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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 3: Further, it is necessary in confession that the word should agree with the thought for the very name of confession requires this. Now if a man confess while remaining attached to sin, his word is not in accord with his thought, since in his heart he holds to sin, while he condemns it with his lips. Therefore such a man does not confess. On the contrary, Every man is bound to confess his mortal sins. Now if a man in mortal sin has confessed once, he is not bound to confess the same sins again, because, as no man knows himself to have charity, no man would know of him that he had confessed. Therefore it is not necessary that confession should be quickened by charity. I answer that, Confession is an act of virtue, and is part of a sacrament. In so far as it is an act of virtue, it has the property of being meritorious, and thus is of no avail without charity, which is the principle of merit. But in so far as it is part of a sacrament, it subordinates the penitent to the priest who has the keys of the Church, and who by means of the confession knows the conscience of the person confessing. In this way it is possible for confession to be in one who is not contrite, for he can make his sins known to the priest, and subject himself to the keys of the Church: and though he does not receive the fruit of absolution then, yet he will begin to receive it, when he is sincerely contrite, as happens in the other sacraments: wherefore he is not bound to repeat his confession, but to confess his lack of sincerity. Reply to Objection 1: These words must be understood as referring to the receiving of the fruit of confession, which none can receive who is not in the state of charity. Reply to Objection 2: Contrition and satisfaction are offered to God: but confession is made to man: hence it is essential to contrition and satisfaction, but not to confession, that man should be united to God by charity. Reply to Objection 3: He who declares the sins which he has, speaks the truth; and thus his thought agrees with his lips or words, as to the substance of confession, though it is discordant with the purpose of confession. Whether confession should be entire?Objection 1: It would seem that it is not necessary for confession to be entire, namely, for a man to confess all his sins to one priest. For shame conduces to the diminution of punishment. Now the greater the number of priests to whom a man confesses, the greater his shame. Therefore confession is more fruitful if it be divided among several priests.

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

  On the contrary, Whoever has charge of the principal has charge of the accessory. Now priests are charged with the dispensation of the Eucharist to their subjects, to which sacrament the absolution of sins is subordinate [*Cf.[4879] Q[17], A[2], ad 1]. Therefore, as far as the power of the keys is concerned, a priest can absolve his subject from any sins whatever. Further, grace, however small, removes all sin. But a priest dispenses sacraments whereby grace is given. Therefore, as far as the power of the keys is concerned, he can absolve from all sins. I answer that, The power of order, considered in itself, extends to the remission of all sins. But since, as stated above, the use of this power requires jurisdiction which inferiors derive from their superiors, it follows that the superior can reserve certain matters to himself, the judgment of which he does not commit to his inferior; otherwise any simple priest who has jurisdiction can absolve from any sin. Now there are five cases in which a simple priest must refer his penitent to his superior. The first is when a public penance has to be imposed, because in that case the bishop is the proper minister of the sacrament. The second is the case of those who are excommunicated when the inferior priest cannot absolve a penitent through the latter being excommunicated by his superior. The third case is when he finds that an irregularity has been contracted, for the dispensation of which he has to have recourse to his superior. The fourth is the case of arson. The fifth is when it is the custom in a diocese for the more heinous crimes to be reserved to the bishop, in order to inspire fear, because custom in these cases either gives the power or takes it away. Reply to Objection 1: In this case the priest should not hear the confession of his accomplice, with regard to that particular sin, but must refer her to another: nor should she confess to him but should ask permission to go to another, or should have recourse to his superior if he refused, both on account of the danger, and for the sake of less shame. If, however, he were to absolve her it would be valid*: because when Augustine says that they should not be guilty of the same sin, he is speaking of what is congruous, not of what is essential to the sacrament. [*Benedict XIV declared the absolution of an accomplice “in materia turpi” to be invalid.]

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

  Objection 3: Further, that which is shameful in itself can by no means be well done. Now the marriage act is always connected with concupiscence, which is always shameful. Therefore it is always sinful. Objection 4: Further, nothing is the object of excuse save sin. Now the marriage act needs to be excused by the marriage blessings, as the Master says (Sent. iv, D, 26). Therefore it is a sin. Objection 5: Further, things alike in species are judged alike. But marriage intercourse is of the same species as the act of adultery, since its end is the same, namely the human species. Therefore since the act of adultery is a sin, the marriage act is likewise. Objection 6: Further, excess in the passions corrupts virtue. Now there is always excess of pleasure in the marriage act, so much so that it absorbs the reason which is man’s principal good, wherefore the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 11) that “in that act it is impossible to understand anything.” Therefore the marriage act is always a sin. On the contrary, It is written (1 Cor. 7:28): “If a virgin marry she hath not sinned,” and (1 Tim. 5:14): “I will . . . that the younger should marry,” and “bear children.” But there can be no bearing of children without carnal union. Therefore the marriage act is not a sin; else the Apostle would not have approved of it. Further, no sin is a matter of precept. But the marriage act is a matter of precept (1 Cor. 7:3): “Let the husband render the debt to his life.” Therefore it is not a sin. I answer that, If we suppose the corporeal nature to be created by the good God we cannot hold that those things which pertain to the preservation of the corporeal nature and to which nature inclines, are altogether evil; wherefore, since the inclination to beget an offspring whereby the specific nature is preserved is from nature, it is impossible to maintain that the act of begetting children is altogether unlawful, so that it be impossible to find the mean of virtue therein; unless we suppose, as some are mad enough to assert, that corruptible things were created by an evil god, whence perhaps the opinion mentioned in the text is derived (Sent. iv, D, 26); wherefore this is a most wicked heresy. Reply to Objection 1: By these words the Apostle did not forbid the marriage act, as neither did he forbid the possession of things when he said (1 Cor. 7:31): “They that use this world” (let them be) “as if they used it not.” In each case he forbade enjoyment [*”Fruitionem,” i.e. enjoyment of a thing sought as one’s last end]; which is clear from the way in which he expresses himself; for he did not say “let them not use it,” or “let them not have them,” but let them be “as if they used it not” and “as if they had none.”

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  The most common English word spoken in the nail salon was sorry. It was the one refrain for what it meant to work in the service of beauty. Again and again, I watched as manicurists, bowed over a hand or foot of a client, some young as seven, say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” when they had done nothing wrong. I have seen workers, you included, apologize dozens of times throughout a forty-five-minute manicure, hoping to gain warm traction that would lead to the ultimate goal, a tip—only to say sorry anyway when none was given. In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I’m here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior, and charitable. In the nail salon, one’s definition of sorry is deranged into a new word entirely, one that’s charged and reused as both power and defacement at once. Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouth must eat. And yet it’s not only so in the nail salon, Ma. In those tobacco fields, too, we said it. “Lo siento,” Manny would utter as he walked across Mr. Buford’s field of vision. “Lo siento,” Rigo whispered as he reached to place a machete back on the wall where Buford sat ticking off numbers on a clipboard. “Lo siento,” I said to the boss after missing a day when Lan had another schizophrenic attack and had shoved all her clothes into the oven, saying she had to get rid of the “evidence.” “Lo siento,” we said when, one day, night arrived only to find the field half harvested, the tractor, its blown-out engine, sitting in the stilled dark. “Lo siento, señor,” each of us said as we walked past the truck with Buford inside blasting Hank Williams and staring at his withered crop, a palm-sized photo of Ronald Reagan taped to the dash. How the day after, we began work not with “Good morning” but with “Lo siento.” The phrase with its sound of a bootstep sinking, then lifted, from mud. The slick muck of it wetting our tongues as we apologized ourselves back to making our living. Again and again, I write to you regretting my tongue.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  That story reminded Pearl of Chinese checkers. Dwight and Skipper refused to play, but the rest of us joined in. First we played as free agents and then in teams. Pearl and I played the last round together. It was close—very close. When Pearl made the winning move we jumped up and down, and crowed, and pounded each other on the back. DWIGHT DROVE US down to Seattle early the next morning. He stopped on the bridge leading out of camp so we could see the salmon in the water below. He pointed them out to us, dark shapes among the rocks. They had come all the way from the ocean to spawn here, Dwight said, and then they would die. They were already dying. The change from salt to fresh water had turned their flesh rotten. Long strips of it hung off their bodies, waving in the current. Taylor and Silver and I sometimes hung out in the bathroom during lunch hour. We smoked cigarettes and combed our hair and exchanged interesting facts not available to the general public about women. It was just after Thanksgiving. I told Taylor and Silver and a couple of weed fiends who practically lived in the bathroom the story of how I’d killed the turkey in Chinook. “I mean I blew it off , man—I blew his fucking head right off!” At first nobody responded. Silver did the French inhale, then slowly blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “With a .22,” he said. “Fuckin’ A,” I said. “Winchester .22. Pump.” “Wolff,” he said, “you are so full of shit.” “Fuck you, Silver. I don’t care what you think.” “All a .22 would do is just make a hole in his head.” I took a drag and let the smoke come out of my mouth as I talked. “One bullet, maybe.” “Oh. Oh, I see—you hit him more than once. While he was flying. In the head.” I nodded. Silver howled. The other guys were also manifesting signs of disbelief. “Fuck you, Silver,” I said, and when he howled again I said, “Fuck. You. Fuck. You.” Still saying this, I went over to the wall, which had just been repainted, and took out my comb. It was a girl’s comb. We all carried them, tails sticking out of our back pockets. With the tail of the comb I scratched FUCK YOU into the soft paint and once more told Silver, “Fuck you.” The two weed fiends ditched their cigarettes and cleared out. So did Silver and Taylor. I threw away the comb and followed. During the first period after lunch the vice-principal visited each classroom and demanded the names of those responsible for the obscenity that had been written in the boys’ lavatory. He said that he was fed up with the delinquent behavior of a few rotten apples. They had names.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  She started her car, eased back onto the 101 south freeway. *** Myrna sat in silence at the beginning of the next session. Impatient as always, Ernest tried to prod her: “Where have your thoughts been these last few minutes?” “I think I’ve been wondering how you’ll begin the session.” “What would be your preference, Myrna? If a genie granted your wish, how would you like me to start? What’s the perfect statement or question?” “You might say, ‘Hello, Myrna; I’m really glad to see you.’” “Hello, Myrna; I’m really glad to see you today,” Ernest immediately repeated, concealing his astonishment at Myrna’s response. In past meetings with her, such clever opening gambits had invariably flopped, and he had thrown out his question now with little hope of success. What a marvel that she had become so audacious! And that he was really glad to see her—that was even more of a marvel. “Thank you. That was nice of you, even though you didn’t do it perfectly.” “Huh?” “You stuck in an extra word,” Myrna said. “The word today.” “The implications being . . . ?” “Remember Dr. Lash, how you always used to say to me, ‘A question ain’t a question if you know the answer.’” “You’re right, but humor me. Remember, Myrna, sometimes a therapist has special conversational privileges.” “Well, it seems clear to me that ‘today’ implies you often haven’t been glad to see me.” Is it only recently, Ernest thought, that I considered Myrna an interpersonal retard? “Go on,” he said, smiling. “Why would I not want to see you?” She hesitated. This was not the direction she wanted the hour to take. “Try. Try to speak to that question, Myrna. Why do you think I’m not always glad to see you? Just free-associate; say anything that comes to your mind.” Silence. She felt words stirring, welling up. She tried to pick and choose, to contain them, but there were too many words, all pouring quickly into her mind. “Why are you not glad to see me?” she erupted. “Why? I know why. Because I’m indelicate and vulgar and have bad taste”—I don’t want to do this, she thought, but couldn’t stop, compelled to burst the boil, to cleanse the space between them—“and because I’m rigid and narrow and never say anything beautiful or poetic!” Enough, enough! she told herself, trying to clamp her teeth shut, to lock her jaws. But the words now welled up into a force she could not resist, and she vomited them out: “And I’m not soft, and men want to get away from me—too many sharp angles, elbows, knees—and I’m too ungrateful, and I pollute our relationship by talking about the bill, and—and—” She stopped for a moment and then finished with a whimsical note: “And my tits are too big.” Exhausted, she sank back in her chair. Everything had been said. Ernest was stunned. Now it was he who sat speechless. Those words—his words.

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

  Reply to Objection 1: The infusion of grace suffices for the remission of sin; but after the sin has been forgiven, the sinner still owes a debt of temporal punishment. Moreover, the sacraments of grace are ordained in order that man may receive the infusion of grace, and before he receives them, either actually or in his intention, he does not receive grace. This is evident in the case of Baptism, and applies to Penance likewise. Again, the penitent expiates his temporal punishment by undergoing the shame of confession, by the power of the keys to which he submits, and by the enjoined satisfaction which the priest moderates according to the kind of sins made known to him in confession. Nevertheless the fact that confession is necessary for salvation is not due to its conducing to the satisfaction for sins, because this punishment to which one remains bound after the remission of sin, is temporal, wherefore the way of salvation remains open, without such punishment being expiated in this life: but it is due to its conducing to the remission of sin, as explained above. Reply to Objection 2: Although we do not read that they confessed, it may be that they did; for many things were done which were not recorded in writing. Moreover Christ has the power of excellence in the sacraments; so that He could bestow the reality of the sacrament without using the things which belong to the sacrament. Reply to Objection 3: The sin that is contracted from another, viz. original sin, can be remedied by an entirely extrinsic cause, as in the case of infants: whereas actual sin, which a man commits of himself, cannot be expiated, without some operation on the part of the sinner. Nevertheless man is not sufficient to expiate his sin by himself, though he was sufficient to sin by himself, because sin is finite on the part of the thing to which it turns, in which respect the sinner returns to self; while, on the part of the aversion, sin derives infinity, in which respect the remission of sin must needs begin from someone else, because “that which is last in order of generation is first in the order of intention” (Ethic. iii). Consequently actual sin also must needs take its remedy from another. Reply to Objection 4: Satisfaction would not suffice for the expiation of sin’s punishment, by reason of the severity of the punishment which is enjoined in satisfaction, but it does suffice as being a part of the sacrament having the sacramental power; wherefore it ought to be imposed by the dispensers of the sacraments, and consequently confession is necessary. Whether confession is according to the natural law?Objection 1: It would seem that confession is according to the natural law. For Adam and Cain were bound to none but the precepts of the natural law, and yet they are reproached for not confessing their sin. Therefore confession of sin is according to the natural law.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  “You gonna man me now, huh? You big, that it? You think I’m gone in my mind but I ain’t, boy. I hear you. I see things.” He coughed; a spray of liquor. “Don’t forget I was the best seal trainer at SeaWorld. Orlando ’85. Your mother was in the stands and I lifted her off her seat with my routine. My Navy Seals, them pups. I was the general of seals. That’s what she called me. The general. When I told them to laugh, they laughed.” An infomercial buzzed on the set, something about an inflatable Christmas tree that you could store in your pocket. “Who the hell would want to walk around with a goddamned Christmas tree in their pocket? Tired of this country.” His head rolled to one side, making a third fat roll appear on the back of his neck. “Hey—that boy with you? That China boy with you, huh? I know it. I hear him. He don’t talk but I hear him.” His arm shot up and I felt Trevor flinch through the couch cushion. The old man took another swig, the bottle long empty, but wiped his mouth anyway. “Your uncle James. You ’member James right?” “Yeah, sort of,” Trevor managed. “What’s that?” “Yes, sir.” “That’s right.” The old man sank further into his chair, his hair shining. The heat from his body seemed to be radiating, filling the air. “Good man, made of bone, your uncle. Bone and salt. He whooped them in that jungle. He did good for us. He burned them up. You know that, Trev? That’s what it is.” He went back to being motionless, his lips moved without affecting any part of his face. “He told you yet? How he burned up four of them in a ditch with gasoline? He told me that on his wedding night, can you believe it?” I glanced at Trevor but saw only the back of his neck, his face hidden between his knees. He was aggressively tying his boots, the plastic stringheads ticking through the eyelets as his shoulders jerked. “But it’s changed now, I know that. I ain’t stupid, boy. I know you hate me too. I know.” [TV laughter] “Saw your mom two weeks ago. Gave her the keys to the storage in Windsor Locks. Don’t know why took so long to get her damn furniture. Oklahoma don’t look too good on that one.” He paused. Took another phantom swig. “I made you fine, Trev. I know I did.” “You smell like shit.” Trevor’s face went stone-like. “What’s that? What I say—” “Said you smell like shit, dude.” The TV lit Trevor’s face grey save for the scar on his neck, whose reddish-dark tint never changed. He got it when he was nine; his old man, in a fit of rage, shot a nail gun at the front door and the thing ricocheted. Blood so red, so everywhere, it was Christmas in June, he told me.

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

  Yet by no means should an unconsecrated host be given in place of a consecrated one; because the priest by so doing, so far as he is concerned, makes others, either the bystanders or the communicant, commit idolatry by believing that it is a consecrated host; because, as Augustine says on Ps. 98:5: “Let no one eat Christ’s flesh, except he first adore it.” Hence in the Decretals (Extra, De Celeb. Miss., Ch. De Homine) it is said: “Although he who reputes himself unworthy of the Sacrament, through consciousness of his sin, sins gravely, if he receive; still he seems to offend more deeply who deceitfully has presumed to simulate it.” Reply to Objection 3: Those decrees were abolished by contrary enactments of Roman Pontiffs: because Pope Stephen V writes as follows: “The Sacred Canons do not allow of a confession being extorted from any person by trial made by burning iron or boiling water; it belongs to our government to judge of public crimes committed, and that by means of confession made spontaneously, or by proof of witnesses: but private and unknown crimes are to be left to Him Who alone knows the hearts of the sons of men.” And the same is found in the Decretals (Extra, De Purgationibus, Ch. Ex tuarum). Because in all such practices there seems to be a tempting of God; hence such things cannot be done without sin. And it would seem graver still if anyone were to incur judgment of death through this sacrament, which was instituted as a means of salvation. Consequently, the body of Christ should never be given to anyone suspected of crime, as by way of examination. Whether the seminal loss that occurs during sleep hinders anyone from receiving this sacrament?Objection 1: It seems that seminal loss does not hinder anyone from receiving the body of Christ: because no one is prevented from receiving the body of Christ except on account of sin. But seminal loss happens without sin: for Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii) that “the same image that comes into the mind of a speaker may present itself to the mind of the sleeper, so that the latter be unable to distinguish the image from the reality, and is moved carnally and with the result that usually follows such motions; and there is as little sin in this as there is in speaking and therefore thinking about such things.” Consequently these motions do not prevent one from receiving this sacrament. Objection 2: Further, Gregory says in a Letter to Augustine, Bishop of the English (Regist. xi): “Those who pay the debt of marriage not from lust, but from desire to have children, should be left to their own judgment, as to whether they should enter the church and receive the mystery of our Lord’s body, after such intercourse: because they ought not to be forbidden from receiving it, since they have passed through the fire unscorched.”

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  Days later, I would hear “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” coming from the kitchen. You were at the table, practicing your manicurist techniques on rubber mannequin hands. Dionne had given you a tape of gospel songs, and you hummed along as you worked, as the disembodied hands, their fingers lustered with candy colors, sprouted along the kitchen counters, their palms open, like the ones back in that church. But unlike the darker hands in the Ramirezes’ congregation, the ones in your kitchen were pink and beige, the only shades they came in. — 1964: When commencing his mass bombing campaign in North Vietnam, General Curtis LeMay, then chief of staff of the US Air Force, said he planned on bombing the Vietnamese “back into the Stone Ages.” To destroy a people, then, is to set them back in time. The US military would end up releasing over ten thousand tons of bombs in a country no larger than the size of California—surpassing the number of bombs deployed in all of WWII combined. 1997: Tiger Woods wins the Masters Tournament, his first major championship in professional golf. 1998: Vietnam opens its first professional golf course, which was designed on a rice paddy formerly bombed by the US Air Force. One of the playing holes was made by filling in a bomb crater. — Paul finishes his portion of the story. And I want to tell him. I want to say that his daughter who is not his daughter was a half-white child in Go Cong, which meant the children called her ghost-girl, called Lan a traitor and a whore for sleeping with the enemy. How they cut her auburn-tinted hair while she walked home from the market, arms full with baskets of bananas and green squash, so that when she got home, there’d be only a few locks left above her forehead. How when she ran out of hair, they slapped buffalo shit on her face and shoulders to make her brown again, as if to be born lighter was a wrong that could be reversed. Maybe this is why, I realize now, it mattered to you what they called Tiger Woods on TV, how you needed color to be a fixed and inviolable fact. “Maybe you shouldn’t call me Grandpa anymore.” Paul’s cheeks pinch as he sucks the second joint, killing it. He looks like a fish. “That word, it might be a bit awkward now wouldn’t it?” I think about it for a minute. Ulysses Grant’s Crayola portrait quivers from a breeze through the dimming window. “No,” I say after a while, “I don’t got any other grandpa. So I wanna keep calling you that.”

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

  Frequent, undisguised, discreet, voluntary, shamefaced, Entire, secret, tearful, not delayed, Courageously accusing, ready to obey. For fidelity, simplicity, and courage are virtues by themselves, and therefore should not be reckoned as conditions of confession. Objection 2: Further, a thing is “pure” when it is not mixed with anything else: and “simplicity,” in like manner, removes composition and admixture. Therefore one or the other is superfluous. Objection 3: Further, no one is bound to confess more than once a sin which he has committed but once. Therefore if a man does not commit a sin again, his penance need not be “frequent.” Objection 4: Further, confession is directed to satisfaction. But satisfaction is sometimes public. Therefore confession should not always be “secret.” Objection 5: Further, that which is not in our power is not required of us. But it is not in our power to shed “tears.” Therefore it is not required of those who confess. On the contrary, We have the authority of the masters who assigned the above. I answer that, Some of the above conditions are essential to confession, and some are requisite for its well-being. Now those things which are essential to confession belong to it either as to an act of virtue, or as to part of a sacrament. If in the first way, it is either by reason of virtue in general, or by reason of the special virtue of which it is the act, or by reason of the act itself. Now there are four conditions of virtue in general, as stated in Ethic. ii, 4. The first is knowledge, in respect of which confession is said to be “discreet,” inasmuch as prudence is required in every act of virtue: and this discretion consists in giving greater weight to greater sins. The second condition is choice, because acts of virtue should be voluntary, and in this respect confession is said to be “voluntary.” The third condition is that the act be done for a particular purpose, viz. the due end, and in this respect confession is said to be “pure,” i.e. with a right intention. The fourth condition is that one should act immovably, and in this respect it is said that confession should be “courageous,” viz. that the truth should not be forsaken through shame. Now confession is an act of the virtue of penance. First of all it takes its origin in the horror which one conceives for the shamefulness of sin, and in this respect confession should be “full of shame,” so as not to be a boastful account of one’s sins, by reason of some worldly vanity accompanying it. Then it goes on to deplore the sin committed, and in this respect it is said to be “tearful.” Thirdly, it culminates in self-abjection, and in this respect it should be “humble,” so that one confesses one’s misery and weakness.

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

  I answer that, A distinction must be made among sinners: some are secret; others are notorious, either from evidence of the fact, as public usurers, or public robbers, or from being denounced as evil men by some ecclesiastical or civil tribunal. Therefore Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it. Hence Cyprian writes to someone (Ep. lxi): “You were so kind as to consider that I ought to be consulted regarding actors, end that magician who continues to practice his disgraceful arts among you; as to whether I thought that Holy Communion ought to be given to such with the other Christians. I think that it is beseeming neither the Divine majesty, nor Christian discipline, for the Church’s modesty and honor to be defiled by such shameful and infamous contagion.” But if they be not open sinners, but occult, the Holy Communion should not be denied them if they ask for it. For since every Christian, from the fact that he is baptized, is admitted to the Lord’s table, he may not be robbed of his right, except from some open cause. Hence on 1 Cor. 5:11, “If he who is called a brother among you,” etc., Augustine’s gloss remarks: “We cannot inhibit any person from Communion, except he has openly confessed, or has been named and convicted by some ecclesiastical or lay tribunal.” Nevertheless a priest who has knowledge of the crime can privately warn the secret sinner, or warn all openly in public, from approaching the Lord’s table, until they have repented of their sins and have been reconciled to the Church; because after repentance and reconciliation, Communion must not be refused even to public sinners, especially in the hour of death. Hence in the (3rd) Council of Carthage (Can. xxxv) we read: “Reconciliation is not to be denied to stage-players or actors, or others of the sort, or to apostates, after their conversion to God.” Reply to Objection 1: Holy things are forbidden to be given to dogs, that is, to notorious sinners: whereas hidden deeds may not be published, but are to be left to the Divine judgment. Reply to Objection 2: Although it is worse for the secret sinner to sin mortally in taking the body of Christ, rather than be defamed, nevertheless for the priest administering the body of Christ it is worse to commit mortal sin by unjustly defaming the hidden sinner than that the sinner should sin mortally; because no one ought to commit mortal sin in order to keep another out of mortal sin. Hence Augustine says (Quaest. super Gen. 42): “It is a most dangerous exchange, for us to do evil lest another perpetrate a greater evil.” But the secret sinner ought rather to prefer infamy than approach the Lord’s table unworthily.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was very late, the boulevard was quiet, and if in a moment someone would emerge from the little convenience store (denonoshtno, its window said, day-and-night), if in a moment someone would emerge to investigate, I had time to get away, as I thought of it, walking one block and then another without passing a soul. I kept my head down, trying to be blank and unplaceable, trying to calm what I felt, which was pain and relief and shame and panic still, even though I thought I was clear, that I was far enough now to go on uncaught. But I couldn’t calm what I felt, something rose in me I couldn’t keep down, as I couldn’t keep walking at the pace I had set; with each step my foot was more tender and there was something else, too, a nausea climbing to my throat, I was going to be sick. I turned quickly into the space between two buildings, an alleyway lined with trash bags and refuse, among which I bent over or crouched, unable to stand. But it wasn’t with bile or sickness that I heaved but with tears, which came unexpected and fluent and hot, consuming in a way I hadn’t known for a very long time, that maybe I had never known. I raised my hands, wanting to cover my face, though there was no one to see I was still ashamed of my tears, and I saw that my right hand was covered with blood. In the light from the street I could see where my wrist was torn, a small deep wound where it had caught on the glass. Stupid, I thought again, stupid, at the wound or my weeping, I’m not sure which. Why should I weep, I thought, at what, when I had brought it all upon myself, and I took one of my socks from my pocket and pressed it to the wound, wrapping it around my wrist and folding the cuff of my sleeve over it, not knowing what else to do.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  It was a place to walk, and to do other things; there were always bottles and cans and cigarettes, people hung out there, I guess, there was nowhere else to go. Guys went there too, R. said; I didn’t know it then, we were only there in the daytime, but at night it was a cruising place, and when I got older it was where I went too, even though I hated it. It was always the same three or four married assholes, but whatever, it was something. We’d go walking there, just talking to each other, and then one day he stopped and pointed at something on the ground. It was a condom somebody had dropped by one of the walls, stretched out and dry, it was disgusting. He pointed at it with his shoe and asked me if I knew what it was for. And that’s how he started it, R. said, he put his arm around me and led me behind one of the walls where no one would see us. I didn’t want it but I let him do it, I guess, I mean I didn’t fight him and I never said anything, I let it happen. R. looked at me then, finally turning away from the glass, he looked at me where I sat immobile as he spoke, my fork still in my hand. I never said anything, he repeated, I’ve never said anything until now. Oh, I said, the single syllable, not a word but a sound, oh, and I set my fork down beside the plate I had hardly touched, that was past touching now. Skupi , I said, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but at this his anger snapped back, a fierce anger as he said See, almost snarling it, you see me differently now, I don’t want you to be sorry for me, I don’t want to be some hurt little boy, I don’t want it. On his face there was an expression I had never seen before, on his face or any other, it was a desperate, frightened face, though frightened of what I wasn’t sure. Okay, I said, leaning back, I was frightened too, okay. He turned away from me again and took a deep breath. The point isn’t to make you feel sorry, he said more calmly, looking at the night and the wind that filled it, the point is that I’m not just scared, that’s not the only reason I don’t want to tell people what I am.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Something, anything, besides, ‘Are we going to have sex tonight?’ I do it for you. I light the candles, create the mood you like, make love to you slowly. I do the vanilla for you. I try; you don’t.” For Coral’s part, she may never like Jed’s sexual kinks, but I encourage her to be open to understanding them. By holding court, judging him, and failing to grasp his red-light tastes, she’s condemned to feeling demeaned. Sadly, she fails to see that Jed is actually taking a big risk by trusting her to enter the primal bog of his erotic self. Rebalancing the “Dominant” Culture Most fans of kinky sex, at least those I’ve encountered, are drawn by the erotics of power and not, as it may appear to an outsider, by violence or pain. In fact, the carefully negotiated contracts, which specify what can and cannot be done, by whom, to whom, and for how long, are meant to guarantee both pleasure and safety. You submit only as much as you’re willing; you dominate only as far as you’re allowed. In the parallel universe of sex, power bids become a plaything, an experiment, a way to temporarily experience relations we’re loath to inhabit in real life. If, in our daily life, we shun dependence, in our erotic life we might welcome it. If it is our aggression that makes us twitch with discomfort, sexual enactments can permit a safe experience of power. Whether our real-life aversion is to submission, as it is for Elizabeth, or to autonomy, as it is for Jed, the sexual drama can offer catharsis. For years S-M and D-S (domination and submission) were fringe behaviors that roamed on the outskirts of conventional sexuality. They were primarily a practice of gay men, who tended to be more successful than heterosexuals at isolating sexual aggression for the purpose of pleasure (as the sociologist Anthony Giddens notes). In recent years these marginal practices have moved into the mainstream. A growing number of citizens in the early twenty-first century—gay and straight, male and female, left and right, urban and suburban—get their sexual kicks from giving and taking orders. There are far too many of them to fit a minority psychological profile. The social critic Camille Paglia sees this rise in domination and submission as a collective fantasy that tweaks the rough spots of our egalitarian culture. It seems to me that rituals of domination and submission are a subversive way to put one over on a society that glorifies control, belittles dependency, and demands equality. In cultures where these values are at a premium—America, for example—we find more and more people seeking to give up control, revel in dependency, and recognize the very inequities no one wants to talk about. Seen in this light, sex clubs are havens of acceptance for what society rejects.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  I suggest to Maria that she and Nico liberate themselves from this task-oriented performance model of sexuality with its rigid requirements for mutual orgasm. It’s a pass-fail approach that smacks of seriousness and takes much of the fun out of sex. “Remember making out?” I ask her. “When’s the last time you did that?” “It’s been years. You know, I remember in the very beginning we spent an evening making out, French-kissing on the boardwalk at Coney Island. It was amazing. We don’t do that anymore.” “Well, then, there you go.” The intricacies of the dynamics between Maria and Nico are subtle, and this is true for most of the couples I meet. It’s never just one thing or one partner. Maria says she wants to be seduced, yet she resists seeing Nico as seductive. “My relationship stands in the way of my attraction to him. Sometimes I’ll look at him, like when he gets out of the shower or comes home from the gym, and I’ll think, ‘God, he’s hot.’ Why is he so attractive until I remember he’s my husband?” I explain to Maria that it’s scary to be both erotically exposed and emotionally intimate with the same person, especially when you hold the belief that sex is somehow shameful. “There’s a whole part of you that hasn’t yet entered your relationship. In fact, the psychic energy involved in keeping it tucked away is enough to make you exhausted. No wonder you’d rather go to sleep than make love to your husband.” Like many of us, Maria grew up learning to hide her erotic reveries and idle daydreams. Keeping our pleasures secret is a central component of our sexual socialization. Maria recalls the shame of getting caught as a child in a delicious moment of erotic exploration, and the disgust on her mother’s face as she said, “Stop that right now.” Even those of us fortunate enough to have parents who recognized that sexual play feels good are still likely to remember with a wince the admonishment, “Keep it private.” It is hard to bring out in the open that which we spent years trying to hide. Not surprisingly, Maria struggles to bring into her relationship the erotic imaginings she was taught so early to suppress and defend against. Sensing Nico’s receptivity, it is precisely what I encourage her to do—to own the wanting, and to believe herself worthy of being cooed over. At the same time I encourage her to bring to Nico a fresh curiosity. “It is too easy to encase him in the role of husband, with all the attendant domestic qualities, and then complain about a lack of desire. He has a whole interior geography and you’re just hanging around in the same old neighborhood.”

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  To their credit, women have consistently risen to the challenge of overcoming this taboo. With every new injunction, their imagination has grown more resistant. Consciously, Joni identifies with the women in her stories. But she also created the men, and she has every detail in place. In effect, she plays all the parts. She knows what it means to be a sexual predator: she knows about lust and ruthlessness. Vicariously, through her cowboys, she gets to feel aggression, selfishness, and power—all attributes so wrapped up with masculinity in her mind that they can be expressed only through male characters. For many women, simulations of forced seduction provide a safe outlet for sexual aggression. Female sexual aggression so contradicts our cultural notions of femininity that we can unleash it only in these imaginary transpositions. Let him, the invented assailant, express the aggression so many women are reluctant to express themselves. The widespread sexual abuse of women is a chilling backdrop to the now pedestrian rape fantasy, but in these imaginary plots the assault is not real. Few women incorporate a black eye or a split lip into their erotic reveries. The sex therapist Jack Morin makes the point that fantasy rapists are notably nonviolent. In fantasy, violence is subverted by gentleness. Through the gentle man, women can safely experience the joys of “healthy dominance and powerful surrender.” Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch In my practice I aim to create a sex-friendly place, free of judgment and moralizing, where people can talk safely about their sexuality. Simply doing that—and often it is not so simple at all—can have a profound effect. Sex becomes both a way to illuminate conflicts over intimacy and desire, and a way to begin to heal these destructive splits. Together, Joni and I use the text of her fantasies to address critical issues between her and Ray. Dependency and passivity, aggression, and control were all feelings that she disavowed for years, they had been allowed only in the privacy of her mind. By reclaiming them in therapy she was one step closer to liberating them at home. Once Joni was no longer held captive by the shame of her fantasies, she became more relaxed and self-accepting. To her surprise, she was able to approach Ray with all sorts of requests and only a modest amount of trepidation. Conversations ensued in which formidable obstacles were revealed to be nothing more than awkward misunderstandings that, through neglect, had snowballed out of control. For years Ray had assumed that his gentle approach was what Joni wanted. In fact, he thought that was what all women wanted, and he couldn’t figure out why asking “What can I do for you?” warranted such an irritated reply: “Nothing!” He had no way of knowing that, for Joni, being taken care of sexually meant abdicating all responsibility and luxuriating in passive dependency, guilt-free. Their dynamics had become absurd, with her rejection triggering his solicitousness, which in turn triggered more rejection.

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

  Reply to Objection 1: In the act of eating there is not such an intense pleasure overpowering the reason as in the aforesaid action, both because the generative power, whereby original sin is transmitted, is infected and corrupt, whereas the nutritive power, by which original sin is not transmitted, is neither corrupt nor infected; and again because each one feels in himself a defect of the individual more than a defect of the species. Hence, in order to entice a man to take food which supplies a defect of the individual, it is enough that he feel this defect; but in order to entice him to the act whereby a defect of the species is remedied, Divine providence attached pleasure to that act, which moves even irrational animals in which there is not the stain of original sin. Hence the comparison fails. Reply to Objection 2: These goods which justify marriage belong to the nature of marriage, which consequently needs them, not as extrinsic causes of its rectitude, but as causing in it that rectitude which belongs to it by nature. Reply to Objection 3: From the very fact that marriage is intended as an office or as a remedy it has the aspect of something useful and right; nevertheless both aspects belong to it from the fact that it has these goods by which it fulfills the office and affords a remedy to concupiscence. Reply to Objection 4: An act of virtue may derive its rectitude both from the virtue as its elicitive principle, and from its circumstances as its formal principles; and the goods of marriage are related to marriage as circumstances to an act of virtue which owes it to those circumstances that it can be an act of virtue. Whether the goods of marriage are sufficiently enumerated?Objection 1: It would seem that the goods of marriage are insufficiently enumerated by the Master (Sent. iv, D, 31), namely “faith, offspring, and sacrament.” For the object of marriage among men is not only the begetting and feeding of children, but also the partnership of a common life, whereby each one contributes his share of work to the common stock, as stated in Ethic. viii, 12. Therefore as the offspring is reckoned a good of matrimony, so also should the communication of works. Objection 2: Further, the union of Christ with the Church, signified by matrimony, is the effect of charity. Therefore charity rather than faith should be reckoned among the goods of matrimony. Objection 3: Further, in matrimony, just as it is required that neither party have intercourse with another, so is it required that the one pay the marriage debt to the other. Now the former pertains to faith according to the Master (Sent. iv, D, 31). Therefore justice should also be reckoned among the goods of marriage on account of the payment of the debt.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  But for me the stealing was serious business, so much so that I dissembled its seriousness, not letting Taylor and Silver see the hold it had on me. I was a thief. By my own estimation, a master thief. When I cruised the aisles of dime stores, lingering over jackknives and model cars, a bland expression on my face, looking more innocent than an innocent person has any business looking, I imagined that the saleswomen who sometimes glanced over at me saw an earnest young shopper instead of a transparent little klepto. And when I finally managed to steal something I figured I was getting away with it because I was so sharp, and not because these women had been on their feet all day and were too tired to deal with a shoplifter and the trouble he would cause them: his false outrage, then his terror, his weeping, the triumphant descent of the manager, policemen, paperwork, the hollowness they would feel when it was over. I hid the things I stole. Now and then I took them out and turned them over in my hands, dully considering them. Out of the store they did not interest me, except for the jackknives, which I threw at trees until the blades broke off. A FEW MONTHS after we moved into the house Marian got engaged to her marine boyfriend. Then Kathy got engaged to a man in her office. Marian thought my mother should get engaged too, and tried to fix her up. She set in motion a brief parade of suitors. One by one they came up the walk, stared at the broken steps, went around to the back; then, entering the kitchen, braced themselves and put on joviality like a party hat. Even I could see the hopelessness in their imitation of gaiety though not its source in their belief, already sufficiently formed to make itself come true, that this woman too would find them unacceptable. There was a marine who did tricks for me with lengths of string tied to his fingers, and seemed unwilling to leave the house with my mother. There was a man who arrived drunk and had to be sent away in a cab. There was an old man who, my mother told me later, tried to borrow money from her. And then came Dwight. Dwight was a short man with curly brown hair and sad, restless brown eyes. He smelled of gasoline. His legs were small for his thick-chested body, but what they lacked in length they made up for in spring; he had an abrupt, surprising way of springing to his feet. He dressed like no one I’d ever met before—two-tone shoes, hand-painted tie, monogrammed blazer with a monogrammed handkerchief in the breast pocket. Dwight kept coming back, which made him chief among the suitors. My mother said he was a good dancer—he could really make those shoes of his get up and go. Also he was very nice, very considerate.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  In his letters, elegance of tone had given way to simple friendliness. I carried the letters around with me and read them with elation. DWIGHT CAME INTO the kitchen one afternoon while Pearl and I were eating some hot dogs I’d cooked up. He noticed a jar of French’s mustard in the garbage pail and fished it out. “Who threw this away?” he asked. I told him I had. “Why did you throw it away?” “Because it was empty.” “Because it was empty? Does this look empty to you?” He held the bottle close to my face. There were a few streaks of mustard congealed under the neck and in the grooves at the bottom. Pearl said, “It looks empty to me.” “I didn’t ask you,” Dwight told her. “Well, it does,” she said. I said that it looked empty to me, too. “Look again,” he said, and pushed the open neck of the jar against my eye. When I jerked away he grabbed me by the hair and shoved my face back down toward the jar. “Does this look empty to you?” I didn’t answer. “Dad,” Pearl said. He asked me again if the jar looked empty. It was hurting my eye, so I said no, it didn’t look empty. He let go of me. “Clean it out,” he said. He handed me the jar. I picked up a knife and began scraping at the mustard while he watched. After a time he sat down across the table. The streaks were hard to get at, especially under the neck where the knife wouldn’t go. Dwight grew impatient. He said, “You’re going to have to do better than that if you think you’re ever going to be an engineer.” Back in the days when Skipper talked of going to engineering school I had insincerely declared the same ambition, hoping to pick up some points by echoing his sober program. The more I said it the more possible it seemed. I had no interest in the specifics of the profession, and no aptitude, but my father was an engineer and I liked the sound of the word. I got out as much of the mustard as I could. It made a brown and yellow smudge where I’d scraped it off on the edge of my plate. “All right,” Dwight said. “Now—was it empty?” “Yes,” I said. He leaned across the table and slapped my face. He didn’t swing hard but the slap was loud. Pearl started yelling at him, and while he was yelling back I got up and left the house. I wandered around feeling sorry for myself. Then I decided to buy a Coke from the machine on the loading ramp of the main warehouse. There was also a phone booth on the ramp, and as I drank the Coke I formed the idea of calling my brother. I didn’t know how to do it, but the operator was amused by my helplessness and steered me through.