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 Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  I ask them. “Sex,” he answers. “Cheating,” she says. When they met, Jacqueline was the winning prize for Philip. “Jackie was smart, beautiful, and sexy. I couldn’t believe she was interested in me. I was really into her. I was all over her, too. We had great sex for a long time. Right up until I asked her to marry me,” he recalls. “What happened when she said yes?” I inquire. “Nothing happened, but something did change when I got that ring. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but now I see it pretty clearly. Entering a family shut me down fast. I didn’t tell her about it. In fact, I even tried to deny to myself that anything was different. But pretty soon, I couldn’t get turned on by her. Eventually, every time she left town, or even if she was just out for the night, I was logging on or trolling the bars.” Eight years of transgressions followed, some discovered, some disclosed, some mercifully kept secret. The sequence became repetitive, the resolution of one episode led to the next wave of transgression. Philip’s shame at cheating was always followed by remorse and repentance. He felt terrible about hurting Jackie, and vowed to change. He would make a big show of being an upstanding man and a good husband, and she would forgive him and take him back. Then he would become restless, and a lecherous escalation would always follow. During these years they also had two sons, Jackie finished her first novel, Philip got tenure at a university, and they moved to New York. All these developments helped them put off dealing with the problem. But the latest round was, for Jackie, one too many. To understand Philip’s sexuality, I followed the link to his parents, whose marriage strikingly represented the cultural division between “safe” domesticity and “dangerous” eroticism. While his mother raised five kids, his father engaged in a continuous series of affairs, none of which he made great efforts to hide. Philip’s grandfather, as it turns out, had done the same. “My father, who was actually a very likable man, went about it without much regard for how it made the rest of us feel—least of all my mom,” Philip told me. His mother, whose suffering was severe, was nonetheless a practical woman who never forgot that she had five kids to feed. “She never spoke about it, but we all knew she needed us as much as we needed her.” In order not to upset her any further, Philip tried to be as different from his father as possible.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  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. Where had they come from? He looked at Myrna, who was bent over, holding her head in her hands. How to respond? His head swam; he had an impish impulse to say, “Your tits aren’t too big.” But thank God, he didn’t. Bantering was not called for. He knew that he needed to take Myrna’s words with the greatest possible seriousness and respect. He snatched at the life vest that in the stormiest of seas, therapists always have available: process commentary, that is, to comment on the process, the relationship implications, of the patient’s utterance rather than on its content. “Lot of emotion in your words, Myrna,” he said quietly. “Sounds like you’ve wanted to say them for a long time.” “I guess so.” Myrna took a couple of deep breaths. “The words had a life of their own. They wanted to come out.” “A bushel of anger there toward me—maybe toward both of us.” “Both? At you and at myself? Probably true. But getting less. Maybe that’s why I could say those things today.” “Feels good that you trust me more.” “I had really wanted to talk about other things today.” “Such as?” Ernest leaped at the idea—anything to change direction.

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

  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.” This is the challenge of sexual intimacy, of bringing home the erotic. It is the most fearsome of all intimacies because it is all-encompassing. It reaches the deepest places inside us, and involves disclosing aspects of ourselves that are invariably bound up with shame and guilt. It is scary, a whole new kind of nakedness, far more revealing than the sight of our nude bodies. When we express our erotic yearnings we risk humiliation and rejection, which are equally devastating. I have witnessed the painful scene when a person’s preferences are condemned and labeled by his or her partner as perverse, deviant, and disgusting.

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

  Maria moved away, went to college, became a casting agent, and today lives in a world vastly different from that of her childhood. But all this intellectual broadening has not succeeded in dismantling the prohibitions: carnal lust is sinful, and especially for women. Despite twenty years of brief encounters, seasonal relationships, and steady boyfriends, the vestigial messages cling obstinately to the sinews of her body with a subcutaneous tenacity. Acting liberated doesn’t necessarily mean being liberated. When she was still single, Maria could circumvent her latent sexual uneasiness. It was easier to be uninhibited when she had less invested emotionally. But once she chose to live within the geographic limitations of a family, the murmurs of her past began to echo. “Once every six months or so I’ll bring it up with Nico. I’ll say, ‘Nico, our sex life sucks. We need to do something about it. I want you to read this book.’ But he doesn’t want to read a book. He hates those books. He’ll say, ‘It’s not my thing. Let’s just make some time to be together. The more sex you have, the more sex you have, right?’ That’s his stock answer.” “I’ve recommended books to you before, but in this instance it sounds like you’re using them to hide behind. Why is it so hard for you to talk about yourself? To be your own advocate? What would happen if you said, ‘Nico, I want to tell you about myself—what I think and feel about sex, about myself sexually?’” “The whole subject is so emotionally overwhelming it makes me sleepy.” Maria was taught that nothing is free; everything must be earned. Privilege is for those who’ve never had to work hard, and it’s morally suspect. The credo was: you sacrifice for the good of the family. Her reluctance to put herself forward is particularly strong in the sexual realm. “It seems OK to ask for what you really need,” I explain, “but to ask for something just because you want it or like it is selfish. Pleasure itself, unless you’ve earned it, is dubious. It also raises the question of how much you feel you deserve and are worthy of receiving—just because you’re you. But eroticism is precisely that: it’s pleasure for pleasure’s sake, offered to you gratuitously by Nico.” Together, Maria and I work on cultivating a healthy sense of deserving that spans sitting down in the morning when she drinks her coffee, reading the paper while the kitchen is still dirty, and going out with her friends even if it means Nico has to spend two nights in a row taking care of the baby. She is to take a break from the idea that pleasure must be paid for, in advance, by the performance of duty. We chisel away at this complex system of fairness and merit, where everything has to be perfectly equitable in order to neutralize selfishness.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  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. Where had they come from? He looked at Myrna, who was bent over, holding her head in her hands. How to respond? His head swam; he had an impish impulse to say, “Your tits aren’t too big.” But thank God, he didn’t. Bantering was not called for. He knew that he needed to take Myrna’s words with the greatest possible seriousness and respect. He snatched at the life vest that in the stormiest of seas, therapists always have available: process commentary, that is, to comment on the process, the relationship implications, of the patient’s utterance rather than on its content. “Lot of emotion in your words, Myrna,” he said quietly. “Sounds like you’ve wanted to say them for a long time.” “I guess so.” Myrna took a couple of deep breaths. “The words had a life of their own. They wanted to come out.” “A bushel of anger there toward me—maybe toward both of us.” “Both? At you and at myself? Probably true. But getting less. Maybe that’s why I could say those things today. ” “Feels good that you trust me more.” “I had really wanted to talk about other things today.” “Such as?” Ernest leaped at the idea—anything to change direction. As Myrna paused to catch her breath, he reflected on her uncanny intuition, her chilling burst of words. Amazing that she had grasped so much of him! How had she known? Only one possibility: unconscious empathy. Just as Dr. Werner had said. So Werner was right all the time, he thought. Why didn’t I allow myself to learn from him? What a jerk, a twerp, I’ve been. How did Werner put it? That I’m an iconoclastic Katzenjammer Kid? Well, maybe it’s time to let go of some of my juvenile questioning and debunking of elders—not everything they say is bullshit.

• From Story of O (1954)

  Thus, less than twenty-four hours after her arrival, during her second day there, she was taken after the meal into the library, there to serve coffee and tend the fire. Jeanne, whom the black-haired valet had brought back, went with her as did another girl named Monique. It was this same valet who took them there and remained in the room, stationed near the stake to which O had been attached. The library was still empty. The French doors faced west, and in the vast, almost cloudless sky the autumn sun slowly pursued its course, its rays lighting, on a chest of drawers, an enormous bouquet of sulphur-colored chrysanthemums which smelled of earth and dead leaves. “Did Pierre mark you last night?” the valet asked O. She nodded that he had. “Then you should show it,” he said. “Please roll up your dress.” He waited till she had rolled her robe up behind, the way Jeanne had done the evening before, and till Jeanne had helped her fasten it there. Then he told her to light the fire. O’s backside up to her waist, her thighs, her slender legs, were framed in the cascading folds of green silk and white linen. The five welts had turned black. The fire was ready on the hearth, all O had to do was ignite the straw beneath the kindling, which leaped into flame. Soon the branches of apple wood caught, then the oak logs, which burned with tall, crackling, almost colorless flames which were almost invisible in the daylight, but which smelled good. Another valet entered and placed a tray filled with coffee cups on the console, from which the lamp had been removed, then left the room. O went over near the console, while Monique and Jeanne remained standing on either side of the fireplace.

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

  “When you doubt your own desirability, it is harder to trust Mitch’s desire for you.” I explain. “It’s far easier to locate the fault with him—and, to be fair, he gives you plenty to work with—than it is to face the depth of your own self-doubt.” Mitch, who had been pointing to Laura’s sexual passivity for years, had some realizations of his own. “I guess I’m not too creative, either. When we were doing the exercise, I felt uncomfortable taking the lead. I hate to admit it, but I liked the passive resistance most. I’m unbeatable at that one.” I reminded Mitch that when he met Hillary, his first love, she too took the lead. “You do indeed express yourself with great eloquence in the physical realm, but you’re highly dependent on a powerful interlocutor to make it safe for you. So far, Laura hasn’t been that.” When Mitch and Laura came to me, I was reluctant to take them on. They considered me the therapist of last resort; I was either the third or the fifth (I can’t remember which) they had consulted in more than two decades. For years, they had been trying to talk their way out of their rut. Evidently, it hadn’t worked. Instead they were engaged in a verbal thrust-and-parry, defensive, hostile, and totally fused. They had had plenty of self-disclosure, but it was far from intimate. I knew enough not to limit myself to the habits of the talking cure—talking had become squawking and was going nowhere. The exercises provided an alternative lens to examine their dynamics. The physicalization of their problems gave us a fresh text to read together. It was novel enough to jar them, and to interrupt their entrenchment. They were stretching into new territory. In my work with patients I stress that intimacy isn’t monolithic; nor is it always consistent. It is intermittent, meant to wax and wane even in the best relationships. The family therapist Kaethe Weingarten steers us away from looking at intimacy as a static feature of a relationship; she sees it instead as a quality of interaction that takes place in isolated moments and that exists both within and without long-term commitment. There’s the synchronization of dance partners, the sudden identification between strangers on a plane, the solidarity of witnesses to a catastrophe, the mutual recognition of survivors—of breast cancer, alcoholism, terrorism, divorce. There’s the intimacy between professionals and those they serve—doctor and patient, therapist and client, stripper and regular. While we expect to experience these discrete moments of recognition in ongoing relationships, they are not necessarily bound to any overarching narrative. They can be circumstantial, spontaneous, and without follow-up. Informed by Weingarten’s ideas, I no longer look at relationships as being either intimate or not. Instead, I track each couple’s ability to engage in a series of intimate bids tendered over time.

• From Story of O (1954)

  O, still lying motionless on her back, her loins still aflame, was listening, and she had the feeling that by some strange substitution Sir Stephen was speaking for her, in her place. As though he was somehow in her body and could feel the anxiety, the anguish, and the shame, but also the secret pride and harrowing pleasure that she was feeling, especially when she was alone in a crowd of strangers, of passers-by in the street, or when she got into a bus, or when she was at the studio with the models and technicians, and she told herself that any and all of these people she was with, if they should have an accident and have to be laid down on the ground or if a doctor had to be called, would keep their secrets, even if they were unconscious and naked; but not she: her secret did not depend upon her silence alone, did not depend on her alone. Even if she wanted to, she could not indulge in the slightest caprice—and that was indeed the meaning of one of Sir Stephen’s questions—without immediately revealing herself, she could not allow herself to partake of the most innocent acts, such as playing tennis or swimming. That these things were forbidden her was a comfort to her, a material comfort, as the bars of the convent materially prevent the cloistered girls from belonging to one another, and from escaping. For this reason too, how could she run the risk that Jacqueline would not spurn her, without at the same time running the risk of having to explain the truth to Jacqueline, or at least part of the truth? The sun had moved and left her face. Her shoulders were sticking to the glossy surface of the photographs on which she was lying, and against her knee she could feel the rough edge of Sir Stephen’s suitcoat, for he had come back beside her. He and René each took her by one hand and helped her to her feet. René picked up one of her mules. It was time for her to get dressed. It was during the lunch that followed, at Saint-Cloud on the banks of the Seine, that Sir Stephen, who had remained alone with her, began to question her once again. The restaurant tables, covered with white tablecloths, were arranged on a shaded terrace which was bordered by privet hedges, at the foot of which was a bed of dark red, scarcely opened peonies.

• From Story of O (1954)

  There was another girl, very young, a girl with bare shoulders and a choker of pearls around her neck, wearing one of those white dresses young girls wear to their first ball, two tea-scented roses at her waist and a pair of golden slippers on her feet, and a boy made her sit down next to O, on her right. Then he took her hand and made her caress O’s breasts, which quivered to the touch of the cool, light fingers, and touch her belly, and the chain, and the hole through which it passed. The young girl silently did as she was bid, and when the boy said he planned to do the same thing to her, she did not seem shocked. But even though they thus made use of O, and even though they used her in this way as a model, or the subject of a demonstration, not once did anyone ever speak to her directly. Was she then of stone or wax, or rather some creature from another world, and did they think it pointless to speak to her? Or didn’t they dare? It was only after daybreak, after all the dancers had left, that Sir Stephen and the Commander, awakening Natalie who was asleep at O’s feet, helped O to her feet, led her to the middle of the courtyard, unfastened her chain and removed her mask and, laying her back upon a table, possessed her one after the other. In a final chapter, which has been suppressed, O returned to Roissy, where she was abandoned by Sir Stephen. There exists a second ending to the story of O, according to which O, seeing that Sir Stephen was about to leave her, said she would prefer to die. Sir Stephen gave her his consent. About the AuthorPAULINE RÉAGE was a pseudonym for an editor at the prestigious NRF Review in Paris, whose editor in chief was her lover. She died in 1998. [image "Penguin Random House Next Reads logo" file=image_rsrc10A.jpg] What’s next on your reading list?Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she sobbed softly. Then she turned away from the group, stared out the window, and began scratching her skin, at first softly and then with deep, long digs. “Real bitter. Real bitter,” she repeated. I felt disoriented. Like Rosa, I grew alarmed. I wanted the old Magnolia back. And her clawing unnerved me. Was she trying to scrape away the insects? Or her blackness? I wanted to grab her wrists and still her hands before she lacerated her flesh. A long pause and then: “And they is other things Ah could say too, but they is very personal.” I knew that Magnolia was primed. I had no doubt that with the slightest prod, she would tell us everything. But she had gone far enough for the rest of us. Too far. Rosa’s distraught eyes were telling me, “Please, please, no more! Stop this!” And it was enough for me too. I had taken the lid off, but for once I did not want to look inside. After two or three minutes, Magnolia stopped weeping, stopped scratching. Slowly her smile reappeared and her voice became soft again. “But then Ah figure that the good Lawd has His reasons for giving us each a burden. Wouldn’t it be prideful fo’ me to try and figure out His reasons?” The group members were silent. Apparently embarrassed, they all—even Dorothy—looked away, out the window. This is, I kept trying to tell myself, good therapy: Magnolia has faced some of her demons and now seems poised on the brink of some important therapeutic work. Yet I felt I had desecrated her. Perhaps the other members felt that way too. Yet they said nothing. A heavy silence descended. I caught each member’s gaze and silently urged each to speak. Perhaps I had read into Magnolia too much earth mother. Perhaps it was only I who had lost an icon. I struggled to put my sense of desecration into words that would be useful to the group. Nothing came. My mind was silent. Giving up, I glumly resigned myself to a tired, scuffed comment I had uttered countless times before in countless group meetings: “Magnolia has said a great deal. What feelings do her words stir up in each of you?” I hated saying that, hated its ordinariness, its technical banality. Ashamed of myself, I slumped into my chair. I knew precisely how the group members would respond and grimly awaited their formulaic comments: “I feel I really know you now, Magnolia.” “I feel a lot closer to you now.” “I see you as a real person now.” Even one of the residents, venturing out of his role as silent observer, chipped in: “Me too, Magnolia. I see you as a full person, someone I can relate to. I experience you in three dimensions now.”

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

  “Sorry, Jack. No pay, no play.” “Just one? Please?” His eyes went past me. He smiled at the the kids watching. “You saw it happen right here,” he said. “Man almost walked off with the store. You there, Carrot-top—that’s right, you—don’t be shy, come on up, first game’s on the house. Used to be a Scout myself.” “No free games!” Rusty said. “The boss’ll kill us.” “Please, Smoke,” I said. Still smiling, he shuffled the disks. He didn’t exactly ignore me; I wasn’t even there. “Here,” Rusty said, and shoved something at me. “Take a ride or something.” It was a stuffed animal, a big pink pig with black trotters and a ring in its nose. I carried it up the midway, walking with the Ballard boys but unable to talk for the thickness in my throat. Sounds reached me from a distance. I floated without consciousness of movement. We walked here and there. At some point the Ballard boys climbed on a ride together and I lost them. I never even got their addresses. AFTER THE PARK closed I stood by the gate with some other Scouts from my troop. Except for me, they had driven down to Seattle that morning in groups of five and six with parents who had relatives they could visit until it was time to drive home. Dwight and I had come down by ourselves. While we waited to get picked up I tried to persuade Arthur to drive back with me and Dwight. I knew that Dwight would be drunk, and I didn’t want to be alone with him. But Arthur wouldn’t talk to me. As I spoke he looked away. I begged him shamelessly and at last he said, “Why should I?” I said, “I’d do it for you.” “Hah,” he said. But it was true, and he knew it. After a while he said, “Outstanding performance, Wolff. Truly outstanding.” We were among the last to go. When I saw the car coming I held the pig out to Arthur. I had not been able to think of an explanation for it. “Here,” I said. “You can have it.” “What do I want that thing for?” “Come on, take it. Please.” He said, “Well, we’re being very polite tonight, aren’t we?” But he took it. And that was what Dwight stared at as we walked toward him through the blaze of the headlights, this glowing pink pig carried by the sissy Arthur Gayle. And as if he knew how Dwight would describe the sight later on, Arthur, who despised him, smirked at Dwight, and wriggled and pranced every step of the way.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  This exchange happened so smoothly that none of the seminar members, perhaps not even Dr. Werner himself, was conscious of his switch into his seductive professional voice—or, it seemed, of Ernest’s eagerness to snuggle into the warmth of the therapeutic comforter. “You said there’s something of your mother in it,” remarked Barbara. “I never got much good stuff from her either.” “Does her ghost influence your feelings toward Myrna?” “It was different with my mother. I was the one who kept pulling away. I was embarrassed by her. I didn’t like thinking I was born of her. When I was young—maybe eight, nine—I felt suffocated when my mother got too close to me. I remember telling my analyst that my mother ‘sucked up all the oxygen in the room.’ That phrase became a slogan, a major motif, of my analysis: my analyst referred to it again and again. I used to look at my mother and think, I have to love her as my mother, but if she were a stranger I’d dislike everything about her.” “So,” said Dr. Werner, “now we know something important about your countertransference. Although you invite your patient to come closer, you unintentionally give her a simultaneous ‘don’t get too close’ message. She’ll intrude too far, suck up all the oxygen. And without a doubt she’s perceiving this second message and accommodating you. Again, let me repeat, we can’t hide these feelings from patients. I’ll say it once again: we can’t hide these feelings from patients. It’s the lesson for today. I cannot emphasize the point too strongly. No experienced therapist can possibly doubt the existence of unconscious empathy.” “Lot of ambivalence too,” said Barbara, “in your sexual feelings toward her. I’m struck by your response to her breasts—both longing and repulsion. You like those blouse buttons popping, but they bring up unpleasant memories of Mother.” “Yes,” added Tom, another of Ernest’s close friends, “and then you get self-conscious, start to question whether you may have unwittingly been staring at her breasts. Happens to me often.” “And your sexual attraction to her coupled with a wish to get away? What do you make of it?” asked Barbara. “Some dark primitive vagina dentate fantasy in me, no doubt,” replied Ernest. “But still there’s something in this patient that particularly ignites that fear.” Just before drifting off to sleep, Ernest wondered again whether he should stop seeing Myrna. Maybe she needs a female therapist, he thought. Maybe my negative feelings are too deep, too entrenched. But when he had raised that question in the seminar group, everyone, including Dr. Werner, said, “No, stay the course.” Myrna’s major problems, they felt, were with men and could best be addressed with a male therapist. Too bad, Ernest thought: he really wanted out.

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

  There are many ways to bring our erotic selves into our intimate relationships; they don’t all require words or literal exposés. How to go about it will depend on the particular relationship and the compatibility of the partners. Our cultural taboos about erotic fantasy are so strong that for many people the very idea of discussing it creates anxiety and shame. Yet fantasies are maps of our psychological and cultural preoccupations; exploring them can lead to greater self-awareness, an essential step in creating change. When we cordon off our erotic interiors, we are left with sex that is truncated, devoid of vibrancy, and not particularly intimate. What people fail to see is that dull, boring sexual relationships are often a consequence of shutting down the imagination in just this way. Our erotic imagination is an exuberant expression of our aliveness, and one of the most powerful tools we have for keeping desire alive. Giving voice to our fantasies can liberate us from the many personal and social obstacles that stand in the way of pleasure. Understanding what our fantasies do for us will help us understand what it is we’re seeking, sexually and emotionally. In our erotic daydreams, we find the energy that keeps us passionately awake to our own sexuality . 11 Putting the X Back in Sex Bringing the Erotic Home Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. —Anaïs Nin It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before…to test your limits…to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. —Anaïs Nin I T ALWAYS AMAZES ME HOW much people are willing to experiment sexually outside their relationships, yet how tame and puritanical they are at home with their partners. Many of my patients have, by their own account, domestic lives devoid of excitement and eroticism, yet they are consumed and aroused by a richly imaginative sexual life beyond domesticity—affairs, pornography, cybersex, feverish daydreams. For them, sexual love becomes compromised in the making of a family, even a family of two. They numb themselves erotically. Then, having denied themselves freedom, and freedom of imagination, in their relationships, they go outside to reimagine themselves liberated from the constraints of commitment. Security inside, adventure and passion outside. So when the media frantically (yet regularly) announce that couples are not having sex, I can’t help thinking that they may be having plenty of sex, but not with each other. Passion may fuel the initial stages of a relationship, or it may not.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  In this way, the individual is able to move out of this “kill or be killed” counterattack bind. As one begins to open gradually to accepting one’s intense sensations, one enhances the capacity for healthy aggression, pleasure and goodness. It is no surprise, then, that traumatized individuals constrict and brace against their rage as socialized animals. But let us look at the cumulative consequence of suppressing rage. Tremendous amounts of energy need to be exerted (on an already strained system) to keep rage and other primitive emotions at bay. This “turning in” of anger against the self, and the need to defend against its eruption, leads to debilitating shame, as well as to eventual exhaustion. This involution adds another layer to the complexity and seeming intransigence of the festering traumatic state. For these reasons, titration becomes even more crucial as a measure to interrupt this self-perpetuating “shame cycle.” In the case of molestation and other forms of previous abuse, a substratum of self-reproach has already been laid beneath a later trauma during adulthood. Indeed, because immobility is experienced as a passive response, many molestation and rape victims feel tremendous shame for not having successfully fought their attackers. This perception and the overwhelming sense of defeat can occur regardless of the reality of the situation: the relative size of the attacker doesn’t matter; nor does the fact that the immobility might have even protected the victim from further harm or possibly death. † And I haven’t even included here the additional blanket of confusion and shame that occurs within the complex dynamics of secrecy and betrayal in the incestuous family. As traumatized individuals begin to reown their sense of agency and power, they gradually come to a place of self-forgiveness and self-acceptance. They achieve the compassionate realization that both their immobility and their rage are a biologically driven, instinctual imperative and not something to be ashamed of as if it were a character defect. They own their rage as undifferentiated power and agency, a vital life-preserving force to be harnessed and used to benefit oneself. Because of its profound importance in the resolution of trauma, I’ll repeat myself: the fear that fuels immobility can be categorized, broadly, as two separate fears: the fear of entering immobility, which is the fear of paralysis, entrapment, helplessness and death; and the fear of exiting immobility, of the intense energy of the “rage-based” sensations of counterattack. Caught in this two-sided clamp (of entering and exiting), immobility repels its antidote implacably so that it seems impossible to break through it.

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

  We commonly believe that the closer we feel to someone, the easier it will be to shed our inhibitions. But that’s only half the story. Intimacy does nurture desire, but sexual pleasure also demands separateness. Erotic excitement requires that we be able to step out of the intimate bond for a moment, turn toward ourselves, and focus on our own mounting sensations. We need to be able to be momentarily selfish in order to be erotically connected. Our ability to step away from our loved ones while trusting their steadfastness is forged in the security of our childhood bonds. The more we trust, the farther we are able to venture. When infants play peek a boo, the distance they can bear is only as far as the breadth of their fingers. What powers the game is the realization that, even when I don’t see you, you continue to exist. Older children play hide-and-seek, secure in the knowledge that someone will eventually come looking. The thrill of hiding is followed by the relief of being found. Erotic intimacy is an adult version of hide-and-seek. As when we were children, the stronger the connection the braver we are about stretching it. We know our beloved will be waiting for our return, will not punish our selfish pursuits, and in fact may even applaud them. In his book Arousal, Michael Bader links the idea of selfishness to the concept of sexual ruthlessness, which he defines as “the quality of desire that enables a person to surrender to the full force of his or her own rhythms of pleasure and excitement without guilt, worry, or shame of any kind.” Bader’s explanation emphasizes the importance of differentiation—the capacity to hold on to oneself in the presence of another. Without that ability, we become like James, who can’t get out of Stella’s head long enough to experience his own fervor. The rawness of our desire can feel mean, bestial, even unloving. Eros can feel predatory, a voracious grab. Whatever guilt we feel about taking—whatever shame we feel about our wantonness, our passion, our indecency—is intensified in the primitive vulnerability of sex. We bring to our intimate erotic encounters a lifetime of injunctions against selfishness in the context of love, the specifics of which are detailed in our erotic blueprint. In addition to the family legacy, we also carry a cultural legacy. We are socialized to control ourselves, to restrain our impulses, to tame the animal within. So as dutiful citizens and spouses we edit ourselves and mask our ravenous appetites and conceal our fleeting need to objectify the one we love.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: The excess of passion that amounts to a sin does not refer to the passion’s quantitative intensity, but to its proportion to reason; wherefore it is only when a passion goes beyond the bounds of reason that it is reckoned to be immoderate. Now the pleasure attaching to the marriage act, while it is most intense in point of quantity, does not go beyond the bounds previously appointed by reason before the commencement of the act, although reason is unable to regulate them during the pleasure itself. Reply to Objection 4: The turpitude that always accompanies the marriage act and always causes shame is the turpitude of punishment, not of sin, for man is naturally ashamed of any defect. Whether the marriage act can be excused without the marriage goods?Objection 1: It would seem that the marriage act can be excused even without the marriage goods. For he who is moved by nature alone to the marriage act, apparently does not intend any of the marriage goods, since the marriage goods pertain to grace or virtue. Yet when a person is moved to the aforesaid act by the natural appetite alone, seemingly he commits no sin, for nothing natural is an evil, since “evil is contrary to nature and order,” as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv). Therefore the marriage act can be excused even without the marriage goods. Objection 2: Further, he who has intercourse with his wife in order to avoid fornication, does not seemingly intend any of the marriage goods. Yet he does not sin apparently, because marriage was granted to human weakness for the very purpose of avoiding fornication (1 Cor. 7:2, 6). Therefore the marriage act can be excused even without the marriage goods. Objection 3: Further, he who uses as he will that which is his own does not act against justice, and thus seemingly does not sin. Now marriage makes the wife the husband’s own, and “vice versa.” Therefore, if they use one another at will through the instigation of lust, it would seem that it is no sin; and thus the same conclusion follows. Objection 4: Further, that which is good generically does not become evil unless it be done with an evil intention. Now the marriage act whereby a husband knows his wife is generically good. Therefore it cannot be evil unless it be done with an evil intention. Now it can be done with a good intention, even without intending any marriage good, for instance by intending to keep or acquire bodily health. Therefore it seems that this act can be excused even without the marriage goods. On the contrary, If the cause be removed the effect is removed. Now the marriage goods are the cause of rectitude in the marriage act. Therefore the marriage act cannot be excused without them.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Another passerby is cruising me up and down. My feelings are still a little hurt about the woman who crossed the street to get away from me. Sometimes I feel like such a menace to society when I walk down the street, my legs get rubbery and I can’t keep track of whether or not my feet are hitting the sidewalk. And I think if one more person even looks at me, I’m going to have hysterics. So I straighten my shoulders and give this one a level look, acknowledging that what she is thinking about me is not nearly outrageous enough. She looks a bit put-off, but a little wistful, too. She sticks her hands in her sleeves and walks on. Her robe is a dark, conservative color, but the cut and fabric is expensive. She does not look back, but I know it will take more than a walk home to make her forget me. It wouldn’t surprise me if she turns up as a client some day. Maybe she already has. This collision with the law has forced me to evaluate my life in a way that is thoroughly unpleasant. I keep going back, trying to find an explanation in my past that might appease the faceless authorities who seem determined to stomp me flat. Or maybe it really is my fault, maybe somewhere in this story I should have made a different choice, and maybe it’s not too late to fix it. Aw, what can you do? I knew way back then I was abnormal. Knew it as clearly as I knew I had two hands and only nine fingers. And what could I do about it? Nothing. (Well, I had a chilly premonition of city streets and crumpled money and dark, smoky bars. Where do we learn these things that everyone is so scrupulously careful not to tell us?) I felt like I needed some therapy, but I didn’t want some ego-shrinker getting me in a corner and writing down my answers to her questions. So, for the first time in my life, I joined a group, an ad hoc committee called Students for Solidarity. It was going to be my salvation. We were just a lot of juvenile troublemakers. And we irritated enough people in high places to make ourselves feel righteous. We were a self-appointed band of ideologies and vigilantes who kept tabs on suspicious professors, administrators, and students. If somebody seemed to have regressive tendencies, we would call a public meeting and air our grievances. We would also hold sit-ins outside their class, office, or dorm room—or burn them in effigy. Among the things that concerned us most were the … uh, it takes a minute for the lingo to come back to me … the holdovers, that was the phrase, the holdovers from exploitative, male-dominated, consumer-capitalist sexualities.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie wondered what he would say if he knew that Clifford's gamekeeper had been having intercourse with her, and saying to her "tha mun come to th' cottage one time." He would detest and despise her, for he had come almost to hate the shoving forward of the working classes. A man of her own class he would not mind, for Connie was gifted from nature with this appearance of demure, submissive maidenliness, and perhaps it was part of her nature. Winter called her "dear child" and gave her a rather lovely miniature of an eighteenth-century lady, rather against her will. But Connie was preoccupied with her affair with the keeper. After all Mr. Winter, who was really a gentleman and a man of the world, treated her as a person and a discriminating individual; he did not lump her together with all the rest of his female womanhood in his "thee" and "tha." She did not go to the wood that day nor the next, nor the day following. She did not go so long as she felt, or imagined she felt, the man waiting for her, wanting her. But the fourth day she was terribly unsettled and uneasy. She still refused to go to the wood and open her thighs once more to the man. She thought of all the things she might do--drive to Sheffield, pay visits, and the thought of all these things was repellent. At last she decided to take a walk, not towards the wood, but in the opposite direction; she would go to Marehay, through the little iron gate in the other side of the park fence. It was a quiet grey day of spring, almost warm. She walked on unheeding, absorbed in thoughts she was not even conscious of. She was not really aware of anything outside her, till she was startled by the loud barking of the dog at Marehay Farm. Marehay Farm! Its pastures ran up to Wragby park fence, so they were neighbours, but it was some time since Connie had called. "Bell!" she said to the big white bull-terrier. "Bell! have you forgotten me? Don't you know me?"--She was afraid of dogs, and Bell stood back and bellowed, and she wanted to pass through the farmyard on to the warren path. Mrs. Flint appeared. She was a woman of Constance's own age, had been a school-teacher, but Connie suspected her of being rather a false little thing. "Why, it's Lady Chatterley! Why?" And Mrs. Flint's eyes glowed again, and she flushed like a young girl. "Bell, Bell. Why! barking at Lady Chatterley! Bell! Be quiet!" She darted forward and slashed at the dog with a white cloth she held in her hand, then came forward to Connie. "She used to know me," said Connie, shaking hands. The Flints were Chatterley tenants.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "But Connie!" she said. "Whatever is the matter?" "Nothing!" said Connie, rather shame-facedly; but she knew how she had suffered in contrast to Hilda. Both sisters had the same rather golden, glowing skin, and soft brown hair, and naturally strong, warm physique. But now Connie was thin and earthy-looking, with a scraggy, yellowish neck, that stuck out of her jumper. "But you're ill, child!" said Hilda, in the soft, rather breathless voice, that both sisters had alike. Hilda was nearly, but not quite, two years older than Connie. "No, not ill. Perhaps I'm bored," said Connie a little pathetically. The light of battle glowed in Hilda's face: she was a woman, soft and still as she seemed, of the old amazon sort, not made to fit with men. "This wretched place!" she said softly, looking at poor old, lumbering Wragby with real hate. She looked soft and warm herself, as a ripe pear, and she was an amazon of the real old breed. She went quietly in to Clifford. He thought how handsome she looked, but also he shrank from her. His wife's family did not have his sort of manners, or his sort of etiquette. He considered them rather outsiders, but once they got inside they made him jump through the hoop. He sat square and well-groomed in his chair, his hair sleek and blond, and his face fresh, his blue eyes pale, and a little prominent, his expression inscrutable, but well-bred. Hilda thought it sulky and stupid, and he waited. He had an air of aplomb, but Hilda didn't care what he had an air of; she was up in arms, and if he'd been Pope or Emperor it would have been just the same. "Connie's looking awfully unwell," she said in her soft voice, fixing him with her beautiful, glowering grey eyes. She looked so maidenly, so did Connie; but he well knew the stone of Scottish obstinacy underneath. "She's a little thinner," he said. "Haven't you done anything about it?" "Do you think it necessary?" he asked, with his suavest English stiffness, for the two things often go together. Hilda only glowered at him without replying; repartee was not her forte, nor Connie's; so she glowered, and he was much more uncomfortable than if she had said things. "I'll take her to a doctor," said Hilda at length, "Can you suggest a good one round here?" "I'm afraid I can't." "Then I'll take her to London, where we have a doctor we trust." Though boiling with rage, Clifford said nothing. "I suppose I may as well stay the night," said Hilda, pulling off her gloves, "and I'll drive her to town tomorrow." Clifford was yellow at the gills with anger, and at evening the whites of his eyes were a little yellow too. He ran to liver. But Hilda was consistently modest and maidenly.

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

  9. A TRAGEDY (contd.) So the day came. It is difficult fully to describe my condition. There were, on the one hand, the zeal for ‘reform’, and the novelty of making a momentous departure in life. There was, on the other, the shame of hiding like a thief to do this very thing. I cannot say which of the two swayed me more. We went in search of a lonely spot by the river, and there I saw, for the first time in my life – meat. There was baker’s bread also. I relished neither. The goat’s meat was as tough as leather. I simply could not eat it. I was sick and had to leave off eating. I had a very bad night afterwards. A horrible night-mare haunted me. Every time I dropped off to sleep it would seem as though a live goat were bleating inside me, and I would jump up full of remorse. But then I would remind myself that meat-eating was a duty and so become more cheerful. My friend was not a man to give in easily. He now began to cook various delicacies with meat, and dress them neatly. And for dining, no longer was the secluded spot on the river chosen, but a State house, with its dining hall, and tables and chairs, about which my friend had made arrangements in collusion with the chief cook there. This bait had its effect. I got over my dislike for bread, forswore my compassion for the goats, and became a relisher of meat-dishes, if not of meat itself. This went on for about a year. But not more than half a dozen meat-feasts were enjoyed in all; because the State house was not available every day, and there was the obvious difficulty about frequently preparing expensive savoury meat- dishes. I had no money to pay for this ‘reform’. My friend had therefore always to find the wherewithal. I had no knowledge where he found it. But find it he did, because he was bent on turning me into a meat-eater. But even his means