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 The Pisces (2018)

  Someone had chosen a range of sad ’80s and ’90s classic rock ballads: Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill,” Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” I was fucking on a bathroom floor to “Tears in Heaven.” Sorry, but no. What did it even mean to be alive? I started laughing. “Rub your clit,” he commanded. I obeyed. I could feel him spread my cheeks wider and begin to rub my asshole. He spit on his finger, then put it in. I could feel it. It felt like I had to shit, like there was something in there that needed to come out. I fucked him harder, trying to make him come already. Every moan I gave was out of pain. I wanted to fuck his finger out of me. But he put a second one in, then a third. I could tell he was trying to stretch my asshole. He pulled his dick out of my vagina. I felt it bang against my cheeks, then my asshole. He pushed a few times. I felt a searing pain: like a giant hemorrhoid was trying to make its way inside me. I turned around and looked at him. I was sweating. “Is it in?” I asked. “Wait a minute,” he said. He pushed some more. I felt his dick get softer and collapse a little. I imagined it forming a U-shape and going right back into him. I imagined him fucking his own belly button. “No,” he said. “It’s too tight. I’m just going to fuck your pussy.” That was fine with me. He fucked me for maybe a minute or two, then came. I wondered how he could come so quickly when he wasn’t even totally hard. “Sorry, baby. Want me to eat you some more?” he asked. I looked at Steve’s jacket on the floor. It was covered in dirt, and also a blob of semen. The strap of my new bra had ripped by the cup and frayed. “No, that’s okay,” I said. “That was really great. Really hot.” He tapped me on the ass. “You’re hot,” he said. “But we should get going so we don’t get caught.” “Yeah, as much as I would like to sit on the bathroom floor with you all night…” I was playing it cool. Look how chill I was. But I felt angry and sad. This wasn’t what I was in this for. I mean, it was something, at least, not just ordinary, hollow life. It was a stab at the nothingness. But I had wanted him to really fall for me, obsess about me. Had I been used? Could you be used if you were also using the other person?

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

  It is time to move beyond pseudoliberal sound bites about how we all need to accept people who differ from us. Mere tolerance is insufficient. If we are to learn any lesson from Gwen Araujo’s death, it’s that we each need to take personal responsibility for our own presumptions. We should stop buying into the myth of deception, because the truth is that every day, each of us is guilty of committing countless acts of assumption. 15 Submissive Streak When I was a child, I was sexually assaulted, but not by any particular person. It was my culture that had his way with me. And when he was through, he carved his name in my side so that I’d always have something to remember him by. It’s the scar that marks the spot where my self-esteem was ripped right out of me. And now all that’s left is a submissive streak that’s as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon. And maybe I was born transgender—my brain preprogrammed to see myself as female despite the male body I was given at birth—but like every child, I turned to the rest of the world to figure out who I was and what I was worth. And like a good little boy, I picked up on all of the not-so-subliminal messages that surrounded me. TV shows where Father knows best and a woman’s place is in the home; fairy tales where helpless girls await their handsome princes; cartoon supermen who always save the damsel in distress; plus schoolyard taunts like “sissy” and “fairy” and “pussy” all taught me to see “feminine” as a synonym for “weakness.” And nobody needed to tell me that I should hate myself for wanting to be what was so obviously the lesser sex. When I hit puberty, my newly found attraction to women spilled into my dreams of becoming a girl. For me, sexuality became a strange combination of jealousy, self-loathing, and lust. Because when you isolate an impressionable transgender teen and bombard her with billboard ads baring bikini-clad women and boys’ locker room trash talk about this girl’s tits and that girl’s ass, then she will learn to turn her gender identity into a fetish. So without ever having seen pulp fiction or hardcore porn, my thirteen-year-old brain started concocting scenarios straight out of BDSM handbooks. Most of my fantasies began with my abduction: I’d turn to putty in the hands of some twisted man who would turn me into a woman as part of his evil plan. It’s called forced feminization, and it’s not really about sex. It is about turning the humiliation you feel into pleasure, transforming the loss of male privilege into the best fuck ever.

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

  But after spending most of my life feeling ashamed of who I was and what I desired, I’d like to think that maybe my attraction to trans women is a sign that I am finally beginning to learn to love myself.17Crossdressing: Demystifying Femininity and Rethinking “Male Privilege”THE WORD “CROSSDRESSING,” in its most generic sense, refers to wearing clothing associated with the other sex. Both female- and male-bodied people crossdress, and they may choose to do so for a variety of reasons: as part of a drag or theatrical performance, in a sexual context, to have others perceive them as the other sex, and/or as an expression of a deeply felt cross-gender identity. While crossdressing (the verb) is a general phenomenon, the word “crossdresser” (and its psychiatric synonym “transvestite”) is often used specifically to refer to certain MTF spectrum people who channel their feminine expression into occasional (and typically private) spurts during which they immerse themselves in “women’s” clothing and gender roles, sometimes even taking on an alter ego entirely separate from their male lives. In contrast, pre- and non-transitioning FTM spectrum folks more typically live openly and continuously as butch or masculine women (rather than as feminine women who occasionally dress fully as men).MTF spectrum crossdressers (who will be referred to simply as “crossdressers” for rest of this essay) are relentlessly mischaracterized and disrespected by the public at large, as well as in specific fields such as psychiatry and gender studies, where their practices are coldly dissected and critiqued by those who are not crossdressers themselves. This lack of personal experience allows these clinicians and academics to naively and conveniently assign motives to crossdressers. Some of the more common of these assumptions are that crossdressing is a form of appropriating or objectifying womanhood; that it is an expression of latent homosexuality, exhibitionism, autogynephilia, or some other form of “sexually deviant” behavior; or that some males take refuge in femininity because they are unable or unwilling to live up to masculine ideals.As someone who identified as a crossdresser for twelve years, and who has shared many intimate conversations with other crossdressers during that time, I offer this essay as a (hopefully) more enlightened and thoughtful perspective on the MTF crossdressing experience. The explanations I offer here stem directly from my personal experiences as a crossdresser—one who has since gone on to identify and live as a woman—so it is likely that what I have to say will not resonate with all crossdressers, particularly those who happily embrace that identity throughout their lives without transitioning. My purpose here is not to insinuate that all crossdressers are transsexuals-in-waiting, nor is it to project my individual experience onto other people’s very different gendered experiences.

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

  It provides a way to allow parts of ourselves that we have been made to feel shame about, that we have learned to hide or repress, to show through and become integrated with the rest of our personalities.Rethinking “Male Privilege”I think it’s appropriate to end this chapter with a discussion of “male privilege” with respect to MTF spectrum folks. I have decided to frame “male privilege” in quotation marks here not to suggest that it doesn’t exist or to claim that MTF spectrum folks don’t experience it to some extent, but to challenge the way in which it is often put forward in dialogues and debates—as though it were the “one and only” gender privilege.8 The concept of “male privilege” emerged out of the incorrect assumption that sexism functions as a unilateral form of oppression. According to this model, men unilaterally oppress women, and thus they reap all of the benefits, while women bear all of the hardships. This, however, is a gross oversimplification of sexism for numerous reasons. First, the concept of unilateral sexism denies other important factors, such as racism, classism, ableism, etc., that contribute to discrimination. After all, it’s difficult to make the case that a rich white woman is more oppressed than a poor black man in our culture. Second, it ignores oppositional sexism, which favors those with typical gender inclinations over those with exceptional ones, regardless of sex. For example, if you happen to be attracted to men, then your life will certainly be easier in many respects if you happen to be female rather than male.

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

  I would argue that MTF spectrum trans sexualities make far more sense once we recognize them as being on the receiving end of cultural messages that sexualize femaleness and femininity, rather than being the perpetrators of such sexualization themselves. Those who fit the so-called “true” transsexual archetype (i.e., Blanchard’s “homosexual” group) typically identify as female from an early age and transition relatively early in life. Because they identify as female for much of their lives, they are likely to absorb much of the same cultural encouragement that nontrans heterosexual girls do, such as becoming focused on being conventionally attractive and attracting boys. On the other hand, MTF spectrum trans people who become aware of their cross-gender desires after they have already consciously accepted the fact that they are “boys” (i.e., Blanchard’s “autogynephilics”) tend to have greater difficulty reconciling their female or feminine inclinations with societal messages that insist that men and women are “opposite” sexes, and that girls are inferior to boys. Rather than feeling entitled to call themselves female or to act outwardly feminine, they often develop intense feelings of shame and self-loathing regarding their cross-gender inclinations. To cope, they may develop sexual thoughts and fantasies that associate their desire to be female/feminine with subordination, humiliation, and sexual objectification. If anything, these fantasies share more in common with the exhibitionistic, submissive, and rape fantasies experienced by many women rather than the sexually aggressive and objectifying fantasies commonly associated with men. Because the relentless sexualization of MTF spectrum trans people has become one of the most common tactics used to delegitimize our gender identities and expressions, many in our community have tried to disavow their sexual predilections. I believe that this approach is inadequate because it fosters a continuing shame regarding our sex and fantasy lives, and because it leaves a void which is too easily filled by the ideas of so-called experts (like Blanchard and Bailey) who are all too eager to put their own cissexist, oppositionally sexist, and traditionally sexist spins on our sexual thoughts and behaviors. Personally, I prefer to be open about my sexual history while also placing it in the appropriate political context. After all, if society is going to insist that all MTF spectrum trans people are “perverts” and “sexual deviants,” then they should be made to answer for the fact that it is their misogynistic, predator/prey-obsessed, oppositionally sexist gender prejudices and practices that make it inevitable that we will be judged this way in the first place. 15 Submissive Streak WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I was sexually assaulted, but not by any particular person. It was my culture that had his way with me. And when he was through, he carved his name in my side so that I’d always have something to remember him by. It’s the scar that marks the spot where my self-esteem was ripped right out of me. And now all that’s left is a submissive streak that’s as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.

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

  Having experienced firsthand what it’s like to feel a disconnect between my own physical sex and gender identity, having deeply internalized the shame that’s associated with having a body that defies public expectations of what is natural and normal, and having experienced the profound sense of isolation that comes with being a young gender-variant person, I found the lengthy, graphic depictions that Foucault and Garfinkel provide shamelessly voyeuristic. These accounts are akin to offering an explicit play-by-play description of a rape scene for the sole purpose of making some rather generic point about human sexuality.Unfortunately, the ungendering of transsexual and intersex people does not end with Foucault and Garfinkel. Garfinkel’s work has influenced a slew of sociologists, including Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna (mentioned in chapter 7, “Pathological Science”), whose much-celebrated book Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach includes a chapter called “Gender Construction in Everyday Life: Transsexualism,” where transsexual gender identities and transitioning strategies are dissected to demonstrate how all people “do” gender.22 And Foucault’s writings—which, ironically, focused on how institutions produce and regulate sexual identities—have formed the foundation of queer theory, a field that has practically institutionalized the practice of ungendering gender-variant persons in an attempt to demonstrate how our culture’s notions of binary sex/gender are socially constructed.One particularly illustrative example of how dehumanizing academic ungendering can be is found in Bernice Hausman’s book Changing Sex (discussed previously in chapter 7). In the preface, Hausman describes the difficulty she had finding a topic related to identity and feminist theory for her dissertation: “No matter how much I applied myself to the task, most of my thoughts on the issue seemed uninspired, boring, even obvious.”23 But then, lucky for her, she discovered transsexuality! “I inadvertently found texts that dealt with transsexualism. Now that was really fascinating. For about six months I read anything and everything I could find about crossdressing and sex change. I attended a national conference for transvestites and transsexuals.... The possibilities for understanding the construction of ‘gender’ through an analysis of transsexualism seemed enormous and there wasn’t a lot of critical material out there.”

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

  However, recognizing how effemimania, enforced ignorance, and mystification work together to shape MTF spectrum transgender identities offers a nonsexual explanation for this phenomenon, one based on gender constancy. While children typically learn to distinguish between females and males, and to describe themselves as either a girl or a boy around the age of two or three, they do not develop gender constancy—the understanding that one’s sex is fixed and does not change over time and in different situations—until they’re between the ages of four and seven. 7 Interestingly, most trans women who fall under the category of “primary” transsexuals report knowing that they were or wanted to be female as early as three or four years old (that is, before gender constancy set in). In contrast, most “secondary” MTF transsexuals and crossdressers report discovering their cross-gender inclinations at a later age, often during puberty (after they had developed gender constancy). Taking this into consideration, I would argue that children assigned a male sex who recognize their own female or feminine inclinations prior to gender constancy are more likely to see them as legitimate aspects of their person. Because they feel entitled to, and comfortable with, expressing and exploring their female/feminine inclinations, those identities never become mystified. This would explain why “primary” MTF transsexuals generally express a desire to be female and feminine throughout childhood, and generally transition early in life (during their teens or twenties). On the other hand, those male children who become aware of their female or feminine inclinations after developing gender constancy have to somehow make sense of those feelings in the wake of having already mystified femaleness and femininity. Thus, they may gravitate toward crossdressing as a way to compartmentalize their female/feminine inclinations, both in response to effemimania and because they are unable (initially, at least) to view their own female/feminine tendencies as legitimate and coming from within themselves. In this context, crossdressing can be a way of exploring and potentially reclaiming gender expressions and identities that one has previously disavowed, that one does not feel entitled to. It is a practice that, over time, demystifies femaleness and femininity for those who have been socialized to believe that these qualities are unnatural and unknowable to them. Demystifying Femininity and Unlearning Masculinity The idea that crossdressing can be a continual process of demystification very much resonates with my personal experiences. I consciously recognized my own desire to be female when I was eleven. As much as I wanted to be female, I was taught to believe that this was not a realistic possibility for me. For this reason, I began to channel my female inclinations into fantasies or role-playing, in which I’d imagine I’d turned into a girl somehow. The fact that these fantasies always began with me being a boy (rather than simply imagining myself as a girl from the start) is indicative of how illegitimate I felt my own desires to be female were.

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

  For example, a cissexual butch dyke friend of mine shared with me an experience she had of being accused of being a “man” in a women’s restroom (presumably because of her masculine style of dress and mannerisms). The woman who made the accusation confronted her in a gender-entitled way by saying, “You don’t belong here.” My friend, who was obviously disturbed by the incident, responded by pointing to her own breasts and saying, “I am a woman and I do belong here,” which had the effect of making the accuser embarrassed and apologetic. While my friend does not identify as transgender, one could describe this incident as an example of transphobia (she was targeted because her appearance “transgressed” gender norms). And when the accuser apologized, she in effect (belatedly) extended cissexual privilege to my friend. That is to say, the accuser recognized my friend as a legitimate (albeit gender-non-conforming) woman and, as such, acknowledged my friend’s right to share that women-only space with her. I tell this story because it is so radically different from the way some of my trans women friends experience similar situations. When a transsexual woman is accused of being a “man” in the women’s room, it’s against a backdrop of the transsexual having been misgendered as male all of her life. Thus, rather than feeling like she has been unfairly targeted because her behaviors “transgress” gender norms (as many cissexual queers feel), she will instead feel targeted because of her transsexual status—in other words, she will assume that the accuser is exercising cissexual privilege over her. And the transsexual woman is often correct in assuming this. After all, the accuser became apologetic when my butch dyke friend told her, “I am a woman” (in other words, she was belatedly “read” as a cissexual woman), but when my trans women friends say “I am a woman,” they are often still accused of being “men” (in other words, they are “read” as transsexual women and thus denied cissexual privilege). Recognizing the difference between transphobia (which targets those whose gender expression and appearance differ from the norm) and cissexual privilege (which targets those whose assigned and identified sexes differ) is important, especially when one tries to make sense of contemporary queer/trans politics.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Why was it that whenever one of them left or did not give her enough of what she wanted, she dissolved into a disaster? And why was I vomiting on Abbot Kinney last night? “I’ll go see her,” I said. I walked and fed Dominic quickly and then I went to see Claire, just like that, no fear of what I would see, no recalling the memory of having almost been hospitalized by the doughnut incident. There was only this person who needed me. It wasn’t a reflection of me that I was seeking, a way to feel good about myself. There was just this human being for whom I could maybe bring some love. For once I could actually do something of service. The thought of getting out of my own mind, and the situation with Theo, made me feel good for a moment. The psych ward smelled like institutional mashed potatoes and the nurses said that Claire was with a doctor. I wondered if this was where I was going to end up. Or would I end up in a hospital in Phoenix? As the patients moved back and forth, shuffling around the locked ward, I felt very aware of my freedom. One woman about my age sat in a chair, in her gown, digging her nails into her scalp: red sores scabbing all along the hairline. With every few digs she would intently scrutinize the skin she had scraped off and then put it in her mouth. I did not feel like I was a better person than these people, but perhaps stronger, or luckier, or something. Then I felt ashamed of my strength and freedom. I was one of them, only I was out here. But I wasn’t one of them, was I? I had been alive a long time and had not ended up in one of these places. I had come close but never completely lost my freedom. Didn’t it say something about my ability to make decisions, or at the last moment save myself and evade disaster? Maybe I could have two lives. Maybe I could be with Theo and also go to group. I had been avoiding them, thinking that the two could not coexist. But what if they could? Why couldn’t I, then, stay in Los Angeles? I could get a job at a library or something. I could live somewhere on the beach in a little bungalow, if cheap bungalows still existed. I could be a woman who didn’t kill herself over her problems, but triumphed. I would be balanced, a measured human being. There wouldn’t have to be any more sadness. I would have love and sanity. Or, like Claire, would I just keep getting worse? It was so hard to reconcile fantasy with reality. It was hard to believe that something as beautiful as the way Theo made me feel could put me in the hospital or kill me. Did chasing the light inevitably lead us here?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  She was so nonjudgmental. But she only withheld her judgment of me so she didn’t have to judge herself. She couldn’t have me be a villain, or she would be one too. “What about your swimmer?” asked Claire. “Did he ever come back?” “Yes, he did.” “And?” “We’re going to run away together.” “To the desert?” “No,” I said. “To the depths of the ocean.” “Dark,” she said. “Like a suicide pact. So romantic, I love it.” “Sort of,” I said. “Sort of.” 55. Annika and Steve immediately got on a plane and headed home. I was terrified for their return. I sat on the white sofa, thinking of all that had gone on there, and dug my fingernails into my gums. When they bled a little, I imagined wiping the blood under the sofa cushions where my period bloodstains were. Now I understood the desire Claire had to hurt herself. I couldn’t drink anything or take a pill, because I needed to be clearheaded for their arrival. But the last thing I wanted was to be lucid. I needed an out, something to release me from the feelings of shame. So I took it out on my gums. When they pulled up in the driveway, Annika refused to get out of the taxi and only Steve came in. He had never liked me to begin with, but now he clearly hated me. I thought of his trench coat, covered in Garrett’s semen, in a dumpster somewhere. He issued a brusque hello and went into the pantry, where Dominic was still covered with the blanket. “Goddammit,” he said. He sounded angry. Then he went back outside. I crept over to the window and saw him talking softly to Annika, coaxing her out of the cab. But she refused to come. I heard her crying and saying, “No, no, no.” She looked up and our eyes met through the glass. She opened the cab door and came rushing into the house. I thought that she might yell at me, but she took me in her arms and hugged me. I sort of stood there as she cried on my shoulder, not knowing what to do. “I loved him so much, Lucy,” she said. “I know.” “He was the most special baby in the whole world. I just, I never loved anything like I loved him.” “Let’s sit down,” I said. We sat down at the kitchen table. She was tan from the Roman sun and smelled like orange blossoms. Her ass had gotten bigger under her yoga pants and she wore a blousy shirt to cover it. I sat with my hands under me, clenched in fists, and squeezed them hard every time she spoke. “What am I going to do now?

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

  For me, sexuality became a strange combination of jealousy, self-loathing, and lust. Because when you isolate an impressionable transgender teen and bombard her with billboard ads baring bikini-clad women and boys’ locker room trash talk about this girl’s tits and that girl’s ass, then she will learn to turn her gender identity into a fetish.So without ever having seen pulp fiction or hardcore porn, my thirteen-year-old brain started concocting scenarios straight out of SM handbooks. Most of my fantasies began with my abduction: I’d turn to putty in the hands of some twisted man who would turn me into a woman as part of his evil plan. It’s called forced feminization, and it’s not really about sex. It is about turning the humiliation you feel into pleasure, transforming the loss of male privilege into the best fuck ever.While I never really believed the cliché about women being good for only one thing, I found that that sentiment kept creeping into my fantasies. In my late teens, I would imagine myself being sold into sex slavery and having strange men take advantage of me. It wasn’t so much that I was attracted to men, but that movies and magazines made it seem that being feminine meant allowing yourself to be dominated by men. In my mind, I’ve been pinned down by bodies so large that they dwarfed me, felt the ghost pains that accompanied the unwanted groping of body parts that did not yet belong to me, experienced the helplessness of having some faceless john stick his cock into the cunt that I hated myself for wishing that I had. And with each make-believe thrust, I felt simultaneous ecstasy and shame. My rape fantasies were bastard Catholic sacraments, as I absolved myself of guilt by combining my desire to be female with self-inflicted penance and punishment.In my twenties, I discovered role-playing relationships: placing personal ads in the “wild side” sections of weekly papers, conducting phone interviews with potential tops who got off on the idea of dominating a small and “passable” crossdresser. For them, I wore skimpy outfits and four-inch heels, not because I thought it made me more of a woman, but because I spent so much of my life guarded and making myself invisible that it was a thrill to be so exhibitionistic and vulnerable. I pretended to be their secretaries or call girls, roles that had as much to do with class as they did with gender and sex.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Lauren’s goading and the bottle of wine we are now drinking on her terrace lend me bravado and I send some of the failed selfies from the beach as well as insist that he see me when I return on Friday night. He’s evasive, cagily says maybe. When I scan the texts the next morning, I wish I could erase them all: they start out playful and flirty, but as they go on become bolder and obnoxiously persistent. The photos of my toes in the sand move fairly quickly to photos of my legs and then my bikini bottom and then my cleavage. I’m pretty sure I’ll never hear from him again. I reek of desperation. * As I drive the four hours from the Jersey Shore back to my home in Upstate New York, I can feel the ease and freedom of the past two weeks recede with each passing mile. After a refreshing hiatus from being a round-the-clock caregiver, now I must return to my real life as a responsible mother, which first and foremost means dealing with the fallout of my crumbling marriage. I want so badly to believe that I have it in me to be happy and whole, even without Michael and without being 100 percent focused on my kids all the time. I’m doubtful that I can get there even though I am starting to see a glimpse of who I am when I don’t define myself first as a mother and second as a wife and I actually like it. This is a somewhat shocking revelation to me. Ever since I became a mother over 18 years ago, I’ve thrown myself into the role with single-minded gusto. There’s not a PTA I haven’t joined, a school auction I haven’t run, a bake sale I haven’t contributed to, a craft project I haven’t attempted. No holiday has passed without my marking the occasion with special celebratory meals and decorations for our front door. My kids have never been late to school, I’ve never missed a slot at a camp or afterschool registration, and they get their check-ups and shots right on time. In other words, I take parenting as seriously as the United Nations takes world peace. If I haven’t made my mark in the world outside my home, I’ve at least made sure my home itself has been a veritable bastion of maternal warmth and order. Most of my close friends are women I’ve met at the kids’ schools, who are now also stay-home moms: former lawyers, teachers, social workers, literary agents, marketing executives, stylists and artists. We’ve formed tight circles of friendship, but our conversations and plans are usually centered around our families. In my case, just as my kids were getting older and becoming more self-sufficient, I had another baby – so I’m awestruck by a peek at life outside this realm. My own needs and desires? I have not acknowledged them in decades.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I had threatened to swim away so I wouldn’t be the abandoned one. Now he was trying to punish me by leaving first. You never think, in your fantasies, that the object of the fantasy can be hurt. I had known that he was sensitive. But I hadn’t trusted that it was real, or at least, that it was as real as my own sensitivity. I didn’t believe that he could actually feel betrayed. Was it because he was a man and I was a woman? I thought that only I could feel that kind of shame, need, and rejection. I thought that only a woman could feel that. It all seemed crazy now. I was crazy when I was the one begging for someone to stay and I was crazy when I was the one leaving. “I feel ashamed,” he said. “I want to go. Would you help me go?” I just stood there. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll do it myself.” He pulled himself off the sofa and began to drag himself across the rug, naked, nothing covering his genitals or ass. I just stood there watching, shocked. I didn’t try to help him, but I didn’t stop him either. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t feel sad. I was just stunned that my fantasy of him had been so wrong—that he could live and feel so far beyond it. At first he had been just a hot young surfer boy who could only hurt me—never someone whom I could actually hurt. I watched him crawl to the door and flop up and down until he got some momentum. Then he reached the handle, turned it, and dragged himself outside, naked, into the night. He looked like a dying fish. It was only then that I began to cry. “Wait!” I said, and ran to him. “Stop, let me help you at least!” “You’ve done enough,” he said. I followed him out, down the cement pass to the boardwalk, where he was scraping his tail as he dragged himself. He was moving slowly. But he was moving, getting there. I felt so nervous I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly I felt like laughing, but not at him. Maybe I felt like laughing because the whole thing was so bizarre. Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any weirder than waking up covered in doughnuts in Phoenix, here I was in Venice with a half-man half-fish I had somehow fallen in love with, who was dragging himself away from me.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty. Clearly, of course, pseudo-Paul would not bother to forbid what never happened. That prohibition therefore tells us that women were praying and teaching within the community’s catechetical practice and liturgical worship. But this text dismisses women from those functions and relegates them to home, silence, and childbearing. Augustus, you will recall, would have been particularly pleased with those injunctions. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:33b–36. The problem here is not with an inauthentic Pauline letter like 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus, but with an insertion from that later tradition into an original, earlier authentic letter of Paul. In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible this unit appears in parentheses: (As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached?) Those parentheses emphasize manuscript problems in the earliest textual transmission. First, the passage is not at its present location but at the end of the chapter in some manuscripts. Second, those verses are given as a separate paragraph in all Greek manuscripts. Third, that section was deemed problematic very early, and this is the most important argument for its later insertion into Paul’s original text. Unequal in the Apostolate We saw, from 1 Timothy 2:8–15 in a post-Pauline letter and 1 Corinthians 14:33b–36 as a post-Pauline insertion, that female leadership was crudely denigrated in order to establish exclusive male control of the Christian assemblies. It is no surprise, therefore, to find male status as an absolute condition for Christian leaders. But that is only one of the three conditions mentioned. Leaders had to be male, that is, nonfemale; married, that is noncelibate; and fertile, that is, nonascetic. What is the point of those latter two conditions?

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  It is indeed a criticism: he uses my body for sexual pleasure but not as a repository for his affection. Am I being greedy, wanting more than is offered to me, recognizing my needs and asking him to change his normal behavior to fulfill them? I call him, knowing this will quickly spiral out of control via text, and when he answers his voice is gruff. I apologize that my comment was unintentionally provocative, perplexed by how strong his reaction is. “Don’t text me something like that and then act innocent,” he spits out. “It’s not that big a deal. Some people are touchy and some aren’t. I noticed yesterday that you’re not. That’s all,” I say, sorry I said anything at all but also uncomfortable, unsure if my honesty came out aggressively or if he’s unable to accept even these small bits of feedback. Isn’t this how a relationship works, back and forth? Maybe I misunderstood and this is not a relationship at all, just two people killing time. “When should I have touched you?” he asks. “Like when we were walking in the woods, I tried to hold your hand a couple of times, but you moved away or dropped my hand very quickly. I wish you were more affectionate, but if that’s not you, it’s not you. It does bother me a little but I was trying to understand it more than I was criticizing you. Let’s move on,” I say. “It’s funny you bring this up, Laura. I have to say, I was really surprised the first time we had sex by how quickly you moved. I was put off by it, if we’re being honest,” he says. I think back to our first time together, how I had followed him into his bedroom and announced that I thought we should have sex before going out. I am taken aback, seeing now that what I had thought was a sexy, bold play was interpreted by him as aggressive and unseemly. It’s not that my sexual desire is so strong, though it certainly is, more that I feel like I have to get the first time knocked out and crossed off the list – I just have to make sure it happens. I’m no longer clear if that’s because it’s what I want or simply part of the persona I think I am supposed to inhabit. * That week, I make the dreaded annual pilgrimage to my gynecologist for a check-up and Pap smear. Sitting in the waiting room, I feel old and dried up in the midst of so much new life swelling and pulsing around me. This is a busy obstetrics and gynecology practice and I remind myself to find a new practice that offers just gynecology services and not obstetrics.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “I’m not a teenager,” he said. “If that’s what you’re wondering.” “Will you tell me something about you? About what you were like as a teenager?” “Tomorrow,” he said. “Will you come back tomorrow? I have to go now.” I wanted to ask where. Where could he possibly have to go? We had barely begun kissing. But since I had been the forward one, the one who asked him if we could kiss, I didn’t want to be too needy. “What time tomorrow night?” I asked. “Ten?” “Kiss me goodbye?” We kissed quickly and then I watched him swim off. I wondered if I had been too engaged in the kiss, too desperate and needy, falling down a hole. Maybe he could sense my addictive tendencies coming off of me like bad perfume. Maybe he was just sexually attracted to me? It was hard to say, but I assumed I had done something wrong, because, well, I always did. When I got home Dominic was in the corner. I had forgotten to give him his medicine and feed him. This was what happened when I followed my desires. I couldn’t believe how quickly I had forsaken him. It was as though he simply ceased to exist while I was out frolicking on the beach with a stranger. Was going to the rocks a mistake? For a moment I wished that they weren’t so near to Annika’s house and that Theo hadn’t given me a time for tomorrow—that we couldn’t have a day or two apart. But of course, when the time came I knew I’d rush out there to be with him. I gave Dominic a bowl of dehydrated duck and added a little water. I gave him some extra too, even though I wasn’t supposed to. “I’m so sorry, Domi,” I said. He ate hungrily, then licked my face. Then he started sniffing me, almost compulsively, and growled. Clearly he did not like the smell of Theo. I wondered if it was the scent of the ocean itself that made him angry. Perhaps he liked the ocean and was jealous that he couldn’t go there with me. I felt bad, but Venice Beach had a massive fine if you were caught there with a dog.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I had sex with him because he expected me to and I feared that to rebuff his advances would be impolite, unseemly, and mark me as a foolish, unsophisticated tease of a woman. Now I feel debased, submissive and humiliated, and I fear that I have only myself to blame. Kevin did not hide what he wanted from me and I never said no, but I have to try to understand what got me here so that I never let myself get back here again. I know that my body is strong and powerful; my sexual prowess is burgeoning, drawing men in and reveling in the pleasure that I receive from them and give back. It is my sense of self that is waging a battle here: I can no longer rely on the person I have been until now to carry me forward. That person is still very much a part of me – polite, kind, funny, literate, maternal and compassionate but not so nice that I can’t also be snarky or sarcastic – but that person had no compelling reason to take a hard, cold look at herself to question what she was made of or who she wanted to be. I cannot let other people decide for me what I want and what I will give of myself. Not random Tinder hook-ups, not Michael, not my friends or even my children. At the end of the day, I have to answer to my harshest critic: myself. If I treat other people humanely or disrespectfully, if I constantly prioritize my kids’ wants and needs or sometimes defer their needs to my own, if I remain in the only box I have ever known or wanted for myself or find a meaningful life outside of it – it only matters that I stay true to myself. But how does a person stay true to a self she doesn’t even recognize anymore? The following week, I get a text from Kevin, asking if we can arrange another meeting. I am repelled by how transactional his language is and quickly decline, explaining that it turns out I don’t enjoy having sex without some morsel of emotional connection. He doesn’t respond and I delete his number from my phone. For a long time, I will look back at this event with regret that I made myself small, that I didn’t use my voice, and I will refuse to assign this man a number in my list of lovers – and yet I appreciate the information that the experience gave to me. Sex is like no other act – requiring physicality and vulnerability during which we literally open ourselves to another human being – and there are countless ways to revel in the pleasure and beauty in it or conversely to be defiled by it. I had viewed sex during my marriage as mostly ho-hum and up until now in my life post-marriage it has been life-affirming and revelatory.

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

  We were creating fantasy worlds out of real-life meanings and symbols, turning ourselves into caricatures of a culture that denies its own infatuation with hierarchies and pecking orders.Sometimes the line between fantasy and reality would blur, like the time I had a top who refused to stop for safe words.1 When I finally thwarted his advances, he guilt-tripped me with fucked-up lines about how I had led him on and how it was all my fault for being such a tease. When I got home, I sat in the shower for almost an hour, but I still felt dirty and diseased. And I didn’t dare tell a soul because, on a subconscious level, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had deserved what happened to me.At some point, all of us who identify as female have to come face-to-face with our own internalized misogyny. And when people ask me what has been the hardest part of being a transsexual, expecting me to say that it was coming out to my family or the growing pains of going through a second puberty, I tell them that the hardest part, by far, has been unlearning lessons that were etched into my psyche before I ever set foot in kindergarten. The hardest part has been learning how to take myself seriously when the entire world is constantly telling me that femininity is always inferior to masculinity.These days, I am an outspoken feminist and transgender activist. And most days, I dress like a tomboy in striped shirts, jeans, and Chuck Taylors. To most people, I probably seem pretty selfconfident, but that’s only because they can’t see my submissive streak. It’s like a scar I keep hidden up my sleeve, a scar that still sometimes opens up and bleeds. Like a shark bite, it literally tore me apart when it was first happening to me. But these days, my submissive streak is just another reminder of how I survived.16Love RantIT STARTED AS A CONVERSATION with a friend. Okay, it was more of a rant. I was going off about that stupid, crass, recurring scene that I have seen in at least thirty-nine different mainstream movies by now.

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

  18 While this requirement was purportedly put into place to protect the transsexual from the cissexual public, it is clear that what concerned the gatekeepers the most was protecting the cissexual public from the transsexual. Proof of this exists in documents of trans people who were open about being transsexual, or who attempted to financially capitalize on that status (for example, by becoming entertainers or revealing their stories to the public), being described as “sociopathic” in the medical literature. 19 Canonical writings on transsexuality also argued that, for transsexuals embarking on their transitions, a “change in geographic location is almost mandatory,” and that “continued association with an employer… should be terminated so as to avoid any embarrassment to the employer. ” (Emphasis mine.) 20 Regarding family, gatekeepers suggested, “Young children are better told that their parents are divorcing and that Daddy will be living far away and probably unable to see them.” 21 At every turn, the gatekeepers prioritized their concern for the feelings of cissexuals who were related to, or acquainted with, the transsexual over those of the trans person. The gatekeepers’ requirement that transsexuals so completely hide their trans status created innumerable obstacles for trans people: the shame and self-loathing that is associated with living in the closet; having to cut off relationships with family and friends, thus eliminating any possible social support system they may have had previously; having to look for a new job, in a new location, without being able to reference their past employment history and while continuing to pay the therapy and medical bills necessary to complete their transition—all of this on top of having to navigate their way through the world in their identified gender for the first time. Because of the combination of all of these stresses, it was not uncommon for transsexuals to become highly depressed or suicidal post-transition. Often, gatekeepers would assume that such problems stemmed from the transsexual’s own gender issues rather than from the closeted and isolated lives they were forced to lead. For example, one transsexual who became depressed, primarily because of her fears that others would discover her trans status and that she would be rejected if she were found out, was described by the gatekeepers as “still struggling with the problem of gender identification.”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  How dare she! “Absolutely not.” I wanted to ask if there was a chance her fiancé had been unfaithful with her. “You can get the prescriptions filled and start taking the medicines. The Cipro could take up to twenty-four hours to really start working, but the Pyridium should provide you with some relief almost immediately. We will call you with your results later this afternoon. If you don’t test positive for a urinary tract infection I strongly suggest that you come back in and get tested for everything.” “It’s definitely a urinary tract infection,” I said. The CVS pharmacist gave me the Pyridium right away but needed time to fill the Cipro, so I lingered in the magazine aisle. I took the Pyridium with apple juice, which I knew I wasn’t going to pay for. It made me feel powerful to steal the juice, drink it casually right there, then stick the bottle behind the magazines. I began to feel some relief from the Pyridium. But I also felt like I had to pee really badly. I figured it was probably just the infection, the illusion of having to pee. While I waited I shifted from foot to foot, reading a magazine about celebrity baby bumps. The whole magazine was dedicated to these bumps, not the babies themselves, just the bumps. If I had a bump, would I be in a better place? Maybe I was wrong for not having one. Suddenly, I felt a warm trickle between my legs. I looked down and in the crotch of my pants was a spreading stain of orange liquid. Fuck. I forgot that Pyridium turned your pee orange. I had pissed myself the color of a traffic cone. I ran to the counter, paid for my Cipro, then bailed out of there. I couldn’t get in a car like this, I would stink it up and stain the seats. Quickly I waddled down Main Street, past a group of brunchers, disoriented and reeking of piss. I felt like I could see in them what the homeless saw when they walked past these people. I felt hatred for them and shame about myself. But the brunchers didn’t notice me at all, or the orange pee stain. It made me want to disrupt their eating, their stupid conversations, and sit in the middle of their tables. I wanted them to be forced to deal with me. — At noon I turned on my phone. There was no word from Garrett, but twelve messages from Adam. I’m worried about you!!!!! I would come visit u at the hospital but I’m in tijuana I’m fine, I wrote, really Send pics of the blood, he wrote. Send nudes with the blood!!! There was also a message from Jamie asking how I was. I typed in three different answers: lovin the California lifestyle! do you still miss me? dying. None of them seemed right. Dying was the closest.