I beleive that whatever a couple mutually defines as cheating, is cheating, and there is no "right" or "wrong" definition, as long as each partner is comfortable with the definition. Open relationships do not violate this rule. However, often one partner will compromise - either by agreeing to not do something they would like to do, or by agreeing to let their partner do something they would rather have that partner not do. I understand that some degree of compromise is inevitable, but due to the nature of open relationships, I beleive that when the compromise is a couple's not being monogomous because of the needs of one person, at that point, it is not a compromise at all, but one partner capitulating to the other on something that defines the very nature of their relationship. So I think open relationships are prone to misuse.
Also, being non-monogomous is not a substitute for one person giving the other space, though many seem to think it is.
My other major beef with open relationships is that you are defining your relationship not in relation to your partner, but in relation to others (being with other people) or in relation to what is not present in your relationship (monogamy) as opposed to what is (love, affection, fun, etc.). This may seem like a minor semantic issue, but I beleive that words effect realities, and shape how we view things, giving form to self-fulfilling prophecies. Shaping discourse about something can become in effect, shaping the thing itself. I am not going to pretend to understand Foucault, though I have tried reading and re-reading various works by him, but that is what other people (ie college professors) tell me he said.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Open Relationships
Ok, now that I have tackled Random Hookups (yay!) time to move on to Open Relationships (Polyamory is all around us, and then the feeling grows.*):
There are two major types of open relationshops:
1. The couple is allowed random hookups, but not to date in a serious way.
2. All cards - both physical connections and emotional ones/real dating - are on the table.
Within these two categories, there are two physical sub-categories:
3. Yes to everything but sex.
4. Any physical action is ok.
I understand I have no right to judge; I know many people who are extremely happy with their open relationships. I am speaking right now about hesitations I have about the institution (leaving aside religious issues - clearly, Orthodox Judaism does not recognize the concept of an "open marriage" - nor would I want one - "Hey honey, I can't tuck the kids in tonight because I need to meet my lover at the S&M club down the street" - that might work for some people and make them very happy, but it's not my style.)
1. I would like to start off by observing that 90% of the people I know in open relationships either a) do not plan on getting married/winding up together permanently or b) see the open-ness as a remedy to the problem of dating long-distance, to be terminated once the couple is able to live near (or with) each other. I think that these facts say quite a lot about the nature of a long distance relationship: It is often either an indicator of doubts as to the long-long-term viability, or an imperfect remedy for having sexual needs that for whatever reason, can not currently be fulfilled by the partner in question.
Now, with these two facts in mind, I will explain my personal misgivings about this type of romantic attachment:
1. If you are saying that dating and physical connections are both on the table, you are essentially saying that you can not completely fulfill either each other's emotional or physical needs, and if you are both seriously dating on the side, you are both seriously seeking out romantic life partners who are not each other, which begs the question - why are you together in the first place?
2. If you are only having random hookups, whether or not those hookups involve actual sex, there is a major STD risk (yes, you can get herpes from a hookup that does not involve intercourse). You are basically limiting yourself to people you do not know, and often, people who engage in random hookups, since they tend to be with more people, have a higher risk of STDs, since they have more potential sources from whom to pick up disease. I do not mean this as a moral judgement; it is an unfortunate but true fact. This means your risk is higher as well. Of course, you could just go around having random hookups with people you know/trust they don't have STDs, but after a while, wouldn't that get pretty awkward?
3. If you are people who enjoy spending time together but sleep both with each other and with others, what makes you more than friends with benefits?
If any couples in open relationships want to respond, that would be great - I would love to learn more about this from people actually involved in it, and hear what they have to say. I have heard form my friends, but its a limited sample.
There are two major types of open relationshops:
1. The couple is allowed random hookups, but not to date in a serious way.
2. All cards - both physical connections and emotional ones/real dating - are on the table.
Within these two categories, there are two physical sub-categories:
3. Yes to everything but sex.
4. Any physical action is ok.
I understand I have no right to judge; I know many people who are extremely happy with their open relationships. I am speaking right now about hesitations I have about the institution (leaving aside religious issues - clearly, Orthodox Judaism does not recognize the concept of an "open marriage" - nor would I want one - "Hey honey, I can't tuck the kids in tonight because I need to meet my lover at the S&M club down the street" - that might work for some people and make them very happy, but it's not my style.)
1. I would like to start off by observing that 90% of the people I know in open relationships either a) do not plan on getting married/winding up together permanently or b) see the open-ness as a remedy to the problem of dating long-distance, to be terminated once the couple is able to live near (or with) each other. I think that these facts say quite a lot about the nature of a long distance relationship: It is often either an indicator of doubts as to the long-long-term viability, or an imperfect remedy for having sexual needs that for whatever reason, can not currently be fulfilled by the partner in question.
Now, with these two facts in mind, I will explain my personal misgivings about this type of romantic attachment:
1. If you are saying that dating and physical connections are both on the table, you are essentially saying that you can not completely fulfill either each other's emotional or physical needs, and if you are both seriously dating on the side, you are both seriously seeking out romantic life partners who are not each other, which begs the question - why are you together in the first place?
2. If you are only having random hookups, whether or not those hookups involve actual sex, there is a major STD risk (yes, you can get herpes from a hookup that does not involve intercourse). You are basically limiting yourself to people you do not know, and often, people who engage in random hookups, since they tend to be with more people, have a higher risk of STDs, since they have more potential sources from whom to pick up disease. I do not mean this as a moral judgement; it is an unfortunate but true fact. This means your risk is higher as well. Of course, you could just go around having random hookups with people you know/trust they don't have STDs, but after a while, wouldn't that get pretty awkward?
3. If you are people who enjoy spending time together but sleep both with each other and with others, what makes you more than friends with benefits?
If any couples in open relationships want to respond, that would be great - I would love to learn more about this from people actually involved in it, and hear what they have to say. I have heard form my friends, but its a limited sample.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Random Hookups
I have long argued the the culture of random hookups tends to hurt women more than men. This is because it is easier (as a general rule - of course there are exceptions!) for men to detach themselves from a hookup than it is for women. I beleive this is mostly due to socialization: Women are taught to expect/want sex only within the context of a serious relationship, are taught that their self-worth stems from such relationships, as well as from desirability (putting so much more pressure on each sexual encounter) and that hooking up outside of a relationship makes them a whore. Part of this however, is biological: Women tend to produce a hormone that encourages emotional attachment during sex - men do not produce this hormone.
Empirically, I have gotten a number of late-night phonecalls from girls with what I term post-hookup syndrome: Feeling used and rejected when it turns out the man really only wanted a one-night stand, feeling upset when said man avoids one afterwards, neglecting even the friendship which might have existed pre-hookup. I have yet to receive one such call from a man.*
I have developed a few theories about this phenomena. I don't know if any are right, but I suspect each is right for some situations but not for others, though there may be some situations not encompassed by these theories:
1. The girl secretly hopes for more than a random hookup, even though the guy says its all he wants, so she is dissapointed when what he said turns out to be true.
2. The girl lies to herself and really wants more (as she is conditioned to do by our society), but only realizes after that fact that she was lying to herself.
3. There was a sexual tension to the friendship/acquaintance-ship, and hooking up got rid of the tension this relationship was premised on, therefore, for the man, getting rid of the need for the relationship/further contact, whereas for the woman, who viewed the tension as part of but not all of the relationship, the need for it is still there.
4. The man is ashamed in some way, hence does not want to face the woman, who reminds him of his shame. (Like in Amon and Tamar: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b13.htm)**
5. The man has been told by society that girls can not handle random hookups, but will want to turn those into a relationship, and/or he has a big ego (perhaps because as a man in our patriarchal society, he is encouraged to have a big ego). He therefore interprets even normal, friendly, unromantic actions by the girl as evidence that she really wants him, and is pursuing a romantic relationship with him. He does not interpret such actions as evidence pre-hookup, because he has no "proof" she is attracted to him, but does interpret them as such once they are corroborated by the hookup-cum-proof. He thus avoids the girl, to send the clear message that he is not romantically interested in her, to counter-act her perceived romantic interest in him.
Closing Thoughts:
1. This paradigm could be changed if women were taught to dissociate emotion from sex, but would such a dissociation be "good" - would it be healthy? Isn't there something to be said for having sex mean something? Maybe the shift should be that men are encouraged to value sex as an emotional experience.
2. I am generalizing, and beleive that this generalization holds true because of the patriarchal way our society is currently structured, but here goes: The average woman, if she is with a friend she is not particularly attracted to/not romantically interested in, if he solicits her for a hookup, will not take it. The average man, on the other hand, will, as long as there is even the slightest amount of physical attraction. This observation is backed up by psychological studies, but I beleive those studies are biased. Evolutionary psychology in general has a tendency to reinforce stereotypes about women wanting emotional attachments more than men, because they need to look for a father who will help raise the kids, whereas men look for more sexual attachments to spread their seed, but I beleive that this is largely due to bias: Evolutionary psychologists often want to find results that enforce these stereotypes, precisely because those stereotypes reinforce the evolutionary theory that the researchers have even before they start designing their experiments.
Also, here is a link to an interesting article on the topic, that quotes from one of my favorite Sex and The City Episodes (hey, don't judge me!): http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29282186/ns/today-relationships/t/can-you-should-you-have-sex-man/
* I notice I use the words girls/man vs girls/boy or women/men. I beleive this has to do with the way our society disrespects women, but respects men - hence term of disrespect for females my age seems natural to me, whereas one of respect is my de facto for males. If you think"girl" is respectful: Know that in the south, during the Jim Crow era, African-American men and women were reffered to by white people as boy/girl, no matter what their age, as a matter of principle, in order to disrespect them. Both Richard Wright and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have mentioned this fact in various writings. I am too lazy to look up exact quotes right now.
** As Pirkey Avot says, "A love based on something - the thing dissapears, the love dissappears." It then gives the Amnon/Tamar story as an example - an attraction based on lust that evaporated once the lust was satisfied. Of course, here "friendship"or some other noun must be substituted for love.
Empirically, I have gotten a number of late-night phonecalls from girls with what I term post-hookup syndrome: Feeling used and rejected when it turns out the man really only wanted a one-night stand, feeling upset when said man avoids one afterwards, neglecting even the friendship which might have existed pre-hookup. I have yet to receive one such call from a man.*
I have developed a few theories about this phenomena. I don't know if any are right, but I suspect each is right for some situations but not for others, though there may be some situations not encompassed by these theories:
1. The girl secretly hopes for more than a random hookup, even though the guy says its all he wants, so she is dissapointed when what he said turns out to be true.
2. The girl lies to herself and really wants more (as she is conditioned to do by our society), but only realizes after that fact that she was lying to herself.
3. There was a sexual tension to the friendship/acquaintance-ship, and hooking up got rid of the tension this relationship was premised on, therefore, for the man, getting rid of the need for the relationship/further contact, whereas for the woman, who viewed the tension as part of but not all of the relationship, the need for it is still there.
4. The man is ashamed in some way, hence does not want to face the woman, who reminds him of his shame. (Like in Amon and Tamar: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b13.htm)**
5. The man has been told by society that girls can not handle random hookups, but will want to turn those into a relationship, and/or he has a big ego (perhaps because as a man in our patriarchal society, he is encouraged to have a big ego). He therefore interprets even normal, friendly, unromantic actions by the girl as evidence that she really wants him, and is pursuing a romantic relationship with him. He does not interpret such actions as evidence pre-hookup, because he has no "proof" she is attracted to him, but does interpret them as such once they are corroborated by the hookup-cum-proof. He thus avoids the girl, to send the clear message that he is not romantically interested in her, to counter-act her perceived romantic interest in him.
Closing Thoughts:
1. This paradigm could be changed if women were taught to dissociate emotion from sex, but would such a dissociation be "good" - would it be healthy? Isn't there something to be said for having sex mean something? Maybe the shift should be that men are encouraged to value sex as an emotional experience.
2. I am generalizing, and beleive that this generalization holds true because of the patriarchal way our society is currently structured, but here goes: The average woman, if she is with a friend she is not particularly attracted to/not romantically interested in, if he solicits her for a hookup, will not take it. The average man, on the other hand, will, as long as there is even the slightest amount of physical attraction. This observation is backed up by psychological studies, but I beleive those studies are biased. Evolutionary psychology in general has a tendency to reinforce stereotypes about women wanting emotional attachments more than men, because they need to look for a father who will help raise the kids, whereas men look for more sexual attachments to spread their seed, but I beleive that this is largely due to bias: Evolutionary psychologists often want to find results that enforce these stereotypes, precisely because those stereotypes reinforce the evolutionary theory that the researchers have even before they start designing their experiments.
Also, here is a link to an interesting article on the topic, that quotes from one of my favorite Sex and The City Episodes (hey, don't judge me!): http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29282186/ns/today-relationships/t/can-you-should-you-have-sex-man/
* I notice I use the words girls/man vs girls/boy or women/men. I beleive this has to do with the way our society disrespects women, but respects men - hence term of disrespect for females my age seems natural to me, whereas one of respect is my de facto for males. If you think"girl" is respectful: Know that in the south, during the Jim Crow era, African-American men and women were reffered to by white people as boy/girl, no matter what their age, as a matter of principle, in order to disrespect them. Both Richard Wright and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have mentioned this fact in various writings. I am too lazy to look up exact quotes right now.
** As Pirkey Avot says, "A love based on something - the thing dissapears, the love dissappears." It then gives the Amnon/Tamar story as an example - an attraction based on lust that evaporated once the lust was satisfied. Of course, here "friendship"or some other noun must be substituted for love.
Excerpts: 2
More Boyarin Excerpts
pg 82: "In midrashic texts, Eve is nearly always presented as the victim of the snake and not the victimizer of man. According to the midrash, the snake did not seduce Eve to have sex with Adam - she had already had sex with Adam - but rather, he seduces her to have adultery with him....human intercourse, even in this world, carries no stain, just as it did not for Adam and Eve..."Woman" in Bible and midrash, is almost never essentialized as something evil and dangerous, as a snare to man. According to the rabbis, there was no Fall into sexuality in the Garden of Eden. On the rabbinic readings, Adam has had intercourse with Eve from the beginning. Their intercourse is not associated in any way with the snake, the "forbidden fruit", or a Fall or expulsion from the garden. Licit sexuality, the intercourse of married couples, belongs not to the demonic realm of the snake, but to the innocent realm of the Garden of Innocence itself. Indeed, according to Genesis Rabbah 18:6, the snake became inflamed with lust for Eve because he saw Adam and Eve having intercourse with each other, and according to 19:3, he came and spoke to Eve while Adam was sleeping after having intercourse with her."
Pgs. 84-88 engage in a feminist readings of Pandor in Hesiod, and of a Pandora-like rabbinic midrash, in which Pandora's guilt is displaced onto Adam.
95-97: Boyarin cites Buckley and Gottleib, who point out that historically, when women have been excluded from male domains, such as "hunting gear", that object has been interpreted as prestigious, and women's exclusion signs of their inferiority, whereas when men have been excluded from a female domain - "such as menstrual blood" - that object has been classified as inferior, and women's inclusion signs of their inferiority. Boyarin then explains, "If as I have argued, within Rabbinic Judaism of the Talmudic period, even menstrual taboos did not constitute an essentialized fear and hatred of women as defiling, such interpretations were certainly latent and easily derived from the practices...In the rabbinic period...legends, fears, and terrors of women's sexuality apparently persisted below the official consciousness of textuality and culture. The evidence for the existence of such legends in the rabbinic culture, however, comes only from the repression or denial in the "official texts". The rabbinic culture (understood strictly here as the culture of the Rabbis themselves) did not countenance them. But from the Middle Ages on, they became well entrenched in rabbinic culture and official religion, paralleled exactly by similar changes in the discourse of menstruation from cultic disability to near-demonic contamination. The development of such demonized images of women...is, moreover, paralleled by a growing anxiety about sexuality itself during the Jewish Middle Ages. We could argue then, that mysogyny was a latent and predictable effect of the disenfranchisement of women, and even more so of the menstrual taboos themselves. We must not however, read the texts of classical rabbinic literature through the fear and hatred of women characteristic of the later period, running the risk, by doing so, of further cannonizing the mysogynistic position."
pg. 109: Baba Metzia 59a: "Rav Pappa to Abbaye: Don't people say," if you wife is short, bend down and whisper to her?""
pg.110 Nedarm 29a-b - worth looking up, too long to quote.
pg. 142-143, discussing Ketubot 61b: "In addition to the aspect of sexuality as an obligation a man owns his own body, ..the married man was considered by Talmudic law under a legal-contractual obligation to sleep with his wife regularly for her pleasure and benefit. This obligation was derived by the Rabbis from the verse that, when taking a second wife, a man must not "reduce the flesh, covering, or seasons" (Exodus:21:10) of the first wife...the hegemonic opinion is that "flesh" means food, "covering" refers to clothing, and "seasons" refers to the regularity of sexual intercourse. This obligation was made contractual in the standard rabbinically approved marriage contract, which reads, "I will feed you, clothe you, and have intercourse with you, in accordance with the customs of Jewish husbands."
pg. 227-228: "My assumption is we can not change the actual past. We can only change the present and the future, in part by changing our understanding of the past. Unless the assumption is that the past is ... a burden to be thrown off...then constructing a monolithically negative perception of the past and cultivating anger at it seem to be counterproductive and disempowering for change. Finding only mysogyny in the past reproduces mysogyny; finding only a lack of female power.autonomy, and creativity, reifies female passivity and victimhood. In contrast to this, recovery of those forces in the past that opposed the dominant andocentriscm can help put us on trajectory for empowerment and transformation."
*****************************************************************************
Thanks to a friend for sharing the following link: http://nes.berkeley.edu/Web_Boyarin/BoyarinArticles/
Book Excerpts: 1
Excerpts: Carnal Israel, by Daniel Boyarin
Below are excerpts from the book that I found particularly fascinating. There is a pro-sex bias in my selection.
The rabbis said: Since it is a time of God's favor, let us pray regarding desire for sexual sin. They prayed and he was committed into their hands. God said to them. "Be careful, for if you kill him, the world will end." They imprisoned him for three days, and then they looked for a fresh egg in all the Land of Israel, and did not find one. They said, "What shall we do? If we kill him, the world will end. If we pray for half* in heaven they do not answer halfway prayers. Blind him and let him go." At least, a man does not become aroused by his female relatives." (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 69b), pg. 61. Boyarin, pg. 62: "The crucial part of the story is that halfway prayers are not answered. It is this that gives us the crucial clue to the rabbinic psychology and their concepts of the Evil Desire. In order for there to be desire and thus the possibility for sexuality at all, they are saying, there must also be the possibility for illicit desire. Desire is one, and killing off desire for illicit sex will also kill off desire for licit sex, which is necessary for the continuation of life...the desire for sex it itself productive and vital, but it has destructive and negative concomitants. These concomitants need to be controlled, and can be, but only with difficulty."
Pg. 65: Boyarin brings the story of Abbaye, who seeing a man and a woman (not married to each other) about to embark on a journey together, is convinced they will wind up having sex, and is saddened when he is proven wrong. "Said Abaye, if that had been me, I would not have been able to control myself." He went...and was miserable. A certain old man...taught him, "Everyone who is greater than his fellow, his Desire is greater also." (Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 52a) Boyarin explains: "The very passion that drives Abbaye to study Torah and become a "great man"...one learned in and devoted to Torah, is the same one that would have prevented him from simply saying goodbye to the woman and parting from her without sex. ...The same desire that will lead man in the study house to study Torah will in bed lead him to have intercourse with his wife, and this is the very same drive that will lead him into sin when he is alone with a woman to whom he is not married. The passion is one."
* Rashi - ie that people will only desire licit sex
Part 2
Part 2: The Sequel Never Has To Be As Good.
While I do try to separate morality from halacha, I do also believe that Judaism does have an ethical framework. I believe that certain halachot are manifestations of this framework, while others are not, and are morally neutral - or sometimes even morally troubling.
When it comes to sex, I do believe that certain sexual halachot fall under this framework, within the confines of "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself", which I believe translates into my axiom of "Do not consciously use sex or your sexuality to hurt yourself or others".
Example of "moral" sexual halachas:
1. Obligation to provide a wife with sustenance, clothing, and sexual satisfaction, to the point where if a husband refuses to sleep with his wife for an extended periods of time, it is seen as legitimate grounds for divorce. Need I say more? Yes - I would like to emphasize that this halacha treats a woman's sexual desire as legitimate, despite being formed in a social context that often saw such desires as harmful, or ignored them, depending on the specifics of the situation.*
2. Laws about not thinking about person A while having sex with person B
3. Having sex nude, as opposed to clothed. (There are conflicting sources about this, however, the pro-clothing source is framed as a story, the anti-clothing source as a halachik ruling.) This is presumably because wanting to have sex with a woman clothed bespeaks a lack of desire on the man's part, as can be seen from the language: "Rav Yosef cited in a tannaitic tradition, "Flesh: This means the intimacy of the flesh, namely that he should not behave with her in the manner of the Persians, who make love while dressed. This supports the view of Rav Huna, for Rav Huna said, "One who says I do not desire it unless she is in her clothing, and I in mine, must divorce his wife and pay her the marriage settlement." (Kettubot 48a, cited in Boyarin 48) The rabbis were so concerned about having a husband not sexually desire his wife properly (which could lead to her feeling hurt) that they suggested having sex in the dark lest the light reveal a blemish on her body.***
4. Consent - having sex with a woman without her consent is considered a major breach of Jewish law.
Normally, when it comes to forbidden things that do not seem to have a moral valence, I classify those halachas a morally neutral. An example of this is kashrut: It is morally neutral to not eat pork, despite being halachikly forbidden. It is a restriction, but not a major imposition on a person's life.
When it comes to sexually forbidden things that have no moral valence however, I must classify those halachot as morally problematic, because sexuality is such an essential part of a human being, that any restriction in that area is a major denial of an important part of the human experience.
For that reason, I am glad that Judaism generally has a permissive attitude towards sexual behavior: As long as it is within marriage, whatever you do is ok, even if it is not for purposes of procreation.**
Even sex outside of marriage, while viewed as undesirable, is not viewed particularly harshly in Talmudic Judaism. The children of such unions are not mamzers. Furthermore, such unions can be legitimized either a) through using sex as a means of marriage b) through the institute of pilegesh, concubine. As a matter of fact, the ban on single women immersing in ritual baths and on marrying through sex only came later, supporting Boyarin's contention of a negativity towards sex emerging later on, in response to the negative discourse of the mainstream culture that Judaism found itself in during exile. I am not saying that this phenomena is not problematic in it and of itself, but because I believe rabbis to be imperfect interpreters of a Divine Revelation, I am more concerned with issues in the Talmud and Torah, documents that I believe to be sufficiently influenced by such revelation that their authority can not be abrogated.****
Because of this, I am very concerned however, about two main realms of sexual halacha that do forbid actions I believe to be sexually neutral: Nidah and male homosexuality. I will deal with this in my next note.
* The Pandora story has been read by many modern feminist scholars as a treatise on the dangers of woman's sexuality.
** This is evidenced by allowance to have sex whenever one wants, even if one or one's spouse is post-menapausal or pregnant. There is an opinion that after ten years a couple should get divorced if they have no children, but this opinion has long been marginalized and is undermined by the very text itself in the presentation of the opinion, which "came to be honored more in the breach than in the observance". (Boyarin 54) For more on the marginalization of this opinion, please seeדרכה של הלכה: קריאת נשים בתורה, מאת דניאל ספרבר
*** Rav Yosef says the word "Flesh", expounding on that word's appearance in Exodus:21:10, Daniel Boyarin, explains, "Among the three debts a man owes his wife are "her flesh, her coverings, and her seasons"' (Exodus 21:10) While the last is normally understood to mean sexual relations and the first to mean food, Rav Yosef knows of Babylonian tradition (perhaps Palestinian in origin, but not cited in Palestinian texts) that interprets the first term to mean bodily intimacy, the touching of skin during sexual intercourse, and he interprets this to mean nudity during sex." (Boyarin 49)
**** For more on Jewish concubinage, please download Zvi Zohar's lecture at Mechon Hadar: http://www.mechonhadar.org/web/guest/online-learning/guest-presenters
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)