I once more blog my crazy thoughts

A friend recently sent me this article about hookup culture, basically claiming that women are behind much of today's hookup culture on campus, because they're too worried about/busy with grades and career to have time for a real relationship, yet some women don't like hookup culture and refuse to buy in.

A few thoughts on the article:

1. One of the girls only has sex at the guys' places, because she doesn't want to have to wash her sheets, thus violating the motto, "Never have sex with someone not worth washing your sheets for".
2. This article shows how capitalism dehumanizes people: These women value themselve solely by their labor, and their productivitiy, because that is how society values them. They measure their lives through cold economics, engaging in "cost-benefit" analysis, and discussing "trading up" verse "trading down", before deciding that in order to be the productivity-vehicles the modern economy requires, they have no time for human relationships.
3. The coerciveness of modern feminism is also at work: Women complain they feel they cannot be in serious relationship while young, because they will be ostracized, for having "given up" on a career. Society's attitude perpetuates the myth that career and romance are incompatible (for women, not for men, of course), and helps turn the myth into the reality.
4. Some of the women interviewed said that they started hooking up in response to the reality that they weren't going to get boyfriends, because men didn't want commitment. This shows that in formulating the laws governing pre-marital sexual contact, the rabbis were on to something: Yes, if you let people have sex without commitment, the incentive for commitment decreases, and more people opt out of committed relationships.
5. A researcher interviewed said that women get more sexual pleasure from committed relationships than hookups, because men in hookups care less about the woman's pleasure, whereas women tend to care about their partners' pleasure, even in a one-night stand. This makes sense: Women are taught to constantly please others, and their their worth is dependent on how much men value them sexually. Society teaches men neither of those lessons.
6. According to the article, "Women said universally that hookups could not exist without alcohol, because they were for the most part too uncomfortable to pair off with men they did not know well without being drunk. One girl, explaining why her encounters freshman and sophomore year often ended with fellatio, said that usually by the time she got back to a guy’s room, she was starting to sober up and didn’t want to be there anymore, and giving the guy oral sex was an easy way to wrap things up and leave."

In my opinion, any social phenomena that most people must be drunk to follow, and that results in widespread giving of blowjobs by ambivalent women, is a negatiave development. 

7.  The article points out that "The close relationship between hooking up and drinking leads to confusion and disagreement about the line between a “bad hookup” and assault." 

 It also gives an example:She went to a party with a boy from her floor. She had too much to drink, and she remembered telling him that she wanted to go home. Instead, she said, he took her to his room and had sex with her while she drifted in and out of consciousness. She woke up with her head spinning. The next day, not sure what to think about what had happened, she described the night to her friends as though it were a funny story: I was so drunk, I fell asleep while I was having sex! She played up the moment in the middle of the night when the guy’s roommate poked his head in the room and asked, “Yo, did you score?”Only later did Haley begin to think of what had happened as rape."

 The more interesting question, however, is what happens when an extremely drunk woman gives signs of consent to a man who doesn't realize the extent of her insobriety? What happens when two drunk partners sleep together, and one wakes up and in retrospect feels they did not give consent - yet had given no signs of lack thereof when the hookup occurred? Does a steep differnce in degree of sobriety between partners automatically imply some sort of assault?

These questions must be carefully pondered, because while victims must be protected, being too quick to classify ambivalent cases as "assualt" makes it harder to properly punish perpetrators of clear-cut sexual abuse. Today's hookup culture necesitates a term for something that lies in between consent and assault, as well as a discussion on how to deal with people who perpetrate acts in this third category.

8. The article also discusses how for some people, it is difficult to completely separate between sex and emotion. For such people, hookup culture is extremely difficult: Often, they will wake up the next morning craving an emotional attachment that the other partner is completely uninterested in.  One such person found that her dissapointment with hookup culture changed her attitude towards marriage:

"Catherine had thought she would wait to get married until her late 20s or early 30s. But her college experiences had made her think that she would rather marry young than throw away a good relationship because it wasn’t the right time.

That might mean having to pass up certain career opportunities, for geographic reasons. But Catherine thought that her peers underestimated how hard it was to find the right person to be with — as hard, perhaps, as finding the right job.

“People kind of discount” how “difficult it is to find someone that you even remotely like, let alone really fall for,” she said. “And losing that can be just as impractical and harmful to yourself, if not more so, than missing out on a job or something like that. What else do you really have at the end of your life?”

 Catherine's wise words remind me of the midrash that God sits in heaven all day, pairing people up - because when two people find each other, and are able to love each other, it truly is a miracle.

Modern American Feminism: A Critique (Get Ready to Read About My Underwear)

At first when I read this article I thought it was funny - and it is. To sum up (for those too lazy to click on the link) a feminist released pseudo-Victoria Secret ads featuring a variety of differenly colored and shaped women, wearing underwear with slogans such as "Consent is sexy". Personally, I would buy such underwear, both because consent is sexy, and because it's just funny.

But when I thought about the interview with the women behind this project, I realized it revealed a lot of the issues I have with modern American feminism: 1. I do not think Victoria's Secret is obligated to take a stand on women's issues because it happens to sell underwear marketed at women. Something such as "we are anti-rape and genocide" should be assumed to be true of all businesses, unless stated otherwise - or unless they act in a way that indicates the opposite (for example, supporting the Sudanese government or having workplace environments that tolerate sexual harrassment). It would be nice if VS took a stand, and the next wave of charity might be harnessing the altruistic abilities of profit-making organizations, but it is not obligatory, any more than it would be obligatory for any other company. 2. I might not like the super-frilly lace things that VS sells, but I'm not sure how wearing (or marketing) them conflicts with the concept that consent is sexy. I don't think it is giving into rape culture or the patriarchy to wear pink underwear - unless, of course, my black thong with white rhinestones (don't judge me- I bought it when I was twelve) somehow means that I was "asking" for it, in which case you yourself are perpetuating the attitude of rape culture. It is normal to want to look sexy, both for yourself and for your partner. If for you VS undies do the trick, then gezunt aheit.* 3. I do think that the attitude that the only way to look sexy is to wear certain type of underwear (since when did nudity become unfashionable? Have men suddenly stopped liking women's naked bodies, that they need to see that g-string?) is unhealthy - and Victoria's Secret may be accused of selling that message in its marketing campaigns, as well as selling the message that only one type of body is sexy. This is a legitimate critique, but must come within the context of a more general critique of the fashion industry, since VS is not the only company guilty of this.

There is a real women's rights issue with VS - they use slave-like labor producing their products. I have long argued that women's rights and human rights are the same, and have no desire to repeat the argument now.** Suffice it to say: 1. Some of the children being forced to harvest cotton are females 2. Most of these children have mothers, who are pained by the situation (and father's who are pained by it as well) 3. Some of the male children will grow up and mate with women bearing the emotional scars of modern day slavery.

All of the reasons above are only part of why child labor is a very real women's rights/human rights issue - and it would be much more productive to have a conversation about that, then about whether or not VS's current underwear designs "lean more towards rape culture". I am not saying that conversation has no value, but it's time for modern-day, American feminism to get its priorities right. If feminism is about helping and empowering women, let's help empower women working against female genital mutilation in Somalia, or even help a homeless women on our local street-corner, before we complain about the design of slave-made cotton underwear.

* An extension of the "pink undies give into the patriarchy" idea is that all hetero sex gives into the patriarchy. I oppose this idea: Some women are biologically programmed to want to screw men. Fulfilling this desire is an act of empowerment, a feminist act. Sleeping with women when you like men, would just be an exercise in misery, thus opressing women. But yes, feminism must aim to level the playing field, so the power dynamics between the genders allow women to pursue male mates or female mates in a world of equality between males and females, and yes, the current inequality between the two does impact the average straight girl's lovelife in a very real way.
** If a woman is opressed, it is a women's rights issue - but it's also a human rights issue because she is human - and I believe the second formulation is more productive, both in terms of marketing and of substance. Read Simone de Beauvoir and get back to me.

on to the judaism part

I found this dvar Torah in my inbox, that I wrote a few years ago - and bc im so modest, decided to publish it:

I want to take a few minutes to explore the applications of Levina’s concept of responsibility in this week’s Torah portion as well as the limits of those applications. To summarize: In this week’s Torah portion, Toldot, Isaac and Rebecca are barren. Isaac prays and Rebecca conceives twins. She receives a prophecy that the oldest twin, Esav, will worship the younger one, Jacob. At one point Esav sells his birthright to Jacob. Unaware of this fact, Isaac tries to give Esav the special blessing for the firstborn, but is tricked by Rebecca and Isaac and winds up giving the blessing to Isaac instead, thus fulfilling Rebecca’s prophecy.

    In Genesis 25:21 it says,  וַיֶּעְתַּר יִצְחָק לַיהוָה לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ, כִּי עֲקָרָה הִוא; וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ יְהוָה, וַתַּהַר רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ. “And Isaac entreated God while facing his wife, and God entreated Isaac, and Rebecca became pregnant.

    In this scene, Levinas’s conception of responsibility is at work: It is Isaac’s facing Rebecca that imbues him with the responsibility to pray for children on her behalf. At the same time, Isaac faces God as an ethical being, and this face-to-face (so to speak) encounter with God is defined by each facer taking responsibility for the fac-ee: Thus, just as Isaac “entreats” God, so too, God “entreats” Isaac, (actively allows himself to be entreated and grants Isaac’s request.)

    Contrast this with a later scene: Coming home exhausted and hungry from a day of hunting, Esav sells his birthright to Jacob in exchange for lentil stew, reasoning in Genesis 25: 32, “I am going to die anyway, of what use to me is a birthright?” The Torah censures Esav’s actions; the birthright blessing was designed to help Esav fulfill his potential as a human being, but Esav, being tired from his hunting career, did not feel up to the challenge, so he gave up on it, ate and went to bed.

    Why did one face-to-face encounter result in responsibility, while the other resulted in an evasion of responsibility?   

    The answer lies in the presence of God in each encounter: Isaac faces Rebecca as a man who stands before God, thus imbuing him with responsibility towards his wife qua his relationship with and responsibility towards God. Whereas for Esav, God is not in the picture. I just want to note for a second that if one wants to get Soloveichikean about it, one could argue that Isaac is homo religiosus, Esav is cognitive man, and Jacob is halachik man.

    This is where the limits on the applicability on Levinas’s coneption of responsibility come into play:  For Levinas, the face-to-face encounter in it and of itself becomes the imperative for responsibility, while in the Torah, the human face-to-face encounter is not enough; it is the encounter with God that turns the human face-to-face encounter into the moral imperative.

    We constantly face exhaustion and the temptation to be like Esav:  How many times, tired from all-nighters, is it so tempting to give up on whatever it is that is really important to us, whether it is religion, fighting genocide in Darfur, or spending time with friends? It is important to remember however, that ultimately our humanity is more important than our academic career, and to not give up on our goals for ourselves as people in the course of pursuing academic success.

    Secondly: As students, we come into daily face-to-face encounters with multitudes of people. Do we use these encounters to engage in responsibility and ethical relationships with people, or do we, like Esav, seek to evade responsiblity?

    I hope that this semester we can all engage in meaningful, responsible, and ethical relationships with ourselves, with God, and with each other.

 *************************************************

I have notes on the bottom, positing maybe Yitzhak is homo religiosis, Esav is cognitive man, and Jacob is the halachik man, as per the Rav Soloveitchik, but I never really fleshed out that idea - please feel free to take a shot at it and let me know what you come up with :)

Divorce and Anullment - Woohoo!

One of the claims made against Orthodox Jewish law is that it is sexist, because while the husband must grant the wife a bill of divorce in order to enable her to be legally divorced - and thus, entitled to remarry - the husband needs no similar document from the wife. This makes the system open to abuse, by men who wish to keep their wives legally married, in order to extract money from them (by demmanding money in exchange for the bill of divorce), or to exact revenge. Such men, if they took upon themselves second wives while still not having granted their first wives a bill of divorce, would only be considered to be violating a rabbinic prohibition by Rabbi Gershom, whereas the wives they keep legally married would be considered adulteresses on a Biblical level.****

Today, it is common for communities to ex-communicate men who refuse to give their wives a bill of divorce, known in Hebrew as a get, but the man in question can simply move to another community, where his antics may be unknown, so the ex-communication has a limited effect. Technically, a woman might move to a place where her previous-marriage-that-is-still-legally-binding is unknown, and marry some hot stud, but most of Orthodox women would consider doing so to be a direct violation of the Torah commandment against adultery, so their conscience holds them back.

The Talmud was extremely aware of the system's potential for abuse. For that reason, it ruled it permissible to physically beat a recalcicrant husband into submission. Persumably, a good thrashing managed to bully men into giving their wives a get, in a way that ex-communication today does not. Also, keep in mind that at the time ex-communication was devised as a form of punishment, the world was formed of micro-communities, with each person's health and livelihood dependent on their community, so ex-communication had very serious consequences.

As a further safeguard against abuse, the rabbis instituted a legal mechanism for anulling marriages. The theory went like this: Every Jewish couple marries with the understanding that they are marrying according to the rules of the rabbis, thus, if at some point in the future, the rabbis want to anull the marriage, they technically have the right to do so. Because the couple is aware of the "This marriage is only valid as long as the rabbis say it is" clause in the marriage contract (which Rashi points out, is implied in the language of the marriage ceremony: "You are betrothed to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel"), at the time they make the contract, this "The rabbis can annul this marriage" clause is valid. Thus, rabbinically anulling a marriage after it's taken place, is simply legally using a clause that the couple themselves put in their marriage contract on their wedding day.

The rabbis are clearly not in favor of going around anulling marriages - as a matter of fact, almost every time it rules that a marriage anullment is permitted, it makes sure to include Ravina's (ultimately rejected) objection to the entire concept of rabbinic marriage anullments. I do not believe this is a mere rhetorical ploy, but rather, the editor's subtle way of underscoring that while permissible in certain circumstances, rabbinic marriage annulments are only to be used sparingly, because yes, the entire concept is problematic.*****

I plan on bringing two cases in the Talmud when the rabbinic power of annullment is used in response to inappropriate action by the husband. There are other cases when the Talmud allows anullments for different reasons, but my goal is to prove that annullment can be used in response to the husband's misdeeds, not to prove that it can't be used for other reasons.

In Baba Batra, 48:1, the Talmud explains that if a woman is forced into a marriage, the marriage is invalid. "He acted with her improperly, thus we act with him improperly, and retroactively anull the marriage." Thus, anullment is seen as something negative, yet necessary. The anullment prevents the woman from being taken advantage of by a man who acts improperly. The goal of the law is to protect the women's agency, her ability  to not be forced to stay in a marriage she does not want to be in.

Tosfot, commenting on the passage, note that the reason the "all people marry in accordance with rabbinic law, thus the "rabbis-can-annull-this" clause is built into the marriage contract, is not given as the reason behind the annullment in this case, is that the man in question clearly married in full knowledge that he was acting against the will of the rabbis.* This shows that Tosfot considered a woman's free choice in the matter to be essential enough to rabbinic matrimonial values that any man violating them must be one who consciously flouts the will of the rabbis.

The second case is in Yevamot 110., in the case of a woman in Narsh, a city notorious for cime, who was betrothed at a young age, and then kidnapped right before the actual wedding.** The Talmud rules that the woman does not need a get from her second husband (the kidnapper) because, "He acted with her improperly, thus we act with him improperly, and retroactively anull the marriage." Once again, an argument could be made that the rabbis are worried about a woman being forced to stay in a marriage she doesn't want to be in, since presumably she did not want to be kidnapped, and they were living before the discovery of Stockholm Syndrome.*** In any event, it seems that a husband's improper actions are grounds for anullment - as Tosfot points out, even if the marriage was done without the implied clause of "I'm marrying with the permission of the rabbis and this marriage lasts only as long as they approve".

Based on the above, it is clear that according to the Talmud, one of the major sources of Orthodox jurisprudence, if "a man acts improperly", the rabbis may retroactively annul the marriage, thus obviating the need for the man to give the women a get. Thus, one could argue: A man refusing to give his wife a get is acting improperly. Furthermore, it is acting improperly in such a way that it will force the woman to stay in a marriage she does not want to be in - the very type of impropriety mentioned in the two cases above. Thus, this impropriety is grounds to institute the principle of "He acted with her improperly, thus we act with him improperly, and retroactively anull the marriage.", thus annulling the marriage, and allowing the woman in question to be legally single without her husband giving her a get.

If this is the case, then the problem is not the Orthodox law per se, rather, the unwillingness of the rabbis to properly implement the law. The rabbis could make it a policy to anull the marriage of any couple where the man does not give the woman a get (unless he has a good reason behind his actions) - they certainly have the legal power to do so, they simply prefer not to use it.

But if anything, the extent to which the rabbis of the Talmud are willing to extend rabbinic power beyond the limits of what they are comfortable with, and to rely on all sorts of leniencies in order to make the laws of divorce more flexible, in a way favorable to women, shows the importance they placed on the value of protecting women from abuse within the halachik system - perhaps because they understood that such abuses violated the halachik principle of "The Torah's ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are paths of peace." Thus, such annullments would not only be using legal measures sanctioned by the Talmud, but they would also be upholding the values implied in those measures. Which begs the question of why the rabbis don't anull - a question whose answer depends on socio-historical, not religious, factors.

The question might then be asked: If the rabbis cared about the rights of women so much, why didn't they simply say that just as a man must give his wife a bill of divorce, so too, a wife must give one to her husband?

The answer lies in the verses themselves: Deutoronomy, 24:1: "When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it cometh to pass, if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house, 2 and she departeth out of his house, and goeth and becometh another man's wife, 3 and the latter husband hateth her, and writeth her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; 4 her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD; and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."

In the verses above, it is very clear that it is the man, not the woman, giving the bill of divorce. It is clear that the wife's divorce depends on the husband's bill of divorce, but that no such condition applies to the man, for if it did, the verse would mention it. The rabbis saw themselves bound by the language of the verse. There is some leeway - namely, the verse can be interpreted either in accordance with a standing tradition, even if it violates the apparent meaning of the text, or in accordance with the traditional exegetical tools (such as Rabbi Yishmael's 13 measures the Torah is expounded by), but here, there was no long-standing tradition of male divorce being dependent upon bills of divorce by women, nor did the rabbis feel the exegetical tools at their disposal justified such a reading. (It should be noted there are many midrashey halacha about the above verses that are not directly related to the topic at hand, but that do show the rabbis clearly felt comfortable expoudning midrashim about said verses.)

I believe the answer also stands in the way that the Talmudic rabbis saw the world, a way which determined how they related to the above verses: They saw it as one of natural, not positive, law. The role of the rabbis was to uphold the laws passed down through Moses, the written Torah, and various oral traditions, or to reveal laws using a variety of exegetical and legal methods - but they did not have the power to create their own laws. Even the "chiddush", the new learning, is in fact no more than a revelation of a pre-existing truth, which the learner is privileged to reveal. Thus, the midrashic story God first looked into the Torah, and then created the world: The threads of the Torah and the Jewish legal system was woven into the world, were part of the natural order since the first moment of creation. The process of the evolution of Jewish law is a process of ongoing revelation (albeit a more hidden revelation ever since the exile and the cessation of prophecy, but the relationship between revelation, prophecy, and the Jewish legal tradition is way too big to tack right now), not of ongoing creation.

Thus, the rabbis did not have the right to create a law that would enable a mutual exchanging of divorce bills. The most they could do was work within the limits they had to reveal ways in which the laws might be made more empowering of women. I believe that this model of revelation holds power for current Jewish legal jurisprudence. If I assume I am bound by the laws, but that I can look at the corpus of Jewish texts and the values contained therein, and then try to reveal ways, within the boundaries of the laws in front of me, to minimize any seeming conflict between the two, then all of a sudden, I have a plethora of options available to me. Another example of this method of jurisprudence is that of the rebellious son: The Talmud could not undo the law, because it is a Biblical passage******, but it did limit the definition of rebellious son to something so specific, not to mention impose ridiculous conditions on the parental testimony necessary for the execution, in such a way that the chances of anyone being executed under the law were zero. The Talmud itself claims, "A case (fitting all our criteria) for a rebellious son, never happened", and goes on to ask why the Torah bothered listing a law involving a case that will never take place. Conclusion: To give the Jews the benefit of the Torah study that comes from exploring that law.

So I hope you've benefited from reading my post exploring a Torah law - a law that I hope will not be used very often, because the majority of marriages will be deliriously happy, life-long unions.

*Since the built-in-clause was the way the rabbis justified their powers of anullment, Tosfot then goes through legal hoola-hoops to explain why the rabbis can anull in this case, when there was no such clause. While those hoola-hoops are not directly relevant to this piece, their commentary does include the sentence "The rabbis can uproot a Torah law" - which is admittedly much sexier when taken out of context.
** Best Jastro saying: "If a Narshean kisses you, count your teeth".
*** Yes, kidnap marriages in late antiquity are part of a larger topic. Not going to go there right now.
**** The men in question can legally remarry if they get a hundred rabbis to make them exempt from the prohibition, but getting a hundred rabbis to agree on anything is pretty hard. Also, worth mentioning for the record: A man can not force a woman to divorce - she must consent to the divorce for it to be valid. A different topic, but I couldn't resist.
***** because of the amount of power it grants the rabbis.
****** Yes, there are times the Talmud or a midrashic source will interpret the text in a way that is the complete opposite of its simple meaning. But I believe they only do so a) when the interpretation is in accordance with a long-standing tradition b) when the traditionally accepted ways of interpreting verses allow for such an interpretation. Presumably, in both the case of the man giving his wife a bill of divorce and in the rebellious son case, neither a nor b applied in such a way that would allow for claiming the verse was promulgating a mutual-bill-exchance law, or for claiming the verse was in fact not arguing for executing the rebellious son.

Periods. How exciting.

I want to write about what it's like to have my period, because I think it's not talked about enough. Girls are told to keep quiet; it's ok to say "I have a cold", or "I have a headache", but not "I have my period", even though, like colds and headaches, it is a natural medical condition - yet unlike those conditions, it does not imply a negative impact on health - on the contrary, menstrual periods are generally considered signs of a healthy female body.

It is true that periods are healthy, but they can also be extremely annoying. Every woman experiences her period differently, so I can't speak for others. But I think part of acknowledging the female existence on this earth, is acknowledging the different ways that different women experience periods. I understand that this goes against centuries of male-propagated menstrual taboos, but I think the fight is worth it. Imagine being able to actually say, "I have my period", when asked why you cancelled your dinner plans - just being able to say those words, to explain the real reason that you're feeling ill or don't feel like seeing anybody, provides you with so much freedom. Truth is empowering.

That's not to say that I think suddenly men will start considering periods sexy; I honestly believe that periods are an extremely unappealing part of how a woman's body works, for the simple reason that blood is unsexy (unless you have a vampire fetish, but let's not go there). So yes, knowing that blood is seeping out of the same part of a woman's anatomy that you stick your dick into - I think that's a completely valid reason to not feel like sticking your dick into it at that exact moment. I also know that this does not bother some men, though the concept of period-sex has always eluded me, for the reason that when I am sad and nauseous, it's kind of hard for me to feel turned on. I think if the sexiest man on earth walked into my room right now, I would just feel too sick to do anything beyond cuddling. I actually see the Bible's taboos on menstrual sex as a mechanism to protect women against rape within marriage: "They haven't invented Midol yet" might not have counted as a valid excuse for the average ancient near eastern husband, in an era before the concept of "rape within marriage" had been properly legally defined. "I'm forbidden" might have been a more palatable excuse.

Which brings me to my own experiences: Some days when I have my period, I can not eat. Other days, I crave food all day long, especially chocolate. Once I even craved tofu. I walk around in something ranging from mild nausea/stomach ache to fullblown stomach virus. I've fainted twice. One of those times was in public, and I was rushed to the emergency room. It was a Friday. Thankfully, the doctor didn't make me spend the night. Most classes that I have missed, I have missed on days when I had my period. It is easier for me to function with fever and strep than with my period (and easier for me to be with guys with fever and strep, though I never understood why the words "I'm on anti-biotics" are not a sufficient deterrent to stop someone from exchanging saliva with you.)

Not all my periods are alike. Some are better than others. Sometimes I will get through an entire period feeling completely normal. But of course, there is not just the period itself - there are also the days leading up to the period. A woman is told to track her period on a calendar. I sometimes forget to do this, but I can generally tell when I am "coming down" with my period, because suddenly, so many things in my life will seem pointless or impossible, because I will feel sad and lonely in a way I just don't when I'm not menstruating (thank God), because I won't feel like seeing or speaking to anyone, sometimes not even to my closest friends, because things I usually consider fun will be annoying, because I will suddenly find myself getting really emotional and crying over something silly. Again, I don't experience all of these things with each period; I usually experience at least one, but degree also matters: If I am walking around feeling slightly lonely, but knowing it's hormonal, that's not so bad. It's the days when I don't feel like getting out of bed, and have to remind myself it's my hormones that are making me feel that way, that the "me" beneath the hormones wants to get out of bed and continue functioning, when the entire thing enabling me to carry out tasks throughout the day is my rationality fighting the feeling that all I want to do is sleep in order to escape myself, that's when it's hard. And yes, it IS my hormones: I am grateful to God that I don't feel that way when I'm not pre-menstrual/going through the first day or two of menstruation.

And of course, there is the delicious horniness that hits me in the week or two before my period, that can grow so potent when the PMS forgets to strike. This makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint: I need to be horny while I ovulate so I can produce babies - and if this crazy monthly blood thing is what enables me to do that, then yes, it's worth it. (Ouch. Cramp as I write this - body, are you trying to test me?)

And yes, there are things I probably could do to minimize the pain. I could walk around hopped up on pain relief meds for a week. I could switch from birth control to birth control, until I found the one that made my period more bearable. I once told a doctor about my periods, and she asked if I wanted anti-depressants to take in the few days before I started menstruating. I was shocked: Not because I am against anti-depressants (I think they do good work WHEN PROPERLY PERSCRIBED) but at the casual way she suggested it, like a girl offering her friend candy - or menstrual chocolate. But you know what? All of these "cures" have consequences: Pain meds have side-effects, and generally make me fall asleep - and it's unhealthy to be hopped up on them for a quarter of your life, even the period-fighting ones, like Midol. Different birth controls have different side effects and risk factors, and getting one's body accustomed to a new birth control pill can be its own long and arudous process. Seasonale, the "four periods a year" birth control, has not been around for long enough to make me comfortable taking it, and it recently had a name-change, which is generally what companies do to cover up a testing glitch on a popular medication. As for anti-depressants: I guess I could go to a shrink and get them perscribed for one week a month, but I'd rather not and I also think that there is no need to, at least in my case. Perhaps other women feel differently, and do take anti-depressants that one week a month; it's their right to do so. But all medicines have side-effects and consequences - so there are no simple solutions.

I also think a lot of these solutions are needed because modern Western society ignores the uniqueness of a woman's menstrual experience. Women have to function normally; if they admitted that for one week out of every four (or even three) they might not feel well, physically or emotionally, they become less profitable, hence less hire-able, and there goes the feminist revolution, and we all go back to being housewives. I am not advocating that women be given special "period days" off from work, but I think periods should be seen as valid personal or sick days, and women shouldn't have to think up creative excuses. If the man and women each use the same amount of sick/personal days, it shouldn't be held against the woman that some of hers were for menstruation and some of his were for a headache.

I also think that a lot of rituals we interpret as "separating" out a menstruating woman, were in their own ways, respecting the uniqueness of a woman's menstrual experience. The woman was not expected to function normally during her period, the fact that she was going through something the non-menstruants were not, something that might make it harder for her to perform all the tasks she does when she doesn't have blood seeping out of her, was recognized. This special - because say whatever you want about it, it is special - time in a woman's life was marked off: There was a ritual to celebrate (or commiserate) the end (or beginning) of her period, demarcating it from the non-menstrual portion of her life. Behind many taboos lies male chauvenism and female disenfranchisement, but behind many taboos - perhaps some of those same taboos - lies an inherent respect for a woman's body, and often women embraced the taboos and made the their own, usurping chauvenistic rituals by using them as a means of female empowerment.

I am a little afraid to publish this, not just because, as I said before, I consider periods unsexy, and publishing unsexy information about myself is something I generally prefer not to do, but also because I'm afraid someday some guy considering dating me might see this, and say, "That girl is crazy when she has her period. I don't want to deal with this." It's nice to say, "The right guy will care enough to see beyond it", but I don't think that's how it works. There might be some awesome guy who'd fall in love with me if we went on a second date, but won't go on a second date with a girl who has tough periods. On the other hand, since I've been in extremely happy relationships before, and my period hasn't made a difference (other than that it sucks if your girlfriend doesn't feel well) in those relationships, I am hopeful that God willing, I will once more find happiness.

But of course, I am not sure how "tough" my periods are. It is generally impossible to compare one corporeal experience to another. We are all bound by the subjectivity of our bodies, and this is a general obstacle to human empathy. But the silence about women's menstrual experiences, means that beyond my circle of close friends, I'm not sure what women experience. I'd like to know. We each go through this common-yet-different experience every month, and we have so much to share and so much to learn from each other. (Come on people. This is a post about periods - you knew when you started reading that it had to end with a plea for hugs and women's empowerment.)

So I hope that my words about my period will be the first of many words that many different women will speak about their period - and perhaps even that different men will speak about how their lives are affected by the menstrual cycles of women close to them, if at all. I know in Orthodox Judaism for example, couples are taught to refrain from period sex, so there has to be an impact.

I did hesitate before publishing this, but Ghandi said "Be the change you wish to see in the world". I wish to live in a world in which women can openly express what they go through during menstruation, without fearing social (or other) consequences. So here goes. Here's to hoping that for every man who reads this and gets turned off, there's another one with a vampire fetish.*


* Note: I am completely joking. I do not have a vampire fetish. If I loved a guy, I'd be willing to try out a vampire fetish or role-play that did not involve menstrual blood, but the idea of it doesn't particularly appeal to me. I read Twighlight, but I never understood how it became a fad - and no, I have not seen the movies.

2 Quick Thoughts

Ok, two quick thoughts:

1. I recently had a conversation about elbow-length with a Jewish communal leader/educator. She confessed that she does not think women are halachikly obligated to wear elbow-length, but does so in order to gain the communal respect she needs in order to be a succesful Jewish educator in the Modern Orthodox world. On the one hand, I admire her dedication. On the other, the more women wear elbow-length despite not believing in it, because they view it as a social prerequisite to being an MO female Jewish educator, the more it becomes a social prerequisite: It enforces the idea that modesty is elbow-length, and that elbow-length is the true halachik requirement - after all, why else would it be that no MO Jewish educator ladies are wearing short sleeves? If at least there were a public acknowledgment: We as women do not view this as a halachik requirement, but dress this way anyway, because we respect the social customs of our community even if they are not halachik requirements, or because we give in in this one area, in order to engage in our work of Torah teaching, I would be fine with it. But since people often assume that Jewish layleaders dress in accordance with what they view as halacha, and since no such announcement accompanies these women's attire, people simply assume "If the lady who gave a shiur wears elbow-length, it must be required." I think sometimes the obligation to live the Torah, in order to teach the Torah, means living kulahs, in order to teach people kulahs, therefore making it easier for them to follow the Torah. If you don't show people ways to make things easier within the law, they will simply circumvent the law.

2. I got to say a pasuk from "Ata Horaita" at the Carlebach shul on the Upper West Side of Manhattan over Simchat Torah. The minute I performed a public ritual, I immediately felt more of a part of the community. I felt more of a responsibility to stay and to be invovled in the service. This just reinforces my belief: If davening were more inclusive of women, more women would come. So saying "We'll make it more inclusive when more women come", is really no more than a faux-halachik way of ignoring the ritualistic needs of women in community contexts.

Sexual Halachot: Time To Face Reality

What do niddah, shomer negiah, and abstaining from vaginal intercourse before marriage have in common? They are all Orthodox halachic norms that are framed in apologetic terms.

Niddah is supposed to enhance your marriage by making married sex more special, preventing sexual boredom, and enhancing verbal and other non-sexual communication skills. Shomer laws are supposed to enhance marital sex, by saving it for marriage, and to preserve the holiness of all married physical contact. What could be more special than having your first kiss be with your lifetime lover, than only having sexual contact with the person of your dreams? Why open yourself up to the pain that comes with sexual intimacy in a relationship that ends? Shomerness prevents you from getting hurt or taken advantage of as a single person. It allows you to see your relationships clearer, without being biased by the physical pleasure you get from them (since you're getting none), which leads to healthier relationship decisions. Use the word "sex" instead of shomerness, and you have the justification for the "everything but sex" before marriage Orthodox philosophy. Add in the knowledge that to violate any of these sexual laws is a terrible sin that would make you a social pariah if people knew, a sin whose guilt is hammered into your head over and over in Orthodox schools.

What do you get? A completely unhealthy attitude towards these sexual halachot. The fact is, all of the aforementioned halachot can be difficult -actually, excruciating - to keep. By presenting them as this magical experience, the discourse makes a person feel guilty for the difficulty they have in keeping those halachot. Ironically, this guilt may help drive a person to break the halachot, since negative self-perceptions often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, by emphasizing the seriousness of these halachot and making sexual propriety a defining criteria for membership in Orthodox society -as opposed to, say, the ability to refrain from speaking lashon harah - we make it harder for someone to do teshuva if they do violate one of these halachot. A person can be plagued with a feeling that even a minor slipup puts them beyond hope of redemption, therefore taking away the motivation to redeem themselves. This can lead not only to continued breaking of the halacha in question, but even to a complete abandonment of Judaism, since, if you're doomed for hell anyway, what's the point of not eating a cheesburger?

I understand that this type of negative thinking is a trap, but I think it is the type of thinking being encouraged by the way these halachot are currently taught in the Modern Orthodox (maybe Orthodox in general) world. I also can understand the argument that using refraining from lashon harah as a criteria for social acceptance is unrealistic - but so is expecting perfection when it comes to rules governing something as basic and widespread as human sexuality! Of course, I think that Orthodox society (and pretty much all socieities) should stop being so judgemental, especially since in Judaism, we are enjoined not to judge others, just as we wish for God not to judge us, but instead, to treat us with kindness and mercy - but that's a different topic.

I am not advocating a change in the halachot, but rather, a change in the way the halachot are taught. Openly adressing the challenges in keeping these halachot, and helping students to address them, can help students to keep them. Furthermore, emphasizing that while yes, sinning is bad, teshuva is possible, and that just because you sinned in one area, does not make you "a sinner", will help students stay within the bounds of the halachik system. A brief skim through the Yom Kippur liturgy is enough to illustrate that Judaism certainly believes in the power of redemption, and the ability of people to change.

I also believe, that the same way that there are Alcoholics Anonymous groups, there should be shomer, nidah, and no-pre-marital sex anonymous groups, segregated by gender (sorry for the heteronormativity here), where people can gather for facillitated meetings at which they can discuss the difficulties involved in keeping these halachot, and offer support and tips for each other. Perhaps the no pre-marital sex one could be merged with the general shomer one, dependng on demmand. In an ideal world, these groups would not be anonymous, and would not be gender segregated, but I understand that our world is not always ideal. In an ideal world, if someone saw another person going to a "Niddah Difficulties" anonymous group, they would admire that person for their commitment to halacha - and yes, men also need such a group, because niddah affects their relationships, too.

Or maybe it would be better if those groups were public - if whatever was said in the room was confidential, to the point where you even had to sign a legal disclaimer saying so, but that it would be publicly known, "The shomer difficulties group for women meets every Monday night at 9 o'clock, in the little office on the second floor, next to the beit midrash" - that way there would be public acknowledgment and acceptance of said difficulties. Though again, I think many people who might otherwise attend such meetings would be uncomfortable with that.

In any event, I think changing the discourse around these halachot, and the way they are taught, is essential. It is time to move beyond apologetics, towards reality - and in doing so, to honor a Jewish tradition that has long recognized the messy realities of the human body, while attempting to bring meaning to the Jewish soul.