germany. Decriminalization of prostitution—meaning no laws of any kind prohibiting the exchange of sex between adults for money or goods—paves the way for real unions, unions that can make contracts, engage in collective bargaining, in training and education, unions that can go on strike. Decriminalization puts the power of prostitution in prostitutes’ hands. All these labor organizations are concerned with and actively work against forced prostitution and any sexual exploitation of young, poor, or addicted women and men. This particular liberation movement has several sectors of agreement and disagreement, but it sees itself as feminist at heart. It must be feminist, it seems to me, can’t be anything but feminist, to support the right of women to control the use of their bodies. Work for prostitutes’ rights is at one with work against poverty, lack of education, addiction, sexual inequality, and every other condition that limits the freedom of men and women both to choose for themselves. Sex and sex shows are versions of identity, ways of seeing and being seen, part of the long human history of performance. Being seen is an important and perhaps integral part of sexual intimacy, it’s what we fear the most and what we want the most from sex. Often in sex we fake “showing” ourselves, as a smoke screen to hide our real selves. Sex performances are a metaphor for sex between any two people who are emotionally entangled and trying to reveal themselves; sex shows make sex look easy. When I first went to a sex show, I took Don and Jeannie both; no way was I going alone. The air was cold and fog-damp on the sidewalk, under the flickering lights; the foyer seemed warm and welcoming. I paid the staggering cover charge, counting out several twenty-dollar bills one by one; when I asked for a receipt, the tuxedoed bouncer near the door threw back his head and laughed, and then gave me one.

• From My Secret Garden (1973)

  What was significant for me was the overcoming of the stereotype “occidental basic position.” I find my pleasure by climbing on top of the guy. I stick his penis in my cunt and I ride him like a horse. Then I squeeze my thighs (his penis is still inside me). His legs are spread—I have the feeling that I am a boy making a passive girl, the feeling that I have literally a phallus that is penetrating a cunt. That is a kind of revenge that I take after years of docileness. When I reach the orgasm, I feel my penis which ejaculates.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Laugh all you want, but I spent a lot of energy deciding what I was going to wear. See, **Daddy likes his boy to be a cute little leather punk.** I always wear my combat boots with green laces, raggedy jeans and either a fresh white A-frame or an old T-shirt with some band’s name on it. … **When I’m with Daddy** I’m brimming with youthful energy, but I’m also paying close attention to him, ready to light his cigarette or fetch him a beer without him having to say a word. **That’s a side of me Scott has never seen.** When we’re together I’m very much a grown-up. While I’m still casual, when we go out in public I’m usually in a freshly ironed shirt, or if I’m feeling particularly preppy **a tie and sweater-vest combo.**

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  The next day the saguaros and prickly pears were fat from drinking as much as they could, because they knew it might be a long, long time until the next rain. We were sort of like the cactus. We ate irregularly, and when we did, we’d gorge ourselves. Once when we were living in Nevada, a train full of cantaloupes heading east jumped the track. I had never eaten a cantaloupe before, but Dad brought home crates and crates of them. We had fresh cantaloupe, stewed cantaloupe, even fried cantaloupe. One time in California, the grape pickers went on strike. The vineyard owners let people come pick their own grapes for a nickel a pound. We drove about a hundred miles to the vineyards, where the grapes were so ripe they were about to burst on the vine in bunches bigger than my head. We filled our entire car full of green grapes—the trunk, even the glove compartment, and Dad piled stacks in our laps so high we could barely see over the top. For weeks afterward, we ate green grapes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. • • • All this running around and moving was temporary, Dad explained. He had a plan. He was going to find gold. Everybody said Dad was a genius. He could build or fix anything. One time when a neighbor’s TV set broke, Dad opened the back and used a macaroni noodle to insulate some crossed wires. The neighbor couldn’t get over it. He went around telling everyone in town that Dad sure knew how to use his noodle. Dad was an expert in math and physics and electricity. He read books on calculus and logarithmic algebra and loved what he called the poetry and symmetry of math. He told us about the magic qualities every number has and how numbers unlock the secrets of the universe. But Dad’s main interest was energy: thermal energy, nuclear energy, solar energy, electrical energy, and energy from the wind. He said there were so many untapped sources of energy in the world that it was ridiculous to be burning all that fossil fuel. Dad was always inventing things, too. One of his most important inventions was a complicated contraption he called the Prospector. It was going to help us find gold. The Prospector had a big flat surface about four feet high and six feet wide, and it rose up in the air at an angle. The surface was covered with horizontal strips of wood separated by gaps. The Prospector would scoop up dirt and rocks and sift them through the maze of wooden strips. It could figure out whether a rock was gold by the weight. It would throw out the worthless stuff and deposit the gold nuggets in a pile, so whenever we needed groceries, we could go out back and grab ourselves a nugget. At least that was what it would be able to do once Dad finished building it.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Record your thoughtsIf you are struggling to let go of negative sexual encounters or want to uncover your views on sex, try keeping a journal. Make a list of goals, such as “I want to be more uninhibited.” Then list the things that are preventing you from reaching your goals, such as “I need to feel comfortable naked.” Once you realize what action you need to take, you can address them alone or with your partner. If you still find yourself struggling to enjoy sex, a sex therapist can help you work through your feelings about your sexuality. [image file=image_rsrc3AA.jpg] Self-esteem and your Sex LifeA woman with good self-esteem is confident and uninhibited in the bedroom. Her outlook on life is positive and she is motivated to attain a happy and fulfilling sex life. Why? Because if you feel good about yourself, you are more likely to be adventurous and try new things. If you are confident, you appreciate yourself as a woman and make your sexual needs a priority. And if you feel fantastic and sexually satisfied in body and mind, you walk down the street with a smile and a sway in your hips. Identify the obstacles to self-esteemFeeling unattractive, unappreciated, stressed, and anxious can lead to negative self-esteem. Ill health, aging, fertility problems, and even family disagreements can also leave you feeling uncertain and unhappy. On the other hand, if you are contented, fulfilled, and relaxed you are more likely to find sexual satisfaction. Think and act yourself happySelf-esteem and happiness depend on self-acceptance. Look in the mirror every day, and repeat this mantra until it becomes part of your being: “I am in charge of my actions. I control my own happiness. I accept and love myself.” Saying these words on a regular basis will boost your self-esteem and put you on a path that acknowledges you are worthy of self-respect and love. Combat negative feelings about yourself by embracing your potential. Take up a sport, such as jogging, volleyball, tennis, or even walking. Push yourself—you might be surprised at just how strong you are. And try it with your partner: you will get an endorphin rush from working out together, which is bound to create sexual sparks later on in the bedroom. Create your personal spaceSpend time alone. Browse in a bookstore, or just sit and watch the world go by. This allows you to free your mind and think about your life. Rest and relaxation are vital to improving your state of mind, and let you review your sexual relationship.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  I became romantically involved with one of the people who left the 0 with me. After ten years of repressing feelings and intimacy, as we did in our cult, it was intoxicating to allow myself to be emotionally close to someone, particularly someone who understood what I had gone through. I knew it was not a relationship that could last, but we did give each other a great deal of support in the process of recovery. Redefinition and reintegration of self. I began to redefine myself at this point. I had to take stock and try to figure out my direction in many different areas of my life. I continued to learn about cults. This learning meshed with my precult interests, which were heading toward social psychology, so I think this was a natural direction for me. Writing. I began to write soon after I got out, and eventually completed a manuscript about my experience. I got three things from this: (1) Writing about my involvement required a close review and analysis of exactly how I had been manipulated, so I relived the whole experience, which, while difficult, helped me understand and integrate it; (2) By the end of writing the book, I felt I could say I was a writer, which was most important in rebuilding a sense of identity that I could call my own; (3) It helped a great deal with the shame I was feeling. I decided early on to come out about my cult experience because I felt that the shame was part of the reason cultic abuse has remained a significantly hidden issue. I was able to more or less turn this around and, in a sense, be proud and regard my experience as socially useful. I refused to be ashamed of it. In that regard, becoming a cult-awareness activist was particularly important to me. Interests. Because I'd been in the cult for so long, it was difficult to know what I truly wanted to do. Our ex-member group came up with the idea of "toe. dipping." We simply had to try things, but we could just dip our toes in. We didn't have to launch ourselves into a full-time commitment, which obviously was quite frightening to us. So we dipped our toes into this orthat interest. We'd visit a group or try a class. We discovered that as we kept dipping our toes in some particular area, it became clear that each of us kept coming back to certain interests. It took a long time, but eventually we found that our interests emerged in a kind of organic way. For me, those interests were a combination of writing and the study of social psychology. Identity. The whole issue of identity was, of course, most important. Who am I? What am I going to do with my life? This dislocation comes with all the years lost to the cult. How will I deal with having been through this trauma?

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  What Helped In the Third Stage• Trying to keep a balance in life: family, work, vocational work, exercise, nature, and culture. • Continuing with my work in the cult-awareness field. • Trying to have good closure with things. For example, when I stop working on a specific volunteer project, I make sure to complete my involvement in a positive and clear way. • Enjoying a "be here now" mentality, which means learning to appreciate each moment. • Working on projects where my skills and experience are valued. • Maintaining a strong social circle with reciprocal relationships. What Didn't Help• Lapsing into despair about the lost years. For instance, questioning. how I could go back to school or how I would ever catch up. I work to quiet these voices. • Getting stuck in feelings of isolation and lack of community. I still have to fight myself about that, but also I see them as general social issues of our time, so I just have to join in the conversation about them. • Finally, I firmly believe that we have to keep telling our stories because through them, we will understand more and more about these issues. Primo Levi, an Italian writer and survivor of Auschwitz, has much to say to those of us interested in totalism and power abuse. I think often of the Yiddish proverb he uses in his book The Periodic Table: "Troubles overcome are good to tell." That sounds about right. Reflections over Timeby Ginger Zyskowsky Ginger Zyskowsky tested the waters of TM, waded in the pools of Bahai, and was finally lured into Divine Light Mission (aka Elan Vitale), an Eastern -meditation group. She provides a heartening perspective on the postcult recovery process. Currently, she is a professional musician. She performs solo and with a symphony orchestra, is a published composer, and teaches in her private studio with a roster of fifty to sixty students a week. It is 4:30 in the morning. I sit atthe kitchen table with an old edition of Webster's Dictionary, an even older and yellowed edition of Roget's Thesaurus, and the DSM-III-R. I am hoping to find just the right stuff to condense into a ten-minute oration about recovery. I am going to be on a panel at a cult awareness conference. What emerges is the following (I do take a small liberty by choosing to drop the Y and use simply "recover," which I do because even after decades of postcult life, recover is what I do a little every day). So picture if you will the word recover, broken up letter by letter. See each letter hanging separately on an imaginarywire, creatingthefoundation of a giant mobile. Under the first R in recover I've decided to hang the word reconstruction. What an overwhelming task! Being in a cult is like starting out as a beautiful piece of glass, like a big picture window overlooking a wonderfully scenic view, and then a pebble flies into this glass causing a slight fracture.

• From Action (2014)

  All told, the only advice you absolutely need to follow when you’re figuring out your own relationship configuration is to always be aware and considerate of your own and your partner’s feelings. Keep talking! Do a State of the Union every so often to make sure you’re both still feeling happy and loved, and if one of you isn’t for whatever reason, make some adjustments and see if things improve. All relationships require communication and a genuine desire to be sweet and kind to the person you’re dating. Hold these things at the forefront of your mind when you’re deciding if you want to open your relationship. If you both decide you do, go get it, and above all, have fun and be respectful of the people you care about. That part’ll come real easy. PART III [image file=image_110.jpg] Mistakes Were Made [image file=image_1151.jpg] I am loath to take part in the narrative trope that conveys, “Young women who have sex, in doing so, are embarking on a wacky, embarrassing, ill-thought-out comedy of errors,” without some recognition of how cool and worthwhile casual sex can be. Sexual autonomy is often presented as “confessional”—either overly comic or overly melodramatic, and when a female sexual youth is described as a series of “misadventures,” it rankles me. Upon taking in movies, magazines, and the anecdotes of others about the so-called bad behavior of a wayward woman they know, I so often feel like screaming, “She didn’t lampoon or victimize herself—she fucked someone!” I have never once seen a young dude subjected to the same hand-wringing or false pity that his female counterparts are so regularly met with, or a guy who, in every other beat of his story about a physical encounter, feels the need to giggle or apologize it into an acceptable shape for his listeners. If a woman has had sex that she likes: Enough with the jokey contrition. Sex doesn’t have to be “bad” to be good. Just as destructive would be recounting a sexual past that’s been edited and finessed into a montage of soft-focus orgasms in which I am played by a young Natalie Wood, except with butt implants. I can’t pretend that all the sex I’ve had was that of a swanlike pinup sans an overbite that makes head risky if I’m not careful. Making mistakes is one of my very favorite things in this life, because then you become aware of how they were forged, and how to avoid them in the future. The key is not letting them define, discount, or dissuade you from the superb aspects of your sex life, or even seeing them as extricable from those. Fucking up is how you go pro. No need to be abashed or apologetic about that.

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

  102A PEEP INTO THE HOUSEHOLDIt has already been seen that, though household expenses were heavy, the tendency towards simplicity began in Durban. But the Johannesburg house came in for much severer overhauling in the light of Ruskin’s teaching. I introduced as much simplicity as was possible in a barrister’s house. It was impossible to do without a certain amount of furniture. The change was more internal than external. The liking for doing personally all the physical labour increased. I therefore began to bring my children also under that discipline. Instead of buying baker’s bread, we began to prepare unleavened wholemeal bread at home according to Kuhne’s recipe. Common mill flour was no good for this, and the use of handground flour, it was thought, would ensure more simplicity, health and economy. So I purchased a hand- mill for £ 7. The iron wheel was too heavy to be tacked by one man, but easy for two. Polak and I and the children usually worked it. My wife also occasionally lent a hand, though the grinding hour was her usual time for commencing kitchen work. Mrs. Polak now joined us on her arrival. The grinding proved a very beneficial exercise for the children. Neither this nor any other work was ever imposed on them, but it was a pastime to them to come and lend a hand, and they were at liberty to break off whenever tired. But the children, including those whom I shall have occasion to introduce later, as a rule never failed me. Not that I had no laggarded at all, but most did their work cheerfully enough. I can recall few youngsters in those days fighting shy of work or pleading fatigue.