Relief

Passages

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

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• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  After the mourning is over, the domestic group is re-calmed by the mourning itself; it regains confidence; the painful pressure which they felt exercised over them is relieved; they feel more at their ease. So it seems to them as though the spirit of the deceased had laid aside its hostile sentiments and become a benevolent protector. The other transmutations, examples of which we have cited, are to be explained in the same way. As we have already shown, the sanctity of a thing is due to the collective sentiment of which it is the object. If, in violation of the interdicts which isolate it, it comes in contact with a profane person, then this same sentiment will spread contagiously to this latter and imprint a special character upon him. But in spreading, it comes into a very different state from the one it was in at first. Offended and irritated by the profanation implied in this abusive and unnatural extension, it becomes aggressive and inclined to destructive violences: it tends to avenge itself for the offence suffered. Therefore the infected subject seems to be filled with a mighty and harmful force which menaces all that approaches him; it is as though he were marked with a stain or blemish. Yet the cause of this blemish is the same psychic state which, in other circumstances, consecrates and sanctifies. But if the anger thus aroused is satisfied by an expiatory rite, it subsides, alleviated; the offended sentiment is appeased and returns to its original state. So it acts once more as it acted in the beginning; instead of contaminating, it sanctifies. As it continues to infect the object to which it is attached, this could never become profane and religiously indifferent again. But the direction of the religious force with which it seems to be filled is inverted: from being impure, it has become pure and an instrument of purification. In résumé, the two poles of the religious life correspond to the two opposed states through which all social life passes. Between the propitiously sacred and the unpropitiously sacred there is the same contrast as between the states of collective well-being and ill-being. But since both are equally collective, there is, between the mythological constructions symbolizing them, an intimate kinship of nature. The sentiments held in common vary from extreme dejection to extreme joy, from painful irritation to ecstatic enthusiasm; but, in any case, there is a communion of minds and a mutual comfort resulting from this communion. The fundamental process is always the same; only circumstances colour it differently. So, at bottom, it is the unity and the diversity of social life which make the simultaneous unity and diversity of sacred beings and things. This ambiguity, moreover, is not peculiar to the idea of sacredness alone; something of this characteristic has been found in all the rites which we have been studying.

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

  One question that many queer-identified friends asked me back when I was crossdressing was why it was so important for me to “pass” as a woman. Their concern seemed to stem from the common use of the term “pass” in lesbian and gay communities as a synonym for “hide” (i.e., a gay male who “passes” for straight is typically assumed to be hiding or playing down his queerness). This use of the word “pass” is completely different from its use in the transgender community, where it typically refers to whether one is appropriately gendered as the sex one identifies or presents oneself as. From my perspective as a crossdresser, what gay people call “passing” (i.e., hiding) was what I did every day when I lived as male. In contrast, when I dressed and “passed” (in the transgender sense) as a woman, it was a rare moment of being “out” for me, of having others see and acknowledge a part of me that I normally kept hidden. Eventually, having other people gender me as female became demystified. While I still enjoyed it (as I did with the mirror moments), it was no longer enough in and of itself to ease the gender dissonance that I felt. It was at this point that I moved into the “interactive stage,” when I began to go out with other people while I was crossdressed. While I had come out to a number of friends as a crossdresser during my public stage, I now began cultivating relationships with people who primarily or solely knew me when I was in girl-mode. More often than not, these were people who I met via personal ads and who were aware that I was a crossdresser from the start. Over an extremely intense two-year period of my life, I sort of lived a dual life, where I was in boy-mode most of the time, but about one or two times per week I would go out and interact with others (often on dates) as a woman. Some of the people I saw during this period were men who might be described as admirers of MTF spectrum people. With them, I primarily engaged in role-playing relationships in which we would create sexually charged scenarios based on exaggerations of gender stereotypes. While many people assume that male “tranny-chasers” are closeted homosexuals who are turned on by the “guy” (or the “penis”) under the dress, all of the men who I role-played with were primarily attracted to women and, in particular, to femininity. In conversations I had with them, each said that what attracted them to MTF spectrum people was the extreme femininity that many of us (including myself at the time) sometimes displayed. For me, these role-playing experiences were important in helping me demystify the connection between femininity and sexuality.

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

  I’m sure that this lack in language is related to our cultural tendency to dismiss or discount the way that our bodies feel to us. Indeed, many of us tend to think of ourselves as brains or souls crammed inside of a shell—a shell that is our body. We delude ourselves into believing that the shell itself is not important, not connected to our consciousness, that it’s merely a vessel that contains us, or a vehicle that we move about with our minds. But the truth is, our bodies are inseparable from our minds. This becomes evident whenever hunger, thirst, or physical pain grows to the point where we can think of nothing else, or when mental grief or stress manifests itself in physical aches and exhaustion. All of us who have experienced the physical difference between feeling healthy and feeling ill, or perhaps most profoundly, between pre- and postpuberty, have a deep understanding (whether we acknowledge it or not) that our body feelings make a vital and substantial contribution to our senses of self. You could say that my decision to transition was primarily driven by my choosing to trust my body feelings—in this case, my subconscious sex—over my conscious understanding of gender. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the most immediate change in my body feelings that I experienced upon starting hormone therapy was an easing of my gender dissonance—the chronic gender sadness that I had carried around with me for as long as I could remember. I am not sure whether this was a direct effect of having female hormones in my system or a more psychological effect of knowing that my body was finally moving in the right direction. Either way, the relief I felt was beyond measure; for the first time in my life, I slowly began to feel comfortable being in my own skin. Female hormones have also produced numerous other body feelings that have greatly reshaped my sense of self. There have been profound changes in the way that I experience sensations and emotions, and in my tastes, urges, and responses to stimuli. And the physical changes to my body, which unfolded over a greater span of time, have also influenced the way I experience the world. Granted, when strangers first began gendering me as female (back when I was still identifying as genderqueer), unclothed I probably looked like a slightly feminized male. But after five years of being on female hormones, there is virtually nothing about my body that looks or feels male (with the obvious exception of my genitals, as I have not had bottom surgery). In those intervening years, my skin has become much softer, my center of gravity has totally shifted, my metabolism has changed, clothing fits my body differently, heavy objects seem to have become much heavier, and room temperature seems to have dropped about two or three degrees.

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

  Even when it happens, it’s much more properly proportioned than it used to be. In the book, you listed publishing How to Be Yourself, which contained your own story, as the most difficult item on your Challenge List. One year later, what have you learned? I’ve learned there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of! Beforehand, I worried that people would read the book and look at me differently—that revealing a struggle would make people draw back as if I were contagious. But the exact opposite happened. I can’t tell you how many people have confided in me that they struggle with social anxiety as well, from close friends to complete strangers. I was worried it would repel people, but instead it brought them closer. I find it so paradoxical and wondrous that the very thing that made me keep the world at arm’s length has now helped me embrace it. Notes Please note that some of the links referenced throughout this work are no longer active. Prologue 1. I’ve rendered these scales unofficial by editing some items to avoid repetition and have updated others with the language and technology of our time. 2. Common pushback to “be yourself” is “But what if your true self is an asshole?” I maintain that assholery is driven by fear and insecurity. When the fear goes away, so does the jerkitude. 3. Why? Time is on our side. Social anxiety declines steadily with age. We can’t avoid everything and everyone. As people grow older, they naturally worry less about what other people think. But why wait for time to take its course when we can help it along? 3. Your Brain on Social Anxiety 1. How to Be Yourself is solidly rooted in cognitive-behavioral principles. Cognitive-behavioral theory is based on the idea that how you think and how you act affect how you feel, so by changing our thinking patterns and trying out new behaviors we’ll feel differently—less anxious, more willing—in situations that previously gave us the heebie-jeebies. 2. Since you asked, they are the dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—affectionately known as the DMPFC and DLPFC. 8. No False Fronts in This Town: Play a Role to Build Your True Self 1. Granted, sometimes creating a false front is necessary. If your situation is dangerous or abusive, keeping the real you hidden may be a matter of safety and survival. Once you’re out and safe, building your true self can begin. 2. This might sound familiar. It’s known as Impostor Syndrome, which is when social anxiety goes to work and school. Impostor Syndrome whispers: You don’t belong here. They made a mistake letting you in. This isn’t for people like you.

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

  People often say that female hormones make women “more emotional” than men, but in my view such claims are an oversimplification. How would I describe the changes I went through, then? In retrospect, when testosterone was the predominant sex hormone in my body, it was as though a thick curtain were draped over my emotions. It deadened their intensity, made all of my feelings pale and vague as if they were ghosts that would haunt me. But on estrogen, I find that I have all of the same emotions that I did back then, only now they come in crystal clear. In other words, it is not the actual emotions, but rather their intensity that has changed—the highs are way higher and the lows are way lower. Another way of saying it is that I feel my emotions more now; they are in the foreground rather than the background of my mind. The anecdote that perhaps best captures this change occurred about two months after I started hormone therapy. My wife, Dani, and I had an argument and at one point I started to cry—something that was not all that uncommon for me when I was hormonally male. What was different was that after about a minute or so, I began to laugh while simultaneously continuing to cry. When Dani asked me why I was laughing, I replied, “I can’t turn it off.” Back when I was hormonally male, I felt as though I was always capable of stopping the cry, of holding it all in, if I really wanted to. Now, I find it nearly impossible to hold back the tears once I start crying. I’ve learned instead to just go with it, to let myself experience the cry, and it feels a lot more cathartic as a result. In general, even though my emotions are much more intense these days, I certainly do not feel as though they get in the way of my logic or reasoning, or that they single-handedly control my every thought or decision. I remain perfectly capable of acting on rational thought rather than following my feelings. However, what I can no longer do (at least to the extent that I used to) is completely ignore my emotions, repress them, or entirely shut them out of my mind. The change in the intensity of my emotions is paralleled in my sense of touch as well. I cannot say for sure that my sense of touch has improved—that I am able to feel things that I couldn’t before—but it surely plays a greater role in how I experience the world. Whenever I am interested in something, whether it’s a book, a piece of artwork, an article of clothing, or an object or material of any kind, I feel compelled to touch it, to handle it, as though my understanding of it would be incomplete without the tactile knowledge of how it physically feels to me.

• From Bold Move

  This became the filter through which Janet’s brain processed information. So, when Janet would consider asking her boss for a raise, her brain would put on these glasses without her knowing. Because good things had not happened to her despite her hard (“good”) work, she subconsciously believed that she was not worthy of the raise, which led her to see herself as “worthless.” During my meetings with Janet, I supported her in completing the following reflection, which led to her Shift. Reflection Janet’s Shift Take a moment to update your brain’s predictions by practicing Shift. I would recommend that you write out your answers and anchor them on a specific situation so that you can question what you are saying to yourself about that situation. In addition, write your initial prediction and refer back to it so that you can ensure you are asking questions about that prediction. Situation: Asking for a raise Prediction: My boss will say no. If I deserved a raise, my boss would have given me one. 1. Question automatic predictions: a. Is there a different way to see this situation? Janet realized she had been working hard and that despite her brain saying otherwise, there were many indicators that she deserved a raise, such as meeting her quotas, delivering several projects on time, and running a large successful team. b. What would I say to my best friend in this situation? I asked Janet to consider a situation where her best friend was experiencing a similar issue and asked what she would tell her. Janet smiled and told me, “I would tell Pam she has given everything for her job and that she had met all her quotas, so she ought to ask for the raise she so clearly deserves.” 2. Interpret your answers: a. How do these answers change my prediction? Janet told me that if she were to continue to believe her current lenses, she would never ask for a raise. But by looking at it through her friend’s eyes, she could see how she likely deserved a raise, which made her initial fear and anxiety decrease. b. What might I want to do differently? If she could believe what her friends have told her, she would ask for a raise. 3. Updated lenses: a. How will this prediction change my core belief? Janet realized that she cannot be “worthless” and still do well at work. b. How does updating my lenses make me feel? Janet felt relief by considering another way of seeing the world. c. What steps can I take to strengthen this prediction pathway? Janet decided to keep track daily of any actions she did that went against her belief that she was “worthless” so as to collect information that could contradict her own core belief. Janet’s Outcome Janet committed to doing this reflection like reps in the gym, striving to really Shift how she spoke to herself.

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

  Half an hour later I saw she was in my room tidying up; I took thought and then went up the outside steps. As soon as I saw her, I pretended surprise: “I beg your pardon”, I said, “I’ll just get a book and go at once; please don’t let me disturb you!” and I pretended to look for the book. She turned sharply and looked at me fixedly: “Why do you treat me like this?” she burst out, shaking with indignation. “Like what?” I repeated, pretending surprise. “You know quite well”, she went on angrily, hastily: “at first I thought it was chance, unintentional; now I know you mean it. Whenever you’re talking or telling a story, as soon as I come into the room you stop and hurry away as if you hated me. Why? Why?” she cried with quivering lips, “What have I done to make you dislike me so?” and the tears gathered in her lovely eyes. I felt the moment had come: I put my hands on her shoulders and looked with my whole soul into her eyes: “Did you never guess, Kate, that it might be love, not hate?” I asked. “No, no!” she cried, the tears falling, “love doesn’t act like that!” “Fear to miss love does, I can assure you”, I cried, “I thought at first that you disliked me and already I had begun to care for you”, (my arms went round her waist and I drew her to me) “to love you and want you. Kiss me, dear” and at once she gave me her lips while my hand got busy on her breasts and then went down of itself to her sex. Suddenly she looked at me gaily, brightly while heaving a big sigh of relief. “I’m glad, glad!” she said, “if you only knew how hurt I was and how I tortured myself; one moment I was angry, then I was sad. Yesterday I made up my mind to speak, but today I said to myself, I’ll just be obstinate and cold as he is and now”—and of her own accord she put her arms round my neck and kissed me, “you are a dear, dear! Anyway, I love you!” “You mustn’t give me those bird-pecks!” I exclaimed, “those are not kisses: I want your lips to open and cling to mine” and I kissed her while my tongue darted into her mouth and I stroked her sex gently. She flushed, but at first didn’t understand, then suddenly she blushed rosy red as her lips grew hot and she fairly ran from the room. I exulted: I knew I had won: I must be very quiet and reserved and the bird would come to the lure; I felt exultingly certain!

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

  The tension, and even more so a consciousness of the tension, is specifically Roman. 56 The imagination that produced these rich socio-legal riddles is not far at all from the literary spirit that informs the romances. The contemplation of the possible disjuncture between essence and circumstance is identical. In Leucippe and Clitophon, this disjuncture is a constant source of dramatic energy. In a touching scene near the end of the romance, a priest of Artemis tries to dissuade Leucippe from submitting to the harrowing, and fearfully inerrant, divine virginity test. He assumes that the girl, in professing her purity, has tried to save face out of necessity and pride, but he wants to spare her, quietly. She confidently persists in the protestations of her innocence, and he realizes that she is indeed uncorrupted. “I rejoice with you in your chastity and your fortune.” Achilles Tatius could not have chosen more resonant words— sōphrosynē, female sexual modesty, and tychē, fortune. Leucippe’s sexual honor and her fate were inseparable. The novel contemplates, but does not ultimately doubt, a salvation that will realign Leucippe’s subjective modesty and her objective respectability. The inhabitants of the high empire were highly conscious that female sexual honor was dispensed just as much by the lottery of fate as by the force of the individual’s will. This awareness of honor’s origins did nothing to dim its power. If anything, it made sexual respectability all the more precious, more intimate, more numinous. 57 Here the novel scrapes very close to the deepest recesses of belief in the high empire. In the same years when Achilles was conceiving his romance, a woman named Regilla was voted an honorific statue by the people of Corinth. Regilla was a descendant of the reigning imperial clan, wife to the most powerful and eloquent Greek aristocrat of the age, Herodes Atticus (whom she married when she was around fourteen, he forty). She would eventually die during the miscarriage of their sixth child, after being kicked in the stomach by a freedman acting on her husband’s orders. But in brighter times the Corinthians sculpted her in the image of the goddess Tychē, “Fortune.” Regilla was priestess of the goddess Tychē at Athens, and had in fact introduced her cult there and constructed a grand temple perched over the stadium that her husband built for the city. The dedicatory inscription from Corinth survives. “This is a portrait of Regilla.

• From The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700) (1984)

  The spokesman for that recognition, after various kinds of hesitation, was Athanasius him self, who ultimately asserted his unwillingness to attack the Homoiousians "as Ariomaniacs, or as opponents of the fathers; but we discuss the issue with them as brethren with brethren, who mean what we mean and are disputing only about terminology." By saying that Christ was "of the ousia" of the Father and "like [the Father] in ousia," they were, he continued, "setting themselves in opposition Ath.Syn.41.1 (opitz 2:266) to those who say that the Logos is a creature." And this was finally the doctrinal interest for which homoousios had been a symbol—coined by Gnostic heretics, dictated by an unbaptized emperor, jeopardized by naive de fenders, but eventually vindicated by its orthodox opponents. The Three and the One 211 The Three and the One See p. 105 above Gr.Na2.E/7.58 (PG 37:113-17) Gr.Na2.Of.31.26 {PG 36:161) Didym.Tr/».i.i8 (PG 39:348) Amph./r.i7 (PG 39:116) Amph.Ep.syn. (PG 39:96) The form in which the homoousios was vindicated and the identification of Christ as God was codified was the dogma of the Trinity, as it was hammered out during the third quarter of the fourth century. And the issue that brought the homoousios to a head and thus helped to formulate the doctrine that Christ was divine was not so much the doctrine of Christ as the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. At Nicea the doctrine of the Holy Spirit had been dis posed of in lapidary brevity: "And [we believe] in the Holy Spirit." Nor does there seem to have been a single treatise dealing specifically with the person of the Spirit composed before the second half of the fourth century. It may be that Montanism was responsible for some development in the direction of a more * 'personal'' under standing of the Holy Spirit in Tertullian, and through him in the evolving trinitarianism of the third century; but even this possibility is tenuous. Once the question of the Holy Spirit was raised, its absence from the earlier discussions itself became a question. Gregory of Nazianzus explained the absence by a theory of develop ment of doctrine, according to which "the Old Testa ment proclaimed the Father manifestly, and the Son more hiddenly.

• From The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700) (1984)

  In a dialogue with philosophy personified, Boethius ex pounded his doctrine of God as "the constant foreknow ing overseer . . . [whose] sight moves in harmony with the future nature of our actions as it dispenses rewards Boeth.£07^.5.6.45 {CCSL 111,, 94:105) to the good and punishments to the bad. Is this doctrine of God proof that "although doubtless a professing Christian," Boethius had sentiments which H.Taylor (1938) 1:89 "were those of pagan philosophy" ? Or is it more accurate to maintain that "the picture of God drawn there is so warm and authentic in a Christian sense that even if there were no decisive external proof available for the Christian confession of the last of the Romans, one would be Grabmann (1957) 1:163 justified in regarding Boethius as a Christian thinker"? On the basis of content alone, there seems reason to doubt the traditional account that the Consolation was written by a Christian theologian. It seems plausible to conclude that the author of the Consolation could not have been the Boethius to whom five treatises on Christian doctrine, including a polemic against Nestorius and Eutyches and an influential exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity, were attributed. But closer examination of the thought and the language of the Boethian corpus shows that both PRAEPARATIO EVANGELICA 44 Rand (1929) 178 Mansi 22:982 Mansi 33:82 ~Raitr.Corp.il (Brink 36) Radb.CV/?.4.i (PL 120:1277-78) the Consolation and at least four of the theological treatises came from the same man. This would suggest that in the Consolation Boethius was pressing reason to the very boundaries of faith, and that this apologetic aim "explains why there is not a trace of anything specifically Christian or Biblical in the entire work." But this does not explain why at least one orthodox theologian, in the hour of utmost need, found solace more in philosophical contemplation based on natural reason than in the Chris tian revelation to which his theological works pointed. In many ways, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy only dramatizes a more general problem. The victory of orthodox Christian doctrine over classical thought was to some extent a Pyrrhic victory, for the theology that triumphed over Greek philosophy has continued to be shaped ever since by the language and the thought of classical metaphysics. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 decreed that "in the sacrament of the altar ... the bread is transubstantiated into the body [of Christ], and the wine into [his] blood," and the Council of Trent declared in 1551 that the use of the term "transubstantiation" was "proper and appropriate." Most of the theological expositions of the term "tran- substantiation," beginning already with those of the thir teenth century, have interpreted "substance" on the basis of the meaning given to this term by such classical dis cussions as that in the fifth book of Aristotle's Metaphys ics; transubstantiation, then, would appear to be tied to the acceptance of Aristotelian metaphysics or even of Aristotelian physics.

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

  For employees, we find that it’s crucial simply to get this topic out there in everyday discourse, especially within teams who need to work out the varying personality styles among team members, and to learn to honor and accommodate one another’s differences. As for children, one of the many impactful changes a school can make is to help their teachers reframe the language they use for commenting on a child’s performance. So, instead of essentially complaining on a report card that a child is too quiet, an educator can instead observe that “When Rosa takes time to speak slowly and offer thoughtful reflections, she empowers other students to do the same” or “When Serena says something, everyone listens because they know she has chosen her words with care.” If you’re an educator reading this, please go to bit.ly/QRFriendlyComments at our Quiet Revolution website to see our free quiet-friendly comment guide, and do check out our other free resources! Have you ever experienced social anxiety? What has worked in helping you get through those moments? Oh gosh, yes. I used to be terrified of public speaking, in particular. I used the desensitization method that you write about so skillfully—for me, in the context of a workshop for people with public-speaking anxiety, in which we were encouraged to face an audience, little by little. I used to think that I could never, ever overcome this fear. But I have! And, dear reader, so can you! Susan: It’s been a year since How to Be Yourself was published. How have readers responded to the book? Ellen: It’s been so wonderful. Hearing from readers has been my favorite part of the whole process. I had hoped the book would be helpful, but I couldn’t have anticipated that people would email me and say it changed their life. My husband no longer gets alarmed when he finds me dabbing my eyes in front of my laptop. You asked me this, and I’ll ask you the same question: Do you think social anxiety is on the brink of a similar shift as introversion? I hope so! I think one of the most fundamental things Quiet did for introversion was to give it a name. When I first read Quiet, honestly, I felt like you must have hidden in my kitchen and spied on me to understand me so deeply. And I bet millions of others felt the same way—well, maybe not about the spying part. But my point is that all of a sudden, there was a name for our quiet temperaments—introversion. It was empowering, because now we weren’t alone. In fact, there were so many of us that we had a title and a community—we were INTROVERTS! It was amazingly validating. I think that same type of validation has carried over to social anxiety.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  “Alaska and Chip,” a member of the Jury said, “you get ten work hours—doing dishes in the cafeteria—and you’re both officially one problem away from a phone call home. Takumi and Miles, there’s nothing in the rules about watching someone smoke, but the Jury will remember your story if you break the rules again. Fair?” “Fair,” Alaska said quickly, obviously relieved. On my way out, the Eagle spun me around. “Don’t abuse your privileges at this school, young man, or you will regret it.” I nodded. eighty-nine days before “WE FOUND YOU A GIRLFRIEND,” Alaska said to me. Still, no one had explained to me what happened the week before with the Jury. It didn’t seem to have affected Alaska, though, who was 1. in our room after dark with the door closed, and 2. smoking a cigarette as she sat on the mostly foam couch. She had stuffed a towel into the bottom of our door and insisted it was safe, but I worried—about the cigarette and the “girlfriend.” “All I have to do now,” she said, “is convince you to like her and convince her to like you.” “Monumental tasks,” the Colonel pointed out. He lay on the top bunk, reading for his English class. Moby-Dick . “How can you read and talk at the same time?” I asked. “Well, I usually can’t, but neither the book nor the conversation is particularly intellectually challenging.” “I like that book,” Alaska said. “Yes.” The Colonel smiled and leaned over to look at her from his top bunk. “You would. Big white whale is a metaphor for everything. You live for pretentious metaphors.” Alaska was unfazed. “So, Pudge, what’s your feeling on the former Soviet bloc?” “Um. I’m in favor of it?” She flicked the ashes of her cigarette into my pencil holder. I almost protested, but why bother. “You know that girl in our precalc class,” Alaska said, “soft voice, says thees, not this. Know that girl?” “Yeah. Lara. She sat on my lap on the way to McDonald’s.” “Right. I know. And she liked you. You thought she was quietly discussing precalc, when she was clearly talking about having hot sex with you. Which is why you need me.” “She has great breasts,” the Colonel said without looking up from the whale. “DO NOT OBJECTIFY WOMEN’S BODIES!” Alaska shouted. Now he looked up. “Sorry. Perky breasts.” “That’s not any better!” “Sure it is,” he said. “Great is a judgment on a woman’s body. Perky is merely an observation. They are perky. I mean, Christ.” “You’re hopeless,” she said. “So she thinks you’re cute, Pudge.” “Nice.” “Doesn’t mean anything. Problem with you is that if you talk to her you’ll ‘uh um uh’ your way to disaster.” “Don’t be so hard on him,” the Colonel interrupted, as if he was my mom. “God, I understand whale anatomy. Can we move on now, Herman?” “So Jake is going to be in Birmingham this weekend, and we’re going on a triple date.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  We shot forward toward Mom, who screamed and jumped out of the way. Dad turned around and went for her again. It was a moonless night, so we couldn’t see Mom except when she ran into the beam of the headlights. She kept looking over her shoulder, her eyes wide like a hunted animal’s. We kids cried and begged Dad to stop, but he ignored us. I was even more worried about the baby inside Mom’s swollen belly than I was about her. The car bounced on holes and rocks, brush scratching against its sides and dust coming through the open windows. Finally, Dad cornered Mom against some rocks. I was afraid he might smush her with the car, but instead he got out and dragged her back, legs flailing, and threw her into the car. We banged back through the desert and onto the road. Everyone was quiet except Mom, who was sobbing that she really did carry Lori for fourteen months. • • • Mom and Dad made up the next day, and by late afternoon Mom was cutting Dad’s hair in the living room of the apartment we’d rented in Blythe. He’d taken off his shirt and was sitting backward on a chair with his head bowed and his hair combed forward. Mom was snipping away while Dad pointed out the parts that were still too long. When they were finished, Dad combed his hair back and announced that Mom had done a helluva fine shearing job. Our apartment was in a one-story cinder-block building on the outskirts of town. It had a big blue-and-white plastic sign in the shape of an oval, and a boomerang that said: THE LBJ APARTMENTS . I thought it stood for Lori, Brian, and Jeannette, but Mom said LBJ were the initials of the president, who, she added, was a crook and a warmonger. A few truck drivers and cowboys had rooms at the LBJ Apartments, but most of the other people who lived there were migrant workers and their families, and we heard them talking through the thin Sheetrock walls. Mom said it was one of the bonuses of living at the LBJ Apartments, because we’d be able to pick up a little Spanish without even studying. Blythe was in California, but the Arizona border was within spitting distance. People who lived there liked to say the town was 150 miles west of Phoenix, 250 miles east of Los Angeles, and smack dab in the middle of nowhere. But they always said it like they were bragging. Mom and Dad weren’t exactly crazy about Blythe. Too civilized, they said, and downright unnatural, too, since no town the size of Blythe had any business existing out in the Mojave Desert. It was near the Colorado River, founded back in the nineteenth century by some guy who figured he could get rich turning the desert into farmland.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Getting naked is a good way to start—he will then find it helpful to spend five minutes or so breathing deeply and just letting his mind relax. It is important that a man enjoy this time with himself and get pleasure from it— he might also learn something about his sexual response. Men react to visual stimulation, so he might want to use an erotic magazine or movie, or to imagine a favorite fantasy to become aroused. Once he’s getting in the mood, he can touch his body lightly all over, then use stronger, firmer strokes on his chest, thighs, and buttocks. Then, when he is feeling fully aroused, he can move on to stroking and caressing his genitals. There are also many sex toys designed to enhance male masturbation and they can add novelty to his routine in the bath or bedroom. Once he climaxes, there’s no need to rush and finish the session. Instead, he should try to spend a few minutes relaxing and enjoying the sense of release and peace. Build stamina, create intimacyMasturbating is a pleasurable solo pursuit for a man, but it also has the benefit of improving the sex you have with him. This is because regular self-love sessions build up his stamina and result in more powerful and prolonged orgasms. And being open with your partner about your self-love practices can bring you closer together. If you and your partner have never spoken about your sexual needs or preferences, then talking about masturbation will open the door to other sexual discussions. These might include revealing your favorite fantasies and discovering his. You may also discover how often you both want sex—and which positions you both enjoy most. Being open with each other about these matters will naturally enhance your intimacy and understanding of each other. In this way, and others, masturbation can do wonders for both of your arousal levels and sex drives. Mutual masturbationMany people fantasize about watching their lover masturbate and it can be a very erotic experience. Start by touching yourself, then watch your partner’s touches. Don’t rush to reach a mutual orgasm—watching each other climax in turn can be a freeing experience. It can also be the best prologue to manual sex. Once you’ve put on a show for your partner, he’ll know all the right touches to use when it’s his turn to play. [image file=image_rsrc3A8.jpg] Chapter 3: Know your MindPerspectives on Sex Self-esteem and your Sex Life Self-esteem and your Partner’s Sex Life Sex Drive Your Sex Drive Your Partner’s Sex Drive Mismatched Libido Releasing your Inner Vixen

• From Action (2014)

  [image file=image_1214.jpg] Sometimes, I don’t have any room for sex in my life, and my body and brain decide to give me some space back. This has happened to me on a few occasions when I was focused on special professional projects (usually, I do both with relish, but on exceedingly rare occasions, I do one or neither for a while), went on a kind of antidepressant that lessened my libido, and, at other times, I just didn’t care to fuck anybody for a minute. When I’ve lost the signal for sexual frequency, in terms of both my erotic brain-buzzings and the rapidity with which I broadcast them outward, I have learned that it’s best to not freak out and think, I hate sex now forever, I guess???!!! which would be fine but has never, historically, been the case. (Although wouldn’t it be kind of hilarious if this book came out and then I got me to a nunnery?) When I do that, I’m berating myself for something I have found is ultimately instead kind of a sexual boon, and always a mental one. I am talking about a labial lie-low, the denial of all things penile, an extended hormonal holiday—whatever your anatomy, you’ll be able to recognize it: the classic boning breather known (by me) as the Celibration. I have a Celibration when I’m approaching the limit of having “too much” sex. Overdoing it has nothing to do with some ratcheted-up naked-body-count. It stems from the perpetually reshuffling alignment of variables like my self-esteem (am I having sex to feel good about myself, even once? that’s too much sex); time (is my work lagging because I’m busy being a slag? sexcess); and scarcity of people I desire (every time I’ve had sex with a person from my hometown = critical-mass overload of sex, with the additionally injurious scents of hair gel and shame overlaying my over-laying). The bottom-line question: Do I straight-up not want to right now, “reason” or not? Then I’m on break. If the thought of sex bares itself in a way I don’t feel is good news for my overall life zone, it’s Celibration time. This has meant lots of things for me in the past: periods of full-blown sexual abstinence, meaning NO DATES, NO KISSING, NO MASTURBATION, EVEN, as well as conversations amounting to, “Oral only—I’m taking the L on taking the D,” with one of my long-term partners of yore. (We broke up for unrelated reasons long after my sex-break broke, before you ask, and he was cool about it—if he hadn’t been, we’d have split for highly related reasons, namely that I don’t ever want to be with someone who takes access to my body for granted.)

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  There is a paradox with respect to this character trait and that is that, even though images have such a dominant role in my life and even though my eye guides me far more than any other organ, during the sexual act it is as if I am blind. You could say that within the continuum of the world of sex, I move like a cell within its tissue. The nocturnal outings, and the fact of being surrounded, carried and penetrated by shadows suit me well. Better still, I can follow my partner blindly. I put myself in his hands, abandoning my free will; his presence stops anything nasty happening to me.