Shame

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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

  PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. Or otherwise; Whenever God will try His Church, He enters into it that He may see the guests; and if He finds any one not having on the wedding garment, He enquires of him, How then were you made a Christian, if you neglect these works? Such a one Christ gives over to His ministers, that is, to seducing leaders, who bind his hands, that is, his works, and his feet, that is, the motions of his mind, and cast him into darkness, that is, into the errors of the Gentiles or the Jews, or into heresy. The nigher darkness is that of the Gentiles, for they have never heard the truth which they despise; the outer darkness is that of the Jews, who have heard but do not believe; the outermost is that of the heretics, who have heard and have learned. 22:15–2215. Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. 16. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. 17. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not? 18. But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? 19. Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. 20. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? 21. They say unto him, Cæsar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. 22. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. As when one seeks to dam a stream of running water, as soon as one outlet is stopped up it makes another channel for itself; so the malevolence of the Jews, foiled on one hand, seeks itself out another course. Then went the Pharisees; went to the Herodians. Such as the plan was, such were the planners; They send unto Him their disciples with the Herodians. GLOSS. (ord.) Who as unknown to Him, were more likely to ensnare Him, and so through them they might take Him, which they feared to do of themselves because of the populace.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Greek classics; despite its extraordinarily elegant standards, the work was pushed forward with great speed: in the twenty years 1494–1515, twenty-seven editones principes of Greek authors and works of reference were produced, and when Aldus died in 1515 not a single major Greek author remained unprinted. These works were printed in very considerable quantities, and at prices well below even low-quality manuscript copies of similar length. The rapid development of printing, with its tremendous concentration on works of seminal interest to religion and reform, posed an entirely new problem to the Church and State authorities which traditionally controlled the dissemination of knowledge. Censoring or preventing the circulation of printed books was essentially the same as controlling manuscripts; but the difference in speed and scale was absolutely crucial. It took at least a generation for the censors to tackle it, and they were never able to exercise the same degree of effective supervision as in the days before cheap printing. Erasmus was born into this new arena of scholarship and communication in 1466. His background was quintessentially that of the old age. He was the bastard son of a priest, by a washerwoman. This was the common fate of a vast number of people at the time. It testified to the unwillingness of the Church to sanction clerical marriage and its inability to stamp out concubinage. Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for the child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself. Many thousands of men (and women) were trapped in this predicament, grudging and awkward members of a privileged class, sentenced for life to a spiritual role for which they had no calling and – since no seminaries existed – no training. Erasmus was a case in point. After his birth his parents no longer lived together. In an autobiographical fragment, written when he was already world famous, he concealed his bastardy, indicating that it still rankled. His schooling was wretched. The Brethren of the Common Life, founded by Gerard Groote, were one of the more successful of the idealistic orders of the later Middle Ages. They were genuinely poor, they took their social work seriously; in some ways they adumbrated the Protestant reformers by their stress on the Bible and their distaste for elaborate forms of

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  the trouble with the hypothesis of a passionless procreation controlled by the will, as I am here suggesting it, is that it has never been verified in experience, not even in the experience of those who could have proved that it was possible. In fact, they sinned too soon, and brought upon themselves exile from Eden.67 But Augustine believes that each person can verify from experience the radical leap to which his own inner turmoil impelled him—the leap that identifies sexual desire itself as evidence of, and penalty for, original sin. That each of us experiences desire spontaneously apart from will means, Augustine assumes, that we experience it against our will. Hence, he continues, sexual desire naturally involves shame: “A man by his very nature is ashamed of sexual desire.”68 What proves the truth of such assertions, Augustine believes, is the universal practice of covering the genitals and of shielding the act of intercourse from public view.69 One might, of course, ask the obvious question: Is it not possible to experience desire in accordance with the will (as, for example, when engaging in intercourse for the purpose of procreation)? Chrysostom would say yes; but Augustine’s very definition of sexual desire excludes that possibility. Having entered into human experience through an act of rebellion against the will, desire can never cooperate with will to form, so to speak, a coalition government. For Augustine, “lust is an usurper, defying the power of the will, and tyrannizing the human sexual organs.”70 Augustine believes that by defining spontaneous sexual desire as the proof and penalty of original sin he has succeeded in implicating the whole human race, except, of course, for Christ. Christ alone of all humankind, Augustine explains, was born without libido—being born, he believes, without the intervention of semen that transmits its effects. But the rest of humankind issues from a procreative process that, ever since Adam, has sprung wildly out of control, marring the whole of human nature.

• From Open (2009)

  The next day’s newspapers kill me. Rather than defend myself, I react with truculence. I say I’ve always wanted to do something like that. The truth is, I was just cold and not thinking. I was being stupid, not cocky. My reputation takes a major hit. THE CROWD AT STRATTON MOUNTAIN welcomes me days later, however, like a prodigal. I play to please them. I play to thank them for banishing the memory of Argentina. Something about these people, these emerald mountains, this Vermont air—I win the tournament. I wake soon after to discover that I’m number four in the world. But I’m too spent to celebrate. Between Pat and Davis Cup and the grind of the tour, I’m sleeping twelve hours a night. I fly to New York in the late summer to play a minor tournament in New Jersey, a tune-up for the 1988 U.S. Open. I reach the final and face Tarango. I beat him soundly, a delicious victory, because I can still close my eyes and see Tarango cheating me when I was eight. My first loss. I’ll never forget. Each time I hit a winner I think, Fuck you, Jeff. Fuck. You. At the U.S. Open I reach the quarters. I’m due to face Jimmy Connors. Before the match I approach him meekly in the locker room and remind him that we once met. In Las Vegas? I was four? You were playing at Caesars Palace? We hit some balls together? Nope, he says. Oh. Well. Actually, we met again, several times, when I was seven. I used to deliver rackets to you? My father strung your rackets whenever you came to town, and I’d bring them to you at your favorite restaurant on the Strip? Nope, he says again, then lies back on a bench and pulls a long white towel over his legs and closes his eyes. Dismissed. This gibes with everything I’ve heard about Connors from other players. Asshole, they say. Rude, condescending, egomaniac prick. But I thought he’d treat me differently, I thought he’d show me some love, given our longtime connection. Just for that, I tell Perry, I’m beating this guy in three easy sets—and he’s going to win no more than nine games. The crowd is pulling for Connors. It’s the opposite of Stratton. Here, I’m cast as the bad guy. I’m the impertinent upstart who dares to oppose the elder statesman. The crowd wants Connors to defy the odds, and Father Time, and I’m standing in the way of that dream scenario. Each time they cheer I think: Do they realize what this guy is like in the locker room? Do they know what his peers say about him? Do they have any concept of how he responds to a friendly hello?

• From The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography (2008)

  And even when the porn user and his or her partner do have sex, there are often problems. The lack of skills for tuning into a partner’s needs and integrating loving feelings with sex can result in a porn user being sexually demanding, distant, and insensitive during sex. Justin told us his inability to be close to his lover upset her greatly. “I approached sex as a very mechanical thing. I had no conception of sex as making love or being intimate in a sacred way. My wife felt hurt when I’d leave her alone, but then when I’d approach her for sex she felt I was trying to force her. Sex with my wife became fairly nonexistent and a major bone of contention.” 7. “I’m Feeling Bad About Myself” Perhaps the most difficult negative consequence of porn to “see” is the toll that it can take on our self-esteem. Your self-esteem has to do with your self-respect and integrity, and how good you feel about your actions and relationships with others. If you find yourself thinking “I don’t know who I am anymore,” “I hate myself,” or “I’ve become a hypocrite,” your self-esteem is in jeopardy. As one man said, “I just don’t like who I’ve become. I’m a liar and a cheat. And my relationship with porn has become the vortex of my self-hatred.” Whenever we experience a difficult life problem as a result of porn use, such as an upset partner, a sexual problem, or poor job performance, it’s normal for our self-esteem to plummet. Injuries to self-esteem are like football injuries. We shake them off the first several times, but eventually they add up and we can’t even get up off the field. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’re plagued by shame, fear, and a constant need to hide part of your life from those around you. Nick explained it like this: “I felt very guilty on the one hand but also very justified in using porn on the other. And, I figured ‘I’m a piece of shit anyway—I might as well prove it.’ I was caught in a never-ending cycle of shame, and I couldn’t find the strength to pull myself out of it.” For Brad, his low self-esteem catalyzed many angry fights with his wife, Paula. “I had lots of shame and anger in my heart,” he said. “I’d project it on to her and she’d get mad. I felt guilty all the time because I was doing something I knew I shouldn’t do and didn’t want to be doing. The character I had was not the character I wanted, and I was mad at myself for not living up to the expectations I had for myself and the person I wanted to be.”

• From The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography (2008)

  One significant way porn damages self-image is that it is contrary to the moral and religious values of many users. For example, more than 50 percent of Promise Keepers, a Christian evangelical group dedicated to uniting men to become “godly influences” in their families and in the world, report having a problem with pornography. It doesn’t feel good to present yourself as a moral authority when you are engaged in activities that go against your values and moral code. As one man said, “Pornography relegated me to being a spectator in the church. The secret life I kept and the shame I felt neutralized my power as a role model and took me out.” Rob spoke of how demoralized he felt when he was faced with the incongruity between who he thought he was and the reality of his behavior. In a remorseful voice he said, “My wife went out shopping with our kids. I said I had work to do, but instead I spent the afternoon online looking at some pretty intense hard-core. I heard her pull up in the driveway and I got up to go help her unload the groceries. Well, I forgot to disconnect the computer. “Our daughter walked in there and saw this image on the screen and yelled, ‘Mom!’ My wife went down there and said, ‘What the hell is this?’ I felt so ashamed and humiliated. But I lied to my wife and said it was some stuff that popped up when I was on the Internet. I didn’t want her to believe that I would be out there searching for that stuff. I didn’t want her to think of me as that person, somebody who would do that. It was devastating—devastating to her, devastating to my daughter, devastating to me. I thought of myself as rigorously honest about so many things in my life, and then I had this porn thing going on over here, in this other world. “At that moment, a door had opened up into my secret life. My wife was going, ‘Okay, who is this guy? Who is he?’ Ironically, just a few days before this happened, I remember my wife telling her mother that I was the most honest person she knew. I thought, Oh my God, I am actually the biggest piece of shit you know. Feelings of low self-esteem can also be fueled by the fact that on some level most porn users realize that porn is exploitive and degrading to others, especially women, children, and people of color. One man said, “I know that people are exploited in the making of porn films. Sometimes I can actually see and feel the exploitation in the movies. I see it in the women’s eyes and faces. Boy is that a killer—watching a movie and knowing something wasn’t right there.”

• From The Porn Trap: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Problems Caused by Pornography (2008)

  Porn users who are into particular types of pornography, such as porn depicting molestation, rape, bodily injury, sex with children, and sex with animals, often suffer from tremendous feelings of guilt and shame. These feelings make it difficult to be genuine with others, have inner peace, and a good sense of self-worth. Len was drawn to reading stories of parents who sexually abused their own children. He told us, “Sometimes I feel morally deficient and not up to the same standards as the average person. What kind of person am I, given that I find pleasure from things that most people find unacceptable?” When porn leads someone to develop an interest in abusive and criminal sexual behavior, the damage to self-esteem and self-worth can be severe. One man shook with tears telling us porn had turned him into a “pervert” and “a visual rapist.” 8. “I’m Engaging in Risky and Dangerous Behavior” “Porn gives you what you want, but also makes you want things you didn’t start out wanting.” These are words we hear often in our counseling with porn users. Sometimes people are referring to the extreme types of pornography they became interested in, and other times they are talking about sexual interests they act out in real life. By watching porn that features activities such as sex between strangers, violent sex, and unprotected sex, we run a risk of inadvertently training ourselves to feel more comfortable with the idea of engaging in these behaviors ourselves. It’s common to want to imitate some of the behaviors we see others do, especially if they look like they are enjoying themselves and “getting away with it.” But if we masturbate to images of certain risky and dangerous activities, we may train ourselves to focus on how exciting and pleasurable they seem and ignore how disruptive and hurtful they really are. As one man said, “As my porn habit progressed, I gravitated to more and more twisted and violent pornographic images. Material that once nauseated me became my favorite sexual fantasy.” The sexual arousal high that goes on when doing porn can contribute to impairing judgments and lowering inhibitions in real life. As another man said, “My ability to reason took a vacation whenever I had an opportunity to get high on porn.” Being engaged in any type of risky sexually arousing behavior increases chemicals in the body such as dopamine and adrenaline that further enhance sexual arousal, as well as create a powerful feeling of invulnerability. And porn users who combine porn with ingesting mood-altering substances such as alcohol, methamphetamine, or cocaine can also increase the likelihood of acting in sexually abusive and destructive ways.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  Aeschines, in Against Timarchus, makes use of a law that is very interesting in itself because it concerns the effects of civic and political disqualification that a man’s sexual misconduct—“prostitution” in the precise sense—could entail in that it would prohibit him from subsequently “becoming one of the nine archons or discharging the office of priest or acting as an advocate for the state.” An individual who had prostituted himself was debarred from holding any magistracy in the city or abroad, be it elective or conferred by lot. He could not serve as a herald or ambassador, nor become a prosecutor of ambassadors or a paid slanderer.* Further, he could not address the council or the assembly, even though he were “the most eloquent orator in Athens.”4 Hence this law made male prostitution an instance of atimia—of public disgrace—that excluded a citizen from certain responsibilities.† But the way in which Aeschines conducts his prosecution, and tries through a strictly juridical discussion to compromise his adversary, points up the relation of incompatibility—ethical as much as legal—that was recognized as existing between certain sexual roles assumed by boys and certain social roles assumed by adults. Aeschines’ legal argumentation, which is based on Timarchus’ “bad conduct” as alleged via rumors, gossip, and testimony, consists in going back and finding certain factors that constitute prostitution (number of partners, indiscriminateness, payment for services) whereas others are lacking (he hadn’t been registered as a prostitute and he hadn’t stayed in a house). When he was young and good-looking, he passed through many hands, and not always honorable ones since he is known to have lived with a man of servile status and in the house of a notorious lecher who surrounded himself with singers and zither players; he received gifts, he was kept, he took part in the excesses of his protectors; he is known to have been with Cedonides, Autocleides, Thersandrus, Misgolas, Anticles, Pittalacus, and Hegesandrus. Thus it is not possible to say simply that he has had many relationships (hetairēkōs), but that he has “prostituted” himself (peporneumenos): “For the man who practices this thing with one person, and practices it for pay, seems to me to be liable to precisely this charge.”6

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  My friends—those who have seen me change over the past five years, seen my body alter from the effects of hormones, and seen me get better at doing my makeup and appearing more confident in how I walk through the world—call me fierce, and I hate the word, partly because it’s such a stupid, drag queen cliché, but also because I know just how much it is a lie. There was nothing fierce about the way I screamed in that room, thirteen years ago, when you refused to listen to me telling you I didn’t want your lips around the part of me that I hate to name. There was nothing fierce in my unresponsiveness or in the way I held on to the fact that you did finally stop when I screamed as proof that you hadn’t assaulted me. There was nothing fierce in the way I broke down for the first time sixty-three days ago. Six days ago on the train, I read an article about men who fetishize women with penises. I closed my eyes against the memory, and when I came to, three-quarters of an hour had passed and, although I had not slept and had not dreamed and had not meditated, I could not tell you what my thoughts had been in all that time besides the one: You made me an object. I was not a person to you, in that moment. I was at best a challenge, an unresponsive organ, a stubborn body. Twelve years and six months ago, the first girlfriend I had after what you did told me she liked my solid presence in her bed, and this made me feel sad because I never thought of myself as the strong one. It was always her who had been strong, who had made me feel safe, from the moment at the end of her party when she asked me “May I kiss you inappropriately?” And I asked her why it would be inappropriate, and she said something about her age and the disparity of social capital between us and how asking it might seem like she’d invited me over just to get off with me and I said that I wouldn’t think it inappropriate at all.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  I came to in my father’s arms - he carried me into our house. I heard the worry in my mother’s voice saying “Mike? Mike?” He carried me into my bedroom. She followed. He yelled “Get a flashlight.” She yelled “What for? What’s wrong?” He yelled “Get it goddamn it. I think she’s hurt down there.” She did. He laid me down on my princess canopy bed. I looked at the white lace. My hands between my legs. My mother returned with the flashlight. My father pulled my hands away and then pulled my pants down. My mother said “Mike?” I began to cry. Hurt where pee lives. My father pulled down my underwear. My mother said “Mike.” My father spread my legs and turned on the flashlight and said, “She’s bleeding.” My mother crying my father saying “Dorothy go outside you are hysterical,” my mother leaving. My father saying close the door goddamn it. Weren’t there things called doctors? Hospitals? I’d crashed my bike into a row of mailboxes. I’d ruptured my hymen. My father’s hands. A flashlight. Blood. Girl. The next day he made me get back on the bike after work. He made me go back to the top of the hill. It hurt so bad to sit on the bike I bit the inside of my cheek. But I did not cry. He said, “You have to get right back on and conquer your fear. You have to.” Again he pushed me. Little girl not old enough to know her anger her fear her body sailing down the hill on her hot pink Schwinn, streamers flying. Between terror and rage I chose rage. Partway down the hill I thought of my father and how I hated the way his skin smelled like ash skin yellow cigarette stains on his fingers and his big architectural hands and his pushing me and I closed my eyes… I closed them, I did, I let go of the handlebars and I put my hands out to the sides of my body. I felt the wind on my palms and fingers. On my face. My chest. Maybe blowing straight through my heart. I stopped breaking. My feet weightless. I wiped out without making any turns toward our house. Though no bones were broken, I was scraped all over. My face. My elbows and arms. My knees and legs. My strong swimmer boy shoulders. All I was was my body. Bleeding. Bleeding. But not crying. For years and years, after that. The Less Than Merry Pranksters Bennett Huffman Jeff Forester Robert Blucher Ben Bochner James Finley Lynn Jeffress Neil Lidstrom Hal Powers Jane Sather Charles Varani Meredith Wadley Ken Zimmerman Lidia Twelve last ditch disciples and me.

• From Confessions

  O Lord, Lord, Which hast bowed the heavens and come down, touched the mountains and they did smoke, by what means didst Thou convey Thyself into that breast? He used to read (as Simplicianus said) the holy Scripture, most studiously sought and searched into all the Christian writings, and said to Simplicianus (not openly, but privately and as a friend), "Understand that I am already a Christian." Whereto he answered, "I will not believe it, nor will I rank you among Christians, unless I see you in the Church of Christ." The other, in banter, replied, "Do walls then make Christians?" And this he often said, that he was already a Christian; and Simplicianus as often made the same answer, and the conceit of the "walls" was by the other as often renewed. For he feared to offend his friends, proud daemon-worshippers, from the height of whose Babylonian dignity, as from cedars of Libanus, which the Lord had not yet broken down, he supposed the weight of enmity would fall upon him. But after that by reading and earnest thought he had gathered firmness, and feared to be denied by Christ before the holy angels, should he now be afraid to confess Him before men, and appeared to himself guilty of a heavy offence, in being ashamed of the Sacraments of the humility of Thy Word, and not being ashamed of the sacrilegious rites of those proud daemons, whose pride he had imitated and their rites adopted, he became bold-faced against vanity, and shame-faced towards the truth, and suddenly and unexpectedly said to Simplicianus (as himself told me), "Go we to the Church; I wish to be made a Christian." But he, not containing himself for joy, went with him. And having been admitted to the first Sacrament and become a Catechumen, not long after he further gave in his name, that he might be regenerated by baptism, Rome wondering, the Church rejoicing. The proud saw, and were wroth; they gnashed with their teeth, and melted away. But the Lord God was the hope of Thy servant, and he regarded not vanities and lying madness.

• From The City of God

  It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire than to yield to it, for the purer one is from this defilement, the liker is he to God; and, though this vice be not thoroughly eradicated from his heart,--for it does not cease to tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress in virtue,--at any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by the love of righteousness, so that, if there be seen anywhere "lying neglected things which are generally discredited," if they are good, if they are right, even the love of human praise may blush and yield to the love of truth. For so hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the love of glory be greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the Lord said, "How can ye believe, who look for glory from one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?"[206] Also, concerning some who had believed on Him, but were afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says, "They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God;"[207] which did not the holy apostles, who, when they proclaimed the name of Christ in those places where it was not only discredited, and therefore neglected,--according as Cicero says, "Those things are always neglected which are generally discredited,"--but was even held in the utmost detestation, holding to what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also the physician of minds, "If any one shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven, and before the angels of God,"[208] amidst maledictions and reproaches, and most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments, were not deterred from the preaching of human salvation by the noise of human indignation. And when, as they did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives, conquering, as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the peace of righteousness, great glory followed them in the church of Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by whose grace they were what they were, they sought to kindle, also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose good they consulted, to the love of Him, by whom they could be made to be what they themselves were. For their Master had taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human glory, saying, "Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not have a reward from your Father who is in heaven."[209] But again, lest, understanding this wrongly, they should, through fear of pleasing men, be less useful through concealing their goodness, showing for what end they ought to make it known, He says, "Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."[210] Not, observe, "that ye may be seen by them, that is, in order that their eyes may be directed upon you,"--for of yourselves ye are nothing,--but "that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven," by fixing their regards on whom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety, and also in the greatness of their number. But since those Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as the end of all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom, not in heaven, but in earth,--not in the sphere of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded by the dying,--what else but glory should they love, by which they wished even after death to live in the mouths of their admirers?

• From Blue Nights (2011)

  Also notice—in notes that talk about aging in their first few pages, notes called Blue Nights for a reason, notes called Blue Nights because at the time I began them I could think of little other than the inevitable approach of darker days—how long it took me to tell you that one salient fact, how long it took me to address the subject as it were. Aging and its evidence remain life’s most predictable events, yet they also remain matters we prefer to leave unmentioned, unexplored: I have watched tears flood the eyes of grown women, loved women, women of talent and accomplishment, for no reason other than that a small child in the room, more often than not an adored niece or nephew, has just described them as “wrinkly,” or asked how old they are. When we are asked this question we are always undone by its innocence, somehow shamed by the clear bell-like tones in which it is asked. What shames us is this: the answer we give is never innocent. The answer we give is unclear, evasive, even guilty. Right now when I answer this question I find myself doubting my own accuracy, rechecking the increasingly undoable arithmetic (born December 5 1934, subtract 1934 from 2009, do this in your head and watch yourself get muddled by the interruption of the entirely irrelevant millennium), insisting to myself (no one else particularly cares) that there must be a mistake: only yesterday I was in my fifties, my forties, only yesterday I was thirty-one. Quintana was born when I was thirty-one. Only yesterday Quintana was born. Only yesterday I was taking Quintana home from the nursery at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. Enveloped in a silk-lined cashmere wrapper. Daddy’s gone to get a rabbit skin to wrap his baby bunny in. What if you hadn’t been home when Dr. Watson called? What would happen to me then? Only yesterday I was holding her in my arms on the 405. Only yesterday I was promising her that she would be safe with us. We then called the 405 the San Diego Freeway. It was only yesterday when we still called the 405 the San Diego, it was only yesterday when we still called the 10 the Santa Monica, it was only the day before yesterday when the Santa Monica did not yet exist. Only yesterday I could still do arithmetic, remember telephone numbers, rent a car at the airport and drive it out of the lot without freezing, stopping at the key moment, feet already on the pedals but immobilized by the question of which is the accelerator and which the brake. Only yesterday Quintana was alive. I disengage my feet from the pedals, first one, then the other. I invent a reason for the Hertz attendant to start the rental car. I am seventy-five years old: this is not the reason I give.

• From Between Us

  In their observations of mother-child interactions in Taiwan, Fung and Chen observed that many toddlers were shamed when they cried. Didi’s mom shamed him the next day for crying when he slipped on the wet floor of the bathroom and fell. “Didi is most annoying, simply loves to cry!” Didi’s sister echoes the sentiment: “Crying devil,” and makes a gesture of shame. Another toddler, Wenwen (three and one-half years old) sits down and sobs when her younger brother destroys her artwork. Her mother tells her she should have cleaned up her stuff before her brother had a chance to touch it. Her father comes into the room, tells Wenwen to calm down. He takes her little brother out of the room, but Wenwen is still whining, upon which her mom says, “I am not gonna care for you if you keep crying.” Here too, the norm is to be calm rather than emotional. But why would anybody want to be just calm? The Nso mothers in Heidi Keller’s research summarized it well: a calm child allows you to work, and others can take care of a calm kid. A calm child, in other words, easily adjusts to their environment. This is Jeanne Tsai’s theory as well: calmness is a preferred emotion in a culture that expects you to put the group’s needs above your own. It allows you to pay attention to what others want, do, or say. It allows you generally to observe the flow and follow it. In contrast, excitement (and movement generally) is more desirable in a culture that expects you to take control of your environment. It allows you to act first and influence others. Being a good experimental psychologist, Tsai tested whether her predictions would work in the lab. If she created a condition in which one participant influenced the other, would that participant seek to be more excited? And if she put a participant in a position in which they followed the other person, would this adjuster want to feel more calm? The short answer: Yes. Tsai asked pairs of students to come to the lab and perform a dyadic card sorting task. Both students received an unsorted stack of cards; the cards displayed unique figures. One student was instructed to be the influencer, and described each card one by one so that their partner could put their cards in the same order. The other student, the adjuster was asked to “get into the mindset” of their partner, and to sort their cards in the same order as the influencer’s pile. As Tsai predicted, influencers did in fact want to be more excited, and adjusters more calm.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  Sexual relations thus demanded particular behaviors on the part of both partners. A consequence of the fact that the boy could not identify with the part he had to play; he was supposed to refuse, resist, flee, escape.18 He was also supposed to make his consent, if he finally gave it, subject to conditions relating to the man to whom he yielded (his merit, his status, his virtue) and to the benefit he could expect to gain from him (a benefit that was rather shameful if it was only a question of money, but honorable if it involved training for manhood, social connections for the future, or a lasting friendship). And in fact it was benefits of this kind that the lover was supposed to be able to provide, in addition to the customary gifts, which depended more on status considerations (and whose importance and value varied with the condition of the partners). So that the sexual act, in the relation between a man and a boy, needed to be taken up in a game of refusals, evasions, and escapes that tended to postpone it as long as possible, but also in a process of exchanges that determined the right time and the right conditions for it to take place. Thus, the boy was expected to give—out of kindness and hence not for his own pleasure—something that his partner sought with a view to the pleasure he would enjoy; but the partner could not rightfully ask for it without a matching offer of presents, services, promises, and commitments that were altogether different in nature from the “gift” that was made to him. Which explains that tendency which was so visibly marked in Greek reflection on the love of boys: how was this relation to be integrated into a larger whole and enabled to transform itself into another type of relationship, a stable relationship where physical relations would no longer be important and where the two partners would be able to share the same feelings and the same possessions? The love of boys could not be morally honorable unless it comprised (as a result of the reasonable gifts and services of the lover and the reserved compliance of the beloved) the elements that would form the basis of a transformation of this love into a definitive and socially valuable tie, that of philia.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  1. The strategy of need. The scandalous gesture of Diogenes is well known: when he needed to satisfy his sexual appetite, he would relieve himself in the marketplace.5 Like many of the Cynics’ provocations, this one had a double meaning. It owed its impact to the public character of the act, of course, which went against every convention in Greece; it was customary to assert the need for privacy as a reason for making love only at night, and the care one took not to let oneself be seen engaging in this kind of activity was regarded as a sign that the practice of aphrodisia was not something that honored the most noble qualities of mankind. It was against this rule of privacy that Diogenes directed his “performance” criticism. Diogenes Laertius reports that in fact he was in the habit of “doing everything in public, the works of Demeter and Aphrodite alike,” reasoning as follows: “If breakfast be not absurd, neither is it absurd to breakfast in the marketplace.”6 But this parallel with food gave Diogenes’ action an additional meaning: the practice of the aphrodisia, which could not be shameful since it was natural, was nothing more or less than the satisfaction of a need; and just as the Cynic looked for the simplest food that might gratify his stomach (it seems that he tried eating raw meat), he likewise found in masturbation the most direct means of appeasing his sexual appetite. He even regretted that it was not possible to satisfy hunger and thirst in so simple a manner: “Would to heaven that it were enough to rub one’s stomach in order to allay one’s hunger.”

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  The question that this word asks is, Could our inmost thoughts stand being brought out into the full light of day? Could our inmost motives stand being dragged out into the full glare of revealing light? To put the matter at its highest, Could the inmost thoughts of our minds and motions of our heart stand the scrutiny of the light of God’s eye? The Christian purity is a purity which is sifted until the last admixture of evil is gone, a purity which has nothing to conceal and whose inmost thoughts and desires will bear the full glare of the light of day. EKKLĒSIATHE CHURCH OF GODEkklēsia is the NT word for ‘church’, and is, therefore, one of the most important of all NT words. Like so many NT words it has a double background. (i) Ekklēsia has a Greek background. In the great classical days in Athens the ekklēsia was the convened assembly of the people. It consisted of all the citizens of the city who had not lost their civic rights. Apart from the fact that its decisions must conform to the laws of the State, its powers were to all intents and purposes unlimited. It elected and dismissed magistrates and directed the policy of the city. It declared war, made peace, contracted treaties and arranged alliances. It elected generals and other military officers. It assigned troops to different campaigns and dispatched them from the city. It was ultimately responsible for the conduct of all military operations. It raised and allocated funds. Two things are interesting to note. First, all its meetings began with prayer and sacrifice. Second, it was a true democracy. Its two great watchwords were ‘equality’ (isonomia) and ‘freedom’ (eleutheria). It was an assembly where everyone had an equal right and an equal duty to take part. When a case involving the right of any private citizen was before it—as in the case of ostracism or banishment—at least 6,000 citizens must be present. In the wider Greek world ekklēsia came to mean any duly convened assembly of citizens. It is interesting to note that the Roman world did not even try to translate the word ekklēsia; it simply transliterated it into ecclesia and used it in the same way. There is an interesting bilingual inscription found in Athens (dated A.D. 103-4). It can be read against the background of Acts 18. A certain Caius Vibius Salutaris had presented to the city an image of Diana and other images. The inscription lays it down that they are to be set up on their pedestals at every ekklēsia of the city in the theatre. To Greek and Roman alike the word was familiar in the sense of a convened assembly. So, then, when we look at it against this background, as Deissmann puts it, the Church was God’s assembly, God’s muster, and the convener is God.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. They knew that certain had before suffered death for this very thing, as plotting a rebellion against the Romans, therefore they sought by such discourse to bring Him into the same suspicion. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. He makes an answer not corresponding to the smooth tone of their address, but harsh, suitable to their cruel thoughts; for God answers men’s hearts, and not their words. JEROME. This is the first excellence of the answerer, that He discerns the thoughts of His examiners, and calls them not disciples but tempters. A hypocrite is he who is one thing, and feigns himself another. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. He therefore calls them hypocrites, that seeing Him to be a discerner of human hearts, they might not be hardy enough to carry through their design. Observe thus how the Pharisees spoke fair that they might destroy Him, but Jesus put them to shame that He might save them; for God’s wrath is more profitable to man, than man’s favour. JEROME. Wisdom does ever wisely, and so the tempters are best confuted out of their own words; therefore it follows, Shew me the tribute money; and they brought unto Him a denarius. This was a coin reckoned equivalent to ten sesterces, and bore the image of Cæsar. Let those who think that the Saviour asks because He is ignorant, learn from the present place that it is not so, for at all events Jesus must have known whose image was on the coin. They say unto Him, Cæsar’s; not Augustus, but Tiberius, under whom also the Lord suffered. All the Roman Emperors were called Cæsar, from Caius Cæsar who first seized the chief power. Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s; i. e. the coin, tribute, or money. HILARY. For if there remain with us nothing that is Cæsar’s, we shall not be bound by the condition of rendering to him the things that are his; but if we lean upon what is his, if we avail ourselves of the lawful protection of his power, we cannot complain of it as any wrong if we are required to render to Cæsar the things of Cæsar. CHRYSOSTOM. But when you hear this command to render to Cæsar the things of Cæsar, know that such things only are intended which in nothing are opposed to religion; if such there be, it is no longer Cæsar’s but the Devil’s tribute. And moreover, that they might not say that He was subjecting them to man, He adds, And unto God the things that, are God’s. JEROME. That is, tithes, first-fruits, oblation, and victims; as the Lord Himself rendered to Cæsar tribute, both for Himself and for Peter; and also rendered unto God the things that are God’s in doing the will of His Father.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  The problem of considering the boy as an object of pleasure was also manifested by a noticeable reticence on several points. There was a reluctance to evoke directly and in so many words the role of the boy in sexual intercourse: sometimes quite general expressions are employed, such as “to do the thing” (diaprattesthai to pragma);13 other times the “thing” is designated by the very impossibility of naming it;14 or again—and this is what says most about the problem posed by the relation—people resorted to metaphorical terms that were “agnostic” or political: “to yield,” to “submit” (hypēretein), “to render a service” (therapeuein, hypourgein).15 But there was also a reluctance to concede that the boy might experience pleasure. This “denial” should be interpreted both as the affirmation that such a pleasure could not exist and as the prescription that it ought not to be experienced. Having to explain why love so often turns into hatred when it is mediated by physical relations, Socrates, in Xenophon’s Symposium, speaks of the unpleasant feelings that may arise in a youth because of his relationship (homilein) with an aging man. But he immediately adds as a general principle: “A youth does not share in the pleasure of the intercourse as a woman does, but looks on, sober, at another in love’s intoxication.”16 Between the man and the boy, there is not—there cannot and should not be—a community of pleasure. The author of the Problems admits the possibility only for a few individuals and only in the case of an anatomical irregularity. And no one was more severely criticized than boys who showed by their willingness to yield, by their many relationships, or by their dress, their makeup, their adornments or their perfumes, that they might enjoy playing that role. Which does not mean, however, that when the boy happened to give in, he had to do it coldly somehow. On the contrary, he was supposed to yield only if he had feelings of admiration, gratitude, or affection for his lover, which made him want to please the latter. The verb charizesthai was commonly employed in order to indicate the fact that the boy “complied” and “granted his favors.”17 The word does suggest that there was something other than a simple “surrender” by the beloved to the lover; the youth “granted his favors” through a movement that yielded to a desire and a demand on the part of the other, but was not of the same nature. It was a response; it was not the sharing of a sensation. The boy was not supposed to experience a physical pleasure; he was not even supposed quite to take pleasure in the man’s pleasure; he was supposed to feel pleased about giving pleasure to the other, provided he yielded when he should—that is, not too hastily, nor too reluctantly either.

• From The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure (1984)

  Now, as for knowing precisely how the distribution of honor is to be carried out in the love relation, one must admit that the text is extremely elliptical. While it does offer specifics regarding what Epicrates should do or has done in order to exercise his body and develop his courage, or to acquire the philosophical knowledge that he will need, nothing is said concerning what is acceptable or objectionable in physical relations. One thing is clear: not everything should be refused (the young man “grants his favors”), but not everything should be consented to: “No one finds himself disappointed of favors from you which it is just and fair to ask, but no one is permitted even to hope for such liberties as lead to shame. So great is the latitude your discreetness permits to those who have the best intentions; so great is the discouragement it presents to those who would fling off restraint.”17 The moderation—the sōphrosynē—that is one of the major qualities required of boys clearly implies a discrimination in physical contacts. But it is not possible to infer from this text the acts and gestures that honor would compel one to refuse. It should be noted that in the Phaedrus the lack of precision is almost as great, even though the theme is developed more fully. Throughout the first two speeches on the advisability of yielding to a lover or a nonlover, and in the great fable of the soul as a team with its restive steed and its obedient steed, Plato’s text shows that the question of what constitutes “honorable” practice is crucial: and yet the acts are never designated except by expressions like “to gratify” or “to grant one’s favors” (charizesthai), “to do the thing” (diaprattesthai), “to derive the greatest possible pleasure from the beloved,” “to obtain what one wants” (pleithesthai), “to enjoy” (apolauesthai). A reticence inherent in this type of discourse? Without doubt, the Greeks would have found it improper that someone would call by name, in a set speech, things that were only vaguely alluded to even in polemics and law court addresses. One imagines, too, that it was hardly necessary to insist on distinctions that were common knowledge: everyone must have known what it was honorable or shameful for a boy to consent to. But we may also recall an observation that was made in our discussion of dietetics and economics, where it became apparent that moral reflection was less concerned with specifying the codes to be respected and the list of acts that were permitted and prohibited than it was concerned with characterizing the type of attitude, of relationship with oneself that was required.