"I'm just...mortified"

“I’m just…mortified.”

I can't tell you how often I've heard those words in my life. My mother was from the south, and as a child I came to understand that mortification was an integral part of life for a traditional Southern Lady of a certain age: upon being born (that messiest of endeavors), upon having sex (um, we don't talk about such things)…and even upon simply growing up. Mom used to leave the room whenever an ad for euphemistically entitled “feminine products” came on television, ashamed even to acknowledge that such bodily functions existed.

Shame is a powerful emotion, and no doubt serves an important purpose: it helps train us to respond appropriately to our fellow humans, to deny certain base impulses because we know them to be wrong, and to understand the consequences of our actions. In fact, amorality, or an utter lack of shame at doing wrong, leads to criminality and a banal sort of evil.

But at what point does shame turn on itself, twisting into something more sinister? Sex, sensuality, our very bodies....these are problematic in our culture. The Bible describes humanity's discovery of shame and the need to cover one's shameful (especially female) body. Christian or not, we all experience the repercussions of our historical/cultural tradition.


Above: Upon expulsion from Eden, Eve attempts to hide herself in shame.


'To mortify' -- the root of the word so clearly connected to death -- refers to subduing or deadening the bodily appetites. It is no wonder that mortification so often takes place in a religious context, where one's love for a higher power is proven by damaging one's all too human flesh.

But how much can we shame ourselves or each other without experiencing a twisted, malformed reaction? And less dramatically, simply the death of joy?

Luckily for me, I came of age in California during the 70s and no matter how much my sweet and loving mother tried to impose certain ladylike mores upon her youngest daughter, I threw out a whole lot of shame with my childhood bathwater. But how much do those who allow their lives to be restricted and dictated by fear of mortification miss out on in life?

When I looked up this week's theme in order to write this post, I saw that medically, 'mortification' refers to gangrene: the literal death of flesh. Mortified flesh does not heal without ugly scars. Neither does our psyche.

So I say down with shame...not with flesh.