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 Detransition, Baby (2021)

  He rotates the printouts, there’s a list of test results, but he can’t make sense of them. His brain shorts out when he cross-references the data that they clearly show—he is a father-to-be—with the data he stores in his heart: He should not be a father. Three years have passed since Ames stopped taking estrogen. He injected his last dose on Reese’s thirty-second birthday. Reese, his ex, still lives in New York. They haven’t spoken in two years, although he sent her a birthday card last year. He received no response. Throughout their relationship, she had always talked assuredly about how she’d have a kid by age thirty-five. As far as he knows, that hasn’t happened. It is only now, three years after their breakup, that Ames is able to talk about Reese casually, calling her “my ex” and moving the conversation along without dwelling. Because in truth, he still misses her in a way that talking about her, thinking about her, remains dangerous to indulge in—as an alcoholic can’t think too much about how much she'd really like just one drink. When Ames thinks hard about Reese, he feels abandoned and grows angry, morose, and worst of all, ashamed. Because he has trouble explaining exactly what he still wants from her. For a while he thought it was romance, but his desire has lost any kind of sexual edge. Instead, he misses her in a familial way, in the way he missed and felt betrayed by his birth family when they cut off contact in the early years of his transition. His sense of abandonment plucked at a nerve deeper, more adolescent than that of jilted adult romantic love. Reese hadn’t just been his lover, she’d been something like his mother. She had taught him to be a woman...or he’d learned to be a woman with her. She had found him in a plastic state of early development, a second puberty, and she’d molded him to her tastes. And now she was gone, but the imprint of her hands remained, so that he could never forget her. He hadn’t understood how little sense he made as a person without Reese until after she began to detach from him, until the lack of her became so painful that he started to once again want the armor of masculinity and, somewhat haphazardly, detransitioned to fully suit up in it. So now, three years have passed living once again in a testosterone-dependent body. Yet even without the shots or pills, Ames had believed that he’d been on androgen-blockers long enough to have atrophied his testicles into permanent sterility. That’s what he told Katrina when they hooked up the first time, the night of the agency’s annual Easter Keg Hunt. He told her that he was sterile— not that he’d been a transsexual woman with atrophied balls.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  At one point, Patrick stood on one leg, working a pair of pantyhose up the calf of his other, while Jen stood in front of him with a French maid outfit at the ready, when the bell above the door chimed. In walked a pleasant-looking woman, plump with loosely curled blond hair, and her teenage daughter, who looked healthy, like maybe she was on the soccer team, an impression that Amy had because she was wearing casual athletic gear. The two of them were mid-laugh—perhaps lured into the store by the super-fun-sounding name—Glamour Boutique. What mother and daughter wouldn’t have fun with a little glamour on an outing together? Alarmed comprehension dawned on the mother’s face as she took in the store. But by then it was too late. Patrick, Amy, and Jen had all seen her come in. Turning in horror would let everyone know what she thought of them. No, she would show her daughter how to play it cool. Amy’s joy in having found a feminine space meant especially for her dimmed, as the light fades when a heavy cloud crosses the sun, then winked out completely. The sense of safety that she had spun over the store vanished. Everything on the racks shrugged off their previous disguises to reveal themselves as tawdry and desperate. Inwardly, she disavowed the space. This store did not reflect her. She did not truly belong there. Patrick, still only half in his pantyhose, blanched to a beige color and made a fast-walk beeline for the curtains that hid the changing area, stepping on and dragging the half-donned hosiery as he did. Jen winced, still holding the French maid dress. This must have happened to her many times, the panic among customers she’d just coaxed into comfort when civilians wandered into the store. After a moment, the mother decided on a course of action: She would browse. After all, it was a store and she was allowed to browse, wasn’t she? In an attempt to look natural, the mother pawed through the closest rack and bravely held up a top complex with straps and spandex. “Oh, look at this. It’s interesting. What do you think?” Despite her bravado, a cringe squeaked into her voice. “Yes,” said her daughter, panicked, without even glancing at it. Her gaze raked the walls, hung thickly with gaffs, breastplates, wigs. Amy saw the store through her eyes: a Silence of the Lambs-—level display of disembodied female body parts. Worst of all, the red-faced men, one now hiding, the other creepily fingering panties and who knew what else. The specialty panties—with wider gusset for women of all anatomies!—that Amy held in her hand and had been examining with curiosity when the bell above the door announced the women’s entrance, burned radioactively. She longed to drop

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Well, it’s upsetting!” Katrina says. “This is all upsetting! This woman I know described her miscarriage as a ‘biological loneliness’ and I admired her eloquence, but I also wondered if I was a remorseless psycho because I didn’t feel the same _ biological loneliness—whatever that is.” “Tm sorry too.” Reese leans forward. “I blurted out that question. But I feel the same. Like, if you feel unmotherly— I’m a tranny who just asked about flushing babies.” Katrina snorts. “That’s what I mean! It’s not about who you are! As far as I can tell, at least from the outside, motherhood is just some vague test designed to ensure that everyone feels inadequate.” “I mean, you are pregnant now, though. You're doing okay,” Reese says. “That’s not motherhood.” “No, youre right. Further than I ever got, though.” None of them say anything. Reese knows motherhood insecurity well, although it’s strange to hear a cis woman admit to suffering from it. A group of women from the gala swan by in mermaid gowns. “So here we are,” Reese says finally. “Three failed mom-wannabes.” Katrina straightens, startled at the descriptor. “Can I ask you something directly, Reese?” Despite the claim to directness, Katrina focuses on her skirt, picking off a piece of lint. She doesn’t want to look straight at Reese. “Why do you want to be a mom?” Unbidden, the memory of the skating rink that Reese attended in her own childhood rises to the fore of Reese’s thoughts. Although Reese told everyone in New York that she had grown up in Madison, Wisconsin, she had actually grown up in a little ranch house in Middleton. All the big Midwestern college towns seem to have one downscale twin, a suburb where the big-box stores, neon-and- concrete strip malls, and drive-thru chains can accumulate without threatening the Arcadian character of the college town itself. Like any good beta, Middleton took pains never to threaten her prettier, more famous sister—its city’s motto was “The Good Neighbor City” and its chief attraction was the National Mustard Museum. In the second grade, the family next door introduced Reese to figure skating. Some night, Reese doesn’t remember why or how, she ended up in their neighbor Virginia’s care while her own mother worked late at the Sub-Zero appliance factory offices. Virginia took Reese along with her daughter, Deb, to one of Deb’s figure-skating lessons at the rink in Madison.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  The volatility of this mood change wrong-foots him. The delicacy of her frame shows in her coat, the fabric hangs loosely from heaving shoulders only moderately wider than his forearm is long. “No, Katrina,” he protests, but it’s a weak protest. “I’m not sure what to do either. I mean, I’m trying to come up with a plan.” “Why do you need a plan? Why can’t you just love me, and be who I thought you were?” “T am who you thought I was. Everything I did—it’s my past that made me like that.” “No.” She rubs her eyes hard and the mascara she put on for dinner smudges. “I thought I knew you, but I don’t. I trusted you. I opened up to you and told you about myself. I told you how vulnerable I’ve been. But you didn’t do the same. You could have told me at any time. But instead you betrayed me. You hid yourself from me. And only now that I’m pregnant, when you can’t lie anymore, for your own sake, are you willing to tell me the truth.” She wipes her face and shakes her head, as if she’s heard something she doesn’t like. “I blame myself. I still want to hear you try.” “What do you mean?” She stares at him, then at the seat in front of her. “I broke so many rules—my own, and bigger ones. I hooked up with someone who works for me. I told myself it would be fine because we had something so special. I was swept up in it. But it turns out, I was deluding myself. I don’t know you. I don’t know you at all. The person I thought you were, not only would he have actually shared his past, but he sure as fuck wouldn’t have left me dangling for a week.” “Tm trying.” But she shakes her head. “I’m divorced. I’m pregnant. I’m thirty- nine. You know that doctors call pregnancies over the age of thirty- five ‘geriatric pregnancies’? I have to make one of the biggest decisions for my future, and I’m a mess, and I don’t trust myself, and I can’t even learn from my mistakes— Because you know what the worst part is?” “We don’t have to focus on the worst part,” Ames tells her. “The worst part,” she continues, ignoring him, “the worst part is that I miss you.” Her lower lip is extruding, she’s trying to hold back any show of emotion, and failing. “That’s how bad my judgment is! Even now, I miss you enough that I just want you to lie to me! I want you to tell me it’s okay, that you'll love me, that you want to be a dad in my life. But I know that’d be a lie. If you lied about something so fundamental before and treated me so cruelly because of your own shit—how could it not be a lie?”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “I bought these for you,” he says quietly, his gaze impassive. “I’ll go easier on you if you accept them.” I swallow convulsively. “Christian, I can’t accept them; they’re just too much.” “You see, this is what I was talking about, you defying me. I want you to have them, and that’s the end of the discussion. It’s very simple. You don’t have to think about this. As a submissive you would just be grateful for them. You just accept what I buy you because it pleases me for you to do so.” “I wasn’t a submissive when you bought them for me,” I whisper. “No…but you’ve agreed, Anastasia.” His eyes turn wary. I sigh. I am not going to win this, so over to plan B. “So they are mine to do with as I wish.” He eyes me suspiciously but concedes. “Yes.” “In that case, I’d like to give them to a charity—one working in Darfur, since that seems to be close to your heart. They can auction them.” “If that’s what you want to do.” His mouth sets into a hard line. He’s disappointed. I flush. “I’ll think about it,” I murmur. I don’t want to disappoint him, and his words come back to me. I want you to want to please me. “Don’t think, Anastasia. Not about this.” His tone is quiet and serious. How can I not think? You can pretend to be a car, like his other possessions. My subconscious makes an unwelcome vitriolic return. I ignore her. Oh, can’t we rewind? The atmosphere between us is now tense. I don’t know what to do. I stare down at my fingers. How do I retrieve this situation? He puts the champagne bottle on the table and stands in front of me. Putting his hand under my chin, he tilts my head up. He gazes down at me, his expression grave. “I will buy you lots of things, Anastasia. Get used to it. I can afford it. I’m a very wealthy man.” He leans down and plants a swift, chaste kiss on my lips. “Please.” He releases me. Ho, my subconscious mouths at me. “It makes me feel cheap,” I murmur. Christian runs his hand through his hair, exasperated. “It shouldn’t. You’re overthinking it, Anastasia. Don’t place some vague moral judgment on yourself based on what others might think. Don’t waste your energy. It’s only because you have reservations about our arrangement; that’s perfectly natural. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” I frown, trying to process his words.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Amy remembered how one of them patiently explained that the term “autogynephilia” only works if you don’t think trans women are women. If you do, then you immediately see that the majority of women, cis or trans, are all autogynephiles, and that most men would be autoandrophiles—it’s not something special about trans women. Of course women are turned on by being women and men turned on by being men! Watch any porn and the sexuality of everyone in it is actually about their own auto-andro/gyne-philia. Listen to them talk. It’s all about validating their own gender. Oh yeah, I’m your little slut...yeah, baby, you like this big cock? And alone on their laptops somewhere: the viewers, turned on to identify with people identifying with their gender. Other trans women claimed that these psychologists had begun to be discredited, that their research methods were revealed to be the suspect practice of hanging around in bars without Institutional Review Board approval in order to pick up trans women, sleep with them, and later write clinical papers both based upon and obscuring those experiences. But Amy doubted those trans women. No one with expertise cared what the trans women had to say. Who were they to tell psychologists with doctorates—scientists!—that they were wrong? And hadn’t it even been a transsexual woman herself who’d written the COGIATI test? Of course a bunch of deranged creeps whose paraphilia revolved around womanhood would claim they’re women—crazy people never think they are crazy! Check and mate, sickos! Amy didn’t have to take the test to know her own result: a fetishist, a pervert. But she took it anyhow, a series of bizarre questions about imagining shapes and quantifying empathy. You are talking with a friend. Outside, far away, somebody is honking their horn regularly and endlessly. It is not very loud, you can just barely hear it in the quiet room. What is your reaction? You meet somebody and they are polite to you, but seem a little distant. They are actually secretly disliking you. How likely are you to know this? You will never, ever be a woman. You must live the rest of your days entirely as a man, and you will only get more masculine with each passing year. There is no way out. What is your reaction? Youre in a desert walking along when all of a sudden you look down and you see a tortoise. It’s crawling toward you. You reach down to flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lies on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese would have been delighted with this story—but Reese was the exact person Amy was afraid to tell. Had she not lost, sometime in the last year, the ability to tell Reese exactly what she wanted in bed, she wouldn’t have had to tell the dommes. Early in the relationship, she and Reese had been switchy and kinkier. She’d bought Reese a black latex dress, and Amy could practically orgasm just rubbing the silicone polish on Reese’s curves, never mind when Reese put Amy over her knee for a spanking. That early dynamic fit Amy well: Reese topped in the kinky things that Amy liked, and Amy, who had almost no genital dysphoria, was happy to put Reese on her knees or fuck Reese in the mornings—the kind of vanilla affirmations that Reese needed. But slowly the kink stopped, and Amy, wheedling for more, ramped up her soft boyfriend act, putting in more work to affirm Reese’s gender, while getting less of what she needed. She didn’t just want Reese, she wanted to blush before Reese. But she couldn’t say this to Reese. The words locked themselves in and refused her attempts at eviction. And so the dommes. After the Indian guy, and a tally of her month’s phone sex expenditures, Amy decided it’d just be cheaper to see a domme in person; and for once, she wouldn’t have to convince that domme, sans evidence, that she was more than your average sissy, that the domme was herself lucky to be seeing Amy. Unfortunately, because the trans community and the queer dommes who would have been perfect for Amy overlapped, Amy couldn’t actually hire any of the women that she’d lusted after at parties. Instead, Amy went on Eros. Her first time, she hired a domme who combined mindfulness meditation, acupressure, and BDSM. The woman tied up Amy quite creatively, including braiding a rope through her hair, then pressed on sensitive points on Amy’s body until she cried, stopping if Amy couldn’t maintain the correct breathing patterns and postures through the pain. The experience, while intense, remained clinical, the approach a little too therapeutic. Mindfulness Domme did acknowledge that most of her clients were not, in fact, beautiful transsexuals, but Amy’s beauty didn’t appear to move her one way or another. Some clients were tall, some short, some hairy, some young, and yes, some beautiful. A professional and standardized application of pain made most of them cry the same way. A month later, Amy had reevaluated. She felt only a little guilt about wanting to see dommes, because she believed that if she could simply achieve the needed release, she could return to Reese a whole girlfriend. Mindfulness Domme did not give Amy the needed release, because Amy’s issues, Amy decided, were mommy issues.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  His mouth opened as if to speak, but he said nothing. We stared at each other for a while, and I felt ashamed of myself for what amounted to bragging, and finally I said, “I—look, you know how she was. She wanted to do something, and she did it. I was probably just the guy who happened to be there.” “Yeah. Well, I was never that guy,” he said. “I—well, Pudge, God knows I can’t blame you.” “Don’t tell Lara.” He was nodding as we heard the three quick knocks on the front door that meant the Eagle, and I thought, Shit, caught twice in a week, and Takumi pointed into the shower, and so we jumped in together and pulled the curtain shut, the too-low showerhead spitting water onto us from rib cage down. Forced to stand closer together than seemed entirely necessary, we stayed there, silent, the sputtering shower slowly soaking our T-shirts and jeans for a few long minutes, while we waited for the steam to lift the smoke into the vents. But the Eagle never knocked on the bathroom door, and eventually Takumi turned off the shower. I opened the bathroom door a crack and peeked out to see the Colonel sitting on the foam couch, his feet propped up on the COFFEE TABLE, finishing Takumi’s NASCAR race. I opened the door and Takumi and I walked out, fully clothed and dripping wet. “Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” the Colonel said nonchalantly. “What the hell?” I asked. “I knocked like the Eagle to scare you.” He smiled. “But shit, if y’all need privacy, just leave a note on the door next time.” Takumi and I laughed, and then Takumi said, “Yeah, Pudge and I were getting a little testy, but man, ever since we showered together, Pudge, I feel really close to you.” “So how’d it go?” I asked. I sat down on the COFFEE TABLE, and Takumi plopped down on the couch next to the Colonel, both of us wet and vaguely cold but more concerned with the Colonel’s talk with Jake than with getting dry. “It was interesting. Here’s what you need to know: He gave her those flowers, like we thought. They didn’t fight. He just called because he had promised to call at the exact moment of their eight-month anniversary, which happened to be three-oh-two in the A.M., which—let’s agree—is a little ridiculous, and I guess somehow she heard the phone ringing. So they talked about nothing for like five minutes, and then completely out of nowhere, she freaked out.” “Completely out of nowhere?” Takumi asked. “Allow me to consult my notes.”

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  know the limits of their expertise. An experienced psychotherapist knows that she is skilled in working out what is going on in her patient’s mind and that she has good intuitions about what the patient will say next. It is tempting for her to conclude that she can also anticipate how well the patient will do next year, but this conclusion is not equally justified. Short-term anticipation and long-term forecasting are different tasks, and the therapist has had adequate opportunity to learn one but not the other. Similarly, a financial expert may have skills in many aspects of his trade but not in picking stocks, and an expert in the Middle East knows many things but not the future. The clinical psychologist, the stock picker, and the pundit do have intuitive skills in some of their tasks, but they have not learned to identify the situations and the tasks in which intuition will betray them. The unrecognized limits of professional skill help explain why experts are often overconfident. Evaluating Validity At the end of our journey, Gary Klein and I agreed on a general answer to our initial question: When can you trust an experienced professional who claims to have an intuition? Our conclusion was that for the most part it is possible to distinguish intuitions that are likely to be valid from those that are likely to be bogus. As in the judgment of whether a work of art is genuine or a fake, you will usually do better by focusing on its provenance than by looking at the piece itself. If the environment is sufficiently regular and if the judge has had a chance to learn its regularities, the associative machinery will recognize situations and generate quick and accurate predictions and decisions. You can trust someone’s intuitions if these conditions are met. Unfortunately, associative memory also generates subjectively compelling intuitions that are false. Anyone who has watched the chess progress of a talented youngster knows well that skill does not become perfect all at once, and that on the way to near perfection some mistakes are made with great confidence. When evaluating expert intuition you should always consider whether there was an adequate opportunity to learn the cues, even in a regular environment. In a less regular, or low-validity, environment, the heuristics of judgment are invoked. System 1 is often able to produce quick answers to difficult questions by substitution, creating coherence where there is none. The question that is answered is not the one that was intended, but the answer is produced quickly and may be sufficiently plausible to pass the lax and lenient review of System 2. You may want to forecast the commercial future of a company, for example, and

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I glance anxiously up at Christian. He’s glowering at José, and he’s furious. Crap. My stomach heaves, and I double over, my body no longer able to tolerate the alcohol, and I vomit spectacularly on the ground. “Ugh! Dios mío, Ana!” José jumps back in disgust. Grey grabs my hair and pulls it out of the firing line and gently leads me over to a raised flower bed on the edge of the parking lot. I note, with deep gratitude, that it’s in relative darkness. “If you’re going to throw up again, do it here. I’ll hold you.” He has one arm around my shoulders; the other is holding my hair in a makeshift ponytail down my back so it’s off my face. I try awkwardly to push him away, but I vomit again…and again. Oh shit, how long is this going to last? Even when my stomach’s empty and nothing is coming up, horrible dry heaves rack my body. I vow silently that I’ll never drink again. This is just too appalling for words. Finally, it stops. My hands are resting on the brick wall of the flower bed, barely holding me up. Vomiting profusely is exhausting. Grey takes his hands off me and passes me a handkerchief. Only he would have a monogrammed, freshly laundered linen handkerchief. CTG. I didn’t know you could still buy these. Vaguely, I wonder what the T stands for as I wipe my mouth. I can’t bring myself to look at him. I’m swamped with shame, disgusted with myself, and want nothing more than to be swallowed up by the azaleas in the flower bed. José is still hovering by the entrance to the bar, watching us. I groan and put my head in my hands. This has to be the single worst moment of my life. My head is still swimming as I try to remember a worse one—I can only come up with Christian’s rejection—and this is so, so many shades darker in terms of humiliation. I risk a peek at him. He’s staring down at me, his face composed, giving nothing away. Turning, I glance at José, who looks pretty shamefaced himself and, like me, intimidated by Grey. I glare at him. I have a few choice words for my so-called friend, none of which I can repeat in front of Christian Grey, CEO. Ana, who are you kidding? He’s just seen you hurl all over the ground and into the local flora. There’s no disguising your lack of ladylike behavior. “I’ll, er…see you inside,” José mutters, but we both ignore him, and he slinks back into the building. I’m on my own with Grey. Double crap. What should I say to him? Apologize for the phone call. “I’m sorry,” I mutter, staring at the handkerchief, which I’m furiously worrying with my fingers. It’s so soft. “What are you sorry for, Anastasia?” Damn it, he wants his damned pound of flesh.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Christian raises his eyebrows at her, no doubt surprised by her flattering epithet and her antagonism. I shake my head, and she rolls her eyes at me. Oh…I wouldn’t do that near Mr. Grey. “Just holler if you need me,” she says more gently. “Grey. You’re on my shit list, and I’m watching you,” she hisses at him. He blinks at her, and she turns and pulls the door almost closed but doesn’t shut it. Christian gazes down at me, his expression grave, his face ashen. He’s wearing his pinstriped jacket, and from his inside pocket he pulls out a handkerchief and hands it to me. I think I still have his other one somewhere. “What’s going on?” he asks quietly. “Why are you here?” I ask, ignoring his question. My tears have miraculously ceased, but I’m left with dry heaves racking my body. “Part of my role is to look after your needs. You said you wanted me to stay, so here I am. And yet I find you like this.” He blinks at me, truly bewildered. “I’m sure I’m responsible, but I have no idea why. Is it because I hit you?” I pull myself up, wincing from my sore behind. I sit and face him. “Did you take some Advil?” I shake my head. He narrows his eyes, stands, and leaves the room. I hear him talking to Kate but not what they are saying. He’s back a few moments later with pills and a teacup of water. “Take these,” he orders gently as he sits on my bed beside me. I do as I’m told. “Talk to me,” he whispers. “You told me you were okay. I’d never have left you if I thought you were like this.” I stare down at my hands. What can I say that I haven’t said already? I want more. I want him to stay because he wants to stay with me, not because I’m a blubbering mess, and I don’t want him to hit me. Is that so unreasonable? “I take it that when you said you were okay, you weren’t.” I flush. “I thought I was fine.” “Anastasia, you can’t tell me what you think I want to hear. That’s not very honest,” he admonishes me. “How can I trust anything you’ve said to me?” I peek up at him, and he’s frowning, a bleak look in his eye. He runs both hands through his hair. “How did you feel while I was hitting you and after?” “I didn’t like it. I’d rather you didn’t do it again.” “You weren’t meant to like it.” “Why do you like it?” I stare up at him. My question surprises him. “You really want to know?” “Oh, trust me, I’m fascinated.” And I can’t quite keep the sarcasm out of my voice. He narrows his eyes again. “Careful,” he warns. I blanch. “Are you going to hit me again?” “No, not tonight.”

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  Chapter Eighteen LIFE CHANGED THE DAY I SLAMMED BILL DODGE’S ARM DOWN FOR THE third time on our front porch in Houston. “Ta-da! I’m the arm-wrestling champ.” His face flushed and the red rushed all the way up and through his blond crew cut. He pulled himself up and stood by my front door, the same door he had walked out of so many times carrying a stack of Mama’s homemade oatmeal cookies. His cheeks puffed a couple of times, and then he blew. “That man is not your uncle, and everybody knows it!” He yelled loud enough for everyone on the block to hear, and hopped on his bike. I ran after him. “You better pedal fast, weeny arms.” The veil of normalcy under which my family and I thought we were hidden had been ripped away. None of my friends had questioned the identity of the man I called Uncle David, not to my face. I put my dog, Prissy, in the basket of my bicycle and rode up and down the streets for hours, soothed by the motion. That night at dinner Mama asked me what Bill had yelled. I told her it was nothing, that he hated losing to a girl, but I could tell by the way she looked at me that she knew better. A month or so later, she announced we were moving to the country. I blamed Bill Dodge, but larger forces orchestrated the move. I wept when I told my teacher. She tried to ease my misery by pulling down the state map in our classroom and tapping her long pointer at the exact center of the map. “What do you see?” I sniffled. “A red heart.” “That’s where you’re moving, to the heart of Texas.” I looked closer. Printed next to the heart was the word “Waco,” the future scene of the Branch Davidian siege. Waco was the cover story. It was the place I was told to say we were headed. This was part of Mama’s and Brother Terrell’s strategy to throw off the Communists or the Antichrist or perhaps Betty Ann (though no one said that), should they come looking for us. We actually landed six miles outside of Marlin, a tiny community thirty miles east of Waco. Still, it made me feel better to think of us living close to a city that looked like a valentine on the map. Any romantic imaginings vanished when I laid eyes on our new home, a secondhand trailer

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I stare at myself in the overly large mirror, shocked that I still look the same. After all I’ve done today, it’s still the same ordinary girl gaping back at me. What did you expect—that you’d grow horns and a little pointy tail? my subconscious snaps at me. And what the hell are you doing? Touching is his hard limit. Too soon, you idiot. He needs to walk before he can run. My subconscious is furious, Medusa-like in her anger, hair flying, her hands clenched around her face like in Edvard Munch’s The Scream. I ignore her, but she won’t climb back into her box. You are making him mad—think about all that’s he’s said, all he’s conceded. I scowl at my reflection. I need to be able to show him affection—then perhaps he can reciprocate. I shake my head, resigned, and grasp Christian’s toothbrush. My subconscious is right, of course. I’m rushing him. He’s not ready, and neither am I. We are balanced on the delicate seesaw that is our strange arrangement—at different ends, vacillating, and it tips and sways between us. We both need to edge closer to the middle. I just hope neither of us falls off in our attempt to do so. This is all so quick. Maybe I need some distance. Georgia seems more appealing than ever. As I begin brushing my teeth, he knocks. “Come in,” I splutter through a mouthful of toothpaste. Christian stands in the doorway, his PJs hanging off his hips in that way that makes every little cell in my body stand up and take notice. He’s bare-chested, and I drink him in like I’m crazed with thirst and he’s clear, cool mountain spring water. He gazes at me impassively, then smirks and comes to stand beside me. Our eyes lock in the mirror, gray to blue. I finish with his toothbrush, rinse it off, and hand it to him, my look never leaving his. Wordlessly, he takes the toothbrush from me and puts it in his mouth. I smirk back at him, and his eyes are suddenly dancing with humor. “Do feel free to borrow my toothbrush.” His tone is gently mocking. “Thank you, Sir.” I smile sweetly, and I leave, heading back to bed. A few minutes later he joins me. “You know this is not how I saw tonight panning out,” he mutters petulantly. “Imagine if I said to you that you couldn’t touch me.” He clambers onto the bed and sits cross-legged. “Anastasia, I’ve told you. Fifty shades. I had a rough start in life—you don’t want that shit in your head. Why would you?” “Because I want to know you better.” “You know me well enough.” “How can you say that?” I struggle up onto my knees, facing him. He rolls his eyes at me, frustrated. “You’re rolling your eyes. Last time I did that, I ended up over your knee.” “Oh, I’d like to put you there again.” Inspiration hits me.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I blush, chastened, and stare down at my fingers, and I know, I know that someone stubbed cigarettes out on Christian. I feel sick. “Did she do that?” I whisper before I can stop myself. He says nothing, so I’m forced to look at him. He’s glaring at me. “She? Mrs. Robinson? She’s not an animal, Anastasia. Of course she didn’t. I don’t understand why you feel you have to demonize her.” He’s standing there, naked, gloriously naked, with my blood on him…and we’re finally having this conversation. And I’m naked, too—neither of us has anywhere to hide, except perhaps the bath. I take a deep breath, move past him, and step down into the water. It is deliciously warm, soothing, and deep. I melt into the fragrant foam and stare up at him, while hiding among the bubbles. “I just wonder what you would be like if you hadn’t met her. If she hadn’t introduced you to your, um, lifestyle.” He sighs and steps down into the bath opposite me, his jaw clenched with tension, his eyes frosty. As he gracefully submerges his body beneath the water, he’s careful not to touch me. Have I made him that mad? He stares impassively at me, his face unreadable, saying nothing. Again the silence stretches between us, but I hold my counsel. It’s your turn, Grey—I am not caving this time. My subconscious is nervous, anxiously biting her nails—this could go either way. Christian and I stare at each other, but I am not backing down. Eventually, after what seems like a millennium, he shakes his head, and he smirks. “I would probably have gone the way of my birth mother, had it not been for Mrs. Robinson.” Oh! Crack addict or whore? Possibly both? “She loved me in a way I found…acceptable,” he adds with a shrug. What the hell does that mean? “Acceptable?” I whisper. “Yes.” He stares intently at me. “She distracted me from the destructive path I found myself following. It’s very hard to grow up in a perfect family when you’re not perfect.” Oh no. My mouth dries as I digest his words. His expression is unfathomable. He’s not going to tell me any more. How frustrating. Inside, I’m reeling—he sounds so full of self-loathing. And Mrs. Robinson loved him. Holy shit…does she still? I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. I have to know. “Does she still love you?” “I don’t think so, not like that.” He frowns as if he hasn’t thought about the idea. “I keep telling you it was a long time ago. It’s in the past. I couldn’t change it even if I wanted to, which I don’t. She saved me from myself.” He’s exasperated and runs a wet hand through his hair. “I’ve never discussed this with anyone.” He pauses. “Except Dr. Flynn, of course. And the only reason I’m talking about this now, to you, is because I want you to trust me.”

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  is equation was reinforced by the presumption that idolatrous people have whorish women; the prejudice that out- group females are less virtuous than the women of one’s own family, clan, and tribe has often proven compelling to the human mind. Fatefully, the sense of zenuth as idolatry allowed for acts of male commission. Th is sense was destined to have a long future, but it is important to be precise about its place in Jewish tradition. Th e decisive expansion of the word’s meaning, to include sexual acts committed by men, is not overt in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures. Th e Septuagint was the milk nurse of Paul and the early Christians, but in it they would have found porneia to mean female unchastity or religious idolatry. Th e decisive expansion of the term’s meaning, to include male sexual error, occurred extrabiblically. A tectonic shift in Jewish sexual ethics, concerned with the moral regulation of male sexuality, is attested in texts staggered across the last centuries BC. Perhaps the earliest extant witness to the more encompassing meaning of porneia is Sirach, written in the fi rst de cades of the second century BC. Th e most intriguing witness to the spread of porneia as a regulative norm is a text known as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, where porneia has become the “mother of all evils.” Th e Testament is invaluable because its unusual detail confi rms that porneia could be used to describe a whole array of improper sexual confi gurations: incest, prostitution, exogamy, homosexuality, and unchastity. But by far the most important witness to the sexual sensibilities of Hellenistic Judaism on the eve of the Pauline  F R O M S H A M E TO S I N missions lies in the dossier of Philo. Philo is, to be sure, an idiosyncratic fi gure, his ethics a singular attempt to synthesize the Mosaic law and Platonic psychology. Th e key to Philo’s sexual code is that it was a tribal code. Th e boundaries of the moral community were constitutive. Exogamy threatened to fray the cordons of the moral group. It led Jewish men away from their ancestral customs. Th e sexual purity of the Jewish people set them apart. Th e “polity of Moses,” by its very nature, “excluded the prostitute from citizenship.” As a “common miasma, ” she was worthy of stoning. Adultery was punishable by death, while the seduction of a free citizen girl was a damnable violation. In a community without prostitutes, where honorable women were available only as wives, the limitation of sex to marriage would be built into the very borders of the sexual polity. In this, above all else, does Philo anticipate the early Christian church: the internal structure of the minority community, adrift in a sea of depravity, quietly forms the moral architecture of his sexual ideology. In Philo’s voluminous commentaries on sexual propriety, porneia never becomes a central term. Th

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  Already in the reign of Th eoderic in Italy, generally one of the most traditional of the successor kingdoms, we fi nd the king excusing justifi able hom i cide in the case of adultery on the grounds that it was simply a law of nature for men to defend their wives with the same violence that “bulls,” “rams,” and “stallions” controlled their mates, whereas the failure to do so would “redound to a man’s eternal shame”! Here, in early sixth- century Italy, was a society that still possessed a rela- tively strong apparatus of public law. A generation later, during the regency of Th eoderic’s grandson, an edict was issued in the name of defending ci- vilitas, civility. It compasses a number of sexual regulations. A man con- victed of adultery was deprived of all rights of legitimate marriage himself; if rich, he lost half his property, and if poor, he was exiled. No man was to be joined to two wives at the same time, which was lust or cupidity, and in either case was to cost a man all of his property. If a man dishonored his marriage by being joined to a concubine, the woman was punished. A free- born concubine was to be yoked to the slavery of the man’s wife; a slave who engaged in such disgrace was subjected to a penalty of the mistress’s choos- ing, “excepting the penalty of blood.” What is notable about this promulga- tion is not the headlong intrusion of moralism into lawgiving, but the sub- tle disappearance of old modes of regulation, in which status above all framed the dynamics of power between state and society. A century later, in the Visigothic kingdom of Spain, the mix of Christian moralizing and public pronouncement had continue to progress. Men who “lie with men” were to be castrated and placed under ecclesiastical supervision. For the fi rst time we hear that a woman who “plays the role of a prostitute” was condemned to three hundred lashes and exiled from her city; so serious was the law- maker that judges who were negligent in the enforcement of these mea sures were themselves to receive one hundred lashes and a fi ne of thirty gold coins. In the Byzantine world, older frameworks or ga nized around status main- tained their strength even in the Justinianic dispensation, and only in the Ecloga of the eighth century do we fi nd a total breakdown of the old order. CONCLUSION  Gone is the ancient rubric of the lex Iulia. All extramarital sex is punished. Men are lashed for “fornication,” twice as harshly if they are married when they commit the off ense; sex with one’s own slave is subject to public penal- ties.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  If the planets completely disrupted the proper quantum of passivity, a monster was born. When sun and moon stood together unattended in masculine signs of the zodiac, the soul was made more virile; men would experience natural passions to an extreme degree, and women too would be somewhat manly. If Venus or Mars joined the luminaries in a masculine sign, the effects were further intensified. Men became hypermasculine, experiencing natural passions to such a degree that they were unrestrained and even unlawful. Women became monstrously masculine figures who played the role of men with other women. (It is worth pausing briefly to note that Ptolemy is the rare source who even reflects on lesbianism; a combination of young age at marriage for women, patriarchal regimes of control, especially in the upper classes, and the lack of a richly developed moral discourse about lesbianism created a zone of silence around love between women in the ancient world.) When, by contrast, sun and moon stood together unattended in feminine signs of the zodiac, the individual was disproportionately feminized. Women became especially womanly, and men became delicate and effeminate. If Venus intensified the effects, women became lustful and unlawful in their natural passions, while men became “soft,” incapable of having sex with women; they became closet pathics. If Mars was also in a feminine sign, the man’s shamelessness was flagrant, like that of a common male prostitute. Thus, the pathic was a creature formed by the stars when a change in the quantities of masculinity and femininity triggered a change in the quality of his whole nature.23

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Had I become a clown, or even a vaudeville entertainer, I would have been famous. People would have appreciated me precisely because they would not have understood; but they would have understood that I was not to be understood. That would have been a relief, to say the least. It was always a source of amazement to me how easily people could become riled just listening to me talk. Perhaps my speech was somewhat extravagant, though often it happened when I was holding myself in with main force. The turn of a phrase, the choice of an unfortunate adjective, the facility with which the words came to my lips, the allusions to subjects which were taboo—everything conspired to set me off as an outlaw, as an enemy of society. No matter how well things began sooner or later they smelled me out. If I were modest and humble, for example, then I was too modest, too humble. If I were gay and spontaneous, bold and reckless, then I was too free, too gay. I could never get myself quite au point with the individual I happened to be talking to. If it were not a question of life and death—everything was life and death to me then—if it was merely a question of passing a pleasant evening at the home of some acquaintance, it was the same thing. There were vibrations emanating from me, overtones and undertones, which charged the atmosphere unpleasantly. Perhaps the whole evening they had been amused by my stories, perhaps I had them in stitches, as it often happened, and everything seemed to augur well. But sure as fate something was bound to happen before the evening came to a close, some vibration set loose which made the chandelier ring or which reminded some sensitive soul of the pisspot under the bed. Even while the laughter was still dying off the venom was beginning to make itself felt. “Hope to see you again some time,” they would say, but the wet, limp hand which was extended would belie the words. Persona non grata! Jesus, how clear it seems to me now! No pick and choice possible: I had to take what was to hand and learn to like it. I had to learn to live with the scum, to swim like a sewer rat or be drowned. If you elect to join the herd you are immune. To be accepted and appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself indistinguishable from the herd. You may dream, if you dream alike. But if you dream something different you are not in America, of America American, but a Hottentot in Africa, or a Kalmuck, or a chimpanzee. The moment you have a “different” thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different you find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island or Iceland. Am I saying this with rancor, with envy, with malice? Perhaps. Perhaps I regret not having been able to become an American.

• From The Lover (1984)

  In my elder brother’s presence he ceases to be my lover. He doesn’t cease to exist, but he’s no longer anything to me. He becomes a burned-out shell. My desire obeys my elder brother, rejects my lover. Every time I see them together I think I can never bear the sight again. My lover’s denied in just that weak body, just that weakness which transports me with pleasure. In my brother’s presence he becomes an unmentionable outrage, a cause of shame who ought to be kept out of sight. I can’t fight my brother’s silent commands. I can when it concerns my younger brother. But when it concerns my lover I’m powerless against myself. Thinking about it now brings back the hypocrisy to my face, the absent-minded expression of someone who stares into space, who has other things to think about, but who just the same, as the slightly clenched jaws show, suffers and is exasperated at having to put up with this indignity just for the sake of eating well, in an expensive restaurant, which ought to be something quite normal. And surrounding the memory is the ghastly glow of the night of the hunter. It gives off a strident note of alarm, like the cry of a child. No one speaks to him at the Fountain, either. We all order Martells and Perrier. My brothers drink theirs straight off and order the same again. My mother and I give them ours. My brothers are soon drunk. But they still don’t speak to him. Instead they start finding fault. Especially my younger brother. He complains that the place is depressing and there aren’t any hostesses. There aren’t many people at the Fountain on a weekday. I dance with him, with my younger brother. I don’t dance with my elder brother, I’ve never danced with him. I was always held back by a sense of danger, of the sinister attraction he exerted on everyone, a disturbing sense of the nearness of our bodies. We were strikingly alike, especially in the face. The Chinese from Cholon speaks to me, he’s on the brink of tears, he says, What have I done to them? I tell him not to worry, it’s always like that, even among ourselves, no matter what the circumstances. I’ll explain when we are together again in the apartment. I tell him my elder brother’s cold, insulting violence is there whatever happens to us, whatever comes our way. His first impulse is always to kill, to wipe out, to hold sway over life, to scorn, to hunt, to make suffer. I tell him not to be afraid. He’s got nothing to be afraid of. Because the only person my elder brother’s afraid of, who, strangely, makes him nervous, is me.

• From The Lover (1984)

  I’ve never seen any of those films where American Indian women wear the same kind of flat-brimmed hat, with their hair in braids hanging down in front. That day I have braids too, not put up as usual, but not the same as theirs either. I too have a couple of long braids hanging down in front like those women in the films I’ve never seen, but mine are the braids of a child. Ever since I’ve had the hat, I’ve stopped putting my hair up so that I can wear it. For some time I’ve scraped my hair back to try to make it flat, so that people can’t see it. Every night I comb and braid it before I go to bed, as my mother taught me. My hair is heavy, soft, burdensome, a coppery mass that comes down to my waist. People often say it’s my prettiest feature, and I take that to mean I’m not pretty. I had this remarkable hair cut off when I was twenty-three, in Paris, five years after I left my mother. I said, “Cut it off.” And he did. All at once, a clean sweep, I felt the cold scissors on the skin of my neck. It fell on the floor. They asked me if I wanted to keep it, they’d wrap it up for me to take away. I said no. After that people didn’t say I had pretty hair any more, I mean not as much as they used to, before. Afterwards they’d just say, “She’s got nice eyes. And her smile’s not unattractive.” On the ferry, look, I’ve still got my hair. Fifteen and a half. I’m using make-up already. I use Crème Tokalon, and try to camouflage the freckles on my cheeks, under the eyes. On top of the Crème Tokalon I put natural-color powder—Houbigant. The powder is my mother’s, she wears it to go to government receptions. That day I’ve got lipstick on too, dark red, cherry, as the fashion was then. I don’t know where I got that, perhaps Hélène Lagonelle stole it for me from her mother, I forget. I’m not wearing perfume. My mother makes do with Palmolive and eau de Cologne. • • • On the ferry, beside the bus, there’s a big black limousine with a chauffeur in white cotton livery. Yes, it’s the big funereal car that’s in my books. It’s a Morris Léon-Bollée. The black Lancia at the French embassy in Calcutta hasn’t yet made its entrance on the literary scene. Between drivers and employers there are still sliding glass panels. There are still fold-down seats. A car is still as big as a bedroom.