Shame

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 Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Who’s the kid?” Toni demanded to know. “What’s this, your new butch?” “You invited the kid to live in the garage apartment, remember?” Betty snapped. I curled up on the couch and tried to disappear. After a while Betty came out and threw a blanket over me. “If I could just get some sleep tonight, Pll be out of here,” I told her. “Tt’s OK,” she said wearily. “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright.” I clung to that little bit of reassurance. Lying there in the dark I started realizing I was on my own: no more school, no more parents— unless they came after me. I gagged on shame as I recalled what happened to me on the football field. I was afraid I was going to throw up and I hadn’t asked where their bathroom was. I wished this was Al and Jackie’s couch. I wanted to wake up in their home. Then I could tell Jacqueline what had happened to me on the football field. Would I have told her? I realized I might not have told Jackie or Al what the boys did to me. I felt too ashamed. I made a vow to myself before I fell asleep. I promised myself I would never wear a dress again, and I’d never let anyone rape me ever again, no matter what. As it turned out, I could only keep one of those promises. Stone Butch Blues 31 “HEY KID, WHAT’S UP?” Meg called out as she wiped down the bar. Familiar faces softened as they welcomed me. I had become a regular at Abba’s. “Hey, Meg. Gimme a beer, will yar” “Sure, kid, coming right up.” I sat down next to Edwina. “Hey, Ed, can I buy you a beer?” “Yeah,” she laughed, “why would I say no?” It was a Priday night. I had money in my pocket and I was feeling fine. “Hey, what about me?” Butch Jan laughed. “And a beer for my elder, Meg,” “Hey, watch that elder shit,’ Jan said. I felt a hand on my shoulder. Judging from the length of the red-painted nails, it had to be Peaches. “Hi, honey,” she kissed me gently on the ear. I sighed with pleasure. “And a drink for Peaches,” I called out to Meg, “Child, you’re in one damn good mood tonight,” Peaches said. “You get lucky with some girl or something?” I blushed. She had hit a sore spot. “I just feel so damn good. I got a job and a motorcycle and friends. Ed whistled. “You got a bike?” “Yes,” I shouted, “yes, yes! Toni sold me her old Norton. We went out to the supermarket parking lot Sunday, and I practiced till she got mad and went home without me.” Ed smiled. “Wow. Big bike.” She slapped my open palm.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The next evening I came to the bar late, hoping that Monique and her crowd would not be there waiting. They were. I slunk over to our table and sat down. No one knew exactly what had or had not happened the night before. But everyone knew something was very wrong. I sat drowning in my own shame, remembering out date. I was scared by the time I had gotten to Monique’s house. It occurred to me that I didn’t really know what sex was. When and how did it begin? What was I supposed to do? And Monique frightened the hell out of me. All of a sudden I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to go through with it. I chattered nervously. Monique smirked. As I moved from couch to chair, she followed. “Whatsa matter?” she mocked Stone Butch Blues 29 me. “Don’t you like me, honey? Whatsa matter, huh?” I made small talk until Monique finally stood up in exasperation. “Get the hell out of here!” She sounded disgusted with me. I mumbled relieved excuses and ran from her house. But back at the bar, I couldn’t escape the consequences. I sat at a table across from Monique and rubbed my forehead with my hands, as though I could wipe away the memory. I wondered how long this evening could possibly last. A long time. A very long time. Monique whispered something to a butch sitting near her. The butch crossed the room and approached our table. “Hey,” she called to me. I didn’t look up. “Hey, femme, you wanna dance with a real butch?” I twisted in my seat. Al whispered something to this butch I couldn’t hear. “Oh, I’m sorry Al, I didn’t know she was your femme.” Al stood up and hit the butch before any of us knew what had happened. Then Al looked at me expectantly. “Well?” she said. She was holding up the butch who was doubled over. Al wanted me to hit the woman, to defend my honor. I couldn’t think of anyone in the room I would want to hit, except maybe myself. I had no honor to defend. 30 Leslie Feinberg The butches nearest Monique stood, ready to cross the room. Al and the other butches in our crowd lined up in front of the table to defend me. Jacqueline put her hand on my thigh to reassure me that I didn’t have to fight. She needn’t have. Mona came up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. The femmes were closing ranks with me, too. I sat with my face in my hands, shaking my head, wanting it all to stop. But it wouldn't. Monique’s crowd finally backed down. But none of us could leave the bar until they did, otherwise we'd get jumped. It was going to be a /ong night. Al was furious with me. “You gonna let that bulldagger talk to you that way?” She thumped the table for emphasis.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Sexually, they seemed to be on the same level. She couldn’t tell if this was disappointing to him or not. And the money issue was beginning to disturb her again, now that she was working for the magazine. He’s not someone who comes to my house and is nice to me, she thought as she lay alone in bed. He’s someone who pays me to fuck him. She had an image of herself, sprawled half on and half off a bed at Christine’s, her upside-down head patiently looking back at her from the mirror as some galoot humped her. This vision blended discordantly with the idea of herself at her desk at the magazine and she was unable to separate them. Despite this ambiguity, she was curiously reluctant to drop the affair. He only saw her once or twice a week, he was not demanding, he liked her favorite authors and was somehow very reassuring. Reassuring of what, she didn’t know, but it was connected to her old feeling that he thought of her as a representative of the exciting avant-garde—although it also seemed that if he had any brains at all, he would’ve realized by now that she was just a bewildered human. “I think I know why you go to places like Christine’s,” she said. “I’m all ears.” “One of the times I was there, I was watching this girl called Marissa, a skinny, not very attractive girl with blank brown eyes. It was almost the end of the night and she was squatting on the floor with her skirt hiked up to her waist, counting her money with a little furry-animal look of concentration, and I thought about how she must look to someone like you, despite her nasty personality—like this cute little beast who can be swept up and fondled and experienced and then put down.” “That’s fabulous.” He looked deeply entertained. “You have such a wonderful way of expressing things.” She thought: If he says “fabulous” one more time tonight, I may punch him in the nose. It was a cool autumn evening. Clawlike leaves smelling of ashes rasped and scuttled across the pavement as they walked to her apartment. They were silent and she felt uncomfortable about it. They were returning from a dinner that should’ve been nice but wasn’t. Bernard had been distracted and (she felt) bored by her. He had flirted subtly with their waitress, which she’d observed with a detached sense of disappointment, a cold and lifeless form of jealousy. As they mounted the stairs, she felt they were heading toward a destination simply because it was more trouble than it was worth to avoid it.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  She lived constantly before the mirror, studying every movement, every gesture, every slightest grimace. She changed her whole manner of speech, her diction, her intonation, her accent, her phraseology. She conducted herself so skilfully that it was impossible even to broach the subject of origins. She was constantly on her guard, even in her sleep. And, like a good general, she discovered quickly enough that the best defense is attack. She never left a single position unoccupied; her outposts, her scouts, her sentinels were stationed everywhere. Her mind was a revolving searchlight which was never dimmed. Blind to her own beauty, her own charm, her own personality, to say nothing of her identity, she launched her full powers toward the fabrication of a mythical creature, a Helen, a Juno, whose charms neither man nor woman would be able to resist. Automatically, without the slightest knowledge of legend, she began to create little by little the ontological background, the mythic sequence of events preceeding the conscious birth. She had no need to remember her lies, her fictions—she had only to bear in mind her role. There was no lie too monstrous for her to utter, for in her adopted role she was absolutely faithful to herself. She did not have to invent a past: she remembered the past which belonged to her. She was never outflanked by a direct question since she never presented herself to an adversary except obliquely. She presented only the angles of the ever- turning facets, the blinding prisms of light which she kept constantly revolving. She was never a being, such as might finally be caught in repose, but the mechanism itself, relentlessly operating the myriad mirrors which would reflect the myth she had created. She had no poise whatsoever; she was eternally poised above her multiple identities in the vacuum of the self. She had not intended to make herself a legendary figure, she had merely wanted her beauty to be recognized. But in the pursuit of beauty, she soon forgot her quest entirely, became the victim of her own creation. She became so stunningly beautiful that at times she was frightening, at times positively uglier than the ugliest woman in the world. She could inspire horror and dread, especially when her charm was at its height. It was as though the will, blind and uncontrollable, shone through the creation, exposing the monster which it is. In the dark, locked away in the black hole with no world looking on, no adversary, no rivals, the blinding dynamism of the will slowed down a bit, gave her a molten copperish glow, the words coming out of her mouth like lava, her flesh clutching ravenously for a hold, a perch on something solid and substantial, something in which to reintegrate and repose for a few moments. It was like a frantic long-distance message, an S O S from a sinking ship. At first I mistook it for passion, for the ecstasy produced by flesh rubbing against flesh.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  “I don’t care,” I said. “That lawyer was an asshole.” To everyone’s discomfort, I began to cry. I left the room, and they all watched me stomp up the stairs. The next day at dinner my father said, “Don’t get discouraged because your first job didn’t work out. There’re plenty of other places out there.” “I don’t want to think about another job right now.” There was a disgruntlement all around the table. “Come on now, Debby, you don’t want to throw away everything you worked for in that typing course,” said my father. “I don’t blame her,” said Donna. “I’m sick of working for assholes.” “Oh, shit,” said my father. “If I had quit every job I’ve had on those grounds, you would’ve all starved. Maybe that’s what I should’ve done.” “What happened, Debby?” said my mother. I said, “I don’t want to talk about it,” and I left the room again. — After that they may have sensed, with their intuition for the miserable, that something hideous had happened. Because they left the subject alone. I received my last paycheck from the lawyer in the mail. It came with a letter folded around it. It said, “I am so sorry for what happened between us. I have realized what a terrible mistake I made with you. I can only hope that you will understand, and that you will not worsen an already unfortunate situation by discussing it with others. All the best.” As a P.S. he assured me that I could count on him for excellent references. He enclosed a check for three hundred and eighty dollars, a little over two hundred dollars more than he owed me. It occurred to me to tear up the check, or mail it back to the lawyer. But I didn’t do that. Two hundred dollars was worth more then than it is now. Together with the money I had in the bank, it was enough to put a down payment on an apartment and still have some left over. I went upstairs and wrote “380” on the deposit side of my checking account. I didn’t feel like a whore or anything. I felt I was doing the right thing. I looked at the total figure of my balance with satisfaction. Then I went downstairs and asked my mother if she wanted to go get some elephant ears. For the next two weeks, I forgot about the idea of a job and moving out of my parents’ house. I slept through all the morning noise until noon. I got up and ate cold cereal and ran the dishwasher. I watched the gray march of old sitcoms on TV. I worked on crossword puzzles. I lay on my bed in a tangle of quilt and fuzzy blanket and masturbated two, three, four times in a row, always thinking about the thing.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I could see the profile of a golden eagle on her perch. When we got closer, I realized there were two eagles—a male and female sitting next to each other. The female hopped down into the snow and unfolded her powerful wings. She leaped and twirled in the snow. I remembered the newspaper reported her egg had hatched last week, but the eaglet had died. I wondered if she danced in bitter grief. “What’s he doing?” Kim asked me. “She’s playing in the snow.” I figured it was as good an answer as any. “That’s the girl eagle.” “How do you know?” she asked. “Because the girls are bigger than the boys.” Both kids spotted the polar bears before I did and ran ahead. The mother bear was out with her cub. According to the newspaper, the cub was born three months ago and hadn’t been seen outside of the cave yet. “Aw,” the kids cooed as the cub toppled over into a snow bank. The mother bear sat back on her haunches. The little bear rooted for her breast and suckled. “I’m hungry,” Scotty announced. The concession stand was almost deserted inside: two zoo maintenance men sipped hot coffee in the corner. I ordered hot dogs and hot chocolates. “We need peanuts,” Kim reminded me, “for the animals.” “T don’t think we’re supposed to feed them,” I told her. “Then we need peanuts for us,” she said. “And three bags of peanuts,” I added to the man behind the counter. He glared at me in open disgust. Oh, please, 1 thought, not in front of the kids. | got my money teady—the faster the transaction the better. He came back with the food and drinks in a catdboard container. “That'll be $9.80, sir,’ he smirked. I threw a ten dollar bill on the counter and picked up the container. “Keep the change, ma’am,” I told him. “C’mon kids. Want to eat outside on a park bench?” It was OK with Scotty; Kim didn’t seem so sure. I brushed the snow off a bench. “Why did you call him ma’am?” Kim asked. I shrugged. “He was being mean to me.” Stone Butch Blues 49 She wouldn’t let it go. “He didn’t like your” I shook my head. “Why not? How does he know he doesn’t like your” “T don’t know,” I told her. “Don’t you ever meet bullies at school who are mean to you for no reason?” She nodded. “Why did he call you sir? Doesn’t he know you're a girl?” I sighed and put my hot dog back in the cardboard container. The last bite ’d chewed was stuck like a knot in my throat. I sipped some hot chocolate before I answered. “He knew I was a girl. He was picking on me ’cause I’m different.” I anticipated her next question. “I don’t look like your mom. I look different from a lot of other girls. Some people don’t like that, they don’t think it’s right.”

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  In the old neighborhood he would have been regarded as a sissy; for one thing he spoke too well, too correctly, too politely, and for another thing he was too considerate, too gentle, too gallant. And then, while playing with him, to hear him suddenly break into French as his mother or father came along, provided us with something like a shock. German we had heard and German was a permissible transgression, but French! why to talk French, or even to understand it, was to be thoroughly alien, thoroughly aristocratic, rotten, distingué. And yet Claude was one of us, as good as us in every way, even a little bit better, we had to admit secretly. But there was a blemish—his French! It antagonized us. He had no right to be living in our neighborhood, no right to be as capable and manly as he was. Often, when his mother called him in and we had said good-by to him, we got together in the lot and we discussed the Lorraine family backwards and forwards. We wondered what they ate, for example, because being French they must have different customs than ours. No one had ever set foot in Claude de Lorraine’s home either—that was another suspicious and repugnant fact. Why? What were they concealing? Yet when they passed us in the street they were always very cordial, always smiled, always spoke in English and a most excellent English it was. They used to make us feel rather ashamed of ourselves—they were superior, that’s what it was. And there was still another baffling thing—with the other boys a direct question brought a direct answer, but with Claude de Lorraine there was never any direct answer. He always smiled very charmingly before replying and he was very cool, collected, employing an irony and a mockery which was beyond us. He was a thorn in our side, Claude de Lorraine, and when finally he moved out of the neighborhood we all breathed a sigh of relief. As for myself, it was only maybe ten or fifteen years later that I thought about this boy and his strange, elegant behavior. And it was then that I felt I had made a bad blunder. For suddenly one day it occurred to me that Claude de Lorraine had come up to me on a certain occasion obviously to win my friendship and I had treated him rather cavalierly.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Besides, it had been three weeks since she’d quit Christine’s, and she still hadn’t found a job, so the money was useful to her. Sometimes it was a hundred, sometimes two or even three hundred, depending on nothing but his mood. Her days began to slide together in a passive slur of afternoon movies, galleries and nightclubs. Babette would ask her if she’d started writing and she’d say that she was taking notes, which was true. She was content to drift, confident that her unconscious was unconsciously gathering information. She was having coffee in Soho one afternoon when Jackson walked into the café. He had the same mincing, narrow walk, the same rigid pelvis, the same uptilted chin. He looked at her and she at him. She held her breath. He quickly examined her, from foot to eye, and sat down on the other side of the room without answering her nod. She thought of something Babette had said when Stephanie had told her about her first hooking experience. “Oh, Stephie, don’t you know this is exactly what Jackson said you’d do? How can you fall into that horrible idea he had of you?” She had stiffly explained to Babette that this had nothing to do with Jackson, and she was sure that it didn’t. But it made her feel bad to think of Jackson’s reaction if he ever heard about it. The last time she’d seen him in New York, she had called him. He said they should meet for lunch, but lunch turned out to be a plastic glass of orange juice in a coffee shop while Jackson waited for his laundry to come out of a machine. He didn’t have much time, he said. He was meeting his fiancée’s parents at five. Their forty minutes of conversation were filled with pauses and downward looks. “People in New York are very busy,” he said. “I divide my time sparingly between my work and my social life. I find myself associating primarily with other young professionals.” She told Bernard about seeing Jackson that night, as they sat in a loud bar having BLTs and drinks. “It sounds romantic in a way,” he said. “Silently passing each other in a crowded room.” “It was awful.” “What was so terrible about what happened between the two of you?” She shrugged. “It’s hard to describe. I guess it’s basically that corny thing I talked about. I loved him, I trusted him too much and he turned out to be a dreadful person.” She realized that Bernard was being distracted by a plump blonde with loopy earrings and white go-go boots. She paused until he turned toward her again. “But it was more complicated. He had a lot of power over me. He was bisexual—don’t worry, I test negative—and he was seeing this guy André at the same time that he was seeing me.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Connie made a faint affirmative half moan. Carla made a small sensual laugh in her throat. “She’s really enjoying herself now,” she said. “And we’re allllmost done,” said Dr. Fangelli. “Just a little…” He did some dull, painful thing that caused a nasty taste in her mouth. — She returned to her office in a mildly muddled state that was both combative and uncertain. She stopped in the ladies’ room to look at herself in the mirror and saw with an unhappy loss of confidence that one side of her face had fallen into a jowly state of despair and that her eyes looked terribly tired and sad. She put on more makeup and entered the office. Luckily, there were only three people there, two assistants and an associate whom she liked. On her desk was a copy of a story being considered for publication. She read it twice and took it into the associate editor’s office. “Steve,” she said, “do you like this?” “What’s wrong with your mouth?” “Ignore it. I look spastic, but I’m not, I just went to the dentist. Do you like this?” “Yeah, I do. It’s—” “No, I mean really. Tell me the truth. Do you like this?” Steve looked provoked, then cornered, then he marshaled himself. “Yes, Connie, I like it. It’s terse, it’s quirky, it tricks you into thinking you’re safe, and then you find yourself on the edge of a cliff.” “Yeah, so does everything else we publish here.” “Connie, what do you want me to say? I know you feel frustrated about what we’re publishing, but this is what Fulford likes. I don’t have a problem with it.” “But I thought you liked the thing I showed you a few weeks ago.” “I did like it! I liked it a lot! But Fulford didn’t.” “He never likes anything I like. I don’t know why he hired me.” “You don’t like many things. If you did blurbs for novels they’d read ‘Mediocre! raves Constance Weymouth.’ ” “You like everything.” “I’m ready to like things. That’s true.” He leaned back in his chair and tipped his head backward as if he were on a talk show hosted by an obnoxious crank. Then he banged his chair forward again and smiled. They talked a little more; Steve said the quality of a text depended largely on the frame of reference you imposed on it. Connie disagreed. They made a few jokes and Connie went back to her cubicle. She sat quietly as her jaw woke up, and watched the coarsely sweatered back of an assistant move from side to side at her desk.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  This was especially true of her job search—there she was, the round-shouldered applicant before the monotonous, large-handed boss. She remembered her interview with the most respected editor of the most prestigious publishing house in town: “Oh, yes, I remember Georgia Helman.” The editor had rolled his eyes as he mentioned the woman who had referred Stephanie to him, a woman who had been his associate for two years. “A rather pathetic case. The only reason I hired her was as a favor to a personal friend. She was so messed up with drugs and men, you know. But about you.” He looked at her as if she’d already been in his office several times. “If you really want to be a writer, then don’t move to New York. You’ll just wind up in some dank little dump in the East Village with bars on the windows, and oh, I don’t know.” He grimaced and flapped his hand with distaste. She reminded him that she had already moved to the city and he said, “Well, in that case, maybe you should try The New Yorker . They generally hire only friends and family, but you have a certain, I don’t know, fresh, insipid look they might like. I’ve gotten quite a few people in there. Would you like to have a drink tomorrow evening?” She had to admit that a large part of the reason she was even trying to get a job was for the approval of people she’d known in Illinois, many of whom were living in New York and thought of her as a hopeless neurotic who couldn’t do much of anything. She thought of her last conversation with one of these people, a film production assistant on her lunch break. “Stephanie,” she said, “you’ve simply got to cut your hair. I know it sounds superficial, but really, things like that matter. Editors are very busy people; they can only see you for twenty minutes, so they have to act on impressions, and that includes style. Long hair is college—ideals, finding yourself, and all that. Nobody here has long hair.” She dug smartly into her pile of refried beans. She thought of Jackson, an ex-lover whom she had especially wanted to impress, and was perversely glad that she never did get a professional position. She remembered what a curious relief it had been to take her first job in a whorehouse, where a real job didn’t matter, where males and females performed the ancient, primal and wonderfully elementary dance of copulation, blandly, predictably and by appointment. “Is something wrong?” asked Bernard. “I was just thinking of someone.” She hesitated. “Someone I knew in college. I had a pretty awful relationship with this person and I couldn’t have sex for over a year afterward.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  She told me not to do that. Then once the hiding was over I’d say to myself, I’m going to be so good from here on. I’m never ever going to do a bad thing in my life ever ever ever ever ever— and to remember not to do anything bad, let me write something on the wall to remind myself...and then I would pick up a crayon and get straight back into it, and I never understood why. — My relationship with my mom was like the relationship between a cop and a criminal in the movies—the relentless detective and the devious mastermind she’s determined to catch. They’re bitter rivals, but, damn, they respect the hell out of each other, and somehow they even grow to like each other. Sometimes my mom would catch me, but she was usually one step behind, and she was always giving me the eye. Someday, kid. Someday I’m going to catch you and put you away for the rest of your life. Then I would give her a nod in return. Have a good evening, Officer. That was my whole childhood. My mom was forever trying to rein me in. Over the years, her tactics grew more and more sophisticated. Where I had youth and energy on my side, she had cunning, and she figured out different ways to keep me in line. One Sunday we were at the shops and there was a big display of toffee apples. I loved toffee apples, and I kept nagging her the whole way through the shop. “Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple? Please can I have a toffee apple?” Finally, once we had our groceries and my mom was heading to the front to pay, I succeeded in wearing her down. “Fine,” she said. “Go and get a toffee apple.” I ran, got a toffee apple, came back, and put it on the counter at the checkout. “Add this toffee apple, please,” I said. The cashier looked at me skeptically. “Wait your turn, boy. I’m still helping this lady.” “No,” I said. “She’s buying it for me.” My mother turned to me. “Who’s buying it for you?” “You’re buying it for me.” “No, no. Why doesn’t your mother buy it for you?” “What? My mother? You are my mother.” “I’m your mother? No, I’m not your mother. Where’s your mother?” I was so confused. “You’re my mother.” The cashier looked at her, looked back at me, looked at her again. She shrugged, like, I have no idea what that kid’s talking about. Then she looked at me like she’d never seen me before in her life. “Are you lost, little boy? Where’s your mother?” “Yeah,” the cashier said. “Where’s your mother?” I pointed at my mother. “She’s my mother.” “What? She can’t be your mother, boy. She’s black.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I pried open the window that led to the fire escape. From there I could see the East River. Competing sounds of Latin music from cars and apartment windows filled my ears. Children played in the street. Their mothers yelled at them from the windows. In any language their warnings meant Be careful. New buds were popping from the skinny trees that lined the street. It was spring. I noticed wiry weeds, almost as big as saplings, growing between the buildings and in vacant lots. They pushed through cracks in the cement, growing with scarcely any soil or light. The sight was strangely reassuring, I figured if they could survive here, so could I. A woman in the supermarket turned and stared at me as I clawed at my crotch. The itching and burning had become unbearable over the months. It wasn’t going away by itself. I had a vaginal infection. I’d put off doing anything about it, refusing to admit I needed to see a doctor. Why did the infection have to be there of all places? Why couldn’t it be an ear infection? I had a flyer on my refrigerator door that Pd lifted off a lamp post, advertising a women’s health clinic in my neighborhood. On Wednesday night I mustered my courage and went. “This clinic is for women,” the receptionist smiled. I nodded. “I know. I have a vaginal infection,” I whispered. “A what?” she asked. I took a deep breath and spoke in a stronger voice. “A vaginal infection.” Stillness fell over the crowded waiting room. The silence punished me. The receptionist looked me up and down. “Are you kidding?” I shook my head. “I have a vaginal infection. I came here for help.” The receptionist nodded. “Have a seat, sit.” I debated leaving, but the itching and burning were getting worse every day. I watched the receptionist greet the woman who arrived after me. “Just pull your own chart and have a seat,” she said. “The doctor will be with you shortly. Help yourself to herbal tea.” Everyone in the waiting room was stating at me. I looked at the bulletin board: women’s dances and rituals; therapists, masseuses, and accountants. New symbols: a two-edged hatchet, a circle with a cross on the bottom. New names: Goodwomyn, Silverwomyn. I could hear myself being discussed in loud voices. “He’s crazy.” “Well, why can’t they be crazy in their own space?” I found an empty chair and sat down. I noticed a book on the rack next to me called Our Bodies, Ourselves and made a mental note to buy it in a bookstore. A shadow fell across me—a woman with a clipboard. Her nameplate read Roz. Once inside the examining room Roz threw down her clipboard on the desk and nodded toward a chair. “What’s this all about?” All my words tumbled out. I tried to tell her everythine—who I was, why I’d come.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. Or; The ruler says, she is dead, exaggerating his calamity. As it is the manner of those that prefer a petition to magnify their distresses, and to represent them as something more than they really are, in order to gain the compassion of those to whom they make supplication; whence he adds, But come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. See his dullness. He begs two things of Christ, to come, and to lay His hand upon her. This was what Naaman the Syrian required of the Prophet. For they who are constituted thus hard of heart have need of sight and things sensible. REMIGIUS. We ought to admire and at the same time to imitate the humility and mercifulness of the Lord; as soon as ever He was asked, He rose to follow him that asked; And Jesus rose, and followed him. Here is instruction both for such as are in command, and such as are in subjection. To these He has left an example of obedience; to those who are set over others He shews how earnest and watchful they should be in teaching; whenever they hear of any being dead in spirit, they should hasten to Him; And his disciples went with him. CHRYSOSTOM. Mark and Luke say that He took with Him three disciples only, namely, Peter, James, and John; He took not Matthew, to quicken his desires, and because he was yet not perfectly minded1; and for this reason He honours these three, that others may become like-minded. It was enough meanwhile for Matthew to see the things that were done respecting her that had the issue of blood, concerning whom it follows; And, behold, a woman who had suffered an issue of blood twelve years, came behind and touched the hem of his garment. JEROME. This woman that had the flux came to the Lord not in the house, nor in the town, for she was excluded from them by the Law, but by the way as He walked; thus as He goes to heal one woman, another is cured. CHRYSOSTOM. She came not to Christ with an open address through shame concerning this her disease, believing herself unclean; for in the Law this disease was esteemed highly unclean. For this reason she hides herself.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  The teacher narrowed her eyes at me. “What kind of name is that? Is it short for Jessica?” I shook my head. “No, ma’am.” “Jess,” she repeated. “That’s not a girl’s name.” I dropped my head. Kids around me covered their mouths with their hands to stifle their giggles. Miss Sanders glared at them until they fell silent. “Ts that a Jewish name?” she asked. I nodded, hoping that she was finished. She was not. “Class, Jess is from the Jewish persuasion. Jess, tell the class where you’re from.” I squirmed in my seat. “The desert.” “What? Speak up, Jess.” “T’m from the desert.” I could see the kids mugging and rolling their eyes at each other. “What desert? What state?” She pushed her glasses higher up on her nose. I froze with fear. I didn’t know. “The desert,” I shrugged. Miss Sanders grew visibly impatient. “What made your family decide to come to Buffalo?” How should I know? Did she think parents told six-year-old kids why they made huge decisions that would impact on their lives? “We drove,” I said. Miss Sanders shook her head. I hadn’t made a very good first impression. Sirens screamed. It was the Wednesday morning air raid drill. We crouched down under our desks and covered our heads with our arms. We were warned to treat The Bomb like strangers: don’t make eye contact. If you can’t see The Bomb, it can’t see you. There was no bomb—this was only practice for the real thing. But I was saved by the siren. I was sorry we’d moved from the warmth of the desert to this cold, cold city. Nothing could have prepared me for getting out of bed on a winter morning in an unheated apartment in Buffalo. Even warming our clothes in the oven before we put them Stone Butch Blues 9 on didn’t help much. After all, we still had to take our pajamas off first. Outside the cold was so fierce that the wind carved up my nose and sliced into my brain. Tears froze in my eyes. My sister Rachel was still a toddler. I just remember a round snowsuit swaddled with scarves and mittens and hat. No kid, just clothes. Even when I was bundled up in the dead of winter, with only a couple of inches of my face peeking out from my snowsuit hood and scarf, adults would stop me and ask, “Are you a boy or a girl?” I'd drop my eyes in shame, never questioning their right to ask. During the summer there wasn’t much to do in the projects, but there was plenty of time to do it. The projects, former Army barracks, now housed the military-contracted aircraft workers and their families. All our fathers went to work in the same plant; all our mothers stayed home.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “T was so ashamed,” my mother told my father. He glared at me in the rearview mirror. All I could see were his thick black eyebrows. My mother had been informed that I could no longer attend temple unless I wore a dress, something I fought tooth and nail. At that moment I was wearing a Roy Rogers outfit— without my guns. It was hard enough being the only Jewish family in the projects without being in trouble at the temple. We had to drive a long time to go to the nearest synagogue. My father prayed downstairs. My mother and sister and I had to watch from the balcony, like at the movies. It seemed like there weren’t many Jews in the world. There were some on the radio, but none in my school. Jews weren’t allowed on the playground. That’s what the older kids told me, and they enforced it. We were nearing home. My mother shook her head. “Why can’t she be like Rachel?” Rachel looked at me sheepishly. I shrugged. Rachel’s dream was a felt skirt with an appliqué poodle and rhinestone-studded plastic shoes. Stone Butch Blues 13 My father pulled our car to a stop in front of our house. “You go straight to your room, young lady. And stay there.” I was bad. I was going to be punished. My head ached with fear. I wished I could find a way to be good. Shame suffocated me. It was almost sundown. I heard my parents call Rachel to join them in their bedroom to light the Shabbas candles. I knew the shades were drawn. A month before, we’d heard laughter and shouting outside the living room windows while my mother was lighting the candles. We raced to the windows and peered out into the dusk. Two teenagers pulled down their pants and mooned us. “Kikes!” they shouted. My father didn’t chase them away; he closed the drapes. After that, we started praying in their bedroom with the shades pulled down. Everyone in my family knew about shame and fear. Soon afterward my Roy Rogers outfit disappeared from the dirty clothes hamper. My father bought me an Annie Oakley outfit instead. “No!” I shouted, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to wear it. Pll feel stupid!” My father yanked me by the arm. “Young lady, I spent $4.90 for this Annie Oakley outfit and you’re going to wear it.” I tried to shake off his hand, but it was clamped 14 Leslie Feinberg painfully on my upper arm. Tears dripped down my cheeks. “I want a Davy Crockett hat.” My father tightened his grip. “I said no.” “But why?” I cried. “Everybody has one except me. Why not?” His answer was inexplicable. “Because you’re a girl.” “I’m sick of people asking me if she’s a boy or a girl,’ I overheard my mother complain to my father. “Everywhere I take her, people ask me.”

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  18The History of Christianity II õHowever, the authorities in Rome did not see Luther as conservative. The pope excommunicated him in 1521, and he was condemned as an outlaw by the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V. Luther had to stage his own kidnapping and go into hiding in order to escape. By 1526, despite his early inclination to reform Catholicism from within, Luther ended up organizing a new church. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION õAlmost as soon as the 95 Theses became known, Luther’s allies were arguing among themselves about theology and authority. At this time, authority in Germany was already a rather confusing matter. There was no single king, but instead many princes, independent cities, and other sovereign territories. These, in theory, owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor, but were often at odds with him. õLuther had been writing all kinds of pamphlets to convince German princes that it was their solemn duty to defy the pope. Many of them also thought his doctrines gave them a nice new reason to defy the Catholic emperor too. But that doesn’t mean that they agreed on exactly what the new religion should look like. õEmperor Charles V was increasingly nervous about all this turmoil. In 1530, he asked the Protestant leaders of Germany to gather for an imperial diet, a deliberative assembly, in the town of Augsburg to talk about their problems with Rome. He wanted to quash Protestantism, but he also just wanted everyone to settle down.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Then one day, when the plant whistle blew, silence hung heavy in the air. I looked from face to face. Something was up. Muriel spoke first. ““Today you start the song,” she suggested casually, “any song you want.” I looked around in disbelief, but she was serious. I felt the blood rise in my face. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I didn’t want to hear my voice tise alone, even for a minute, above the sounds of the machines and the other women. In fact, I realized I felt ashamed of my own voice. “I can’t,” I protested. I felt near tears. No one said a word. They just kept working in silence. By lunchtime I realized there would be no songs until I began one. Why? I wondered. Why are the women doing this to me? Are they making fun of me? I knew it wasn't true. They noticed how quietly I mouthed the words to songs. They were inviting my voice to join theirs. They were honoring me again. That night I lay awake in panic. The daily routine wouldn’t resume until I sang alone. My throat clenched at the very idea. I thought about calling in sick, but it was too cowardly and it wouldn’t change anything. No one was going to forget I was asked to start the first song, Besides, the next day was Christmas Eve. I would lose my holiday pay if I called in sick. And immediately after the holiday I was eligible to join the union. In the morning I tried to act normal at work. I was welcomed as usual. When Yvonne came in, I wondered if she had heard. Her smile let me know she had. The whistle blew. Each of us punched in. Stone Butch Blues 83 We took our places in line. The tension was thick. I cleared my throat several times. Muriel watched her hands while she worked; she smiled gently. This was it. I would try to find my voice and be proud of it. After several false starts my voice began to rise, singing the song I loved most—the first song Td learned. Almost immediately the other women lifted their voices up with mine to spare me any pain. We all smiled at each other and sang with tears in our eyes. After lunch the foreman called me into his office and handed me a pink slip. “Sorry,” he said. He escorted me to my locker to get my things. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone. I actually felt embarrassed about being fired. I knew it was because I was so close to getting into the union. And I knew management had been watching the growing solidarity with great trepidation. But my shame rekindled as I realized the foreman probably heard my voice rising alone in song.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: As stated already (ad 2), the merit of beatitude, which comes of faith, is not entirely excluded except a man refuse to believe only such things as he can see. But for a man to believe from visible signs the things he does not see, does not entirely deprive him of faith nor of the merit of faith: just as Thomas, to whom it was said (Jn. 20:29): “‘Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed,’ saw one thing and believed another” [*Gregory, Hom. xxvi]: the wounds were what he saw, God was the object of His belief. But his is the more perfect faith who does not require such helps for belief. Hence, to put to shame the faith of some men, our Lord said (Jn. 4:48): “Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not.” From this one can learn how they who are so ready to believe God, even without beholding signs, are blessed in comparison with them who do not believe except they see the like. Whether the proofs which Christ made use of manifested sufficiently the truth of His Resurrection?Objection 1: It would seem that the proofs which Christ made use of did not sufficiently manifest the truth of His Resurrection. For after the Resurrection Christ showed nothing to His disciples which angels appearing to men did not or could not show; because angels have frequently shown themselves to men under human aspect, have spoken and lived with them, and eaten with them, just as if they were truly men, as is evident from Genesis 18, of the angels whom Abraham entertained. and in the Book of Tobias, of the angel who “conducted” him “and brought” him back. Nevertheless, angels have not true bodies naturally united to them; which is required for a resurrection. Consequently, the signs which Christ showed His disciples were not sufficient for manifesting His Resurrection. Objection 2: Further, Christ rose again gloriously, that is, having a human nature with glory. But some of the things which Christ showed to His disciples seem contrary to human nature, as for instance, that “He vanished out of their sight,” and entered in among them “when the doors were shut”: and some other things seem contrary to glory, as for instance, that He ate and drank, and bore the scars of His wounds. Consequently, it seems that those proofs were neither sufficient nor fitting for establishing faith in the Resurrection. Objection 3: Further, after the Resurrection Christ’s body was such that it ought not to be touched by mortal man; hence He said to Magdalen (Jn. 20:17): “Do not touch Me; for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” Consequently, it was not fitting for manifesting the truth of His Resurrection, that He should permit Himself to be handled by His disciples.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 5: As Jerome says on Mat. 1:3: “None of the holy women are mentioned in the Saviour’s genealogy, but only those whom Scripture censures, so that He who came for the sake of sinners, by being born of sinners, might blot out all sin.” Thus Thamar is mentioned, who is censured for her sin with her father-in-law; Rahab who was a whore; Ruth who was a foreigner; and Bethsabee, the wife of Urias, who was an adulteress. The last, however, is not mentioned by name, but is designated through her husband; both on account of his sin, for he was cognizant of the adultery and murder; and further in order that, by mentioning the husband by name, David’s sin might be recalled. And because Luke purposes to delineate Christ as the expiator of our sins, he makes no mention of these women. But he does mention Juda’s brethren, in order to show that they belong to God’s people: whereas Ismael, the brother of Isaac, and Esau, Jacob’s brother, were cut off from God’s people, and for this reason are not mentioned in Christ’s genealogy. Another motive was to show the emptiness of pride of birth: for many of Juda’s brethren were born of hand-maidens, and yet all were patriarchs and heads of tribes. Phares and Zara are mentioned together, because, as Ambrose says on Lk. 3:23, “they are the type of the twofold life of man: one, according to the Law,” signified by Zara; “the other by Faith,” of which Phares is the type. The brethren of Jechonias are included, because they all reigned at various times: which was not the case with other kings: or, again, because they were alike in wickedness and misfortune. Whether the matter of Christ’s body should have been taken from a woman?Objection 1: It would seem that the matter of Christ’s body should not have been taken from a woman. For the male sex is more noble than the female. But it was most suitable that Christ should assume that which is perfect in human nature. Therefore it seems that He should not have taken flesh from a woman but rather from man: just as Eve was formed from the rib of a man. Objection 2: Further, whoever is conceived of a woman is shut up in her womb. But it ill becomes God, Who fills heaven and earth, as is written Jer. 23:24, to be shut up within the narrow limits of the womb. Therefore it seems that He should not have been conceived of a woman.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Otherwise; He had above commanded us in order to sanctify our prayers that men should not judge those who sin against them. Then breaking the thread of his discourse He had introduced various other matters, wherefore now when He returns to the command with which He had begun, He says, All things whatsoever ye would, &c. That is; I not only command that ye judge not, but All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye unto them; and then you will be able to pray so as to obtain. GLOSS. (ord.) Otherwise; The Holy Spirit is the distributor of all spiritual goods, that the deeds of charity may be fulfilled; whence He adds, All things therefore &c. CHRYSOSTOM. Otherwise; The Lord desires to teach that men ought to seek aid from above, but at the same time to contribute what lays in their power; wherefore when He had said, Ask, seek, and knock, He proceeds to teach openly that men should be at pains for themselves, adding, Whatsoever ye would &c. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 61. 7.) Otherwise; The Lord had promised that He would give good things to them that ask Him. But that He may own his petitioners, let us also own ours. For they that beg are in every thing, save having of substance, equal to those of whom they beg. What face can you have of making request to your God, when you do not acknowledge your equal? This is that is said in Proverbs, Whoso stoppeth his ear to the cry of the poor, he shall cry and shall not be heard. (Prov. 21:13.) What we ought to bestow on our neighbour when he asks of us, that we ourselves may be heard of God, we may judge by what we would have others bestow upon us; therefore He says, All things whatsoever ye would. CHRYSOSTOM. He says not, All things whatsoever, simply, but All things therefore, as though He should say, If ye will be heard, besides those things which I have now said to you, do this also. And He said not, Whatsoever you would have done for you by God, do that for your neighbour; lest you should say, But how can I? but He says, Whatsoever you would have done to you by your fellow-servant, do that also to your neighbour.