juliana ong

In both myth and theory, Eros is the same force: the spark that brings aliveness out of inertia. To live erotically is to stay attuned to that rhythm, to let the energy that animates the world also animate you. But that kind of vitality resists management, which is precisely why the modern world fears it.

No one deserves to be praised for kindness if he does not have the strength to be bad

This is one of those polarities I'm learning to embrace: that you can see improvement in many things, but still you never really stop worrying; you just get better at dealing with it.

Since Freud, psychologists have distinguished between theories of autoplastic and alloplastic change. With autoplastic change, the problem is the patient, and the patient must first improve himself. With alloplastic adaptation, the problem is the environment, and the subject should change his surroundings.

In Freudian language, ambivalence is the ability to hold contradictory feelings toward a person. A child loves their mother, but can also sometimes be extremely angry at her. A person holds love and hate, attraction and disgust, excitement and boredom, connection and disconnection with a person. The ability to be able to hold these contradictions... See more

I realized that being in the driver’s seat of my own life was exhausting, and became aware of the pipeline between submission and surrender—how fucking good it feels to be relieved of the need to decide, both in the bedroom and outside of it. That’s part of why I’m fascinated by tradwives—women whose lives to me lack liberation and ambition, but to... See more

Gisele Pélicot said she had recognised only one of her alleged rapists, a man who had come to discuss cycling with her husband at their home. “I saw him now and then in the bakery; I would say hello. I never thought he’d come and rape me,” she said.