Lust Control Quotes

Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.

Why is discipline important? Discipline teaches us to operate by principle rather than desire. Saying no to our impulses (even the ones that are not inherently sinful) puts us in control of our appetites rather than vice versa. It deposes our lust and permits truth, virtue, and integrity to rule our minds instead.

To diminish the worth of women, men had to diminish the worth of the moon. They had to drive a wedge between human beings and the trees and the beasts and the waters, because trees and beasts and waters are as loyal to the moon as to the sun. They had to drive a wedge between thought and feeling...At first they used Apollo as the wedge, and the abstract logic of Apollo made a mighty wedge, indeed, but Apollo the artist maintained a love for women, not the open, unrestrained lust that Pan has, but a controlled longing that undermined the patriarchal ambition. When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female...Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge. Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.

...She'd gone past interest, swung into attraction, burst through lust, tripped over affection, and was now skidding out of control into love.

It's weird, marriage. It's like this license that gives a person the legal right to control their spouse / their 'other half.

Fiona grabbed Rick in her arms and sobbed, “Oh Rick, this song drives me crazy. I can’t stop myself when you’re around me. I’m losing control of myself. Rick, please tell them to stop, otherwise I don’t know what I will do.” Saying this, Fiona placed her lips on Rick’s lips. Now Rick was no longer in a position to speak so that he could ask the DJ to change the song. He only needed to signal the DJ to do that. But after tasting the moisture on Fiona’s lips, which was like dewdrops on rose petals, he realized that this endeavour would have required a lot of courage, which he most certainly lacked at the time.

We all have a sea inside us; can you hear it? Can you hear the ocean roaring?

He was the kind of man I wanted: wild, hot, horny, and losing control. And it all pointed back to me, about how much I felt in control of him, with the power of my body.

His looks are my weakness, his mind my undoing.

He would be able to create a scent that was not merely human, but super human, an angels scent, so indescribably good and vital that who ever smelt it would be enchanted and with his whole heart would have to love him.

Love is a necessity, just as lust is. Two instincts we modern humans have turned into our strongest emotions. Love gives us the desire to bond with a partner long enough to care for our children to an age when they can fend for themselves. Lust gives us the will to want to reproduce in the first place. These instincts are so deeply ingrained in our psyche that even with our advanced brains, they still govern us. We are now, for the most part, intelligent enough to decide who we want to love or have sex with. We can even control whether or not that sex results in offspring, but we can’t just ignore those instincts. From the simplest person to the most powerful kings, queens and presidents, our our lives are still governed by those two emotions.

Wine and women make wise men dote and forsake God's law and do wrong." However, the fault is not in the wine, and often not in the woman. The fault is in the one who misuses the wine or the woman or other of God's crations. Even if you get drunk on the wine and through this greed you lapse into lechery, the wine is not to blame but you are, in being unable or unwilling to discipline yourself. And even if you look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin [= adultery; extramarital sex], the woman is not to blame nor is the beauty given her by God to be disparaged: rather, you are to blame for not keeping your heart more clear of wicked thoughts. ... If you feel yourself tempted by the sight of a woman, control your gaze better ... You are free to leave her. Nothing constrains you to commit lechery but your own lecherous heart.

She waited for him with shallow breaths, head thrown back, eyes half closed, completely exposed in her trust of him, and it unravelled the last thread holding him together.

The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs. You start at one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge. My brief case was full to bursting and I had bundles of books under both arms. I was bowed down by the weight of them.

And then there was Lydia. Lydia who had hurtled into his life – into their lives – with hair like fire, eyes like amethysts and a fuck-me scent so palpable that he’d betrayed the only woman he’d ever loved.

Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world.

The problem is that “bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters,” and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.4

He was the kind of man I wanted: wild, hot, horny, and losing control. And it all pointed back to me, about how much I felt in control of him, with the power of my body. I felt so in control of him; it was dizzying, and intoxicating.

Life itself has become the final disposable, exploitable resource. We will do anything. Level whole mountains, erase whole species, relocate mighty rivers, burn forests to the ground, change the pH of the water, blanket ourselves in toxic chemistry. It took two million years for our species just to stand up and only five hundred to do the rest. Our culture is one of abundance, of entitlement, and basically little else. We've put our birthright at risk because we don't know how to control ourselves. Our lust.

One day love will be the death of me. Your love, in fact, specifically. You're the vice I can't control my lust for. You're the colour in my life that I seek for. However, you'd rather not fight, but walk away. Therefore, in the like of all tragedies, you will be the death of me.

. . . I still wouldn't be able to control myself around him, and I'm math geek enough to know that equation doesn't work out.

You said it was just lust and that you could control it. When he got upset, you didn’t behave like a man in lust, Zach. You behaved like a concerned boyfriend.

She gave him a happy look as he followed her out on the water-soaked wooden walk. "This could be fun," she said, then turned, took a running step, and did a couple of back flips—like a middle-school kid at recess. He stopped where he was, lust and love and fear rising up in a surge of emotion he did not, for all his years, have any idea how to deal with. "What?" she asked, a little breathless from her gymnastics. She brushed her wavy hair out of her face and gave him a serious look. "Is there something wrong?" He could hardly tell her that he was afraid because he didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to her. That his sudden, unexpected reaction had brought Brother Wolf to the fore. She threw his balance off; his control—which had become almost effortless over the years—was erratic at best.

Gradually his mouth shifted away from hers, and he bit softly at the delicate silk of her throat. He murmured things that shocked her, expressing himself not in flowery phrases, but with the raw simplicity of a man whose lust for her knew no limits. “I have no self-control where you’re concerned. Every minute that I’m not with you, all I can think about is being inside you. I hate everything that keeps you separate from me.

You still want him,” she repeated quieter. “Zach—” Zach put the bottle on the floor. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just lust. I can control it.” Liar, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. Liar, liar, liar.

Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus-by spiritual strength-conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust.

If someone calls you disgusting, they are lusting. It creates an energetic cord of control, which steals power, gifts, money, reputation, and free will choice from you. Drop the parasites.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the observation that when lust takes control, “At this moment God . . . loses all reality. . . . Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.”5

Something shifts in the air as he approaches, almost like an electrical current is pulling us together. I haven’t let myself feel anything for another man in a very long time, but even then, it never felt like this.

Behind the harrows, the long seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Some primal force roared inside him, his possessive streak taking charge. He cupped the back of her head, her hair falling over the back of his hand like silk, and tightened his grip. The moment she softened against him, he took control.

And if I could control everything,” his voice was for her alone, “then I’d already have gotten you, naked, under me, and I wouldn't be so wild with lust that I want to rip apart my own best friend…because you’re about to put your mouth on him.

Self-Discipline (or temperance) is about knowing how to act and feel right, despite emotions such as strong desire, inner resistance, or lust. Self-discipline includes orderliness, self-control, forgiveness, and humility. It opposes the vice of excess.

You shouldn’t trust anyone.” I laughed a little at his serious face. “Does that include you?” The look in his eyes became part wolf, an animalistic predator and me the slab of meat. His breath brushed my earlobe. A wash of heat and lust. I had to control the shudder threatening to rattle my bones. “Especially me, princess.

He reached out and gripped her upper arms. His fingers closed around something silky and he shook her slightly. “Unreasonable? Unreasonable? It’s the middle of the night and I’m standing in a room full of dogs, talking about a stupid movie!” “It’s not stupid. Why couldn’t you be more like Ralph Kramden from the Honeymooners? Sure, he was loud and obnoxious, but he saved the whole shelter of dogs when he found out they would be destroyed. Why can’t you be more human?” “The friggin Honeymooners, now? That’s it, I’ve had enough. You are going to pack up every one of those dogs and take them back to the shelter right now, or God help me, Alexa, I’ll get rid of them myself!” “I won’t do it.” “You will.” “Make me.” “Make you? Make you?” His fingers twisted around a wad of silky, satiny fabric as he fought for a shred of control. When the haze finally cleared his vision, Nick blinked and looked down. Then realized his wife was naked. Her lime-green robe had slid down over her shoulders and now gaped open. Her sash slipped unnoticed to the floor. He expected to catch a glimpse of some lacy negligee made to incite a man’s lust. He got much more. Jesus, she was perfect.

The metaphor I use when I lecture on Freud is to think of the mind as a horse and buggy (a Victorian chariot) in which the driver (the ego) struggles frantically to control a hungry, lustful, and disobedient horse (the id) while the driver’s father (the superego) sits in the back seat lecturing the driver on what he is doing wrong.

Yes, I thought. That is how life feels too often. Like you're doing everything you can to survive only to be sabotaged by something beyond your control, maybe even some darker part of yourself. Sometimes, it was your body. Your cells turning into poison and fighting against you. Or chronic pain sprouting up your neck and wrapping around the outsides of your scalp until it felt like fingernails sinking into your brain. Sometimes, it was lust or heartbreak or loneliness or fear driving you off the road toward something you'd spent months of years avoiding. Actively fighting against. At least the last thing they'd seen, the meteor streaming toward Earth, had distracted them because of its beauty. They hadn't been afraid. They'd been mesmerised. Maybe that was all you could hope for in life.

[Cade] hiked his broad shoulders. “My kind prefer tarts with a little more meat on their bones so they can take a demon’s lusts.” “Tarts?” [Holly's] jaw slackened. “My God, you’re the most misogynistic man I’ve ever met. I bet you also like your tarts barefoot and pregnant.” “Nah, I like them barefoot, on birth control, and always available in my bed.

In my pastoral work I've started to suspect that the more someone was exposed to religious messages about controlling their desires, avoiding sexual thoughts, and not lusting in their hearts, the less likely they are to be integrated physically, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually.

According to scientists, there are three stages of love: lust, attraction, and attachment. And, it turns out, each of the stages is orchestrated by chemicals—neurotransmitters—in the brain. As you might expect, lust is ruled by testosterone and estrogen. The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other’s presence, that’s dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work. Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference. The second chemical of the attraction phase is serotonin. When couples confess that they can’t stop thinking about each other, it’s because their serotonin level has dropped. People in love have the same low serotonin levels as people with OCD. The reason they can’t stop thinking about each other is that they are literally obsessed. Oxytocin and vasopressin control the third stage: attachment or long-term bonding. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and makes you feel closer to the person you’ve had sex with. It’s also released during childbirth and helps bond mother to child. Vasopressin is released postcoitally. Natasha knows these facts cold. Knowing them helped her get over Rob’s betrayal. So she knows: love is just chemicals and coincidence. So why does Daniel feel like something more?

She was so wet, and I fucking loved it. I loved the way she tasted, I loved the way her eyes clouded over in lust, and I loved the way she finally lost control when I sucked her clit into my mouth and started grinding against my face.

Human life grows cheaper with every mewling, puking infant that is born. Any form of birth control, no matter how unjust or extreme, is preferable to that tyranny exercised so criminally now by those who, in their filth, stupidity, rut and obnoxious lust, blindly and selfishly birth endlessly forth their disgusting progeny in chaotic, cancerous growth, shoving and forcing the guilty in with the innocent in this already over-stuffed planetary rat-box of accelerating madness and asphyxiation.

It is this notion of women’s barely controllable lust that often lies behind justifications for clito-ridectomy, seclusion and veiling.

Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator. A mystic craves obedience from men, not their agreement. He wants them to surrender their consciousness to his assertions, his edicts, his wishes, his whims—as his consciousness is surrendered to theirs. He wants to deal with men by means of faith and force—he finds no satisfaction in their consent if he must earn it by means of facts and reason. Reason is the enemy he dreads and, simultaneously, considers precarious; reason, to him, is a means of deception; he feels that men possess some power more potent than reason—and only their causeless belief or their forced obedience can give him a sense of security, a proof that he has gained control of the mystic endowment he lacked. His lust is to command, not to convince: conviction requires an act of independence and rests on the absolute of an objective reality. What he seeks is power over reality and over men’s means of perceiving it, their mind, the power to interpose his will between existence and consciousness, as if, by agreeing to fake the reality he orders them to fake, men would, in fact, create it.

Do you hate? The most powerful hate is not born out of ignorance or prejudice or a perceived threat. Those three are fear in disguise. The fury that fuels my corps ignites from personal pain. Those whose lives were ravaged by greed, lust and control wield the crimson light. The rings replace our damaged hearts. They beat for them. And they keep us alive only to hate. -Atrocitus

New Mexico is my favorite state,” I declared as we pulled onto I-40. “I'm waiting to see it all before I decide. And by the way, your driving isn't half bad. I expected to be terrified.” “Why?” “I imagined a timid, overly cautious little angel, but you've got an impressive lead foot.” Whoops. “Your car drives so quietly,” I said, "I don't realize how fast I'm going. I'll set the cruise control from now on.” “Don't worry. I'll keep an ear out for cops,” he told me. “Will we be passing the Grand Canyon?” I asked. “I've always wanted to see it.” Kaidan pulled out the map and studied it. “It's a bit out of the way, more than an hour. But how about this? We can go on the way back, since we won't have a time crunch.” I didn't know if it was the desert air or what, but I felt at ease. I still had a thousand questions for Kaidan, but I wasn't in the mood for another heavy conversation just yet. I liked talking to him. We were still guarded, and it wasn't nearly as carefree as talking with Jay, but I was beginning to imagine keeping Kaidan in my life as a friend after this trip. Time would help us forget the kiss. My crush on him would fade. If I could stop analyzing every touch and every look, then maybe it could work. I vowed to myself at that moment: No more jealousy. No more flirting. No more lustful longing for the elusive Kaidan Rowe.

All of us live with a demon inside. Somedays you control the demon. And other days it controls you. And it's always hungry. It feeds on lust and longing. And while you may slumber, the demon never sleeps. It temps you into crossing every line you've ever drawn, all the while it tests you, haunts you, and once it has turned your loves one's into enemies, the demon had consumed you whole.

Finally, someone had seen him. And what had he done? Let her get away. Undermined by his disgusting human anatomy. It had just been made excruciatingly clear to him that the human male brain and the human male c*ck couldn't both sustain sufficient amounts of blood to function at the same time. It was one or the other, and the human male apparently didn't get to choose which one. As a Tuatha Dé, he would have been in complete control of his lust. Desirous yet coolheaded, perhaps even a touch bored (it wasn't as if he could do something he hadn't done before; given a few thousand years, a Tuatha Dé got around to trying everything). But as a human male, lust was far more intense, and his body was apparently slave to it. A simple hard-on could turn him into a bloody Neanderthal.

I went back in and grabbed my running clothes, then changed in the bathroom. I opened the door to the bathroom, stopping when I saw Kaidan's toiletry bag on the sink. I was overcome with curiosity about his cologne or aftershave, because I'd never smelled it on anyone else before. Feeling sneaky, I prodded one finger into the bag and peeked. No cologne bottle. Only a razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant. I picked up the deodorant, pulled off the lid, and smelled it. Nope, that wasn't it. The sound of Kaidan's deep chuckle close to the doorway made me scream and drop the deodorant into the sink with a clatter. I smacked one hand to my chest and grabbed the edge of the sink with the other. He laughed out loud now. “Okay, that must have looked really bad.” I spoke to his reflection in the mirror, then fumbled to pick up the deodorant. I put the lid on and dropped it in his bag. “But I was just trying to figure out what cologne you wear.” My face was on fire as Kaidan stepped into the small bathroom and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. I stepped away. He seemed entertained by my predicament. “I haven't been wearing any cologne.” “Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I didn't see any, so I thought it might be your deodorant, but that's not it either. Maybe it's your laundry detergent or something. Let's just forget about it.” “What is it you smell, exactly?” His voice took on a husky quality, and it felt like he was taking up a lot of room. I couldn't bring myself to look at him. Something strange was going on here. I stepped back, hitting the tub with my heel as I tried to put the scent into words. “I don't know. It's like citrus and the forest or something...leaves and tree sap. I can't explain it.” His eyes bored into mine while he wore that trademark sexy smirk, arms still crossed. “Citrus?” he asked. “Like lemons?” “Oranges mostly. And a little lime, too.” He nodded and flicked his head to the side to get hair out of his eyes. Then his smile disappeared and his badge throbbed. “What you smell are my pheromones, Anna.” A small, nervous laugh burst from my throat. “Oh, okay, then. Well...” I eyed the small space that was available to pass through the door. I made an awkward move toward it, but he shifted his body and I stepped back again. “People can't usually smell pheromones,” he told me. “You must be using your extra senses without realizing it. I've heard of Neph losing control of their senses with certain emotions. Fear, surprise...lust.” I rubbed my hands up and down my upper arms, wanting nothing more than to veer this conversation out of the danger zone. “Yeah, I do have a hard time reining in the scent sometimes,” I babbled. “It even gets away from me while I sleep now and then. I wake up thinking Patti's making cinnamon rolls and it ends up being from someone else's apartment. Then I'm just stuck with cereal. Anyway...” “Would you like to know your own scent?” he asked me. My heart swelled up big in my chest and squeezed small again. This whole scent thing was way too sensual to be discussed in this small space. Any second now my traitorous body would be emitting some of those pheromones and there'd be red in my aura. “Uh, not really,” I said, keeping my eyes averted. “I think I should probably go.” He made no attempt to move out of the doorway. “You smell like pears with freesia undertones.” “Wow, okay.” I cleared my throat, still refusing eye contact. I had to get out of there. “I think I'll just...” I pointed to the door and began to shuffle past him, doing my best not to brush up against him. He finally took a step back and put his hands up by his sides to show that he wouldn't touch me. I broke out of the confined bathroom and took a deep breath.

As my muscles marginally relax, the tension flicks from anger to fevered desire. I want to tear each wisp of clothing off her and tie her to this f**king desk. I’ll know next time, to bring my satin ribbon.

He shook his head in exasperation. “Are you sure you’re not a Succubus? You seem really obsessed with the sin of lust.” “It’s a good sin. I like gluttony an awful lot, too. Sloth has its moments, but I just don’t understand acedia at all. I mean, what the f**k is that anyway? Oh, and greed is good, to quote Gordon Gekko. Anger, envy and pride,” I ticked them off on my fingers. “I don’t often have much use for them. It’s a shortcoming that I’m hoping to correct in the next millennium or two. I’m not very old; I can’t be expected to have mastered them all yet.” “I think you’ve worked too hard on some of those,” he said dryly. “Maybe you should switch over to virtues instead. Give yourself a much needed break.” Virtues? Yeah, right. “Virtues are too difficult,” I told him, shaking my head. “Look how old you are and you’ve hardly made a dent in them. I’ll admit, you seem to have zeal nailed, as well as faith and temperance. Self control? I’ve got my doubts based on your recent actions. I’m not seeing the kindness, love or generosity, either. That humility thing seems to be pretty far beyond your reach, too. Really, really far. I’m sorry to tell you this, but from what I can see, the sin of pride is a major component of your character. Dude, you’re f**king old. You should have these things pretty well ticked off your shopping list by now. I’m seriously disappointed. Seriously.

Dear God, what she saw in that look! How he had hidden these many years behind the guise of a simple schoolmaster, she didn't know. Anger, passion, lust, and surging hunger swirled in his stormy eyes. Emotions so stark, so strong, she didn't understand how he kept them under control. He looked as if he were about to attack her, ravish her, and conquer London and the world itself. He could've been a warrior, a statesman, a king.

He, the man of violent energy and passionate ambition, the man of achievement, lighted by the flame of his success and flung into the midst of those pretentious ashes who called themselves an intellectual elite, the burned-out remnants of undigested culture, feeding on the afterglow of the minds of others, offering their denial of the mind as their only claim to distinction, and a craving to control the world as their only lust...

I felt drunk — on love, on lust. Utterly inebriated by this ludicrous feeling of distorted perfection that was setting off fireworks within my body.  Was this insatiable need to be joined as one — not only physically, but emotionally — a mere symptom of infatuation, of teenage lust? Or was it love, this fire burning in my veins, spinning me out of control until I felt so off balance I knew I’d never again be able to stand on my own?

No matter where you go, there’s always something to deal with; if it’s not greed, it’s lust, or envy, or pride, or something else. You just have to live your life so uncorrupted that it offsets the corruption as much as possible.

His eyes locked on hers, all signs of humor vanished. He stared as if he could read her mind. She wondered if he could. It would help if he'd clue her into what he saw, because right now, all she knew was what she felt. There was the ever-present lust, a fierce protectiveness of him, fear for herself, and the terrifying feeling that she'd complletely lost control of her life. She couldn't choreograph this dance. He led, and she seemed to have no choice but to follow.

It is not the gentle kiss of a couple on a first date, nor is it the kiss of a man driven by simple lust. He kisses me with the desperation of a dying man who believes the magic of eternal life is in this kiss. The ferocity of his grip around my waist and shoulders, the grinding pressure of his lips, has me off balance so that my thoughts whirl out of control.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects … Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat … The driver could not control it – straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him – goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor – its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with blades – not plowing but surgery … The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

For as much as feminists are painted as “man-haters,” we’re not the ones suggesting that boys and men lack the ability to think rationally, control their own behavior, or act kindly toward other human beings—even with a boner. We’re the ones who want all of our children to know about meaningful consent, healthy sexuality, and honoring each other’s bodies and boundaries, instead of teaching them that one gender is responsible for managing the other’s helpless animal lust. That’s what I mean when I say, “We should teach boys not to rape.” We should teach them they’re worth more and capable of more than this narrowly defined caricature

The kiss ignited like a rocket flash. Not that this surprised her. Everything pertaining to Mark seemed to burn hot and fast. Frustration, lust… His mouth was rough, hot and hungry on hers as he pulled her closer, taking control. She heard herself moan, kissing him with helpless desperation. If dessert was her usual drug of choice, it’d just been replaced because she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

Men are biological. Women are biological. We pretend our minds are in control, but that’s a very tenuous control at best, and a civilized society can’t be built on uncontrolled biology. I see it in my work: intelligence betrayed by lust, by jealousy, by macho ownership; otherwise trustworthy men who can’t be trusted at all around women, or vice versa. Hell, look at Congress. Well-intentioned, progressive, admired law-makers who end up losing it all because they can’t control how they react to women! And I certainly don’t trust most women around men

have not some religions, including the most influential forms of Christianity, taught that the heart of man is totally corrupt? How could the course of religion in its entire sweep not be marked by practices that are shameful in their cruelty and lustfulness, and by beliefs that are degraded and intellectually incredible? What else than what we can find could be expected, in the case of people having little knowledge and no secure method of knowing; with primitive institutions, and with so little control of natural forces that they lived in a constant state of fear?

She gasps, tipping her chin back, studying me. What I’m not seeing is a get the fuck off me right now red light and it’s impossible to ask me to wait a second longer to taste her, not with the hollow rush of blood through my ears. “Have to kiss you, Bexley.” Another little sexy gasp and her pupils blow out to pure black. And then like it’s the biggest imposition to her, she huffs, chewing her lip again and presents her mouth. “Fine, get it over with.” Another time I will joke about how she’s taking one for the team or something equally lame like that, but I’m a frantic man and I’ve just been given the keys to heaven again. No way am I pumping the breaks on my lust to say some damn joke. My lips take hers; I try to go gentle, I really do, but there’s something so drugging about Bexley that pulls me in. Almost like she has full control over my body, because the kiss becomes feral in seconds.

Are you on birth control, Kitsune?” Damian growls as he bends over me and tugs my head up by the braid wrapped around his fist. My nipples are tight and electric against the cushioned bench beneath me, my knees shaking, my back sharply arched as his dick teases against my lips. “N-no...” I choke out. “I⁠—” “Good.

America, you whitewash history, literally, and leave out much of its meaning and discovery. And, as we try to get better at uncovering these truths, so many who want to pretend otherwise fight and legislate to push them back underground, to once again bury them. There are so many discoveries that have been found and made, and then buried and left for us to re-find (or not)--discoveries about autonomy and equality and peace and compromise and respect for all the creatures who inhabit the planet and the planet itself. Our written history has destroyed the voices of the people from whom we stole this land and the voices of those whose lives we stole to build it, the voices of women and children and people whose skin color or language or belief system did not fit the status quo of the time and place where they lived. All were destroyed because it did not serve some lust for power or control or just because the people in charge of such things really did not believe they were very important, or refused to believe that they should be.

When a person uses his or her position of power from a church, corporation, or government to throw disgust upon a person for holding a different perspective, the person with the position of power is using lust as a mindset to gain control over the masses. Superior-Disgust-Lust is a complex and it's a method by which individuals steal from other human beings.

Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound. You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness is blown out of shape. You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous beyond all reason. You overdo liturgy, and you turn into a ham actor. Overdo your love of music, and you play corn. Love of wisdom leads to wise contriving. Love of knowledge leads to faultfinding. If men would stay as they really are, taking or leaving these eight delights would make no difference. But if they will not rest in their right state, the eight delights develop like malignant tumors. The world falls into confusion. Since man honour these delights, and lust after them, the world has gone stone-blind. When the delight is over, they still will not let go of it: they surround its memory with ritual worship, they fall on their knees to talk about it, play music and sing, fast and discipline themselves in honour of the eight delights. When the delights become a religion, how can you control them?

Do you hate? The most powerful hate is not born out of ignorance or prejudice or a perceived threat. Those three are fear in disguise. The fury that fuels my corps ignites from personal pain. Those whose lives were ravaged by greed, lust and control wield the crimson light. The rings replace our damaged hearts. They beat for them. And they keep us alive only to hate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the observation that when lust takes control, “At this moment God . . . loses all reality. . . . Satan does not fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.

The Temperature is Rising The heartbeat quickens my breath is controlled,my senses are illuminated like a mother to her young. This feeling I have I've know it before, when the gates are opened I'll remember the beginning. Awaiting, dreaming imagining the endless possibilities of moments together as I give into my desires. My body reacts it has a mind of its own leaving little clues yet I continue on. Poised and professional I cross my origin the passion that awaits it stirs like a simmer. The sweet aroma a treat being made just for him I know he will like, the hunger in his eyes his mouth soft and strong it only took me a moment as he continued to look on. I didn't even recognize my sound as I was in a sphere all alone I hoped and imagined it would be but my mind was left in awe like sweet chocolate after a meal.

The patriarchy longs for the days ‘when men were men’ and women were oppressed, silent and subservient – and they can see no wrong in it. It justifies its former power and lust to hold on to it – and if possible, to regain it by quoting fundamentalist and radical religion and tradition and while calling it ‘love’. Some love! How can oppression and power and complete control over another person's life ever be ‘love’?

UNMERCIFUL My body was a useless entity. In your presence, it betrayed me. Like dangerous waters beckoning In their mystifying beauty. Their tantalizing fluidity caressed my body As I resisted taking the plunge. My body betrayed me, Ignored me like a preoccupied stranger With a will of its own. And, I cruelly learned, I could control what happened Only if you were merciful. But, watching you, Listening to you, Was not merciful. It was a torturous joy.

Violet,' Xaden groans against my mouth. The plea in his tone floods my veins with a whole different form of power. Knowing he's just as affected by our attraction as I am is a rush. 'This isn't what you want.' 'It's exactly what I want,' I counter. I want to replace the anger with lust, the death of the day with the pulse-pounding assurance of my own life, and I know he's capable of delivering all that and more. 'You said to do whatever I need.' I arch my back, pressing the tips of my breasts against his chest. His breathing changes, and there's a war in his eyes that I'm determined to win. It's time to stop dancing around this unbearable tension and break it. He leans down, his mouth only inches from mine. 'And I'm telling you that I'm the last thing you need.' The barely leashed growl of his voice rumbles up through his chest, and every nerve ending in my body flares to life. 'Are you suggesting someone else?' My heart races as I chance calling his bluff. 'Fuck no.' The unmistakable flare of jealousy narrows his eyes for a heartbeat before his hips pin mine to the door, and my instant relief at his answer is replaced by a jolt of pure lust. I can see that infamous control of his hovering on the edge, balancing precariously on the point of a knife. All he needs is one. Little. Push. And I'm about to shamelessly shove. 'Good.' I tilt my head up to his and draw his bottom lip between mine, sucking before gently nipping him with my teeth. 'Because I only want you, Xaden.' The words breach something within him, and he gives. Finally. One mouths collide, and the kiss is hot and hard and completely out of our control.

Some alters are what Dr Ross describes in Multiple Personality Disorder as 'fragments'. which are 'relatively limited psychic states that express only one feeling, hold one memory, or carry out a limited task in the person's life. A fragment might be a frightened child who holds the memory of one particular abuse incident.' In complex multiples, Dr Ross continues, the 'personalities are relatively full-bodied, complete states capable of a range of emotions and behaviours.' The alters will have 'executive control some substantial amount of time over the person's life'. He stresses, and I repeat his emphasis, 'Complex MPD with over 15 alter personalities and complicated amnesia barriers are associated with 100 percent frequency of childhood physical, sexual and emotional abuse.' Did I imagine the castle, the dungeon, the ritual orgies and violations? Did Lucy, Billy, Samuel, Eliza, Shirley and Kato make it all up? I went back to the industrial estate and found the castle. It was an old factory that had burned to the ground, but the charred ruins of the basement remained. I closed my eyes and could see the black candles, the dancing shadows, the inverted pentagram, the people chanting through hooded robes. I could see myself among other children being abused in ways that defy imagination. I have no doubt now that the cult of devil worshippers was nothing more than a ring of paedophiles, the satanic paraphernalia a cover for their true lusts: the innocent bodies of young children.

Evie stayed, however, the silence spinning out until it seemed that the pounding of his heart must be audible. “Do you want to know what I think, Sebastian?” she finally asked. It took every particle of his will to keep his voice controlled. “Not particularly.” “I think that if I leave this room, you’re going to ring that bell again. But no matter how many times you ring, or how often I come running, you’ll never bring yourself to tell me what you really want.” Sebastian slitted his eyes open…a mistake. Her face was very close, her soft mouth only inches from his. “At the moment, all I want is some peace,” he grumbled. “So if you don’t mind—” Her lips touched his, warm silk and sweetness, and he felt the dizzying brush of her tongue. A floodgate of desire opened, and he was drowning in undiluted pleasure, more powerful than anything he had known before. He lifted his hands as if to push her head away, but instead his trembling fingers curved around her skull, holding her to him. The fiery curls of her hair were compressed beneath his palms as he kissed her with ravenous urgency, his tongue searching the winsome delight of her mouth. Sebastian was mortified to discover that he was gasping like an untried boy when Evie ended the kiss. Her lips were rosy and damp, her freckles gleaming like gold dust against the deep pink of her cheeks. “I also think,” she said unevenly, “that you’re going to lose our bet.” Recalled to sanity by a flash of indignation, Sebastian scowled. “Do you think I’m in any condition to pursue other women? Unless you intend to bring someone to my bed, I’m hardly going to—” “You’re not going to lose the bet by sleeping with another woman,” Evie said. There was a glitter of deviltry in her eyes as she reached up to the neckline of her gown and deliberately began to unfasten the row of buttons. Her hands trembled just a little. “You’re going to lose it with me.” Sebastian watched incredulously as she stood and shed the dressing gown. She was naked, the tips of her breasts pointed and rosy in the cool air. She had lost weight, but her breasts were still round and lovely, and her hips still flared generously from the neat inward curves of her waist. As his gaze swept to the triangle of red hair between her thighs, a swell of acute lust rolled through him. He sounded shaken, even to his own ears. “You can’t make me lose the bet. That’s cheating.” “I never promised not to cheat,” Evie said cheerfully, shivering as she slipped beneath the covers with him. “Damn it, I’m not going to cooperate. I—” His breath hissed between his teeth as he felt the tender length of her body press against his side, the springy brush of her private curls on his hip as she slid one of her legs between his. He jerked his head away as she tried to kiss him. “I can’t…Evie…” His mind searched cagily for a way to dissuade her. “I’m too weak.” Ardent and determined, Evie grasped his head and turned his face to hers. “Poor darling,” she murmured, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you.” “Evie,” he said hoarsely, aroused and infuriated and pleading, “I have to prove that I can last three months without—no, don’t do that. Damn you, Evie—

7. Character is built in the course of your inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness. You become more disciplined, considerate, and loving through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendship, and refined enjoyment. If you make disciplined, caring choices, you are slowly engraving certain tendencies into your mind. You are making it more likely that you will desire the right things and execute the right actions. If you make selfish, cruel, or disorganized choices, then you are slowly turning this core thing inside yourself into something that is degraded, inconstant, or fragmented. You can do harm to this core thing with nothing more than ignoble thoughts, even if you are not harming anyone else. You can elevate this core thing with an act of restraint nobody sees. If you don’t develop a coherent character in this way, life will fall to pieces sooner or later. You will become a slave to your passions. But if you do behave with habitual self-discipline, you will become constant and dependable. 8. The things that lead us astray are short term—lust, fear, vanity, gluttony. The things we call character endure over the long term—courage, honesty, humility. People with character are capable of a long obedience in the same direction, of staying attached to people and causes and callings consistently through thick and thin. People with character also have scope. They are not infinitely flexible, free-floating, and solitary. They are anchored by permanent attachments to important things. In the realm of the intellect, they have a set of permanent convictions about fundamental truths. In the realm of emotion, they are enmeshed in a web of unconditional loves. In the realm of action, they have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime.

It was the Rothschilds who funded the early ‘Jewish’ settlers in Palestine; it was the Rothschilds who helped to create and fund Hitler and the Nazis in the Second World War which included the sickening treatment of Jews, gypsies, communists, and others; it was the Rothschilds who used the understandable post-war sympathy for the ‘Jews’ they had mercilessly exploited to press through their demands for a take-over of Arab Palestine; it was the Rothschilds who funded the ‘Jewish’ terrorist groups in Palestine which bombed, murdered, and terrorised Israel into existence; and it was the Rothschilds who funded and manipulated these terrorists into the key positions in Israel, among them the Prime Ministers, Ben-Gurion, Shamir, Begin, and Rabin. These men would spend the rest of their lives condemning the terrorism of others with an hypocrisy which beggars belief; it was Lord Victor Rothschild, the controller of British Intelligence, who provided the know-how for Israel’s nuclear weapons; it was the Rothschilds who owned and controlled Israel from the start and have continued ever since to dictate its policy; it was the Rothschilds and the rest of the Brotherhood network which has hidden and suppressed the fact, confirmed by Jewish historians, that the overwhelming majority of ‘Jewish’ people in Israel originate genetically from the Caucasus Mountains, not from the lands they now occupy. The Jewish people have been sacrificed on the Rothschild altar of greed and lust for power, but even the Rothschilds take their orders from a higher authority which, I believe, is probably based in Asia, and the Far East dictates to the operational headquarters in London.

Whatever happiness and peace that one knows in one's life is generally so fragile that it is always subservient to the external situation. So most of your lives go in trying to manage a perfect external situation which is just impossible to do. No human being is ever capable of creating a perfect external situation because the outside situation will never be hundred percent in your control, no matter how powerful a human being you are. So yoga focuses on the inner situation. If you can create a perfect inward situation, no matter what the external situation, you can be in perfect bliss and peace.

There’s an old Cherokee legend about two wolves at war. It’s good food for thought on the topic of self-control. One night a grandfather was teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The boy paused to think for a moment before looking up at his grandfather. “Which wolf will win?” He asked. The wise man simply replied, “The one that you feed.”  Hearing that story, I’m reminded of the scripture that says, And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. – Galatians 5:24

The man of Self-Control does not change by reason of passion and lust, yet when occasion so requires he will be easy of persuasion: but the Positive man changes not at the call of Reason, though many of this class take up certain desires and are led by their pleasures. Among the class of Positive are the Opinionated, the Ignorant, and the Bearish: the first, from the motives of pleasure and pain: I mean, they have the pleasurable feeling of a kind of victory in not having their convictions changed, and they are pained when their decrees, so to speak, are reversed: so that, in fact, they rather resemble the man of Imperfect Self-Control than the man of Self-Control.

I never knew it could be that intense.” “It’s all about reading what your body wants.” His eyes were growing dark with lust, and I held the sheet tighter around my body, trying to control the fire that was seeping through my veins. “For instance,” he continued, taking my hand and making me stand, “right now, I can tell you want me to touch you.” “H…how can you tell?” “Your breathing is deeper.” Smirking, he moved my hand that was holding onto the sheet. “You keep swallowing, trying to control what you’re denying yourself,” he whispered, undoing the thin material and letting it drop to the floor so I was standing naked before him. “And now I see the evidence.” He chuckled, running his thumbs over my hard nipples before dipping his hand lower into my dripping wet sex. “Oh Jade, I can read you so well already,” Oliver smoldered, leaning down to attack one of my nipples with his mouth while his fingers moved in and out of me. I braced myself, using the table to try and stay upright while attempting to adjust to his sudden attack. He had me yelling out his name within minutes.

Who is he that shall control me? Why may not I act & speak & write & think with entire freedom? Who am I to the Universe, or the Universe, what is it to me? Who hath forged the chains of Right and Wrong, of Opinion and Custom? And must I wear them? Is Society my anointed King? Or is there any mightier community or any man or more than man, whose slave I am? I am solitary in the vast society of beings; I consort with no species; I indulge no sympathies. I see the world, human, brute & inanimate nature; I am in the midst of them, but not of them; I hear the song of the storm— the Winds & warring Elements sweep by me— but they mix not with my being. I see cities & nations & witness passions— the roar of their laughter— but I partake it not;— the yell of their grief— it touches no chord in me; their fellowships & fashions, lusts & virtues, the words & deeds they call glory & shame— I disclaim them all. I say to the Universe, Mighty one! thou art not my mother; Return to chaos, if thou wilt, I shall still exist. I live. If I owe my being, it is to a destiny greater than thine. Star by Star, world by world, system by system shall be crushed— but I shall live.

Show me a man who isn’t a slave,” Seneca demanded, pointing out that even slave owners were chained to the responsibilities of the institution of slavery. “One is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear.” The first step, he said, was to pull yourself out of the ignorance of your dependency, whatever it happens to be. Then you need to get clean—get clean from your mistress, from your addiction to work, from your lust for power, whatever. In the modern era, we might be hooked on cigarettes or soda, likes on social media, or watching cable news. It doesn’t matter whether it’s socially acceptable or not, what matters is whether it’s good for you. Eisenhower’s habit was killing him, as so many of ours are too—slowly, imperceptibly.

He raked his hands through his hair and blew out a long breath. Damn it, he’d known lust before, but this…this aching desire for her this intense passion she inspired, was unlike anything he’d ever experience. He’d always considered himself a man of control, finesse, and patience. But Victoria somehow stripped him of all three. He didn’t want to kiss her, he wanted to devour her. He didn’t want to strip her gown from her shoulders, she wanted to tear it from her body. With his teeth. He didn’t want to slowly seduce her, he wanted to push her against the nearest wall and simply bury himself in her. Make hot, sweaty, mindless, searing love to her. Then turn her over and start again. If she knew even half the things he wanted to do to her, with her, she’d most likely never recover from shock.

Round-bottomed, soft-bellied, irrational, magical, too caring, too carefree, proudly demanding, unfettered by dependence, sexually unashamed, hairy, hungry, unpredictable, silently present, intangibly distant, ceaselessly gossipy, alarmingly uninhibited, seething with potential, incomprehensible, altogether unfathomable, dangerous and deliciously powerful, she is the hag. She bleeds. She laughs so hard her belly shakes, she snorts and farts. She is the dark side of woman, the inside, the raw side beneath the surface skin we are taught so well to cleanse and tone and remedy with paint. She is the woman whose self-expression is not quite under control. Mysterious, intuitive, emotional, curvaceous, lustful, needy, selfish, natural and free, she is the me we long to - but know we shouldn’t - reveal. Feeling

She moved back to accommodate him as he rolled on a condom. Then she stroked and squeezed until rational thought was a distant memory and all that was left were need and want, lust and desire. He dragged her up, claiming her mouth as he thrust inside her. Pleasure so exquisite, he closed his eyes and tried to take a mental snapshot of the moment. Bracing herself on his shoulders she rode him, levering her hips as she brought him closer and closer to his peak. Control. He needed it. In one swift motion he shifted, carrying her down so she lay beneath him, clothes half off, hair tangled, lips swollen from his kisses, wanton and free. Lifting her legs to his hips, he thrust into her. Slick walls tightened, made his eyes water. His hips pistoned, driving deep until pleasure peaked and they both found release.

As for the vice of lust - aside from what it means for spiritual persons to fall into this vice, since my intent is to treat of the imperfections that have to be purged by means of the dark night - spiritual persons have numerous imperfections, many of which can be called spiritual lust, not because the lust is spiritual but because it proceeds from spiritual things. It happens frequently that in a person's spiritual exercises themselves, without the person being able to avoid it, impure movements will be experienced in the sensory part of the soul, and even sometimes when the spirit is deep in prayer or when receiving the sacraments of Penance or the Eucharist. These impure feelings arise from any of three causes outside one's control. First, they often proceed from the pleasure human nature finds in spiritual exercises. Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure. This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love - for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason - the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one individual, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the Philosopher says: Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver. Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God's spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God's Spirit, and the soul thus receives everything according to the mode of the Spirit.

Man knows himself as body, and what he knows of spirit comes through grace. The poet would call it inspiration. But the spirit bloweth where it listeth. Man has no control over his inspiration. If a piece of music or a poem has moved him once, he can never be certain that it will happen again. But man hates to think that he has no control over the spirit. It would discourage him too much. He likes to believe that he can summon the spirit by some ordinary act. Instead of striving to prepare himself for it through discipline and prayer, he tries to summon it arbitrarily through some physical act—drinking Düsseldorf beer, for instance. . . Stein said, chuckling: Which is the way all good Düsseldorfers summon the spirit, since our Dunkelbier is the best in Germany. The priest laughed with him, and for a moment Sorme had a curious impression that he was listening to an argument between two undergraduates instead of two men in their late sixties. He shrank deeper into his armchair, wanting them to forget his presence. The priest stopped laughing first, and Sorme had a glimpse of the tiredness that always lay behind his eyes. Stein also became grave again. He said: Very well. But what has this to do with the murderer? It has to do with sex. For sex is the favourite human device for summoning the spirit. And since it is also God's gift of procreation, it nearly always works. . . unlike music and poetry. Or beer, Stein said. Quite. But even sex is not infallible. And man hates to think that he has no power over the spirit. The more his physical methods fail him, the more voraciously he pursues them. His attempts to summon the spirit become more and more frenzied. If he is a drinker, he drinks more, until he has more alcohol than blood in his veins. If he is a sensualist, he invents sexual perversions. Ah, Stein said. There are many other ways, of course—the lust for money and power, for instance. All depend upon man's refusal to face the fact that the spirit bloweth where it listeth, that no physical act can be guaranteed to summon it. . .

There is nothing essentially vile in the human body, for God created it, even with its desires and appetites. There is nothing evil in a hungry man’s desire for a square meal, or a healthy woman’s longing for a husband, children and a home of her own. It is not the way of the Spirit to repress these natural instincts, but to control them and keep them within the bounds prescribed by God. We do not need to extinguish the fire in the grate; only to prevent the coals from falling out and setting the place on fire. The physical is not to be ruthlessly suppressed but firmly disciplined and subordinated to the spiritual. When asceticism becomes a thing of form enforced by man-made rules, it is incapable of dealing effectively with the bodily lusts. Self-control on the other hand is the fruit of the Spirit, springing from divine life within, cultivated by the habit of a disciplined life.

My vocation in life is to wonder about at the nature of the universe. This leads me into philosophy, psychology, religion, and mysticism, not only as subjects to be discussed but also as things to be experienced, and thus I make an at least tacit claim to be a philosopher and a mystic. Some people, therefore, expect me to be their guru or messiah or exemplar, and are extremely disconcerted when they discover my “wayward spirit” or element of irreducible rascality, and say to their friends, “How could he possibly be a genuine mystic and be so addicted to nicotine and alcohol?” Or have occasional shudders of anxiety? Or be sexually interested in women? Or lack enthusiasm for physical exercise? Or have any need for money? Such people have in mind an idealized vision of the mystic as a person wholly free from fear and attachment, who sees within and without, and on all sides, only the translucent forms of a single divine energy which is everlasting love and delight, as which and from which he effortlessly radiates peace, charity, and joy. What an enviable situation! We, too, would like to be one of those, but as we start to meditate and look into ourselves we find mostly a quaking and palpitating mess of anxiety which lusts and loathes, needs love and attention, and lives in terror of death putting an end to its misery. So we despise that mess, and look for ways of controlling it and putting “how the true mystic feels” in its place, not realizing that this ambition is simply one of the lusts of the quaking mess, and that this, in turn, is a natural form of the universe like rain and frost, slugs and snails, flies and disease. When the “true mystic” sees flies and disease as translucent forms of the divine, that does not abolish them. I—making no hard-and-fast distinction between inner and outer experience—see my quaking mess as a form of the divine, and that doesn’t abolish it either. But at least I can live with it.

Speculators, meanwhile, have seized control of the global economy and the levers of political power. They have weakened and emasculated governments to serve their lust for profit. They have turned the press into courtiers, corrupted the courts, and hollowed out public institutions, including universities. They peddle spurious ideologies—neoliberal economics and globalization—to justify their rapacious looting and greed. They create grotesque financial mechanisms, from usurious interest rates on loans to legalized accounting fraud, to plunge citizens into crippling forms of debt peonage. And they have been stealing staggering sums of public funds, such as the $65 billion of mortgage-backed securities and bonds, many of them toxic, that have been unloaded each month on the Federal Reserve in return for cash.21 They feed like parasites off of the state and the resources of the planet. Speculators at megabanks and investment firms such as Goldman Sachs are not, in a strict sense, capitalists. They do not make money from the means of production. Rather, they ignore or rewrite the law—ostensibly put in place to protect the weak from the powerful—to steal from everyone, including their own shareholders. They produce nothing. They make nothing. They only manipulate money. They are no different from the detested speculators who were hanged in the seventeenth century, when speculation was a capital offense. The obscenity of their wealth is matched by their utter lack of concern for the growing numbers of the destitute. In early 2014, the world’s 200 richest people made $13.9 billion, in one day, according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index.22 This hoarding of money by the elites, according to the ruling economic model, is supposed to make us all better off, but in fact the opposite happens when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations, as economist Thomas Piketty documents in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century.23 The rest of us have little or no influence over how we are governed, and our wages stagnate or decline. Underemployment and unemployment become chronic. Social services, from welfare to Social Security, are slashed in the name of austerity. Government, in the hands of speculators, is a protection racket for corporations and a small group of oligarchs. And the longer we play by their rules the more impoverished and oppressed we become. Yet, like

I mean we are no longer cataloguing life with art, which is perhaps why art is failing. Life itself has become the final disposable, exploitable resource. We will do anything. Level whole mountains, erase whole species, relocate mighty rivers, burn forests to the ground, change the pH of the water, blanket ourselves in toxic chemistry. It took two million years for our species just to stand up and only five hundred generations to do the rest. Our culture is one of abundance, of entitlement, and basically little else. We’ve put our birthright at risk because we don’t know how to control ourselves. Our lust.

Want a sandwich?” Mac shook her head. “I’m going to have dinner with Gage when he gets home.” Who said anything about dinner? This was more like an appetizer. That was another perk that came with being a werewolf. She could eat whatever she wanted and not have to worry about extra calories ending up where they shouldn’t. Khaki set everything on the counter. “I asked Xander flat-out when I went over to his place last night. He insisted he liked me just fine, but I knew he was lying. I could tell he was really uncomfortable around me. He was tense and on edge the whole time. Which is nothing new. He’s like that all the time around me. I think he finds me irritating and a nuisance.” Mac gave her a dubious look. “If you say so. But either way, you’d better be careful. If being with Gage has taught me anything, it’s that werewolves are extremely affected by certain pheromones. If you go walking around lusting over Xander, he’s going to pick up on it— and so is every other guy on the team. Then things will get really complicated. I learned that the hard way. Those guys can pick up on arousal like it’s barbecue and they aren’t shy about letting you know it.” Khaki groaned as she grabbed a plate from the cabinet. “Oh, God. I never thought about that.” “Yeah. And it gets worse.” Mac shook her head. “If I’m even slightly aroused and Gage picks up on it, he gets crazy horny— like he-can’t-control-it horny. What do you think is going to happen to if all the guys on the team pick up on the fact that the one and only female werewolf on the team is aroused? You’ll find yourself getting chased by fifteen out-of-control, horny werewolves going crazy with lust. And while there are some women who might find that entertaining, something tells me you wouldn’t.” Khaki set the plate on the counter with a thud. “Oh, crap. What the hell am I going to do?” Mac offered her a small smile. “Take a lot of baths?

A passion, therefore, consists not in being affected by the sights which are presented to us, but in giving way to our feelings and following up these chance promptings: for whoever imagines that paleness, bursting into tears, lustful feelings, deep sighs, sudden flashes of the eyes, and so forth, are signs of passion and betray the state of the mind, is mistaken, and does not understand that these are merely impulses of the body. Consequently, the bravest of men often turns pale while he is putting on his armour; when the signal for battle is given, the knees of the boldest soldier shake for a moment; the heart even of a great general leaps into his mouth just before the lines clash together, and the hands and feet even of the most eloquent orator grow stiff and cold while he is preparing to begin his speech. Anger must not merely move, but break out of bounds, being an impulse: now, no impulse can take place without the consent of the mind: for it cannot be that we should deal with revenge and punishment without the mind being cognisant of them. A man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the mind which is under the control of reason.

Their mouths crashed together. Tongues tangled. He kissed her as if he wanted to consume her, devour her alive. Fierce kisses, hard kisses, desperate, wanting kisses. He tasted like chocolate and smelled like sin. "Sam..." She pulled away. "I can't breathe." "Neither can I." Her wrapped his arms around her and drew her in for another hungry kiss. Hot, hard, and wet, melting her to the side of the Jeep. His tongue worked past her lips to plunge into her mouth, every stroke tugging at things low and deep in her belly. Her hands moved to his chest, sliding over his pecs and the ripple of abs beneath his shirt. Harman was perfect but Sam was real, his body hard from his fight training, muscles thick from use. He hissed out a breath when her fingers grazed the top of his belt, his infamous self-control giving way to her curious hands. "What are we doing?" he murmured as he drew her earlobe into his mouth, his five-o'clock shadow rough against her sensitive skin. "I don't know, but don't stop." "No chance of that." He shifted against her, his arousal as evident from his ragged breaths as the growing hardness pressed against her hips. When he thrust a thick thigh between her legs, she rocked against him, reckless and wanton in her need for release. She was dying, burning, her body on fire. She'd never felt anything like the toxic combination of anger and lust that pounded through her veins. It made her head spin, drove logic away.

Sloane inhaled sharply, and he relinquished control to his Therian side without any further thought. His claws came out, and his painful cry drowned out Dex’s as the tips of Sloane’s claws pierced his lover’s skin. Dex clutched at Sloane, his finger’s digging into his bicep and his jaw clenched as he tried desperately to keep himself quiet. His eyes grew glassy and red, but Sloane could see Dex fighting to keep himself from screaming. Darkness encroached Sloane’s vision, his senses sharpening. Slowly and deliberately he sliced at Dex’s arm, making sure to go deep enough to leave his mark permanently but not enough where Dex would need stitches. Sloane’s heart pounded, the scent of Dex’s blood filling his nostrils. He ground his hips against Dex as he finished leaving his mark around Dex’s forearm. As soon as he was finished, he pulled off his T-shirt and wrapped it around his partner’s bleeding arm, tying it firmly in place. His eyes landed on Dex, and he was taken aback by the heat in those amazing eyes. They clawed at each other’s clothes the best they could with Dex’s arm and Sloane’s leg. Desire and love turned into desperation, sending them both into a frenzy of need and lust. Sloane spit into his hand, making it good and wet, then wrapped it around his cock, stroking himself before he pushed a finger against Dex’s entrance. “Yes,” Dex hissed, his fingers slipping into Sloane’s hair and grabbing fistfuls of it. “Please, fuck me.” Sloane

Seconds turn into minutes and minutes into hours. It is all still the same. Or it no longer is. If I were to ask what has changed, perhaps nothing, but conceivably everything would be the befitting reply. I no longer feel the same. Loss preceded me, alienating my soul from the body. I feel I am gliding through an alley making a journey from the known towards the unknown. There is a deep abyss inside where sometime back, my heart used to beat and a noisy, rusty old machine has replaced my mind; solitarily creating useless noise. I don’t remember what day it is and since when have I been lying here. It must have been yesterday… or was it day before. I cannot recollect anything except the dull throbbing pain inside my brain. I can see the time, almost 9: 45, difficult to say which time of the day it is. The bigger hand is soon going to overshadow the smaller hand. It looks like a game of cat and mouse; the bigger hand chasing the smaller one. Anyone stronger in terms of physical appearance, money, power, fame or name tramples upon the weak ones - that is the rule of the world. There are only two possible reasons behind it, love or hate. When you love someone you want to control everything that person does and hence, sometimes, knowingly or unknowingly you squash them like melons. While on the other hand in the case of hate, there is no need to specify the reason for walking over someone like that. Hate is a strong reason in itself. I am confused as to what crushed me, was it love or hate? I somehow don’t like the sound of it – love, it in itself smells of treachery, for love is not a pure emotion. Lust and hatred are the only pure emotions. Love is camouflaged, for needs and desires. Desires – they are magical in their own way. They can be innocent. They can be monstrous. But they exist, no matter what, and many such needs and desires make us helpless slaves of the same. We hide these desires either in the realms of our mind or in the dusty corners of our hearts for we are scared…what if someone finds out what we desire. We give them identities so as to not let the real thing show. The only thing visible on the front is a mask we wear to deceive people or that’s what I thought. For I was deceived while I believed I am the deceiver. Or was I not? I debated as my mind once again tried to enter a sleep-induced trance.

The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

Ah, my friends, that innocent afternoon with Larry provoked me into thought in a way my own dicelife until then never had. Larry took to following the dice with such ease and joy compared to the soul-searching gloom that I often went through before following a decision, that I had to wonder what happened to every human in the two decades between seven and twenty-seven to turn a kitten into a cow. Why did children seem to be so often spontaneous, joy-filled and concentrated while adults seemed controlled, anxiety-filled and diffused? It was the Goddam sense of having a self: that sense of self which psychologists have been proclaiming we all must have. What if - at the time it seemed like an original thought - what if the development of a sense of self is normal and natural, but is neither inevitable nor desirable? What if it represents a psychological appendix: a useless, anachronistic pain in the side? - or, like the mastodon's huge tusks: a heavy, useless and ultimately self-destructive burden? What if the sense of being some-one represents an evolutionary error as disastrous to the further development of a more complex creature as was the shell for snails or turtles? He he he. What if? indeed: men must attempt to eliminate the error and develop in themselves and their children liberation from the sense of self. Man must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another, one set of values to another, one life to another. Men must be free from boundaries, patterns and consistencies in order to be free to think, feel and create in new ways. Men have admired Prometheus and Mars too long; our God must become Proteus. I became tremendously excited with my thoughts: 'Men must become comfortable in flowing from one role to another' - why aren't they? At the age of three or four, children were willing to be either good guys or bad guys, the Americans or the Commies, the students or the fuzz. As the culture molds them, however, each child comes to insist on playing only one set of roles: he must always be a good guy, or, for equally compulsive reasons, a bad guy or rebel. The capacity to play and feel both sets of roles is lost. He has begun to know who he is supposed to be. The sense of permanent self: ah, how psychologists and parents lust to lock their kids into some definable cage. Consistency, patterns, something we can label - that's what we want in our boy. 'Oh, our Johnny always does a beautiful bower movement every morning after breakfast.' 'Billy just loves to read all the time...' 'Isn't Joan sweet? She always likes to let the other person win.' 'Sylvia's so pretty and so grown up; she just loves all the time to dress up.' It seemed to me that a thousand oversimplifications a year betrayed the truths in the child's heart: he knew at one point that he didn't always feel like shitting after breakfast but it gave his Ma a thrill. Billy ached to be out splashing in mud puddles with the other boys, but... Joan wanted to chew the penis off her brother every time he won, but ... And Sylvia daydreamed of a land in which she wouldn’t have to worry about how she looked . . . Patterns are prostitution to the patter of parents. Adults rule and they reward patterns. Patterns it is. And eventual misery. What if we were to bring up our children differently? Reward them for varying their habits, tastes, roles? Reward them for being inconsistent? What then? We could discipline them to be reliably various, to be conscientiously inconsistent, determinedly habit-free - even of 'good' habits.

The children crowded about the women in the houses. What we going to do Ma? Where we going to go? The women said, We don’t know, yet. Go out and play. But don’t go near your father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work, but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust–perplexed and figuring. The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses. The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it–straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat’, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent that tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him–goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did now know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did not germinate, it was no skin off his ass. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor. He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor–its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders; but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth with its blades–not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by the cut earth. And behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long seeders–twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gear, raping methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, and had no connection to the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not love or hated, it had no prayers or curses.