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.

Page 171 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  3. The last section of the text is much shorter than the others. It opens with the final recommendations concerning temperate marriage: the more tenuous, more demanding ones that surround the major prohibitions. No obscene remarks, refrain from licentious gestures, no relations with prostitutes, and also remember—here Clement repeats almost verbatim an aphorism already found in the philosophers—that one commits an adultery when one acts with one’s wife as if she were a courtesan. With these prescriptions, one enters the domain of transgressions that elude the gaze of others and that are committed above all in the eyes of one’s conscience. Sins of the shadows. It should be noted that here it’s not a matter of wrongs of intention, of bad thoughts, or of lusts and temptations that will be, in a slightly later Christianity, the key component of the sins of the flesh. Clement speaks only of sins that don’t have a public character. Darkness and silence envelop them; they apparently have no other witness or judge than the conscience of the one committing them—here the partner’s conscience seems to have no importance. The problem of the sin without any witness other than the conscience is again a very frequent theme in the philosophical literature, and Clement treats it using an argumentation that was also very classic. By trying to conceal a sin in shadows and solitude, one doesn’t lessen its gravity—one shows how conscious one is of its importance. Secrecy reveals the shame, which constitutes a judgment that conscience itself renders. And if a sin of this kind does no harm to anyone, conscience is still there as an accuser and a judge: it is oneself that one has wronged, and it’s for one’s own good that one must condemn oneself. One finds the same reasoning in Musonius90 and in Seneca.91 Clement goes over it again briefly. And yet his analysis—or rather the themes that he varies, quite freely—will have a different focus concerning the question of the secret transgression. He first evokes the theme of darkness and light. However deep the shadows surrounding the transgression may be, there is always a light that dwells there, illuminating what they hide. The gaze of God from which nothing escapes, a spiritual light, always present in the world? Yes, undoubtedly, and the pagan philosophers recognized the self-evidence of this.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  Augustine gives the name libido to that movement which traverses and sweeps along every sexual act, that makes them both visible and shameful, that ties them to spiritual death as to their cause, to physical death as to their accompaniment—that movement or, more exactly, its involuntary form and force. Libido is what specifically marks the sexual acts of fallen man; or, using the words of another vocabulary, libido is not an intrinsic aspect of the sexual act that would be tied to it analytically. It is an element which the transgression, the fall, and the principle of “reciprocity of disobedience” tied to the act synthetically. By identifying and defining this element, by locating its point of emergence in metahistory, Augustine establishes the basic condition for separating that “convulsive bloc,” in terms of which the sexual act was thought, from its intrinsic danger. He opens up a field of analysis while sketching out the possibility of a “government” of behaviors on a completely different basis than the alternative between abstinence and a more or less willing acceptance of sexual relations. IISo the fall provoked what could be called the libidinization of the sexual act: either one supposes that the latter would have been able, without the transgression, to unfold without any libido; or that it would have strictly obeyed the will. The libido, in any case, is manifested today in the form of the involuntary. It appears in that supplement that emerges beyond volition, but is only the correlative of a defect, and the effect of a fall from grace. This stigma of the involuntary in the sexual act subsequent to the transgression has two main aspects. First, there are all the disappointments by which the sex organ can frustrate the intentions of the subject. In Adam, the rebellious member had announced itself by an abrupt springing forth; among the men of his line, it is manifested by inopportune failures as well as by unseemly movements. The involuntary of the fallen sex organ is the erection, but it is also impotence. A passage of The City of God says it plainly. While the other organs, in their respective functions, are in the service of the mind and can be “moved by the sign of the will,” the same is not true of the sex organ: “Even those who delight in this pleasure are not moved to it at their own will, whether they confine themselves to lawful or transgress to unlawful pleasures; but sometimes this lust importunes them in spite of themselves, and sometimes fails them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in the mind, it stirs not in the body. Thus, strangely enough, this emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to beget offspring, but also refuses to serve the passion to climax.”32 Which Augustine translates with a remarkable expression: the libido is sui juris.33

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  • Principle of the duty to teach connected with the respect of modesty. Since he is the head, the husband must guide the wife, serve as her instructor, and train her in the virtues. “Let him, from that very evening on which he first receives her into the bridal chamber, teach her temperance, gentleness, and how to live, casting down the love of money at once from the outset, and from the very threshold. Let him discipline her in wisdom, and advise her never to have bits of gold hanging at her ears, and down her cheeks, and laid round about her neck.”28 “During that time therefore, during which shame, like a sort of bridle laid upon the soul, suffers her not to make any murmur, nor to complain, lay down all thy laws […] When is there then another time so advantageous for molding a wife, as that during which she reverences her husband, and is still timid, and still shy? Then lay down all thy laws for her, and willing or unwilling, she will certainly obey them.”29 If it is the right and duty of the husband to instruct his wife, there is one area, however, where ignorance has to be respected: it’s in everything relating to modesty. A counsel of prudence that the ancient moralists also gave:30 “Encourage her bashfulness for a considerable length of time, and do not destroy it suddenly […] Do not break off this reserve too hastily, as unchaste husbands do, but encourage it for a long time. For this will be a great advantage to you.”31

• From Another Country (1962)

  He was gone, and she was alone in the cab, behind the unspeaking shoulders of the Puerto Rican. Idly, she sought out his face in the glass, then looked down, lighting a cigarette. The cab began to move. She did not look out. She sat huddled in the darkness, burning with a curious kind of shame. She was not ashamed—was she?—of anything she had done; but she was ashamed, as it were in anticipation, of what she might, now, helplessly, find herself doing. She had been using Ida and Vivaldo as smoke screens to cover her affair with Eric: why should not Ida use her, then, to cover from Vivaldo her assignation with Ellis? She had silenced them, in relation to Richard—now she was silenced, in relation to Vivaldo. She smiled, but the smoke she inhaled was bitter. When she had been safe and respectable, so had the world been safe and respectable; now the entire world was bitter with deceit and danger and loss; and which was the greater illusion? She was uncomfortably aware of the driver, his shoulders, his untried face, his color, and his soft, dark eyes. He glanced at her from time to time in the mirror—after all, she had glanced at him first; and her mood, perhaps, had set up a tension between them, a sexual tension. She thought, again, unwillingly, of the ginger-colored boy on the dance floor. And she knew (as though her mind, for a moment, were a clear pool, and she saw straight down into its depths) that, yes, yes, had he touched her, had he insisted, he could have had his way, she would have been glad. She would have been glad to know his body, even though the body might be all that she could know. Eric’s entrance into her, her fall from—grace?—had left her prey to ambiguities whose power she had never glimpsed before. Richard had been her protection, not only against the evil in the world, but also against the wilderness of herself. And now she would never be protected again. She tried to feel jubilant about this. But she did not feel jubilant. She felt frightened and bewildered. The driver coughed. The cab stopped for a red light, just before entering the park, and the driver lit a cigarette. She, too, lit a fresh cigarette: and the two tiny flames almost seemed to be signaling one another. Just so, she now remembered, as the cab lurched forward, had she wandered, aimlessly and bitterly, through the city, when Richard first began to go away from her. She had wanted to be noticed, she had wanted a man to notice her. And they had: they had noticed that she was a sexual beggar, no longer young. Terrifying, that the loss of intimacy with one person results in the freezing over of the world, and the loss of oneself! And terrifying that the terms of love are so rigorous, its checks and liberties so tightly bound together.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  If the answer to these questions is yes, I encourage you to look at this issue in a different light. Discovering a new level of intimacy in your marriage may be very difficult if you can’t let your husband see completely into you. As I mentioned previously, intimacy can best be understood by breaking the word down into syllables: in-to-me-see. Marital secrets serve no purpose but to alienate you from the only one who can provide the level of intimacy you truly desire as a sexual being. If you keep secrets from each other, you may build a wall between you and ultimate sexual and emotional fulfillment. However, through humble confession and eventual restoration of trust, you can turn those walls into bridges that will bring the two of you closer together than ever before. I believe you can rebuild on a firmer foundation by opening up to your husband, confessing your sin, seeking healing counsel, and recruiting his help to overcome future temptations. After all, when you believe your husband loves you for who he thinks you are (yet you see yourself as a different person because you know things he doesn’t), that’s not intimate nor is it fulfilling. James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” Obviously James felt that confession is good for the soul. While it may be dreadfully painful at first, I believe confession is ultimately good for the marriage as well. Perhaps your honesty will create an environment where he finally feels safe to discuss his innermost sexual struggles. Make a pact that you won’t judge him for how he is prone to visual stimulation and that he won’t judge you for how you are prone to emotional stimulation. Your unconditional love can inspire him to guard his eyes, and his unconditional love can inspire you to guard your heart. So consider taking off the mask and allowing him to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And don’t cringe when he, too, takes his mask off. Remember, we are all human beings with our own unique struggles. Your marriage can be a place where you and your spouse can sharpen each other with accountability, not stab each other with judgment.

• From Push (1996)

  So that's my first fantasy, is get light. Then I get hair. Swing job, you know like I do with my extensions, but this time it be my own hair, permanently. Then, this part is hard to say, because so much of my heart is love for Abdul. But I be a girl or woman—yeah girl, 'cause I would still be a girl now if I hadn't had no kids. I would be a virgin like Michael Jackson, like Madonna. I would be a different Precious Jones. My bress not be big, my bra be little 'n pink like fashion girl. My body be like Whitney. I would be thighs not big etc etc. I would be tight pussy girl no stretch marks and torn pussy from babies's head bust me open. That HURT. Hours hours push push push! Then he out, beautiful. Jus' a beautiful baby. But I'm not. I'm eighteen years old. One time boy come to Advancement House to see girlfriend, he think I'm somebody's mother. That bother me. So there if I have a fantasy it be how I look. Ms Rain say I am beautiful like I am. Where? How? To who? To not have no kids mean I woulda had a different life. Counselor ask me one time is it the kids or is it I get raped to have 'em. Bofe; 'cause even if I not raped, who want a baby at twelve! Thas how old I was when I had Little Mongo. What is a normal life? A life where you not 'shamed of your mother. Where your friends come over after school and watch TV and do homework. Where your mother is normal looking and don't hit you over the head wif iron skillet. I would wish for in my fantasy a second chance. Since my first chance go to Mama and Daddy. Ms Rain always saying write remember write remember. Counselor say talk about it, talk about it— the PAST. What about NOW At least wif school I am gettin' ready for my future (which to me is right now). I don't know why I don't like counselor but Ms Rain say TALK, it gonna make things better whether I like her or not. But you know she jus' another social worker scratching on a pad. I know she writing reports on me. Reports go in file. File say what I could get, where I could go— if I could get cut off, kicked out Advancement House. Make me feel like Mama. Me and Ms Weiss in counsel room. She as' me what's my earliest memory of Mama. Huh? "What's your earliest memory of your mother?" Last week it was Daddy Daddy. She on a "Mama" kick this week. I don't say nuffin'. "Precious?" I can't move, speak.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  But Augustine also sees the form of the involuntary in the impossibility of separating the sexual act from those movements that one doesn’t control and from the force that propels them. However wise one may be, and however just and reasonable is the goal that one has in the union of the sexes, however mindful one shows oneself to be of the law of God and the example of the Patriarchs, one can’t ensure that it takes place without the uncontrollable tremors that mark the ineradicable presence of libido in the human being. In this world, no right intention, no lawful will can break the link between it and the use of the sexual organ. Even within marriage, the conjugal act “doesn’t depend on the will, but on a necessity without which, however, in the begetting of children, it is impossible to arrive at the result that that same will seeks.”34 Which explains that the end of marriage may very well be known by all, its celebration may very well be solemn, the legitimate act of the spouses, “while aspiring to be known, yet blushes to be seen.”35 The distinction between sexual union and movement of the libido, which reflection and exegesis enable one to establish in theory, escapes the will, however, and cannot be realized in practice. To those organs meant for procreation from the origin, but troubled since the fall by movements from which they cannot liberate themselves, human beings, notes Augustine, give the name “nature.”36 “Natura,” “sui juris”: Are we to understand, then, that the libido stems from a nature that is foreign to the subject itself, that it is imposed on it as an external element, and that the fall dispossessed the subject of its own flesh, as it were, to the point that the latter acts without it? That therefore one couldn’t blame it for what is happening in it? Should the libido be considered independent of the subject? If it is a nature, how can one not bring God to account—and hence be led either to make it the creation of a bad God like the Manicheans, or else, like the disciples of Pelagius, to not see anything intrinsically bad in it? In sum, if it is sui juris, how can this natura be imputed to the subject? To answer this question, Augustine had to define on the one hand the relations of the libido to the soul (which satisfies the principle of imputability) and on the other to determine the status of the libido relative to sin (which makes it possible to establish what can be imputed). —

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  This was illustrated in the way he would become locked into a position. She said there was no way to change his mind when he was angry. They would never go back and talk about the situation that led to the anger either. Though, she said, “I think he would feel bad. Maybe he didn’t recognize that he was wrong, but he did recognize how big a reaction he had.” He would never say he was sorry. In fact, she said she could only remember hearing him say he was sorry a couple of times in her life. Instead, he would sort of pretend it didn’t happen, and then he might go out and buy her something as an apology (like a treat or something she had said she wanted). She saw these as strategies for avoiding conflict. One of the things she told me that was really interesting, and speaks to the role insecurity plays here, is that he makes a lot of assumptions about how she was perceiving him when there’s conflict. She said he would say things like, “you think I’m such a horrible person or you think I’m stupid.” These were things she wasn’t thinking, but he would jump to these conclusions in a way that exacerbated his insecurity and defensiveness. Izzy shared a lot about the impact of all this on her. She described how the patterns she experienced with him were built into later relationships. “When he gets really angry, there’s nothing that will change his mind,” she said. “If I disagreed with him or if I didn’t want something or if I was trying to explain that he was hurting me in some kind of way, there was no getting through to him.” She stopped trying to get through to him because it was ineffective. As an adult, though, she realized that when people were doing things she didn’t like, she would get really angry because she assumed there was nothing she could do. Essentially, his anger taught her to feel helpless in relationships. There were other long-term effects, especially tied to relationship dynamics, that played out for Izzy. She described how hard emotional vulnerability was for her because she learned from him that emotions were manipulative. When she would cry, he would accuse her of being manipulative to make him out to be the bad guy. Now, she thinks he probably felt ashamed and pushed that shame away by finding a way to blame her. At the same time, though, she gets anxious when she cries now because she’s worried people will think she’s lying or just trying to manipulate them. Plus, anger was what he used to control the people around him and she doesn’t want to be that way. She often feels like she ends up managing other people’s emotions in ways that feel a little bit “mothering” to her.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  To help us guard against temptation, Paul encourages Christians to put on the “full armor of God”—the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (see Ephesians 6:13-17). We are so fortunate that the Holy Spirit gives us complete access to all of these things since truth, righteousness, peace, and faith are key ingredients to maintaining sexual and emotional integrity. However, as we put on this full armor of God, women often fail to check for weak links that leave us open and vulnerable to temptation. Three of the most common weak links are: • compromising clothing • compromising company • compromising actions We’ll look at each of these weak links, and as we do, try to discern if your armor may be leaving you vulnerable to temptation or jeopardizing your integrity. WEAK LINK 1: COMPROMISING CLOTHING You have probably heard gourmet chefs on the cooking channel say that when it comes to food, presentation is everything. Presentation is everything, not just with food, but also with your body. One of the concepts that I impress upon women is that we teach people how to treat us. We either teach them to treat us with respect or we teach them to treat us with disrespect. How? By our modest dress or our immodest attire. After hearing me speak on the radio about the importance of modesty, Christi (in her early twenties) wrote me the following letter. When I first began working as a Christian summer camp counselor, I decided that I would refuse to hook up with a guy at camp so that I could focus wholeheartedly on the girls in my cabin. I wanted so much for them to like me and to think I was cool, so I dressed in the latest young fashions—snug-fitting, hip-hugging jeans, short shorts, and spaghetti-strap tank tops, or tops that were short and clingy but long enough that standing still I couldn’t be accused of dressing inappropriately. I also taught the girls how to do several of the latest dance moves each night in the cabin, something we all looked forward to and had a lot of fun with. Many of the girls at camp hung around me all week instead of the other counselors. They told me how they would rather learn new dances in our cabin at night than participate in the Bible studies with their other counselors. I enjoyed thinking that I could have a big influence on these girls’ lives because I had their attention and admiration.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  But for Basil these different procedures of separation—of the senses with respect to sensible things, of the body with respect to the world, and of the soul with respect to the body—are only one side of the art of virginity. A whole other aspect concerns the soul itself and the work it must do on itself. That the purity of the body is nothing without that of the soul is a very traditional theme to which Basil gives several forms. That of the dual purity: one must bring as much attention to bear on the movements of the soul as on those of the body: “if through fasting we cut off the passions of the body, but leave the soul agitated by its own weaknesses, by envy, hypocrisy, and the movements of the other passions, we will not make the body’s abstinence useful to virtue. And if we cleanse the soul of its passions, but we give the body over to the passions of the belly and other raptures, even without the disorder of indecency, we cannot make our life perfect in virtue.”14 That of the fundamental purity of the soul, which constitutes the primary and determining element compared to the integrity of the body: “For if the soul is free of corruption, the body also is preserved without corruption; but if the soul has been corrupted by bad thoughts, even if the body still appears to be without corruption, no purity will be found in its absence of corruption, since it is corrupted by impure thoughts.”15 Finally, regarding physical castration, Basil puts forward the principle of the sinful intention. Not only is there no merit in physically making oneself a voluntary eunuch, but such a one is to be considered a sinner because he refuses to ensure the virginity of his own soul and hence he consents to the desire without allowing himself the act: “the removal of parts denounces the adultery of the one who mutilates himself,” “therefore, if he has disarmed himself by cutting off the instrument of adultery, so that people think he doesn’t fornicate with his body, but he fornicates in his intention.”16

• From Real Life (2020)

  Et les yeux un peu roses. Il sentait le sapin et l’alcool. À un moment donné, ils étaient tous les deux sortis de la partie éclairée et, dans l’ombre, ils avaient voulu attraper la même chaise ; leurs doigts s’étaient frôlés près du dossier. Henrik avait poussé un petit grognement et Wallace retiré sa main vivement. Henrik avait soulevé la chaise d’un geste fluide et montré du menton le mur du fond, dans l’obscurité encore plus dense, sous l’escalier, où une fissure presque invisible se devinait dans le béton. Ces vieilles maisons, avait-il dit. Elles ont des fondations de merde. Ce qui à l’époque avait paru absurde à Wallace, car comment une maison aux fondations de merde aurait-elle pu devenir vieille ? Il y avait réfléchi tandis qu’ils remontaient l’escalier ensemble, portant les chaises deux à deux et, à chaque voyage, les marches grinçaient ou menaçaient de céder sous leur poids ; il y avait réfléchi si fort que ces mots étaient presque devenus une chanson. Ces vieilles maisons. La dernière soirée d’Henrik. La dernière année d’Henrik. Ces vieilles maisons. Wallace se lève pour aller pisser, la couverture en flanelle de Miller sur les épaules. Il y fait froid, dans ces vieilles maisons, se dit-il. Sur le palier, il s’approche de la rambarde et attend. La cuisine est plongée dans le noir. Mais le silence n’est pas total. Il devine le doux grattement de murmures étouffés. Il ne distingue pas les mots, mais perçoit comme un son résistant à l’air. Il n’est pas seul. C’est logique, après tout, que Miller se trouve encore dans la maison. Et Yngve. Des gens habitent ici. Leurs vies continuent. Il n’a pas été laissé entièrement seul. Cet abandon partiel lui donne un peu envie de rire, mais il éprouve aussi l’élan inverse, curieux, d’un vertige. La honte de s’être trop dévoilé, et à Miller, en plus. Le désir réflexe de chercher un abri, de se cacher, le traverse subitement. Il fut un temps – jusqu’à vendredi, même – où révéler tant de lui-même aurait été une erreur fatale. Il lui aurait fallu vivre le reste de ses études dans la crainte de représailles, dans la peur de tout se reprendre dans la figure au tournant, au moment le plus inattendu, il aurait dû se méfier sans cesse de ce qui l’attendait. Il fut un temps où Wallace se serait fié à cette tendance soupçonneuse invétérée, où il l’aurait tenue garante de sa sécurité, mais voilà qu’il a commis une erreur stupide, qu’il vient de commettre une erreur stupide, en dévoilant tout à Miller ; donc tout ce qui lui reste, c’est l’espoir. Or il n’a jamais été quelqu’un qui pouvait compter sur l’espoir.

• From American Swing (2008)

  791 00:38:10,496 --> 00:38:12,290 Goldstein: HE WAS COLONEL SANDERS 792 00:38:12,290 --> 00:38:14,417 AND HE HAD TO DO HIS LITTLE STEP-- 793 00:38:14,417 --> 00:38:16,544 STEP-AND-FIX-IT ROUTINE. 794 00:38:16,544 --> 00:38:19,422 Donahue: IS IT YOUR VIEW WE'RE GONNA HAVE PLATO'S RETREATS-- 795 00:38:19,422 --> 00:38:21,924 IT'S GONNA BE PART OF OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN, TOO SOMEDAY? 796 00:38:21,924 --> 00:38:26,429 WITHIN THE NEXT THREE MONTHS THERE WILL BE FOUR MORE PLATO'S RETREATS AROUND THE COUNTRY. 797 00:38:31,183 --> 00:38:33,894 LARRY STARTED TO BELIEVE THE BULLSHIT. 798 00:38:33,894 --> 00:38:36,897 I BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME WHEN I'M INTERVIEWING. 799 00:38:36,897 --> 00:38:41,193 LARRY DID TOO, BUT LARRY EXAGGERATED THE IMPORTANCE. 800 00:38:41,193 --> 00:38:43,738 I ALWAYS ARGUED, "IT'S JUST FUCKING." 801 00:38:43,738 --> 00:38:46,365 WHAT IS FUCKING? IT'S FRICTION. 802 00:38:46,365 --> 00:38:49,493 YOU BELIEVE IN A FREE SOCIETY? 803 00:38:49,493 --> 00:38:51,954 A FREE SOCIETY WHERE PEOPLE CAN JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME 804 00:38:51,954 --> 00:38:55,333 AND ENJOY THEMSELVES THE WAY THEY WANT TO, WITHOUT HURTING ANYBODY ELSE. 805 00:38:57,001 --> 00:38:59,003 IT'S A DEVASTATING THERAPY. 806 00:38:59,003 --> 00:39:01,297 - Larry: BUT IT WORKS FOR THEM. - Man: IS IT FOR THEM? 807 00:39:05,634 --> 00:39:09,138 Hanson: I SAW A FIGHT BETWEEN A COUPLE THERE AT PLATO'S ONCE 808 00:39:09,138 --> 00:39:12,141 WHERE THE HUSBAND HAD FOUND OUT 809 00:39:12,141 --> 00:39:15,978 THAT HIS WIFE HAD MENDED THE PANTS 810 00:39:15,978 --> 00:39:18,314 FOR A MAN WHO WAS THERE. 811 00:39:18,314 --> 00:39:20,900 AND IN FACT THEY'D HAD SEX MANY TIMES, 812 00:39:20,900 --> 00:39:24,195 BUT IT WAS THIS LITTLE PERSONAL TOUCH THAT SHOWED AFFECTION 813 00:39:24,195 --> 00:39:25,988 THAT MADE THE HUSBAND INSANE. 814 00:39:25,988 --> 00:39:28,824 I COULD NEVER BRING SOMEBODY SPECIAL, SOMEBODY I CARED ABOUT THERE. 815 00:39:28,824 --> 00:39:32,328 I COULDN'T HANDLE MY WIFE OR MY GIRLFRIEND BEING WITH SOMEBODY ELSE. 816 00:39:32,328 --> 00:39:34,663 AND ME SITTING AND WATCHING? 817 00:39:34,663 --> 00:39:38,000 YOU REALLY DID SEE THAT SOMETIMES 818 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,088 THAT WHAT THEY CAME OUT FOR BIT THEM IN THE BEHIND. 819 00:39:42,088 --> 00:39:44,840 THEY GOT MORE THAN WHAT THEY REALLY BARGAINED FOR. 820 00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,426 IF I WANTED TO HAVE AN AFFAIR WITH A MAN OR SLEEP WITH A MAN 821 00:39:47,426 --> 00:39:50,763 THAT I FELT ATTRACTIVE, I CAN DO IT. 822 00:39:50,763 --> 00:39:52,515 AND MICHAEL KNOWS ABOUT IT. 823 00:39:52,515 --> 00:39:54,266 IT'S LIKE DUAL INFIDELITY. 824 00:39:57,311 --> 00:40:00,564 Interviewer: DO YOU THINK LARRY IS FAITHFUL TO YOU OUT OF PLATO'S RETREAT? 825 00:40:00,564 --> 00:40:02,858 FOR EXAMPLE, IS HE WITH OTHER WOMEN, DO YOU THINK? 826 00:40:02,858 --> 00:40:04,693 - YES, VERY DEFINITELY. - HOW DO YOU KNOW? 827 00:40:04,693 --> 00:40:05,945 - I DON'T HAVE TIME. - TRUST. 828 00:40:07,863 --> 00:40:10,032 I BELIEVE MARY... 829 00:40:10,032 --> 00:40:12,535 ALWAYS HAD FEELINGS FOR LARRY. 830 00:40:14,036 --> 00:40:17,123 I THINK HER WHOLE LIFE WAS WRAPPED AROUND HIM, 831 00:40:17,123 --> 00:40:19,208 WRAPPED AROUND THE LIFESTYLE.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  I RVIN: I don’t know how to start. D R. Y ALOM: Just speak your thoughts aloud about being Jewish at thirteen. Don’t censor your thoughts—just utter them as they enter your mind. It’s what we therapists call free association . I RVIN: Free association, huh. Just think out loud? Wow! OK, I’ll give it a whirl. Being Jewish… God’s chosen people… what a joke that is for me— chosen? No, the exact opposite… being Jewish has not had one single advantage for me… Continual anti-Semitic remarks… Even Mr. Turner, the blond, red-faced barber only three stores up from my father’s, calls me “Jew boy” when he cuts my hair… And Unk, the gym teacher, shouts, “Move it, Jew boy,” when I try, unsuccessfully, to climb up the rope hanging from the ceiling of the gym. And the shame at Christmas when other kids in school describe their presents—I was the only Jewish kid in my elementary school class and I regularly lied and pretended to have gotten presents. I know my cousins, Bea and Irene, tell classmates their Hanukkah gifts are Christmas gifts, but my folks are too busy in the store and don’t do any gift giving at Hanukkah. And they frown at my having any non-Jewish friends, including, especially, the black kids, who they will not permit me to bring home even though I regularly go to their houses. D R. Y ALOM: So, it seems obvious to me that you want nothing more than to get out of this culture and that your refusal to learn Hebrew for your Bar Mitzvah and your eating traif on your way to your Hebrew lessons are all saying the same thing, and saying it loudly, “Please. Please. Somebody get me out of here!” I RVIN: It’s hard to argue with that. And my folks must feel they are in a terrible dilemma. They want something different and better for me. They want me to succeed in the outside world, but, at the same time, they must fear the end of their own world. D R. Y ALOM: Have they ever expressed that to you? I RVIN: Not directly, but there are signs of it. For example, they speak Yiddish to one another but not to me or to my sister. They speak a type of pidgin English-Yiddish (Yinglish we call it) to us, but definitely they do not want us to learn Yiddish. They are also very secretive about their life in the old country. I have learned almost nothing about their lives in Russia. When I try to find out the exact location of their shtetl in the old country, my father, who has a wonderful sense of humor, jokes that they lived in Russia, but sometimes when they couldn’t bear the thought of another severe Russian winter, they called it Poland. And for World War II and the Nazis and the Holocaust? Not one word! Their lips are forever sealed.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  [Gen 15:6 ] 7 So understand that it is the people who live by faith [with confidence in the power and goodness of God] who are [the true] sons of a Abraham. 8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the good news [of the Savior] to Abraham in advance [with this promise], saying, “IN YOU SHALL ALL THE NATIONS BE BLESSED .” [Gen 12:3 ] 9 So then those who are people of faith [whether Jew or Gentile] are blessed and favored by God [and declared free of the guilt of sin and its penalty, and placed in right standing with Him] along with Abraham, the believer. 10 For all who depend on the Law [seeking justification and salvation by obedience to the Law and the observance of rituals] are under a curse; for it is written, “CURSED (condemned to destruction) IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW , SO AS TO PRACTICE THEM .” [Deut 27:26 ] 11 Now it is clear that no one is justified [that is, declared free of the guilt of sin and its penalty, and placed in right standing] before God by the Law, for “THE RIGHTEOUS (the just, the upright) SHALL LIVE BY FAITH .” [Hab 2:4 ] 12 But the Law does not rest on or require faith [it has nothing to do with faith], but [instead, the Law] says, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM [the things prescribed by the Law] SHALL LIVE BY THEM [instead of faith].” [Lev 18:5 ] 13 Christ purchased our freedom and redeemed us from the curse of the Law and its condemnation by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS [crucified] ON A TREE (cross)”— [Deut 21:23 ] 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might also come to the Gentiles, so that we would all receive [the realization of] the promise of the [Holy] Spirit through faith. Intent of the Law 15 Brothers and sisters, I speak in terms of human relations: even though a last will and testament is just a human covenant, yet when it has been signed and made legally binding, no one sets it aside or adds to it [modifying it in some way]. 16 Now the promises [in the covenants] were decreed to Abraham and to his seed. God does not say, “And to seeds (descendants, heirs),” as if [referring] to many [persons], but as to one, “And to your Seed,” who is [none other than] Christ. [Gen 13:15 ; 17:8 ] 17 This is what I mean: the Law, which came into existence four hundred and thirty years later [after the covenant concerning the coming Messiah], does not and cannot invalidate the covenant previously established by God, so as to abolish the promise.

• From Push (1996)

  And it's 9:05 a.m. not 9:00 a.m. Oh well teacher nigger too. Don't care if she teacher, don't no niggers start on time. The elevator goes Bing! I step out. My class last door on left. My teacher Miz Rain. I'm walking across the lobby room real real slow. Full of chicken, bread; usually that make me not want to cry remember, but I feel like crying now. My head is like the swimming pool at the Y on one-three-five. Summer full of bodies splashing, most in shallow end; one, two in deep end. Thas how all the time years is swimming in my head. First grade boy say, Pick up your lips Claireece 'fore you trip over them. Call me shoe shine shinola. Second grade I is fat. Thas when fart sounds and pig grunt sounds start. No boyfriend no girlfriends. I stare at the blackboard pretending. I don't know what I'm pretending— that trains ain' riding through my head sometime and that yes, I'm reading along with the class on page 55 of the reader. Early on I realize no one hear the TV set voices growing out blackboard but me, so I try not to answer them. Over in deepest end of the pool (where you could drown if not for fine lifeguard look like Bobby Brown) is me sitting in my chair at my desk and the world turn to whirring sound, everything is noise, teacher's voice white static. My pee pee open hot stinky down my thighs sssssss splatter splatter. I wanna die I hate myself HATE myself. Giggles giggles but I don't move I barely breathe I just sit. They giggle. I stare straight ahead. They talk me. I don't say nuffin'. Seven, he on me almost every night. First it's just in my mouth. Then it's more more. He is intercoursing me. Say I can take it. Look you don't even bleed, virgin girls bleed. You not virgin. I'm seven. I don't realize I've gone from walking real real slow to standing perfectly still. I'm in the lobby of first day of school Higher Education Alternative/ Each One Teach One just standing there. I realize this 'cause Miz Rain done peeked her head out last door on the left and said, "You alright?" I know who she is 'cause Miss Cornrow with the glasses had done pointed her out to me after I finish testing and show me my teacher and classroom. I make my feet move. I don't say anything. Nothing in my mouth to say. I move my feet some more. Miz Rain ask me if I'm in the A.B.E. class. I say yes. She say this is it and go back inside door. The first thing I see when I step through door is the windows, where we is is high up, no other buildings in the way.

• From Push (1996)

  The nurse is saying something I don't hear. I hear kids at school. Boy say Fm laffing ugly. He say, "Claireece is so ugly she laffing ugly." His fren' say, "No, that fat bitch is crying ugly." Laff laff. Why Fm thinking about those stupid boys now I don't know. "Mother," she say. "What's your mother's name?" I say, "Mary L Johnston" (L for Lee but my mother don't like Lee, soun' too country). "Where your mother born," she say. I say, "Greenwood, Mississippi." Nurse say, "You ever been there?" I say, "Naw, I never been nowhere." She say, "Reason I ask is Fm from Greenwood, Mississippi, myself." I say, "Oh," 'cause I know Iʼm spozed to say something. "Father," she say. "What's your daddy's name?" "Carl Kenwood Jones, born in the Bronx." • She say, "What's the baby's father's name?" I say, "Carl Kenwood Jones, born in the same Bronx." She quiet quiet. Say, "Shame, thas a shame. Twelve years old, twelve years old," she say over 'n over like she crazy (or in some shock or something). She look at me, butter skin, light eyes—I know boyz love her. She say, "Was you ever, I mean did you ever get to be a chile?" Thas a stupid question, did I ever get to be a chile? I am a chile. I'm confuse, tired. I tell her I want to sleep. She put the bed down, I do go to sleep. Somebody else there when I wake up. It's like the police or something. Wanna ax me some questions. I axes, "Where's my baby? I know I had one. I know that." New somebody in nurse cap sweet-smile me and say, "Yes, you did Miss Jones, you surely did." She moves the men in uniform suits back from my bed. Say my baby is in special intense care and I will get to see her soon and won't I please answer the nice men's questions. But they ain' nice men. They pigs. I ain' crazy. I don't tell them nothing. "Precious! Precious!" my muver hollering but my head not here it in four years when I had the first baby. I was standing at this sink when the pain hit me, and she hit me. "Precious!" My hand slip down in the dishwater, grab the butcher knife. She bedda not hit me, I ain' lyin'! If she hit me I will stab her ass to def, you hear me! "Precious! You done lost your mind? Just standing up there staring into spaces. I'm talkin' to you!" Like thas something. "I was thinkin'," I say. "You thinkin' while I'm talkin' to you?" She say this like I'm burnin' hunnert dollar bills. The buzzer ring. I wonder who it could be. Don't nobody ring our bell 'less it's crack addicts trying to get in the building. I hate crack addicts. They give the race a bad name. "Go tell them assholes to stop ringing the bell," she say.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  And between these two modalities the distribution is not even: the verbal enunciation of the sin is seldom required except when it’s a matter of determining the penance, examining whether the sinner can be admitted into it and merits being reconciled. “Telling the sin”—bringing into play, in the verbal dimension, the confession and the examination, demanding of the sinner a “veridiction” of his sins—is necessary only prior to the penitential procedure and so, in a way, is outside it. On the other hand, the ostentatious, gestural, corporeal demonstration of what the sinner is in his being forms an intrinsic part of penance. It forms an essential and constant dimension of it. The penitent is expected not so much to “tell the truth” [“dire le vrai”] concerning what he did as to “do the truth” [“faire vrai”] by manifesting what he is. This necessity of penitential practice—that it be carried out only through manifestations designed to bring the penitent’s truth to light—raises a problem: when one has sinned, why must one not only repent—imposing rigors and macerations upon himself—but also show these acts and show oneself as one is? Why does the manifestation of the truth constitute an intrinsic part of the procedure that enables one to redeem the sin? When one has “done wrong,” why is it necessary to make the truth shine forth, not only the truth about what one did, but about what one is? The answer is obvious: once the Christian religion was formed into a Church endowed with a strong communitarian structure and a hierarchical organization, no serious infraction could be pardoned without a certain number of proofs and guarantees. Just as a candidate for baptism couldn’t be accepted without having been tested beforehand through the catechumenate—probatio animae—the Church couldn’t reconcile those who hadn’t clearly manifested their repentance through discipline and exercises that stood for punishment in relation to the past and showed commitment to the future. They had to practice the publicatio sui.

• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  At that point, one will find the mark of the original transgression and the fall—or more exactly, of a restructuring of the relations of obedience and control between self and self that hinge on it. The obligation that God had placed men under by forbidding them the fruit was slight. All the more serious, therefore, was their rebellion. And in his beneficence, God didn’t want the consequences of this disobedience to be a definitive punishment, or an abandonment of man to spiritual or material forces that would dominate him forever. He meant it to be exactly fitted to the sin, to man’s powers, and to the possibility of salvation. He made sure that it would be the reproduction in man of the disobedience that caused him to rebel against God. The punishment-consequence of the fault is not placed between the soul and the body, between matter and mind, but in the subject itself, henceforth in rebellion against itself (body and soul included). Fallen man did not fall under a law or a force that subjugates him entirely; a scission marks his own will that divides, turns back against itself, and escapes from what it may itself will. This is the principle, fundamental in Augustine, of inoboedentia reciproca, of disobedience in return. The rebellion in man reproduces the rebellion against God. Can the change brought into the sexual act be understood on the basis of this principle? One might refer to the exegesis that Augustine proposes in the passage in Genesis where it is a question of sex after the act of disobedience and God’s punishment, since shortly after the sin was committed, the first humans made a gesture of modesty. “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”19 A comparison of the successive interpretations that Augustine offered of this passage is revealing. In Genesi contra Manichaeos,20 the awakening of this modesty is defined as the passage from a “simplicity” which is the same as innocence to a perversity that affects the gaze itself and is conveyed by it. On their nudity, the man and the woman focus “perverse eyes” because, being already and henceforth inhabited by evil, they recognize what now perverts human nature and shames their pride—their “cunning pride”—which is to say, the very principle of the sin into which they have fallen.21 In the relation of the eyes that have just opened to the sex that must be covered, the latter appears as a general perversion of human nature.

• From Push (1996)

  They vampires. They eats, drinks, wear clothes, talks, fucks, and stuff but when you git right down to it they don't exist. I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, I watch TV, do what my muver say. But I can see when the picture come back I don't exist. Don't nobody want me. Don't nobody need me. I know who I am. I know who they say I am—vampire sucking the system's blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for. I wanna say I am somebody. I wanna say it on subway, TV, movie, LOUD. I see the pink faces in suits look over top of my head. I watch myself disappear in their eyes, their tesses, I talk loud but still I don't exist. I see it over and over, the real people, the people who show up when the picture come back; and they are pritty people, girls with little titties like buttons and legs like long white straws. Do all white people look like pictures? No, 'cause the white people at school is fat and cruel like evil witches from fairy tales but they exist. Is it because they white? If Mrs Lichenstein who have elephant stomach and garbage smell from her pussy exist, why don't I? Why can't I see myself, feel where I end and begin. I sometimes look in the pink people in suits eyes, the men from bizness, and they look way above me, put me out of their eyes. My fahver don't see me really. If he did he would know I was like a white girl, a real person, inside. He would not climb on me from forever and stick his dick in me 'n get me inside on fire, bleed, I bleed then he slap me. Can't he see I am a girl for flowers and thin straw legs and a place in the picture. I been out the picture so long I am used to it. But that don't mean it don't hurt. Sometimes I pass by store window and somebody fat dark skin, old looking, someone look like my muver look back at me. But I know it can't be my muver 'cause my muver is at home. She have not left home since Little Mongo was born. Who I see? I stand in tub sometime, look my body, it stretch marks, ripples. I try to hide myself, then I try to show myself. I ax my muver for money to git my hair done, clothes. I know the money she got for me—from my baby. She usta give me money; now every time I ax for money she say I took her husband, her man. Her man? Please! Thas my mutherfuckin' fahver! I hear her tell someone on phone I am heifer, take her husband, I'm fast. What it take for my muver to see me?

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  IN HER vast drawing-room so beautifully proportioned, Anna would sit with her pride sorely wounded, dreading the thinly veiled questions of her neighbours, dreading the ominous silence of her husband. And the old aversion she had felt for her child would return upon her like the unclean spirit who gathered to himself seven others more wicked, so that her last state was worse than her first, and at times she must turn away her eyes from Stephen. Thus tormented, she grew less tactful with her husband, and now she was always plying him with questions: ‘ But why can’t you tell me what Stephen said to you, Philip, that evening when she went to your study? ” And he, with a mighty effort to be patient, would answer: ‘She said that she couldn’t love Martin — there was no crime in that. Leave the child alone, Anna, she’s unhappy enough; why not let her alone? °? And then he would hastily change the subject. But Anna could not let Stephen alone, could never keep off the topic of Martin. She would talk at the girl until she grew crimson; and seeing this, Sir Philip would frown darkly, and when he and his wife were alone in their bedroom he would often reproach her with violence. I22 THE WELL OF LONELINESS ‘ Cruel — it’s abominably cruel of you, Anna. Why in God’s name must you go on nagging Stephen? ’ Anna’s taut nerves would tighten to breaking, so that she, when she answered, must also speak with violence. One night he said abruptly: ‘ Stephen won’t marry —I don’t want her to marry; it would only mean disaster.’ And at this Anna broke out in angry protest. Why shouldn’t Stephen marry? She wished her to marry. Was he mad? And what did he mean by disaster? No woman was ever complete without marriage — what on earth did he mean by disaster? He frowned and refused to answer her question. Stephen, he said, must go up to Oxford. He had set his heart on a good education for the child, who might some day become a fine writer. Marriage wasn’t the only career for a woman. Look at Puddle, for instance; shed been at Oxford -a most admirable, well-balanced, sen- sible creature. Next year he was going to send Stephen to Oxford. Anna scoffed: Yes, indeed, he might well look at Puddle! She was what came of this higher education —a lonely, unfulfilled, middle-aged spinster. Anna didn’t want that kind of life for her daughter. And then: ‘ It’s a pity you can’t be frank, Philip, about what was said that night in your study. I feel that there’s some- thing you’re keeping back from me -— it’s so unlike Martin to behave as he has done; there must have been something that you haven’t told me, to have made him go off without even a letter —’