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Super important piece by @YehudisFletcher
"Sex in our community is treated as a mitzva, a God-given commandment, a duty for us to fulfill, at a specific time and with a specific person in a manner that is prescribed."
What happens to consent when sex becomes a mitzva?
Thread. https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1346115615749263362
"Sex in our community is treated as a mitzva, a God-given commandment, a duty for us to fulfill, at a specific time and with a specific person in a manner that is prescribed."
What happens to consent when sex becomes a mitzva?
Thread. https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1346115615749263362
Background: Chasidish teens get no sex ed, not even abstinence; the entire subject just isn't acknowledged. Suffice to say, nature is more powerful than denial and it leaves teens w lots of guilt and shame.
But I want to talk about what happens with the sex ed they DO receive.
But I want to talk about what happens with the sex ed they DO receive.
Chasidish parents arrange for teens to get married at 18-20yo. Couples meet one, two, maybe three times. Some teens have the option to say no if they they don't like the person they're set up with. Most don't. It's almost unheard of for teens to suggest a match to their parents.
After the engagement party, couples don't see or speak to each other until their wedding day several months later.
At this point, they are officially introduced to sex. There are designated bride teachers and groom teachers who give classes on the Jewish laws of family purity - and sex.
(Family purity laws: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niddah )
(Family purity laws: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niddah )
Keep in mind that Chasidish girls attend gender segregated schools K-12, where modesty, defined as being careful to not attract attention to themselves and their bodies, is held as one of the highest values for Jewish women.
Sex, for many brides, feels foreign and in opposition to everything they've been taught to believe. It often takes time for them to adjust, to get used to the idea that their parents and everyone who taught them about modesty - even the rabbis! - have sex regularly.
Sex is a mitzva, they are told. The first mitzva in the Torah! God commanded us to procreate, they are told. The fact that there are so many Jewish laws surrounding a woman's menstrual cycle, sex, and intimacy reinforces this narrative that it is a mitzva, like shabbos, kashrus.
So why do they need to have sex when they're pregnant, then? Or when they're nursing, or past menopause?
Because, brides are told, it is their responsibility to keep their husband satisfied, to make sure he doesn't go looking for sex outside the marriage, that he doesn't masturbate. Chasidim consider masturbation, spilling seed, a grave sin.
So what happens to consent when sex becomes a mitzva?
By definition, consent doesn't exist.
By definition, consent doesn't exist.
This is where apologists like to jump in and quote Jewish texts to say that actually, it's a man's job to satisfy his wife. It's in the halachic marriage contract!
Well in reality, a woman who refuses her husband's sexual advances is considered a moredes, a rebellious woman.
Well in reality, a woman who refuses her husband's sexual advances is considered a moredes, a rebellious woman.
She loses the right to her ksibah, her halachic prenup, because Jewish law considers a married woman to have given ongoing and permanent consent to sexual relations and refusal is therefore considered rebellion.
A bride who expresses hesitation at the idea of having sex is reassured that, of course the thought makes her uncomfortable, she's not used to uncovering her body past her elbows, her knees, her collarbone! It's normal to be scared, she hardly knows the boy!
But she'll get to know him, and everything will be fine! Until then, she just has to get into bed, and he'll know what to do!
There is no room for a conversation about female pleasure. There is no room for a conversation about consent.
It isn't about her.
It isn't about her.
On their wedding night, couples come home exhausted in the early hours of the morning after a long night of ceremonies and dancing, and they have to consummate the marriage before dawn.
So you have a horny eighteen year old boy who's never had sex before, who's been made to feel incredibly guilty for masturbating all his life, and an eighteen year old girl who has never touched a boy, who has never undressed in front of a boy - and she can't say no.
Many couples do, indeed, figure it out despite the challenges and less than ideal challenges. Good for them!
Too many others, though, do not.
Too many others, though, do not.
For far too many girls, that first night is a trauma they cannot even put into words.
How do you talk about rape when it isn't part of your vocabulary? How do you describe what happened to your body when you are convinced that you let it happen, that you *had to* let it happen?
How do you talk about rape when it isn't part of your vocabulary? How do you describe what happened to your body when you are convinced that you let it happen, that you *had to* let it happen?
After that first night, couples cannot be intimate again for two weeks, until the bride goes through the halachic cleansing process and immerses in a mikvah, a ritual bath.
The night she comes home from the mikvah they are required to have sex again.
This cycle repeats every month - two weeks on, two weeks off, mikvah night. For years. For decades.
This cycle repeats every month - two weeks on, two weeks off, mikvah night. For years. For decades.
Women go on to have large families, happy families, with the men who rape them.
They may like each other- maybe even love each other- outside the bedroom.
But they live with the ongoing trauma of forcing themselves to have sex and it takes a toll, mentally and physically.
They may like each other- maybe even love each other- outside the bedroom.
But they live with the ongoing trauma of forcing themselves to have sex and it takes a toll, mentally and physically.
It's a trauma perpetuated by community institutions designed to deny women the autonomy they deserve. The same institutions that police access to birth control. The same institutions that intercept women who reach out to domestic violence orgs.
It doesn't have to be this way.
It doesn't have to be this way.
We shouldn't have to wait until women break, until marriages fall apart, for rabbis to dole out heterim, exemptions to Jewish laws.
We can teach brides - and grooms - about consent, bodily autonomy, female pleasure, w/o compromising halacha or changing the Chasidish way of life.
We can teach brides - and grooms - about consent, bodily autonomy, female pleasure, w/o compromising halacha or changing the Chasidish way of life.
The irony in all of this, sadly, is that framing sex as a mitzva a woman has to do to keep her husband satisfied is that it backfires. Too many men *aren't* satisfied, and their wives have no way of even conceptualizing what they want.
But when rabbis bemoan the many men who do look outside their marriages for sex they blame the internet, they blame the "street", they worry men don't learn enough Torah. They never seem to connect the dots and it's about time they did.
