Shame Archives - Page 3 of 5 - My Dissolute Life

Manic defenses

Does the word “mania” mean what you think it does? Here’s what it means to me.

A reader doesn’t like my writing, doesn’t like me. But keeps coming back. I respond.

I went to a bar mitzvah and had thoughts I couldn’t un-have.

I recently found myself in a relatively unusual situation, in which, in my alter ego’s (N’) existence, I was in[…]

In “Shame,” Michael Fassbender powerfully depicts the soulless misery of a driven existence. The other day, I saw a man[…]

I was twelve. My cousin was fourteen. We didn’t see each other that often – maybe a few times a[…]

As I descended the stairs into the subway – a particular stairway at a particular station – I was overcome[…]

I feel it. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It’s a bodily sensation, located high up in my chest, almost in my[…]

1. Cross your legs. That’s not very ladylike. Your cunt is shameful. Your sex is shameful. You are inherently shameful.[…]

I wrote about the encounter between Brandon and the young woman played so powerfully by Lucy Walters that opens “Shame.”[…]