For a long time I've been torn over the debate of LGBT rights. As a student of American law, I realize that there is no constitutional or legal foundation for barring homosexuals from marriage. As a servant of God, I cannot in good conscience support something that is expressly forbidden.
I have finally found terms in which to express my conflict and its resolution, which is to be found in the obvious, yet oft ignored separation of church and state that governs American law.
It is simple, it is honest, and it is simultaneously true to Torah, to law, and to civil equality, as only the straightforward, and unapologetic approach can be; an approach I've seen expressed only once before in this blogpost.
It is obvious to me that LGBT people should be granted the right to civil marriage. Civil marriage is a status that grants people multiple financial benefits. To bar certain people from access to those benefits would be financial discrimination equivalent to barring them from access to mortgage loans or investment in mutual funds.
But that is civil marriage. It is defined by financial and medical benefits. It is a legal agreement for which there is no reason to bar any two people from entering together. It is a civil right.
And it is entirely independent of the institution of religious marriage.
Religious marriage does not bear with it any change in legal status. It does not entitle one to any benefits, legal, financial, or otherwise. It is subject to definition by each religious body that recognizes it, and as such, each religious body is free to establish its own definition. If a religion then maintains as one of its tenants that marriage is a relationship defined exclusively as existing between a woman and a man, then that is not discriminatory; that is an expression of their religious freedom.
It is no less a violation of their rights to ask religious institutions to recognize and perform homosexual marriages than is a denial to homosexuals the right to civil marriage a violation of theirs.
I will speak of my own religion: Judaism.
And when I speak of Judaism I speak only of Judaism as it is determined in the sacred texts and codified laws of our tradition.
The Bible very clearly defines marriage as, "when a man shall take a woman,"- a relationship that exists only between of opposite sex. Sex is defined in our laws according only to anatomical indicators. It is not defined according to identity, or any means of self-expression. A man is a human male, and a woman is a human female. It is further determined in our code of law that even if the ceremony of marriage is performed between two men it does not result in the creation of a religious marriage.
The Bible also states that sexual intercourse between two men is forbidden. Furthermore, that it is punishable by death.
It is worth mention that the same between two women is neither punishable nor prohibited. This is the greatest indicator that our laws are not determined by the whims or antiquated norms of the times and cultures in which they were recorded. Over the course of two thousand years of history, across the globe, in every language and in every society, our religious authorities have consistently said that if they could prohibit this they would. They condemn it, they revile at it in the most loathsome of terms, but they do not ban it, because there is no textual justification to do so.
To me this proves that our laws are indeed subject to rigorous legal method, not subjective bigotry, as would be obvious to anyone who lent them even cursory study.
So Judaism very clearly and unequivocally rejects homosexual marriage, and finds abhorrent any homosexual act, but does not express any opinion regarding the homosexual orientation itself or the people who feel it.
And I would ask of Jews to please recognize that if you choose to deny this, you do not accept the LGBT community into Judaism, you only alienate yourself from it.
So I do indeed support LGBT rights. I cannot understand how anyone could deny them any civil right that should be granted equally to all citizens of a democratic and pluralistic nation.
But I also support religious freedom, inclusive in which is the right to reserve the institution of marriage to those couples who fall within the definitions set by their religious tenants.
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Consensual Rape?
I recently read this article, in which a female college student describes a sexual experience, and explains the need to address situations that do not fall into the category of rape, but are still not consensual. It contains the following excerpt:
"I certainly didn’t feel like I’d been raped. But what had happened the night prior was not consensual sex, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the flirting. I wanted the kissing. I wanted the sleepover. But I didn’t want to go all the way. And that’s very hard to explain to a man who is just as drunk as you are."
I feel like I'm reading this:
"I wanted to jump off the cliff. I wanted to feel the air rush past my face. But I didn't want to hit the ground at the bottom."
All circumstances have natural consequences.
If you don't want the consequence, don't place yourself in the circumstance.
You didn't want to have sex?
You shouldn't have gotten into his bed.
You were drunk?
You shouldn't have drank.
He was drunk too?
His responsibility to remain sober does not mitigate yours.
I'm not saying we should blame the victim. Obviously, when one is in a vulnerable situation, predators are always at fault for taking advantage of them. But that doesn't mean that you should repeatedly throw yourself head-long into vulnerable situations. You are responsible for placing yourself there. There are times when vulnerability is forced, but it is often in part or in whole voluntary.
For that, the victim is not blameworthy, but certainly liable.
What's really ironic about this article is that she does not consider herself to be a victim, and she doesn't feel wronged. She admits that she willingly participated in something she didn't want to do, yet by the end of the article she never assumes responsibility for the occurrence. She speaks with the same rape prevention rhetoric of building awareness to create change so that this will stop happening to women. She deftly dodges even a hint of responsibility for an action she admits she did with agency.
There are two elements of judgement we face. There is din, our guilt for active transgression, and there is heshbon, our liability for passively averting merit.
This is definitely a case of heshbon.
Another problem she ignores is that her entire paradigm of sexual interaction sets her up for this. Her sexual ethic is described in two sentences:
"It shouldn’t have been a big deal–it’s just sex–so I didn’t want to make it one."
"Sometimes you have to have lunch with girls you don’t want to have lunch with, and sometimes you have to have sex with boys you don’t want to have sex with. "
If you think having sex with someone is as casual and polite a social interaction as having lunch, then it's no wonder you will end up being forced by whatever laws of social propriety you have chosen to direct your behaviour into as many unwilling acts of sex as lunch dates. (It also seems likely that if you have sex out of politeness it won't often be very good, which certainly seems to be the case for her male friend.)
But the author again admits that even she does not really accept the casual paradigm of sex that she and her friends have established for themselves. She writes,
"As we cuddled, I realized that what we had done was no different to him than the sex he’d had with anyone else. Overnight, I convinced myself it was no different to me, either."
You don't feel that way after a bad lunch date.
You recognize that a sexual experience has a unique affect on you that no other situation has. Clearly it is different. Clearly it is more personal, more vital, more elemental.
It ought to be clear that it thus deserves to be treated with greater respect, but somehow the gravity of sex has escaped you, perhaps due to the familiarity that comes with repeated exposure.
Maybe I'm just speaking from the ignorance of virginity, but virginity is a sexual experience too. It's one that I've chosen, because I believe that sex should be conducted in the context of mutual desire and the acknowledgement of exclusivity and commitment. I believe that because I recognize sex to be fundamental to human identity and a compelling factor in nearly all of our social and private interactions, even for us virgins. I believe that because sexual identity is so fundamental, it is something that should be treated with sanctity.
Men have a responsibility toward women to be aware of their vulnerabilities and wishes, and to respond honorably in accordance therein.
Women likewise have a responsibility to not enhance their own vulnerability and then blame the insensitivity and domineering lust of men for their negative experiences.
Din and heshbon.
"I certainly didn’t feel like I’d been raped. But what had happened the night prior was not consensual sex, and I didn’t like it. I wanted the flirting. I wanted the kissing. I wanted the sleepover. But I didn’t want to go all the way. And that’s very hard to explain to a man who is just as drunk as you are."
I feel like I'm reading this:
"I wanted to jump off the cliff. I wanted to feel the air rush past my face. But I didn't want to hit the ground at the bottom."
All circumstances have natural consequences.
If you don't want the consequence, don't place yourself in the circumstance.
You didn't want to have sex?
You shouldn't have gotten into his bed.
You were drunk?
You shouldn't have drank.
He was drunk too?
His responsibility to remain sober does not mitigate yours.
I'm not saying we should blame the victim. Obviously, when one is in a vulnerable situation, predators are always at fault for taking advantage of them. But that doesn't mean that you should repeatedly throw yourself head-long into vulnerable situations. You are responsible for placing yourself there. There are times when vulnerability is forced, but it is often in part or in whole voluntary.
For that, the victim is not blameworthy, but certainly liable.
What's really ironic about this article is that she does not consider herself to be a victim, and she doesn't feel wronged. She admits that she willingly participated in something she didn't want to do, yet by the end of the article she never assumes responsibility for the occurrence. She speaks with the same rape prevention rhetoric of building awareness to create change so that this will stop happening to women. She deftly dodges even a hint of responsibility for an action she admits she did with agency.
There are two elements of judgement we face. There is din, our guilt for active transgression, and there is heshbon, our liability for passively averting merit.
This is definitely a case of heshbon.
Another problem she ignores is that her entire paradigm of sexual interaction sets her up for this. Her sexual ethic is described in two sentences:
"It shouldn’t have been a big deal–it’s just sex–so I didn’t want to make it one."
"Sometimes you have to have lunch with girls you don’t want to have lunch with, and sometimes you have to have sex with boys you don’t want to have sex with. "
If you think having sex with someone is as casual and polite a social interaction as having lunch, then it's no wonder you will end up being forced by whatever laws of social propriety you have chosen to direct your behaviour into as many unwilling acts of sex as lunch dates. (It also seems likely that if you have sex out of politeness it won't often be very good, which certainly seems to be the case for her male friend.)
But the author again admits that even she does not really accept the casual paradigm of sex that she and her friends have established for themselves. She writes,
"As we cuddled, I realized that what we had done was no different to him than the sex he’d had with anyone else. Overnight, I convinced myself it was no different to me, either."
You don't feel that way after a bad lunch date.
You recognize that a sexual experience has a unique affect on you that no other situation has. Clearly it is different. Clearly it is more personal, more vital, more elemental.
It ought to be clear that it thus deserves to be treated with greater respect, but somehow the gravity of sex has escaped you, perhaps due to the familiarity that comes with repeated exposure.
Maybe I'm just speaking from the ignorance of virginity, but virginity is a sexual experience too. It's one that I've chosen, because I believe that sex should be conducted in the context of mutual desire and the acknowledgement of exclusivity and commitment. I believe that because I recognize sex to be fundamental to human identity and a compelling factor in nearly all of our social and private interactions, even for us virgins. I believe that because sexual identity is so fundamental, it is something that should be treated with sanctity.
Men have a responsibility toward women to be aware of their vulnerabilities and wishes, and to respond honorably in accordance therein.
Women likewise have a responsibility to not enhance their own vulnerability and then blame the insensitivity and domineering lust of men for their negative experiences.
Din and heshbon.
The truth about men, is that while they may all be created equal, they don't stay that way.
Some get better.
Some get worse.
Some degrade themselves so deeply that they violate the obligations through which they earn their right to live, and thus lose it.
Unfortunately, these have shown themselves to be not few in number.
Let none with a heart, soul or mind misplace mercy in them.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Body Comments
I feel like I could write a whole blog on rude comments people make about my body. I get a lot of comments about my body from people and most of them are rude. Of course it would be difficult for someone to comment on my body without being rude, because turning someone's physical appearance into a topic of discussion is as disrespectful as is chatting publicly about their psychological condition or medical history (How's that depression coming along, Mike? Any news on your heart murmur?). It's worse, in fact, because those at least may be expressions of concern or a poorly contrived attempt to offer advice. Making unsolicited comments about people's bodies is simply objectifying.
I recently had a conversation with a lovely woman that I've had with many lovely women many times after not seeing them for a while. It goes like this:
Them: Hi, how have you been?
Me: I've been well. I recently made a siyum on masechet brachot. How are you?
Them: Oh, I'm good. Have you lost weight? You look great!
Me: No, I haven't.
Them: Are you sure? But you look so good!
Me: I've actually gained ten pounds.
Them: ...... But, you look good.
Let's get one thing straight: I'm definitely overweight. My BMI is a few points higher than it should be, and I'm about fifty pounds heavier than my ideal weight. However, I'm very well proportioned and I dress neatly. If you look at me, it's no secret how much I weigh, but I don't look fat, and I do happen to be gorgeous. The truth of the matter though, is that this doesn't matter. The question would be as rude even if I were thin or had really lost weight.
Imagine that the question were turned on its head: "Have you gained weight? You look pretty fat!" Or if it were the same question, but had been directed toward some other aspect of my figure: "Have you had a reduction surgery? Your boobs look so small!"
Would any person with even the most minute perception of social conduct consider that question to be anything less than offensive? Especially in a society that so shamelessly touts the value of modesty.
It'd be one thing if they just told me I look good, but they must attribute it to the assumption that I'm thinner than I was last time I saw them. Is it so hard to believe that a fat girl can be beautiful? Or that a beautiful girl can be fat? Apparently so, because it violates our paradigm of beauty as blond, thin, white, short and petite, which is a strange paradigm to have considering how remarkably uncommon, not to mention unfertile, it is.
What this greeting tells me first is that any actual accomplishments I may have are negligible in significance compared to my attractiveness, and second that my good looks are actually contrary to my physical appearance. I shouldn't look good. I don't deserve to look good. But I'm lucky that I do.
Actually I'm not lucky. I look good, because I look good, fat and all. Having a wide build and fat deposits in the hips actually make a woman more capable of bearing children, and thus more desirable as a sexual partner. It's the evolutionary definition of sexy. A woman who is too thin or too petite can't bear children. Naturally, they may be able to bear one, but it would kill them. The original Caesarian section birth involved slitting open the abdomen of a woman whose hips were not broad enough to release her child. Until recently, having one's gut slashed apart generally meant the person died. Having multiple children by C-section is a medical miracle of the modern age. It has enabled us to spread a trait that is undesirable inasmuch as it is ineffective and deadly. The obsession with small waists, flat bellies and thigh gaps is simply destructive toward the propagation of a healthy human race, and from an evolutionary standpoint is a hideous deformity. Add to all this, if you please, our psychotic fettish with airbrushed, photoshopped female skin and glistening hair.
Here are some facts:
Women have body hair. You don't like it? Men, try shaving your crotch, see how comfortable that is.
Women have fat deposits that enable them to bear and care for children. This is sexy. Some of these deposits include hips, waist, thighs, breasts and upper arms.
Women's skin tone is not uniform. Women are as susceptible as are men to topical infections and chronic skin conditions or discoloration.
Women are not smooth. As stated above we have hair, and our skin is also made out of dead cells. These can be rough. They often cover fat deposits making the skin appear lumpy. This is known as cellulite.
Women get stretch marks. Giving birth stretches our skin out. Really quickly. So does developing a figure. Young women who have never given birth can have stretch marks too.
Women get scars too. Our skin does not magically regenerate itself.
Women have many kinds of hair. It can come in a wide array of colors, can be anywhere on a range from straight to curly and kinky, and it can be cut to any length and style a woman prefers, just like men's hair. It's almost like we're human!
Women get bags under their eyes. We have no more excess time than men do, and we frequently have less. Spending ten minutes every morning covering up the offensive blemish of a busy and productive life is a shameful practice, and even more shameful as an expectation.
Women do not have perfect complexions. We have networks of tissue under our skin that directs blood, lymph and other fluids throughout our bodies. The particular arrangement of these networks, and the color and thickness of our skin will determine where our skin appears more red. Color will not always appear as a smooth blush. It will often be patchy, splotchy or bright. Sometimes it won't appear much.
Women also get varicose veins.
Women's nails grow from the nail bed out. They do not come manicured. They do not come colored. They may bear white spots. They are not shiny or smooth.
Women may have short nail beds. This makes their nails appear stubby. It can also make their fingers appear stubby, which they sometimes are. Women can have stubby fingers.
Women have facial hair. Just like the rest of our bodies, hair grows on our faces as well. Women can have thick eyebrows, hair between their eyebrows, hair on their noses, cheeks, upper lip and chin. Some women have sideburns. This is normal.
Women get fat and develop many blemished after childbirth. Almost no woman has the same body before and after bearing children. It is stressful and will cause changes.
If you aren't aware of these obvious facts you're living a different world from the rest of humanity. If you refuse to become aware of them, then you have no place in the real world.
What really amazes me is how many women seem to be unaware of the reality of their own bodies. Many women and girls burden under the impression that all women look just like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is a very beautiful girl, but she's also one out of three and a half billion currently alive on the planet. Not all of them look like her. Not even all of the healthy or beautiful ones look like her. I have seen many healthy and beautiful women complain of their lack of health and beauty because the blond, thin, white, short and petite model fails to encompass their bodies. This trend has been directly linked to a public health crisis marked by psycological trauma as well as eating disorders that lead to anorexia and obesity among women. This sometimes becomes a cause of death in women spanning any age, beginning in childhood.
Another unhealthy product of this model is that is produces a population that is sexually unsatisfied. It has been found time and time again that more religious groups of people tend to have stronger family lives, have sex more often, and are more satisfied with their sexual relationships. This is no surprise, since religious groups tend to value modesty and discourage pornography producing a male population without obscenely perverted expectations. They also tend to place a stronger value on people's personal and spiritual accomplishments. I'll speak of the religious world with which I'm most familiar: the yeshivish world. Marriages are made based on people's mutually shared values and respect for each other's life decisions and goals, not the size of anyone's ass. A typical man and woman marry, and they have no previous sexual experience or exposure to anything that would have imposed a false standard of sexual pleasure on them. They sometimes have never heard of sex before. They do not become traumatized. They figure it out. They enjoy it. And the model of sexual contentment according to which they judge their relationship is their own relationship. When I was in Israel for my post high-school gap year, I met a sex therapist who worked within the Orthodox community. She mentioned in conversation that the more religious her clients were, the more sexually healthy they tended to be. I don't know how limited the range of her clientele's religious affiliation is, but that stuck with me, because I don't think it's a coincidence.
I recently had a conversation with a lovely woman that I've had with many lovely women many times after not seeing them for a while. It goes like this:
Them: Hi, how have you been?
Me: I've been well. I recently made a siyum on masechet brachot. How are you?
Them: Oh, I'm good. Have you lost weight? You look great!
Me: No, I haven't.
Them: Are you sure? But you look so good!
Me: I've actually gained ten pounds.
Them: ...... But, you look good.
Let's get one thing straight: I'm definitely overweight. My BMI is a few points higher than it should be, and I'm about fifty pounds heavier than my ideal weight. However, I'm very well proportioned and I dress neatly. If you look at me, it's no secret how much I weigh, but I don't look fat, and I do happen to be gorgeous. The truth of the matter though, is that this doesn't matter. The question would be as rude even if I were thin or had really lost weight.
Imagine that the question were turned on its head: "Have you gained weight? You look pretty fat!" Or if it were the same question, but had been directed toward some other aspect of my figure: "Have you had a reduction surgery? Your boobs look so small!"
Would any person with even the most minute perception of social conduct consider that question to be anything less than offensive? Especially in a society that so shamelessly touts the value of modesty.
It'd be one thing if they just told me I look good, but they must attribute it to the assumption that I'm thinner than I was last time I saw them. Is it so hard to believe that a fat girl can be beautiful? Or that a beautiful girl can be fat? Apparently so, because it violates our paradigm of beauty as blond, thin, white, short and petite, which is a strange paradigm to have considering how remarkably uncommon, not to mention unfertile, it is.
What this greeting tells me first is that any actual accomplishments I may have are negligible in significance compared to my attractiveness, and second that my good looks are actually contrary to my physical appearance. I shouldn't look good. I don't deserve to look good. But I'm lucky that I do.
Actually I'm not lucky. I look good, because I look good, fat and all. Having a wide build and fat deposits in the hips actually make a woman more capable of bearing children, and thus more desirable as a sexual partner. It's the evolutionary definition of sexy. A woman who is too thin or too petite can't bear children. Naturally, they may be able to bear one, but it would kill them. The original Caesarian section birth involved slitting open the abdomen of a woman whose hips were not broad enough to release her child. Until recently, having one's gut slashed apart generally meant the person died. Having multiple children by C-section is a medical miracle of the modern age. It has enabled us to spread a trait that is undesirable inasmuch as it is ineffective and deadly. The obsession with small waists, flat bellies and thigh gaps is simply destructive toward the propagation of a healthy human race, and from an evolutionary standpoint is a hideous deformity. Add to all this, if you please, our psychotic fettish with airbrushed, photoshopped female skin and glistening hair.
Here are some facts:
Women have body hair. You don't like it? Men, try shaving your crotch, see how comfortable that is.
Women have fat deposits that enable them to bear and care for children. This is sexy. Some of these deposits include hips, waist, thighs, breasts and upper arms.
Women's skin tone is not uniform. Women are as susceptible as are men to topical infections and chronic skin conditions or discoloration.
Women are not smooth. As stated above we have hair, and our skin is also made out of dead cells. These can be rough. They often cover fat deposits making the skin appear lumpy. This is known as cellulite.
Women get stretch marks. Giving birth stretches our skin out. Really quickly. So does developing a figure. Young women who have never given birth can have stretch marks too.
Women get scars too. Our skin does not magically regenerate itself.
Women have many kinds of hair. It can come in a wide array of colors, can be anywhere on a range from straight to curly and kinky, and it can be cut to any length and style a woman prefers, just like men's hair. It's almost like we're human!
Women get bags under their eyes. We have no more excess time than men do, and we frequently have less. Spending ten minutes every morning covering up the offensive blemish of a busy and productive life is a shameful practice, and even more shameful as an expectation.
Women do not have perfect complexions. We have networks of tissue under our skin that directs blood, lymph and other fluids throughout our bodies. The particular arrangement of these networks, and the color and thickness of our skin will determine where our skin appears more red. Color will not always appear as a smooth blush. It will often be patchy, splotchy or bright. Sometimes it won't appear much.
Women also get varicose veins.
Women's nails grow from the nail bed out. They do not come manicured. They do not come colored. They may bear white spots. They are not shiny or smooth.
Women may have short nail beds. This makes their nails appear stubby. It can also make their fingers appear stubby, which they sometimes are. Women can have stubby fingers.
Women have facial hair. Just like the rest of our bodies, hair grows on our faces as well. Women can have thick eyebrows, hair between their eyebrows, hair on their noses, cheeks, upper lip and chin. Some women have sideburns. This is normal.
Women get fat and develop many blemished after childbirth. Almost no woman has the same body before and after bearing children. It is stressful and will cause changes.
If you aren't aware of these obvious facts you're living a different world from the rest of humanity. If you refuse to become aware of them, then you have no place in the real world.
What really amazes me is how many women seem to be unaware of the reality of their own bodies. Many women and girls burden under the impression that all women look just like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is a very beautiful girl, but she's also one out of three and a half billion currently alive on the planet. Not all of them look like her. Not even all of the healthy or beautiful ones look like her. I have seen many healthy and beautiful women complain of their lack of health and beauty because the blond, thin, white, short and petite model fails to encompass their bodies. This trend has been directly linked to a public health crisis marked by psycological trauma as well as eating disorders that lead to anorexia and obesity among women. This sometimes becomes a cause of death in women spanning any age, beginning in childhood.
Another unhealthy product of this model is that is produces a population that is sexually unsatisfied. It has been found time and time again that more religious groups of people tend to have stronger family lives, have sex more often, and are more satisfied with their sexual relationships. This is no surprise, since religious groups tend to value modesty and discourage pornography producing a male population without obscenely perverted expectations. They also tend to place a stronger value on people's personal and spiritual accomplishments. I'll speak of the religious world with which I'm most familiar: the yeshivish world. Marriages are made based on people's mutually shared values and respect for each other's life decisions and goals, not the size of anyone's ass. A typical man and woman marry, and they have no previous sexual experience or exposure to anything that would have imposed a false standard of sexual pleasure on them. They sometimes have never heard of sex before. They do not become traumatized. They figure it out. They enjoy it. And the model of sexual contentment according to which they judge their relationship is their own relationship. When I was in Israel for my post high-school gap year, I met a sex therapist who worked within the Orthodox community. She mentioned in conversation that the more religious her clients were, the more sexually healthy they tended to be. I don't know how limited the range of her clientele's religious affiliation is, but that stuck with me, because I don't think it's a coincidence.
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