Sin, Samantha, and the Talmud
One who sees his evil inclination getting the better of him should dress in black and go to a place where he isn’t known.
That’s the famous passage in the Talmud that played in my head over and over like a nagging friend who just doesn’t know when to stop. I was horny and desperate, and the Talmud, just to complicate things, seemed only to say, “Eh, better you don’t, but if you can’t help it… nu, here are some ideas…”
It’s a healthy urge, I said to myself, as Cathy, the cute Hispanic receptionist, put another pile of mail on my already overflowing stack. Men all over the world feel the same, nothing unusual about it. Or perverted. I’m just healthy and normal, looking for what every male has looked for since the dawn of the Y chromosome.
Cathy’s ass was toward the flat side, and her face still had some residual acne, those flaky skin cells that stubbornly refused to read the memo that her adolescence was over. But she had a face that reminded me of Eva Langoria in her better days. I’d have done her in a heartbeat, except she hardly looked my way. My feeble attempts at making conversation seemed only an unwelcome distraction from the Yahoo Messenger windows she kept open all day, chatting no doubt with hot and ripped hunks from the South Bronx. I could never compete.
Why the unbearable urge? I couldn’t really say. Sex with the wife wasn’t so bad – in fact it was quite good. We’d come a long way from the shocked look on her face when I suggested we take it out of the bedroom and into the laundry room. Eventually she came to love doing it while sitting on the washing machine, during both the wash and spin cycles. (The dryer never proved very satisfying.) She didn’t have an orgasm until after our third child was born, but once she had it there was no going back. Seeing women in movies moaning “Oh, yeah; oh, God, yes!” once brought a completely baffled look to her face. She’d look away uncomfortably. But now she understood it. She’d changed.
But I changed too, and while she was just discovering her sexual side, I was starting to feel, um, uninspired. I needed variety.
Craigslist proved a failure. The women I encountered were interested in hearing about my Chasidic lifestyle, but their photos were a letdown. An overweight woman riding an elephant in Thailand, a punk rocker with more piercings and tattoos than body parts and a sizable muffin top to boot, a dorky looking girl with a crooked nose and no chin. I closed my email on the last one and grimaced. Not my thing, I mumbled to the stapler on my desk and the piles of overdue invoices. Cathy was just putting on her short white jacket with the fur- lined hood. I wondered what she had in store for the night. I imagined her in a tight mini-skirt, getting down at a club and shaking it. I longed to ask, but I didn’t dare.
And then came Samantha.
It was another of those days at the office. The boss yelled like a maniac, threatening to fire — no, fucking fire! — anyone who came within sight of him. Murphy’s Law had kicked in and just when we had an important meeting, the computer froze during the Powerpoint presentation. I, bookkeeper-slash-techie-slash-office-manager-slash-janitor, was at fault. I needed a break. Fuck it, I thought.
The Talmud warned against my intended actions. It’s like bringing a flood all over again. Automatic excommunication. Deserving of death. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I was tortured by the mystical warnings. I remembered the nighttime sessions studying Reishis Chochma as a teenager. Kaf Hakela, it said, was no fun. My attempts at re-imagining it as a super cosmological roller coaster might’ve worked, except for those damn Mal’achei Chabala, the angels of destruction, who beat and pursue your soul from place to place and make the Christian purgatory seem like a cruise to the Bahamas.
Then comes the Talmud and gives you ideas. Dress in black, go to a new city, just keep quiet about it; it’s all good. Talk about mixed messages. But at that point I no longer cared. By the time I got out of the meeting and out from under my boss’s fury, I’d made up my mind.
A sign outside declared it “the cleanest gentleman’s club in NYC.”
Hmm, I thought, clean is good, and I walked past the bouncer who looked after me without a word. The place was dark. On a small, low stage two topless girls lazily trotted around while gripping a gleaming silver pole. I wasn’t aroused. I felt in the wrong place. Self-consciousness kicked in like a bitch. Not to mention my anxiety about the sin, which reared its ugly head again. The fucking Talmud had me confused. Couldn’t the rabbis get their damn theology straight? Their inconsistency was killing me.
I ordered a Coors Lite and sat down to watch. I kept thinking I should leave. This wasn’t the place for me. I thought about how I’d feel the next morning, beating my chest, Ashamnu, bagadnu… rashanu, shichasnu, tiavnu. We’ve been wicked, wasteful, and committed abominations. But it wouldn’t be we, it would be I. Good Jews didn’t do these things. I did these things.
Samantha made it all go away. I hadn’t noticed her at first. I looked up from my beer and saw her walking across the room from where she’d been sitting alone. She sat down next to me and asked for my name. She was cool with just schmoozing, she knew how to sell her goods. She wanted to know about my life, my family, my job. If she was pretending, she was very good at it. She asked the right questions, and shared about herself without hesitation. She was smart, but not too brainy, working, literally and figuratively, towards an MBA. She was Hispanic, an Eva Mendez look-alike without the mole on her cheek, with long brown hair, baby-soft skin, a well-rounded butt that jiggled oh, so subtly, and very few clothes. Two pieces, to be precise, if you didn’t count the shoes.
While we were talking she caressed the fuzz on my arm. When she put her hand on my thigh I knew she had me. I wasn’t so naive to think this was anything more than a business transaction. She had something to sell, and I was an eager buyer. I might say I wasn’t looking for romance, or even a personal connection. But there was an illusion of that. People who work in this industry know what men want, and it isn’t, in most cases, just brute sexual gratification.
Unable to resist, I took Samantha to a private room towards the end of the club. Across the doorway was a curtain. Inside there was a bare table and an easy chair. Music was playing, top-40 songs, bubble-gum pop I’d been hearing on the radio. Samantha took my hand and said, “Let’s dance.” When I hesitated, she laughed. I didn’t know how to dance anything but a Chasidic-wedding-style hora. Dancing with a naked woman was completely new. But we danced. Or she did, and I held on to her hand and twirled her around again and again, turning my awkwardness into pretending I was spinning a top. She laughed when we stopped, dizzy from spinning, and fell on top of me onto the chair.
She went beyond the limits she’d set when she explained the rules. I like to think it showed she liked me, although it’s possible that she did the same for all customers. I had no way of knowing.
She became a habit. I ended up coming back at least every other week for a period of a few months. At the office I’d see Cathy and wonder what I ever saw in her. During stressful days at work, it was Samantha I looked forward to, a relaxing high before heading home, an oasis of pleasure in between the demands of office and family life.
Until one day, as I walked into the club, the bouncer yelled, “Samantha, your rabbi’s here.”
If my beard made me a rabbi then Allen Ginsberg was Moses himself. But you can’t argue with people’s perceptions. What do goyim know of rabbis and beards, I thought to myself. I greeted Samantha with the usual peck on the cheek, and settled down with a drink.
It was one of our best evenings. I started to think that perhaps she liked me for real. She’d started allowing things that she didn’t when we first met. To me that meant something. I even thought to ask her out, but then thought better of it. Best to keep it this way, simple, no attachments. I wasn’t even sure I had her real name, which suited me fine.
It was only when I left that I caught sight of the bouncer and remembered what he’d called out. Me, a rabbi. The thought was both ludicrous and insulting. I gave him a thumbs up as I left. He nodded and said, “Take it easy, boss.”
But I never went back.
Printable Version
Tzippi and R & C:
Nah, in the “good old days” of blogging, in the days when us “on the fringe bloggers” were teritorial animals – when we all lived within the confines of our own blogs, very few of the posts were about sex. But now, a bunch of guys and gals very unpiously join forces, and suddenly all that seems to be on people’s minds is sex.
Dare I suggest that some of the unpious ones aren’t that unpious after all?
Like this comment?
1
HR- I’m glad to have receive the stamp of approval that I have reached the depth of your profound insight.
Like this comment?
1
I just noticed. There’s even a special section on this site titled “Love and Sex”.
We’re going all cosmo here. Only on their site, that sexction is the first.
Like this comment?
1
tzippi, I feel your pain shaifeleh, I know it hurts, gorgeous. The truth always hurts.
Like this comment?
1
R&C –
Yes to the Woman, no to the Man. Darn, the terminology is complicated! Darn these Western-Christian appellations! By adultery I meant if the woman in the relationship is married. Otherwise, that’d be fornicating (for the guy), I guess. Whatever.
You’re right in the second part of your comment, about Judaism placing it squarely between (wo)man and God rather than man and wife. But reread the last paragraph in my comment above yours, where I make the point that wanting it both ways is just, well, selfish and a-”holy”.
Like this comment?
1
Skeleton:
“I make the point that wanting it both ways is just, well, selfish and a-”holy”.”
A very subjective proclamation, if ever there was one. (I mean the “a-holy” part, and your previous charge of “hypocrisy.”) But it is sort of amusing that you’d accuse the unpious of being, well, unpious.
Like this comment?
1
Insider you are out of role and out of character. You are the vulgarist laureate of the community, not the compassionate matriarchal soother. Or are you being mordacious?
Like this comment?
1
Skeleton, I will try one more time. You know I always have to have the last word
Scenario number one. I spend the night in AC, and blow fifty thousand bucks down the toilet. I call my husband and tell him what I did.
Scenario number two, I blow all that money, and don’t tell him. Instead, he finds out from a friend three days later.
I don’t know about you, but I would be in serious dodo if either version of this story actually happened. My husband would throw a fit, and the focal point of his anger would be on the money gambled and not on the fact that I did it without informing him myself.
It might seem more progressive to say the issue is the cheating and the deception, but it’s much more about the *type* of deception.
Most people *have* to lie about the sex, because they could never get away with being honest about their extramarital “recreational” actions.
Like this comment?
1
Skeleton
“But reread the last paragraph in my comment above yours, where I make the point that wanting it both ways is just, well, selfish and a-”holy”.”
Congrats on A-Holy. A superb conjunction!!
I never quibbled on that point. It’s a tremendous point and I totally agree with it. We have adopted the Western definition of matrimony and we have to take the whole institution the way it’s presented. If we want to enjoy love and all of those lofty feelings the obvious payoff is commitment, disclosure and honesty.
Like this comment?
1
HT and Skeleton, pardon my ignorance, but I have no clue what you guys are arguing about. What’s wrong with saying that it’s both, the “lying about the act”? The act is wrong and so is the deceit associated with it.
HT, we might have a problem. The last word is my sole territory.
Like this comment?
1
“We have adopted the Western definition of matrimony and we have to take the whole institution the way it’s presented.”
We have to?!
Or else, what? Violate some social norm? So is that what it’s come down to?
Or is that we’ll be labeled by Unpious commentors as “hypocritical”? Well, I do get a hankering for good ole-fashioned hypocrisy from time to time. At least the kind that gets people all flustered, pounding away at their keyboards, exclaiming, “Harumph, you… unpious scum… you amoral, Godless, valueless pieces of shit… you selectively claim the highest values, and harumph, how dare you discard MINE!”
Like this comment?
2
HR -
I strive to amuse
HT –
Although I heartily allow you the last word, here’s just one more thought (after which I promise to shut up, at least for a while): perhaps people are different. Some might want to know if their spouse is having a side dish from a take-out while others davka want to stay in the dark. Some people are more comfortable deceiving themselves, and others are more comfortable dealing with reality.
Like this comment?
1
R&C, the problem with arguing about the act is that morality is subjective and relative.
HR, now don’t go getting your knickers in a twist, especially over an abstract comment with no charges of hypocrisy leveled against anybody in particular. Hypocrite or not, we love you anyway, bro!
Like this comment?
1
HR
“We have to?!
Or else, what? Violate some social norm? So is that what it’s come down to?”
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. It’s not that we have to follow certain rules only because they are rules. The way the Western institution of marriage is set up its natural that the prohibition on unfaithfulness is the natural product of the perks we enjoy in a marriage. Infidelity, deceit, and promiscuity is a direct breach of love, disclosure and faith. It’s a thesis antithesis relationship. It’s not that the marriage police will thrash you for your wrongdoings.
And BTW who moderates the moderator?
Like this comment?
1
I’m feelin the love, Skeleton. Feelin the love.
Like this comment?
1
Skeleton.
“R&C, the problem with arguing about the act is that morality is subjective and relative”
In essence yes. I do believe though that there are certain universal morals that are not relative to the limitations of time and space.
Look back at my dialectical discussion with Laura, I expounded on it a bit there.
Like this comment?
1
Is it too late to jump on the love bandwaggon? I love you too bro!
Like this comment?
1
R&C — I don’t believe trust and faithfulness have anything to do with the “Western institution of marriage”. Those are human values that most of us appreciate. But marriage has nothing to do with it.
It should be noted that ideas of fidelity exist even in relationships not proclaimed sacred by Church or State. They’re individual understandings between any two parties. But the values are not sacrosanct in and of themselves. They are set and defined by our own conceptions of what is good, right, and noble. And those, as Skeleton pointed out, are subjective and relative, up to each individual to embrace or reject as, most importantly, factors of consequence in any individual situation.
Like this comment?
1
HR.
I don’t disagree I never claimed that trust and faith are idiosyncratic and particular to marriage. Of course it’s a vital factor in every social relationship. Sexual infidelity is squarely characteristic of the marriage institution, though.
Like this comment?
1
Chezkel Shammes – what an appropiate name for the author of a piece that discusses those whose status & anxiety landed them staring up glassy eyed from the bottom of the pole. Chezkel Shammes’s legendary tolerance & simpathy for the conflicted souls that frequented Houses of Ill Fame & his tireless efforts to help them improve their situation r understandably not mentioned in this great post – after all is said & done it still remains up to the individual to deal with his own issues. What hurts is the banal & simple black & white picture painted in some of the comments. In contrast to Wil’amsburg Diaries, the presently most commented on post which attracted many insightful comments that deal with appropriate simpathy to the issue at hand, the thread on this chain is plagued with pontificaly sanctimonious judgements on the sorry condition of the sexually frustrated Orthodox male. As painfull as it is for a woman to feel cheated on & disillusioned she still has recourse – and the responsibility to herself and her children – to engage together with her husband in appropriate marital & SEXUAL therapy. Woe to the falsely PIOUS – Vey Tzidkascha – who LOVE to conveniently place the blame on the other for the unfortunate societal bonds that handcuff their ability to effectively surmount the challenges of modernity. While the clubs & escort services will continue to be frequented by and some of them will even welcome the elites of FRUM society – check the SHU”T to see how it played out historically – the overwhelming clientelle of those establishments r well represented by all elements of society.
Like this comment?
2
uh these strippers do not give a sh** about you. They want your money. So stop dreaming they want you, are lusting for you and want to marry you. Get over it.
Like this comment?
2
Of course strippers don’t care about their customers. I’m not sure you understand this piece at all.
Like this comment?
4
Hi there shalom
There is a Torah solution for this horny man problem, really, it is called polygamy.
This also solves the problem of prostitution. If all the vulnerable single women and all the horny married men could get together without shame and secrecy, wouldn’t that be great? The wives might not like it at first but then they might make friends with the pilegishim and could become very cozy if everyone worked at it.
What do you think?
Like this comment?
1
Zoney.
Polygamy is neither toirehdig nor is it a solution.
Hello, wake up, stop fantasizing. The wives befriending the concubines and massive orgies in the succah on the day of the great willow……Yeah, it would be totally great!! You quickly solved the wives problem of not liking it at first, it will be so cozy, everybody will be happy, polygamy is the key to utopia…..common, are you insane?
Like this comment?
1
Why all the sex here? Perhaps because there were no other forums for the frum or ex-frum to explore this avenue in this way. Even the apologists are doing here what they can’t do in their “home town media”. One person needed to start, then came the torrent. I’m sure it’ll cool.
For those of us not intimate with the two “conflicting” texts, the cautionary “Raishis Chochmah” and the “enabling” Talmud piece, could you elaborate more about them, what they really mean and how the story ties in to them? Are the Hispanic women allusions to the Spanish Kaballists. Is the thumbs up to the bouncer and the resolution to not return symbolic of the descent and ascent of the soul (what little I understand of these concepts)? Or, am I reading too much into this?
Shabbat shalom.
Like this comment?
1
BSM: I think it’s simpler than that; sex is a subject people love, or love to hate, frum, frei, or in between.
Re the conflicting texts, I don’t have sources at hand, but the “dress in black” text is a gemoroh in Kedushin, I believe. It’s generally understood to be not so much permission to sin as much as a reluctant concession towards the power and intensity of man’s sexual urges.
The counteracting (and far more emphasized) texts are found in various parts of the Talmud, and they warn against the various evils of sexual iniquity.
The Reishis Chochma has an entire chapter called, I believe, Shaar Hakdusha, in which the author details the horrific penalties for even the most minor of sexual transgressions. An additional source of no less severity (if less fantastical in its descriptions of the afterlife of the transgressor) is R’ Chaim Vital’s Shaarei Kedusha. Both of the above are heavy in mystical teachings, the basis of which later formed Lurianic Kabbalah.
Like this comment?
2
I think, also from memory, that the ילבש שחורים message is that in addition to the transgression itself, one must be mindful of the influence such behavier might exert on others – as the Medrash explains the אשר קרך with Amalek.
Like this comment?
1
Of course, the problem here is that even if one follows this advice and goes the extra mile (literally), one’s still damned, for המחלל שם שמים בסתר נפרעין ממנו בגלו and there goes the secret.
Like this comment?
1
BSM
I’m not familiar with Raishit Chuchmeh; I’m not a misogynist and I was never compelled to read it. All I can tell you is that the passage in tractate Qedushin quoted in the story is definitely the exception to rule than the established Talmudic norm. Here is an enlightening passage from Tractate Sanhedrin (75 amud 1) that exemplifies how stringent chazal really were on these matters. אמר רב יהודה אמר רב מעשה באדם אחד שנתן עיניו באשה אחת והעלה לבו טינא ובאו ושאלו לרופאים ואמרו אין לו תקנה עד שתבעל אמרו חכמים ימות ואל תבעל לו תעמוד לפניו ערומה ימות ואל תעמוד לפניו ערומה תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר ימות ולא תספר עמו מאחורי הגדר פליגי בה ר’ יעקב בר אידי ור’ שמואל בר נחמני חד אמר אשת איש היתה וחד אמר פנויה היתה בשלמא למאן דאמר אשת איש היתה שפיר אלא למ”ד פנויה היתה מאי כולי האי רב פפא אמר משום פגם משפחה רב אחא בריה דרב איקא אמר כדי שלא יהו בנות ישראל פרוצות בעריות ולינסבה מינסב לא מייתבה דעתיה כדר’ יצחק דא”ר יצחק מיום שחרב בית המקדש ניטלה טעם ביאה וניתנה לעוברי עבירה שנאמר (משלי ט) מים גנובים ימתקו ולחם סתרים ינעם:
Here is my poor attempt at translating these sublime gemureh. The gemureh relates an incident where a man laid his eyes on a certain woman. He became obsessed with her and he fell gravely ill due to his obsession. Doctors were summoned and their medical advice was “the man wont get better unless he sleeps with the woman of his obsession”. Concerning this case the sages ruled “its better that he should die than sleep with her” The doctors offered an alternative remedy. “let her stand befoe him naked and that might appease him.” The sages ruled, he should rather die than see her naked”. The doctors offred a third alternative, “let her converse with him from behind a barrier, maybe that will appease him.” The sages ruled , He should rather die than converse with the woman of his fantasy from behind a fence”.
There is an ensuing disagreement between R’ Yaaqov the son of Idi and R’ Samuel the son of Nachmieni on the status of the woman in question. One claims she was a married woman, whilst the other posits she was single. The gemureh than proceeds to state that its understanble the strictness the sages applied to the case if the woman was indeed married, but if the woman was unmarried what was the reason for the stringency of the sages ruling? The gemureh gives 2 resolutions. Either- to prevent familial shame or for the sole reason that Jewish girls shouldn’t be immodest in matters of intimacy.
I think the passage speaks for itself and no further explanation is needed.
In regards to the passage in Qedushin, the Rishonim on the daf claim that the gemureh never intended to permit the transgression of any form. The whole dressing up and venturing to a faraway place is more of technique to distract the consumed mind of the individual in question. Hopefully whilst going through all the preparations to do the aveyreh he will come to his senses, but of course it is not a permission to do as ones heart desires.
Like this comment?
2
Yoilish:
“I think, also from memory, that the ילבש שחורים message is that in addition to the transgression itself, one must be mindful of the influence such behavier might exert on others”
I think that one of the commentaries give that explanation on the passage, but that is still questionable, because in essence the explanation contends that the in the proper circumstances (in this case the avoidance of chilul hashem) the aveyreh is permitted. The explanation I brought down does away with the whole heter. If I’m not mistaken it’s the Ritv”a’s opinion and is the commonly accepted p’shat on the gemureh.
Like this comment?
1
“My feeble attempts at making conversation seemed only an unwelcome distraction from the Yahoo Messenger windows she kept open all day, chatting no doubt with hot and ripped hunks from the South Bronx. I could never compete.”
I enjoyed reading your story, most of us can relate to those feelings at least for me in the past…
If you were to invest 30 minutes a couple of times a week doing basic workouts, lifting weights, etc. you can be as ripped as any dude from the bronx. Just give it like six months and of course watch your diet too.
Like this comment?
2
R&C: Be careful, some might accuse you of working for Artscroll…
(Although your non-Charedi transliterations, “Yaqov” and “Qedushin,” might suffice to allay such suspicions.)
Like this comment?
1
Hahah. Nice to see that you chopped the usage of Q instead of K. I love to do this shit.
What is the difference between a oifgeklert chusid and a stam chusid? A stam chusid says “tekifas ha’geonim” and a oifgeklerte chusid says “the gaonite period”. Kedushin and Qedushin, is another one.
Like this comment?
3
Zoney Petunia,
That’s the problem with you guys. You make it a problem and then have the perfect solution. If someone doesn’t believe in god, he has ‘amunah problems’. And should go to a Chasidic brain-washer to restore his mind. If someone goes to a strip club, he obviously has a sex addiction, and you had the perfect solution for it.
Like this comment?
1
I haven’t read all the comments – who has the time.
But I am shocked that so many think all this is OK in the name of breaking free and exploring other worlds.
As someone who grew up in the secular world, I cannot fathom this kind of morality. What about the WIFE? You know, the one who finally, after years and years, relaxed enough, trusted enough, to enjoy her sexuality. What a betrayal.
What if SHE decided to ‘break free’ of tradition and spice up her love life? Would that be OK? I doubt the issue is halachic. After all, dear Samantha is nidda, etc.
There is a trust implicit in any normal relationship which you have shattered. It has nothing to do with religion.
This comment is well liked. Like it too?
17
Shira, maybe you should read the comments. I haven’t seen one commentator who claims that what the protagonist is doing is justified in the name of breaking free.
Like this comment?
2
OK, my fault. I read the bulk of the comments, and you are right; most people, thankfully, saw this as a huge problem.
I do hope the narrator used protection (however halachically unacceptable) and isn’t exposing his wife to disease on top of this humiliation.
Like this comment?
3
great writing.
Like this comment?
1
Thanks for the great post! You have a new fan.
Like this comment?
1
Why do women make such a big deal about sex? If you eat in a restaurant you are eating someone else’s cooking. Does your wife go crazy about that? No, because cooking is not as Intimate as sex. But that’s the whole point. Men need sex physically, like food. they need variety. For women, they use sex to define themselves and their worth. That’s the mistake. A women is more than just her sex.
Her brains, beauty, personality, style, opinions , all make her attractive as a package to her husband. Sex is important too, but its not the end of the world if the husband is on a business trip or at a party and fools around or even has a meaningless one night stand.
Just be safe.
I understand the women’s point of view, but I think they need to chill out and maybe take a testosterone pill to think more like a man. Why are women so emotional??
Like this comment?
1
moshele,
As a man, I find that statement incredibly depressing
Like this comment?
1
Tzippi, you’re such a whimsical pintaleh-yid moralist. The religious community is hopelessly entrapped within an ethio-hierarchical mindset that encapsulates the world’s every development and denizen. You’re merely taking that ethio-hierarchical mindset and swapping in a feminist engine, then revving that engine at 8200 rpm. I suggest you take a step back and try to appreciate men in our imperfect state in a sahamedi-like fashion. Admittedly the first time I tried doing this exercise with your gender, I ended up flaying my knuckles on a punching bag. I assure you though, the journey was worth it.
Like this comment?
1
oooh i love this.
ps: “why are women so emotional?” lolllll looks like you’re worked yourself into a tizzy. i’m just sitting here all calm. just saying. not all women value sex in the same way, just like not all men are somehow unemotional and only biologically driven… your argument is invalid.
Like this comment?
1
Luke Ford comes to mind as the writer of this piece.
Like this comment?
1
Tzippi Langstumpf, you are exactly right, and brave; I felt much less alone when I read your comment, thank you for it.
Most men who read this site and consider themselves to be rejecting the principles of Judaism do not also consider that American society is fundamentally and deeply based on Judeo-Christian belief; nor do they consider the fact (and it is fact) that Judaism is one of the most patriarchal schools of thought out there–it’s always been part of the Jewish male (who wrote both the Torah and Talmud exclusively, no female input) mindset that men are entitled to the sexual use of a woman’s body, and that men are also entitled to more than one woman, that there’s an obligation for a woman to be faithful to her husband that doesn’t compel a man in the same way; this has nothing to do with innate male drives, and everything to do with the fact that property and land rights, as well as last name, were passed through the side of the father among the Israelites–the Jewish patriarch wanted to be damned sure he wasn’t raising another man’s “seed” and so, strict controls had to be placed on the sexuality of Jewish women.
There’s the story of Tamar acting like a harlot with Judah, and plenty of others in the Torah and Talmud, that, at the very least, imply Jewish men were considered entitled to use women in prostitution if they wanted or “needed” to; this was better than “spilling seed” as well; if contemporary Jewish men–religious and non–continue to equate women with sex, to use women for sexual release, to use economic leverage to get sex from women who would not otherwise have sex with them, then, in my opinion, the least they can do is stop telling themselves this is somehow “violating” patriarchal thought or the principles of Jewish belief–these men, though seemingly unaware of it, remain stuck in the same mindset that women were created by a male god for men’s (their) pleasure, and to service their sexual needs, and that they themselves as males were somehow “made” by god (ex religious men switch out biologically determinant arguments about men and women’s sexual nature and “unconscious drives”–and we can thank Freud for a lot of that, who was not immune to the influence of Judaism himself–for god, but basically, they are still falling back on the argument that some “higher power” beyond their personal control “makes them do it”–meanwhile, not all men go to strip clubs, and certainly before the sexual objectification of women became as normalized and rampant as it is nowadays in pop culture, not all men used to)
I’m not a theist; my problem with men going to strip clubs is not about sex outside marriage, but with coerced sex; sex obtained through coercion means the woman isn’t having sex with you for her own sexual pleasure, & she wouldn’t have sex with you unless there were some external factor pressing her to do so–be it physical force, as in flat out rape, or be it economic force, as in pornography and prostitution which cater overwhelmingly to a male consumer pool; we live in a culture that titilates men CONSTANTLY with sexually subordinating, graphic imagery of women; men must learn the message that “this is what a woman IS and this is what a woman really WANTS–though you may have to ‘unleash her hidden nature’ or some such bs); no man in this culture is immune; and I don’t just mean porn, I mean the advertising we all see daily; women are socialized to believe we have no worth unless men find us sexually attractive (and you can see this clearly by how older women are reviled and treated as undesirable in this culture) and men are socialized to believe that happiness will come to them from fucking as many women as possible; both are empty promises, of course, but American culture is so saturated by the sex industry at this point that I don’t think most people, men or women, ever feel there are any other options.
Add to that the fact that men are encouraged not to feel and not to be connected with any of their emotions except maybe anger, and you get males who are uncomfortable with emotional connection in relationships; I’m sorry, but I refuse to believe this is some “innate” trait of men (though I know the Talmud says women are just more spiritual and moral and passive and blah blah–which, again, is PATRIARCHAL THOUGHT); I think men who feel lonely and alienated, from women especially (& I have to say, nearly every ex chassid male I’ve known has had some very painful rejection from the women in his life, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of them seem to feel literally afraid of women and/or women’s displeasure with them as a result), often turn to buying women in prostitution of some form or other; it seems like a quick fix–I don’t have to satisfy her because the money will take care of that–but then, the narrator of this story doesn’t sound like a very happy person, and I’d argue that’s because the human need (not a male or female need but a HUMAN one) to be personally known and accepted never really goes away)–and that tone I appreciate in this story; he seems to search for ways to blame the woman or accuse her of “manipulating him” somehow of course, but is that to assuage his own guilt? Really, what is she supposed to do? American culture says women are whores, that we’re supposed to be, and then men get mad when we believe this message about ourselves, or when we sell sex, playing the part men created for us in the interest of survival? Why wouldn’t we adapt, seriously? For a whole lot of women, the message that sex is all that we have to offer and all that’s worthwhile about us is drilled in constantly, & most women who end up working in strip clubs don’t have happy histories with the men in their lives either; many are abuse survivors; their “work” is basically just a way for them to keep reabussing themselves.
“It’s a healthy urge, I said to myself, as Cathy, the cute Hispanic receptionist, put another pile of mail on my already overflowing stack. Men all over the world feel the same, nothing unusual about it. Or perverted. I’m just healthy and normal, looking for what every male has looked for since the dawn of the Y chromosome.”
This is an interesting passage to me; the narrator seems to be trying to convince himself that thinking of women as just so much fuckable commodity is what he wants, and consistent with the person he wants to be; yet, again, he seems conflicted, at the very least, and ultimately dissatisfied with the time he spent at a strip club, or else why wouldn’t he keep going? And of course, the last sentence isn’t true–there’s a whole history of cultures that predated ancient Israel where women occupied a much higher status than they have for the past 5000 years or so, despite Y chromosomes being fully present; Gerda Lerner’s “The Creation of Patriarchy” is a great, thoroughly secular, read on that for those interested, but, bottom line, for a long time men survived really quite well without a multi-billion dollar a year sex industry to sell them access to women; that proves it’s very possible for a man to live without pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, etc. and it’s possible now too, (though I agree with one of the comments above, that this can really become an ADDICTION for many men, and, if a man has an addiction or sexually compulsive behavior, it doesn’t mean he’s “evil” or “bad” but habituated and dependent on a stimulus that works powerfully on the human brain; if he wants to stop, it’s a long process that requires a lot of courage, support, and self-forgiveness, and it’s very hard to do alone).
The notion that the sale of sexual access to women’s bodies to male consumers is okay though, just because a lot of men do it, is not a viable argument in terms of proving that strip clubs are “right” or destined to continue on indefinitely (you’ve already got secular governments in Iceland and Sweden who’ve banned them, and those aren’t religious countries, but rather, countries with a strong feminist presence at the government level, certainly not the case in the US); something can be “normal” in the sense that most people believe in it, without it being ethical or humane as well; the overwhelming majority of people in Nazi Germany believed Jews were a subhuman life form that should be eradicated; that was absolutely normal; in this country, now, the huge majority believe that everybody should follow and worship jesus christ and that those who don’t must burn in hell; that’s as “normal” as the belief that men going to strip clubs is healthy; however, just because most men do it, that doesn’t mean it’s the only worldview, or even a desirable one.
That’s all I have to say really.
Like this comment?
1