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

  Or maybe it’s just a good old-fashioned mental disorder? Such questions represent the intellectualization of objectifying transsexuals. By reducing us to the status of objects of inquiry, cissexuals free themselves of the inconvenience of having to consider us living, breathing beings who cope not only with our own intrinsic inclinations, but with extrinsic cissexist and oppositionally sexist gender discrimination. While I was working on chapter 7, “Pathological Science,” immersing myself in sexological and sociological accounts that attempt to explain why transsexuals exist, it occurred to me that, rather than simply removing the gender identity disorder diagnosis from the DSM, we should perhaps consider replacing it with transsexual etiology disorder, to describe the unhealthy obsession many cissexuals have with explaining the origins of transsexuality. Unlike those cissexual researchers who find it fascinating and thought-provoking to ponder and pontificate on my existence, for me the question of why I am transsexual has always been a source of shame and self-loathing. From my preteen years through young adulthood, I was consumed with the question because, quite frankly, I didn’t want to be transsexual. Like most people, I assumed that it was better to be cissexual. Eventually, I realized that dwelling on “why” was a pointless endeavor—the fact is that I am transsexual and I exist, and there is no legitimate reason why I should feel inferior to a cissexual because of that. Once I accepted my own transsexuality, then it became obvious to me that the question “Why do transsexuals exist?” is not a matter of pure curiosity, but rather an act of nonacceptance, as it invariably occurs in the absence of asking the reciprocal question: “Why do cissexuals exist?” The unceasing search to uncover the cause of transsexuality is designed to keep transsexual gender identities in a perpetually questionable state, thereby ensuring that cissexual gender identities continue to be unquestionable. Trans-Erasure The only thing more troubling than people who relentlessly wonder why transsexuals exist are people who arrogantly assume that they know the answer to that question. Unfortunately, rather than simply accepting transsexual accounts—which almost invariably describe some sort of intrinsic self-knowledge or subconscious sex—many cissexuals instead choose to project their own assumptions about gender onto us. Often, such attempts center on naive cissexual notions about what a transsexual might socially gain from changing their lived sex: privilege, normalcy, sexual fulfillment, and so on. The idea that we transition first and foremost for ourselves, to be comfortable in our own bodies, is often never seriously considered. This is because transsexuals are generally viewed by cissexuals as nonentities: the processes of trans-objectification, trans-mystification, and trans-interrogation ensure that we are seen not as human beings, but as objects and as spectacles that exist for the benefit or amusement of others. The ease with which transsexual voices are dismissed or ignored by the public is due to the phenomenon of trans-erasure.

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

  Having intercourse with Kevin reminded me that sex can be a double-edged sword and that I need to be more careful and discerning going forward. I can have sex with whomever I want whenever I want, but it needs to be because it makes me feel good and sexy and powerful, not because it meets someone else’s needs. Like most lessons, this one was painful to learn. CHAPTER 21Another White Girl with Curly HairI stash away my experience with #4.5 and it becomes a shameful secret I carry, starting from the moment I entered a strange man’s apartment – not just a man who was a stranger to me, but a man who even from our first phone call gave off a vibe I didn’t wholly trust. It’s not exactly like I had known #1–4 terribly well, but I did spend a few hours with each before going home with them and they had been kind, straightforward and respectful. Frankly, in each case, if anyone had been the aggressor, it was me. But I’ve got four dates lined up for my upcoming weekend, so I put #4.5 in a little box in my brain, use it as a wake-up call to be more prudent going forward, and forge ahead. First up, Friday morning, I head uptown to meet Scott for coffee. He owns a swim instruction school and will meet me during a break between lessons. He warns me he will be coming from the pool and casually dressed, so I put on a pair of cut-off jean shorts and flip-flops. I spot him in the coffee bar as I enter and he looks a lot like his pictures – tall, graying but still-thick hair, a prominent nose that looks slightly askew, like it’s been broken once or twice. We have only communicated by text, so his robust Long Island accent startles me. We take a seat at the counter and the banter between us comes easily. He is an engaged listener and lobs questions at me, which I appreciate as I always ask a lot of questions and it’s a nice break for me not to have to carry the conversation. It turns out his swim school is just a side hustle, that his main job is as a physical education teacher to kids with special needs. It also turns out that he does not live uptown as he told me via text, but a half-hour drive away (if there’s no traffic, which there always is) in Long Island. I am confused and also annoyed, as he’s just become geographically undesirable. “Is this a ruse you use to get city girls?” I ask with a laugh, though I’m on alert now – if you lie about where you live, what else might you lie about? “No, I used to stay there a lot and then I decided to rent it out to be closer to my daughter in Long Island.

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

  To him, a bomb detonated after a years-long countdown and my not having heard the ticking is evidence of how little I understand him. The weight of having to decide our fate feels firmly planted on my shoulders. He wants me, pieced back together differently than I was before, but still, he says he wants me. It’s me now who can’t find my way back to him. There have been moments that flood me with shame in which I have wished he had died instead of having an affair so that the kids and I would have beautiful memories of him, not this painful and confusing knowledge that our life together wasn’t what I thought it had been. Now the kids have a father two of them refuse to see and I can’t find solid ground to stand on. If he had died, our life together would have ended, but at least it wouldn’t have proven itself to be a total fraud. I’m in a holding pattern, unwilling to move forward with him, unable to walk away. Barricaded in my room in the country house, I am at loose ends. Because this is not our primary residence, I have few friends here and a limited social life. I see myself with Tina on her deck yesterday, the two of us sipping watermelon margaritas amidst deep purple hydrangeas as the sun set, her advising me to put on a cute strapless sundress, show off my tan and go out and flirt – a good old-fashioned, non-committal flirt to shake off some of the sadness and attempt to locate the part of myself that is ready to move forward. I had adamantly protested: I’m not ready, I want to stay home with the kids and I don’t know how it’s done anymore and anyway, any man who looks at me will know I’m just a shell of a formerly decent flirt. Now her words echo through my mind – I could indeed go out, there’s really nothing to stop me but myself and the barrier of my bedroom door. It would be uncomfortable, but staying here is uncomfortable too, with the added downside of giving me way too much solitude in which to ruminate. I think strategically: if I can find a band playing, it’ll be less awkward to sit at a bar by myself as I will have something on which to focus my attention. I start googling places on my phone and it doesn’t take long to find a possibility – a music venue in town has a soul singer on the schedule. Tickets are still available, standing room only. If I get there early, maybe I can snag a seat at the bar.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But she found Stephen sitting with her chin on her hand, and calmly staring out of the window; her eyes were still swollen and her face very pale, otherwise she showed no great signs of emotion; indeed she actually smiled up at Anna— it was rather a stiff little smile. Anna talked kindly and Stephen listened, nodding her head from time to time in acquiescence. But Anna felt awkward, and as though for some reason the child was anxious to reassure her; that smile had been meant to be reassuring—it had been such a very unchildish smile. The mother was doing all the talking she found. Stephen would not discuss her affection for Collins; on this point she was firmly, obdurately silent. She neither excused nor upheld her action in throwing a broken flower-pot at the footman. ‘She’s trying to keep something back,’ thought Anna, feeling more nonplussed every moment. In the end Stephen took her mother’s hand gravely and proceeded to stroke it, as though she were consoling. She said: ‘Don’t feel worried, ’cause that worries Father—I promise I’ll try not to get into tempers, but you promise that you won’t go on feeling worried.’ And absurd though it seemed, Anna heard herself saying: ‘Very well then—I do promise, Stephen.’ CHAPTER 3 1 S tephen never went to her father’s study in order to talk of her grief over Collins. A reticence strange in so young a child, together with a new, stubborn pride, held her tongue-tied, so that she fought out her battle alone, and Sir Philip allowed her to do so. Collins disappeared and with her the footman, and in Collins’ stead came a new second housemaid, a niece of Mrs. Bingham’s, who was even more timid than her predecessor, and who talked not at all. She was ugly, having small, round black eyes like currants—not inquisitive blue eyes like Collins. With set lips and tight throat Stephen watched this intruder as she scuttled to and fro doing Collins’ duties. She would sit and scowl at poor Winefred darkly, devising small torments to add to her labours—such as stepping on dustpans and upsetting their contents, or hiding away brooms and brushes and slop-cloths—until Winefred, distracted, would finally unearth them from the most inappropriate places. ‘ ’Owever did them slop-cloths get in ’ere!’ she would mutter, discovering them under a nursery cushion.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I glanced over at Diana, the newest member of the group. She looked horrified. Diana was a Brentwood mommy—a gorgeous, fuckable mother in Lululemon—whose husband was a very new-moneyed TV producer. Apparently he wasn’t paying her any attention anymore. It’s not that he was bad in bed or turned her off sexually, but after they made love, a progressively less-frequent occasion now, he no longer connected with her. He no longer looked her in the eyes. It was like he could barely see her. Also, sometimes he had a difficult time getting it up. When he took Viagra she could always tell and she blamed it on the idea that he was no longer really attracted to her. So she had started having sex with younger men. At first it hadn’t seemed like a problem, but recently she was afraid that she would get caught and it would destroy her marriage. She had been getting sloppier with it: having sex in the back of her Mercedes SUV, compulsively sending text messages from her own phone. She could no longer stay off her phone for more than a few minutes, even during her daughter’s piano recital, and that scared her. She felt devastated when she could not get the attention of the young men in her orbit. Or, when she got their interest, they would have sex and she wouldn’t hear from them after. I felt excited by her situation. She was a little older than me and looked like the kind of woman who had never been ignored. With her long blond-streaked hair, large breasts, doe legs, and warm skin, she had probably always gotten all the attention she could need. But now she was seeing what age could do, what those of us who never looked like goddesses had always felt. Now she was mortal like the rest of us. “I’ve been going down on the tennis pros,” she said, in a way that was sort of proud, but also terrified. “I can’t seem to stop. But I keep getting hurt. I’ve done it with two of them, more than once. The older one is twenty-seven. It started out that we would just go get frozen yogurt and talk. Then one day we took one car and ended up having sex in a parking lot, and it started from there. The younger one is—he’s twenty-three. I bet the older one told the younger one that I was…a cougar or something. It’s embarrassing. I don’t need them to be in love with me, I just want them to be there for me when I get in touch. It hurts when I try to contact them and they don’t text back. Then I see them at the tennis club and they remember what I look like, and suddenly they want something. So I hear from them again.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The voice of Western Christendom was against Eugenius, as were the most of his cardinals. Under the stress of this opposition, and pressed by the revolution threatening his authority in Rome, the pope gave way, and in the decree of Dec. 13, 1433, revoked his three bulls, beginning with Dec. 18, 1431, which adjourned the synod. He asserted he had acted with the advice of the cardinals, but now pronounced and declared the "General Council of Bagel legitimate from the time of its opening." Any utterance or act prejudicial to the holy synod or derogatory to its authority, which had proceeded from him, he revoked, annulled, and pronounced utterly void.328 At the same time the pope appointed legates to preside, and they were received by the synod. They swore in their own names to accept and defend its decrees. No revocation of a former decree could have been made more explicit. The Latin vocabulary was strained for words. Catholic historians refrain from making an argument against the plain meaning of the bull, which is fatal to the dogma of papal inerrancy and acknowledges the superiority of general councils. At best they pass the decree with as little comment as possible, or content themselves with the assertion that Eugenius had no idea of confirming the synod’s reaffirmation of the famous decrees of Constance, or with the suggestion that the pope was under duress when he issued the document.329 Both assumptions are without warrant. The pope made no exception whatever when he confirmed the acts of the synod "from its opening." As for the explanation that the decree was forced, it needs only to be said that the revolt made against the pope in Rome, May, 1434, in which the Colonna took a prominent part, had not yet broken out, and there was no compulsion except that which comes from the judgment that one’s case has failed. Cesarini, Nicolas of Cusa, Aeneas Sylvius, John, patriarch of Antioch, and the other prominent personages at Basel, favored the theory of the supreme authority of councils, and they and the synod would have resented the papal deliverance if they had surmised its utterances meant something different from what they expressly stated. Döllinger concludes his treatment of the subject by saying that Eugenius’ bull was the most positive and unequivocal recognition possible of the sovereignty of the council, and that the pope was subject to it. Eugenius was the last pope, with the exception of Pius IX., who has had to flee from Rome. Twenty-five popes had been obliged to escape from the city before him. Disguised in the garb of a Benedictine monk, and carried part of the way on the shoulders of a sailor, he reached a boat on the Tiber, but was recognized and pelted with a shower of stones, from which he escaped by lying flat in the boat, covered with a shield. Reaching Ostia, he took a galley to Livorno. From there he went to Florence.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Did the one who came automatically become the user? Or was the one who was less attached automatically the user? I tried not to cry as I put on the trench. I felt embarrassed that it was so fucked up, and I didn’t want him to see it, even though it was him who had fucked it up. I wanted to seem untouchable. “Go out first,” he said. “So we don’t make it obvious. I’ll maybe wait a minute or two?” “Okay,” I said. I saw that he had a tote bag with him and a package inside had fallen on the floor. The package said “R. Garrett Campbell.” I wondered what the “R.” stood for. How creative could he be with his dumb dick flopping around and a first initial? I went over to the bar and ordered a club soda, then applied lipstick. I wanted to look hot for him, collected. I sipped the cold soda through a little straw and pretended to be engaged in my phone so that when he approached the bar I would seem disinterested. Five minutes passed and he didn’t appear. He was really playing it safe. Then ten minutes passed. you ok in there? I texted huh? he wrote Are you going to come out of the bathroom or do you need me to help? Oh sorry. I left. headed home. That was fun ;) — When I stepped out into the late-afternoon heat I didn’t allow myself to feel sad or angry. In a way I was relieved. If I had come all over his face, then I might have gotten more attached. I would have been disappointed that he didn’t even want to say goodbye outside the bathroom. But his stupid pencil dick, his lack of regard for whether I actually came, the clumsiness, made me want him less. In my fantasies they always are dying to taste it, dying to make me come. They will literally die if they don’t. Or maybe I did feel sad. Was I angry about the bathroom itself? I wanted him to like me in the same way that I wanted him not to have a girlfriend. Or I wanted him to like me more than the girlfriend, to care a little more. I knew this was not the nature of the one-night stand. I knew that what I wanted was something that couldn’t exist. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t something I wanted. 23. When I walked in the door at group, everyone gave me looks that were a cross between disdain and We knew you would be back . They were actually excited to see me. I couldn’t help but think that they just wanted more people to be as fucked up as they were. The more fuck-ups like them, the less alone they were—maybe even the less fucked up they were. If everyone was fucked up in the same way as you then maybe you weren’t so fucked up.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  therefore so let it be." As soon as the humble pope had pronounced his own sentence, he descended from the throne, divested himself of his pontifical robes, and implored pardon on his knees for the usurpation of the highest dignity in Christendom. He acted as pope de facto, and pronounced himself no pope de jure. He was used by the synod for deposing his two rivals, and then for deposing himself. In that way the synod saved the principle that the pope was above every human tribunal, and responsible to God alone. This view of the case of Gregory, rests on the reports of Bonitho and Desiderius. According to other reports in the Annales Corbeienses and Peter Damiani, who was present at Sutri, Gregory was deposed directly by the Synod.302 At all events, the deposition was real and final, and the cause was the sin of simony. But if simony vitiated an election, there were probably few legitimate popes in the tenth century when everything was venal and corrupt in Rome. Moreover bribery seems a small sin compared with the enormous crimes of several of these Judases. Hildebrand recognized Gregory VI. by adopting his pontifical name in honor of his memory, and yet he made relentless war the sin of simony. He followed the self-deposed pope as upon chaplain across the Alps into exile, and buried him in peace on the banks of the Rhine. Henry III. adjourned the Synod of Sutri to St. Peter’s in Rome for the election of a new pope (Dec. 23 and 24, 1046). The synod was to elect, but no Roman clergyman could be found free of the pollution of "simony and fornication." Then the king, vested by the synod with the green mantle of the patriciate and the plenary authority of the electors, descended from his throne, and seated Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a man of spotless character, on the vacant chair of St. Peter amid the loud hosannas of the assembly.303 The new pope assumed the name of Clement II., and crowned Henry emperor on the festival of Christmas, on which Charlemagne had been crowned. The name was a reminder of the conflict of the first Clement of Rome with Simon Magus. But he outlived his election only nine months, and his body was transferred to his beloved Bamberg. The wretched Benedict IX. again took possession of the Lateran (till July 16, 1048). He died afterwards in Grotto Ferrata, according to one report as a penitent saint, according to another as a hardened sinner whose ghost frightened the living. A third German pontiff, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, called Damasus II., was elected, but died twenty-three days after his consecration (Aug. 10, 1048), of the Roman fever, if not of poison. The emperor, at the request of the Romans, appointed at Worms in December, 1048, Bruno, bishop of Toul, to the papal chair. He was a man of noble birth, fine appearance, considerable learning, unblemished character, and sincere piety, in full sympathy with the spirit of reform which emanated from Cluny. He accepted the appointment in presence of the Roman deputies, subject to the consent of the clergy and people of Rome.304 He invited the monk Hildebrand to accompany him in his pilgrimage to Rome. Hildebrand refused at first, because Bruno had not been canonically elected, but by the secular and royal power; but he was persuaded to follow him. Bruno reached Rome in the month of February, 1049, in the dress of a pilgrim, barefoot, weeping, regardless of the hymns of welcome. His election was unanimously confirmed by the Roman clergy and people, and he was solemnly consecrated Feb. 12, as Leo IX. He found the papal treasury empty, and his own means were soon exhausted. He chose Hildebrand as his subdeacon, financier, and confidential adviser, who hereafter was the soul of the papal reform, till he himself ascended the papal throne in 1073. We stand here at the close of the deepest degradation and on the threshold of the highest elevation of the papacy. The synod of Sutri and the reign of Leo IX. mark the beginning of a disciplinary reform. Simony or the sale and purchase of ecclesiastical dignities, and Nicolaitism or the carnal sins of the clergy, including marriage, concubinage and unnatural vices, were the crying evils of the church in the eyes of the most serious men, especially the disciples of Cluny and of St. Romuald. A reformation therefore from the hierarchical standpoint of the middle ages was essentially a suppression of these two abuses. And as the corruption had reached its climax in the papal chair, the reformation had to begin at the head before it could reach the members. It was the work chiefly of Hildebrand or Gregory VII., with whom the next period opens.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  He really was cute. I waited for him to comment on me lying supine in his backseat, but he didn’t ask if I was okay. I suppose this was normal behavior in California. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. I wasn’t dead. I was breathing in the back of this cute idiot’s car. When we pulled up at Annika’s house, he stopped and said, “Okay, we’re here. Wish me luck with Samsung!” I opened my eyes and squinted at him. I wanted to tell him that I hoped he never got a part. “Wanna fuck?” I said instead. I was shocked when the words came out. He must have been too, because he turned around to look at me for the first time. “Are you serious?” “Totally.” “Here? In the car?” “Sure, why not.” “Someone might see us.” “I don’t care if you don’t care,” I said. “Man. I’ve been driving for three years and this has never happened. Yeah, why not? YOLO, right? Hold on,” he said, and put the car in reverse. This was not really the response I was looking for. I wanted more of an “I’m floored by this request, because you’re so beautiful” and less of a “Well, since you asked, carpe diem!” But he pulled into a side alley and shut off the car. “Come up here,” he said. “Come around to the front.” I got out of the car, walked around to the driver’s side, and crawled onto this mustached man-boy’s lap. I was facing him, straddling him. He put his seat all the way back and I took off his FML baseball cap. His hairline was receding. We began kissing and he put his hands up my shirt. He sort of grabbed at my breasts and twisted them, like they were handles on a door. I felt like he was feeling for there to be more, trying to stretch them into being bigger, but they would only stretch so far. I wanted to say, Be gentler , but instead I said, “Yesss.” He slid his dick out of his jeans but left them on. He didn’t put on a condom, or ask if he should wear one. His dick was small, but firm, like a dill pickle. I lifted up my skirt and slid my underwear over to the side, sat on the dick. I moved up and down saying, “Yeah, fuck me,” even though I was the one doing the fucking. A few of my pubic hairs got caught in his zipper. I kept hitting my head on the roof of the car with every few humps.

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

  Power and Imperialism Although Augustus and his wife Livia portrayed themselves as chaste models of his marital legislation, that program was surely his greatest failure. It was repealed later by the Senate but, more significant, it was totally ignored if not mocked by his own family and dynastic successors. In fact, Augustus himself might not have been so pure, as the banished Ovid’s more or less repentant Tristia suggests that the divi filius himself had some of those erotic scenes on his own household walls: Surely in our houses, even as figures of old heroes shine, painted by an artist’s hand, so in some place a small tablet depicts the varying unions and forms of love. (2.521–24) But that is very mild and nothing compared to what the gossipy historian Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars records about Augustus’s successors. First, his Tiberius tells us that the emperor spent much of his reign on the island of Capri, where “he acquired a reputation for still grosser depravities that one can hardly bear to tell or be told, let alone believe,” but of course Suetonius’s gossip as history bears up well under the strain of both telling and believing (44.1). Next, in his Caligula, the emperor thought himself the incestuous son of Augustus and his daughter, Julia, and therefore committed incest with his own sisters. He “respected neither his own chastity nor that of anyone else” by seducing or raping any noblewomen he wanted, often at dinners with their husbands present (36.1–2). Then, in The Deified Claudius, the emperor’s impotence was lampooned; he divorced one wife “because of scandalous lewdness” and another for the same, and his last wife even married another man while still wed to the emperor (26.2). Finally, in Nero, that emperor’s various perversions and cruelties were legendary. He debauched even one of the Vestal Virgins, and he castrated and tried to make a woman of the boy Sporus in order to marry him. But, most shamefully, Nero later married another man, but made himself the woman, “going so far as to make the cries and lamentations of a maiden being deflowered” (29). We deliberately concluded this section with Suetonius’s gossip about the Caesars’ insatiable desire for sexual control and domination for one very specific reason. Even if all of those stories of Caesarian sexual perversity are just overdone facts, unfounded rumors, or prurient imaginings, they indicate, expect, and take for granted a certain dialectic of patriarchal power and penetrative possession on both sexual and imperial levels. That dialectic of sex and war is made visually obvious in the magnificent Sebasteion seen already in Chapter 1. We look now at imperial war on that monument, in the city of Aphrodite-Venus, goddess of love, consort of the war god Mars, and legendary ancestor of the Julian clan. By Phallus and by Sword

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Claudius was not disturbed in his seat; but, as he says himself, he found no sympathy with the people, and became "an object of scorn to his neighbors," who pointed at him as "a frightful spectre." He was censured by Pope Paschalis I. (817–824), and opposed by his old friend, the Abbot Theodemir of the diocese of Nismes, to whom he had dedicated his lost commentary on Leviticus (823), by Dungal (of Scotland or Ireland, about 827), and by Bishop Jonas of Orleans (840), who unjustly charged him with the Adoptionist and even the Arian heresy. Some writers have endeavored, without proof, to trace a connection between him and the Waldenses in Piedmont, who are of much later date.568

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  At the Council of Constance, where Gerson spoke as the delegate of the French king, he advocated these positions again and again with his voice, as in his address March 23, 1415, and in a second address July 21, when he defended the decree which the synod had passed at its fifth session. He reasserted that the pope may be forced to abdicate, that general councils are above the popes and that infallibility only belongs to the Church as a body or its highest representative, a general council.386 A blot rests upon Gerson’s name for the active part he took in the condemnation of John Huss. He was not above his age, and using the language of Innocent III. called heresy a cancer.387 He declares that he was as zealous in the proceedings against Huss and Wyclif as any one could be.388 He pronounced the nineteen errors drawn from Huss’ work on the Church "notoriously heretical." Heresy, he declared, if it is obstinate, must be destroyed even by the death of its professors.389 He denied Huss’ fundamental position that nothing is to be accepted as divine truth which is not found in Scripture. Gerson also condemned the appeal to conscience, explicitly assuming the old position of Church authority and canon law as final. The opinions of an individual, however learned he may be in the Scriptures, have no weight before the judgment of a council.390 In the controversy over the withdrawal of the cup from the laity, involved in the Bohemian heresy, Gerson also took an extreme position, defending it by arguments which seem to us altogether unworthy of a genuine theology. In a tract on the subject he declared that, though some passages of Scripture and of the Fathers favored the distribution of both wine and bread, they do not contain a definite command, and in the cases where an explicit command is given it must be understood as applying to the priests who are obliged to commune under both kinds so as to fully represent Christ’s sufferings and death. But this is not required of the laity who commune for the sake of the effect of Christ’s death and not to set it forth. Christ commanded only the Apostles to partake of both kinds.391 The custom of lay communion was never universal, as is proved by Acts 2:42, 46. The essence of the sacrament of the body and blood is more important than the elements, John 6:54. But the whole Christ is in either element, and, if some of the doctors take a different view, the Church’s doctrine is to be followed, and not they. From time immemorial the Church has given the communion only in one form. The Council of Constance was right in deciding that only a single element is necessary to a saving participation in the sacrament. The Church may make changes in the outward observance when the change does not touch the essence of the right in question.

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

  His apartment is on a small commercial strip and I pass it a few times before finding unevenly placed numbers at the top of a dirty, banged-up metal door. The ground floor contains a futon store that looks like it’s been here since the beginning of time – I wonder, do people still actually buy futons? Mark had asked that I call him upon arrival since his buzzer is broken, so I call now to let him know I’ll be downstairs perusing the futons until he comes to fetch me. A couple of minutes later, the door swings open to a teenage girl wielding a granny cart piled with dirty laundry. She smiles shyly at me and I see Mark right behind her. “This is my daughter,” he says, and we exchange hellos. “She’s on her way to the laundromat.” He nudges her along with his eyes and a nod of his head. She walks away, the overloaded metal cart clanging behind her on the uneven sidewalk. He holds the door open and I follow him up two long flights of stairs to a narrow landing covered with sneakers and boots. Stepping out of my heeled clog boots and lowering myself by about two inches, I leave my shoes in the pile in the hallway and enter his railroad apartment. It is small and dark, with windows placed at either end, one of which is his bedroom and the other his kitchen and his daughter’s bedroom, so the narrow living space between is windowless and dim. It’s comfortably furnished and carpeted but feels like a starter apartment, striking me as odd for a successful lawyer at this stage in his life. This makes me feel like an unbearable snob, but it’s less about my thinking it’s not good enough for me than about wondering why it’s good enough for him. He ushers me into the kitchen, where he starts slicing a baguette and laying chorizo and wedges of cheese on a platter. Again, I brace myself against my inner snob, watching in dismay as he unwraps plastic wrap from hunks of cheese on which I can see price tags from the supermarket. Lately, my brother has been teasing me about how bougie I’ve become, as I appear to be simple but with a country house and an SUV and an apartment on lower Fifth Avenue. I am frugal about certain things – happy to buy clothes and dishes at thrift shops, throwing cheap bottles of conditioner in my grocery cart and upgrading only when Tina insists I try one of her rarefied Parisian products – but when it comes to certain categories like food, reading material and hotels, I am highbrow: sheepish about it, but highbrow nonetheless. When he’s assembled the platter to his satisfaction, he asks me to grab the wine and follow him to the living room. We sit on the loveseat and as we talk, he scooches closer to me and sets down his wine glass.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom—be careful . . . of course while we’re here at Morton . . . it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an outrage, an insult. . . .’ And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship—‘Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening—remember my mother.’ Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary. She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her. She would try to minimize the whole thing; she would say: ‘It will only be for ten days; I must just run over about this business,’ then Mary would probably think it quite natural that she had not been invited to Morton and would ask no questions—she never asked questions. But would Mary think such a slight was quite natural? Fear possessed her; she sat there terribly afraid of this cloud that had suddenly risen to menace—afraid yet determined not to submit, not to let it gain power through her own acquiescence. There was only one weapon to keep it at bay. Getting up she opened the window: ‘Mary!’ All unconscious the girl hurried in with David: ‘Did you call?’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  As Stephen and Mary were her nephew’s friends, she was predisposed to consider them charming, the more so as the former’s antecedents left little or nothing to be desired, and her parents had shown great kindness to Martin. He had told his aunt just what he wished her to know and not one word more about the old days at Morton. She was therefore quite unprepared for Stephen. Aunt Sarah was a very courteous old dame, and those who broke bread at her table were sacred, at all events while they remained her guests. But Stephen was miserably telepathic, and before the déjeuner was half-way through, she was conscious of the deep antagonism that she had aroused in Martin’s Aunt Sarah. Not by so much as a word or a look did the Comtesse de Mirac betray her feelings; she was gravely polite, she discussed literature as being a supposedly congenial subject, she praised Stephen’s books, and asked no questions as to why she was living apart from her mother. Martin could have sworn that these two would be friends—but good manners could not any more deceive Stephen. And true it was that the Comtesse de Mirac saw in Stephen the type that she most mistrusted, saw only an unsexed creature of pose, whose cropped head and whose dress were pure affectation; a creature who aping the prerogatives of men, had lost all the charm and the grace of a woman. An intelligent person in nearly all else, the Comtesse would never have admitted of inversion as a fact in nature. She had heard things whispered, it is true, but had scarcely grasped their full meaning. She was innocent and stubborn; and this being so, it was not Stephen’s morals that she suspected, but her obvious desire to ape what she was not—in the Comtesse’s set, as at county dinners, there was firm insistence upon sex-distinction. On the other hand, she took a great fancy to Mary, whom she quickly discovered to be an orphan.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  6That night she stared at herself in the glass; and even as she did so she hated her body with its muscular shoulders, its small compact breasts, and its slender flanks of an athlete. All her life she must drag this body of hers like a monstrous fetter imposed on her spirit. This strangely ardent yet sterile body that must worship yet never be worshipped in return by the creature of its adoration. She longed to maim it, for it made her feel cruel; it was so white, so strong and so self-sufficient; yet withal so poor and unhappy a thing that her eyes filled with tears and her hate turned to pity. She began to grieve over it, touching her breasts with pitiful fingers, stroking her shoulders, letting her hands slip along her straight thighs—Oh, poor and most desolate body! Then she, for whom Puddle was actually praying at that moment, must now pray also, but blindly; finding few words that seemed worthy of prayer, few words that seemed to encompass her meaning—for she did not know the meaning of herself. But she loved, and loving groped for the God who had fashioned her, even unto this bitter loving. CHAPTER 251S tephen’s troubles had begun to be aggravated by Violet, who was always driving over to Morton, ostensibly to talk about Alec, in reality to collect information as to what might be happening at The Grange. She would stay for hours, very skilfully pumping while she dropped unwelcome hints anent Roger. ‘Father’s going to cut down his allowance,’ she declared, ‘if he doesn’t stop hanging about that woman. Oh, I’m sorry! I always forget she’s your friend—’ Then looking at Stephen with inquisitive eyes: ‘But I can’t understand that friendship of yours; for one thing, how can you put up with Crossby?’ And Stephen knew that yet once again, county gossip was rife about her. Violet was going to be married in September, they would then live in London, for Alec was a barrister. Their house, it seemed, was already bespoken: ‘A perfect duck of a house in Belgravia,’ where Violet intended to entertain largely on the strength of a bountiful parent Peacock. She was in the highest possible fettle these days, invested with an enormous importance in her own eyes, as also in those of her neighbours. Oh, yes, the whole world smiled broadly on Violet and her Alec: ‘Such a charming young couple,’ said the world, and at once proceeded to shower them with presents. Apostle teaspoons arrived in their dozens, so did coffee-pots, cream-jugs and large fish slices; to say nothing of a heavy silver bowl from the Hunt, and a massive salver from the grateful Scottish tenants.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  She really hates it there, but she’s not getting out anytime soon. I’m going to try to get her to go to treatment for drugs and depression following her stay. Apparently she’d been taking pills again.” That’s not gonna do it, I thought. It’s not the pills or the depression. It’s the sex and love. But you can’t tell a person’s husband, one who probably still very much loves her, about her addiction to other men. You can’t say, Oh, the real problem is in her heart and cunt. Who was I to know what the real problem was anyway? Maybe her real problem was drug addiction, and this love and sex thing was only a poor substitute. But if that was the case then where was my drug problem? And why was she crying for men but never for drugs? 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.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  51.I got into the bathtub and ran the water, soaking and scrubbing away Chase’s semen, which had formed a crust on my thigh. I could see it leaking out of me too in the bathwater, like passing clouds. Really, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be a person who was content to just lie around and watch the clouds, without trying to consume anything? Was there something wrong with just being alive? Why was I so defective? Then again, it wasn’t my fault we were put on the planet and left to make our own meaning. I was making mine and doing the best I could. Drying off, I put on one of my sister’s silk kimonos, then went downstairs and got a glass of white wine. Was I cool? Was I glamorous? Was I living a life that others would crave, or was I out of my mind, fucking some strange driver? Part of me felt glamorous and part of me felt insane, the two feelings rotating over and over. I lay down on the floor and noticed that I felt better. I was relaxed, somewhat high even. The bad sex had served as some kind of methadone. Dominic came over and licked my face, whimpering. I would take him out later, so what if he shit in the pantry. I could just go to sleep, I thought. Now I felt certain that it would be sleep, and not death. I knew that it would just be sleep. But as I was drifting off, my phone rang. It was a Phoenix number and I answered it quickly, thinking that it might be Rochelle calling from her office to say that Megan had miscarried, or another piece of news involving Jamie. But it was the advisory committee, both the English and classics chairs, on the line. They were calling to let me know that they had read the outline and sample from my new thesis. Their voices sounded enthusiastic. Well, this was good! They were responding much more quickly than I expected. And having both of them on the call definitely signaled something big. Maybe they were so impressed that they were going to offer me more money? It was strange but I was so worn out that I couldn’t visualize either of their faces, only the rosacea nose of the classics chair and the hatching chick from the Easter sweater of the English chair. When they spoke, I imagined it was the nose itself speaking, with the chick chiming in as it emerged from its egg. “There’s an unorthodox fluidity about the new work that’s very refreshing,” said the nose. “Yes, the decreased omniscience, the infusion of romanticism. This new iteration is very powerful,” said the chick.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  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. Or maybe I felt like laughing because I was scared. I walked with him across the boardwalk slowly and onto the sand. In the dark, in some ways, he looked just like one of the other junkies, if one of them were wearing a strange fish costume. Or he was a veteran amputee who, having fallen out of his chair, was trying to drag himself back: what remained of his legs wrapped in a sparkly, scaly bag. “Goodbye,” he said. I began to sob.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Anna appeared to notice no change in Stephen, to feel no anxiety about her. As always, these two were gravely polite to each other, and as always they never intruded. Still, it did seem to Puddle an incredible thing that the girl’s own mother should have noticed nothing. And yet so it was, for Anna had gradually been growing more silent and more abstracted. She was letting the tide of life carry her gently towards that haven on which her thoughts rested. And this blindness of hers troubled Puddle sorely, so that anger must often give way to pity. She would think: ‘God help her, the sorrowful woman; she knows nothing—why didn’t he tell her? It was cruel!’ And then she would think: ‘Yes, but God help Stephen if the day ever comes when her mother does know—what will happen on that day to Stephen?’ Kind and loyal Puddle; she felt torn to shreds between those two, both so worthy of pity. And now in addition she must be tormented by memories dug out of their graves by Stephen—Stephen, whose pain had called up a dead sorrow that for long had lain quietly and decently buried. Her youth would come back and stare into her eyes reproachfully, so that her finest virtues would seem little better than dust and ashes. She would sigh, remembering the bitter sweetness, the valiant hopelessness of her youth—and then she would look at Stephen. But one morning Stephen announced abruptly: ‘I’m going out. Don’t wait lunch for me, will you.’ And her voice permitted of no argument or question. Puddle nodded in silence. She had no need to question, she knew only too well where Stephen was going. 4 With head bowed by her mortification of spirit, Stephen rode once more to The Grange. And from time to time as she rode she flushed deeply because of the shame of what she was doing. But from time to time her eyes filled with tears because of the pain of her longing. She left the cob with a man at the stables, then made her way round to the old herb-garden; and there she found Angela sitting alone in the shade with a book which she was not reading. Stephen said: ‘I’ve come back.’ And then without waiting: ‘I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll let me come back.’ And even as she spoke those words her eyes fell. But Angela answered: ‘You had to come back—because I’ve been wanting you, Stephen.’ Then Stephen went and knelt down beside her, and she hid her face against Angela’s knee, and the tears that had never so much as once fallen during all the hard weeks of their separation, gushed out of her eyes. She cried like a child, with her face against Angela’s knee.