The Goyls Next Door

Actually, there are PLENTY of Jewish porn stars.  Playboy doesn't have a the space to represent them right now (they currently have a very limited aesthetic) and Jewish girls into taking off their clothes are showcased elsewhere. 

For example, one of the loudest voices in the modern porn industry is out-Jew Joanna Angel, the star and owner of several X-rated sites, the most notable being alt-porn hub BurningAngel.  She has a lucrative career starring in films, while also being quite the talented business woman.  

Other Jews in Porn?  Daphne Rosen, Nina Hartley, Demi Marx.  There are a lot more, and I'm not even going to touch on the Gay porn scene coming out of Israel right now...

Anyway, this is mostly to point out that Jewish women have not opted out of the 'porn conversation', and that there are plenty of Jewish women in sex work, regardless of the scorn they might incur from the religious establishment.  You may just have to look a bit further than Playboy.   

Just something to think about.

emily, thanks for your comment. i appreciate your reading my article and taking the time to write.  

thanks for all the info about joanna angel, but i'm pretty familiar with her work already, and have interviewed her more than once. she's awesome. and yes, you're right: nina hartley is also a major voice in the sex work world.  

but naming four jewish porn stars doesn't mean that there are "PLENTY". it means that there are four, and possibly more. but with thousands and thousands of porn "stars" out there, it doesn't come near to making a point about whether we're represented proportionally. and i can tell you from my own experience in sex work that yes, in fact, jewish women are few and far between. 

also, i'm not talking about opting out of the "porn conversation." i'm talking about opting out of PORN. as in, doing it. not talking about it. we can talk about it till we're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that judaism has shamed women for doing it -- notably, vuolo. that fact doens't make judaism any different from any other religion, but still doesn't make it right. and along with the "nice jewish girl" notion that's pounded into our collective minds from birth, it probably has a bearing on whether or not jewish women who may want to explore their sexuality in that way decide to do so.

the strangest thing about your comment is that i think you agree with me, about porn and about sex work. so, your tone is kind of surprising.

and as an aside, while i appreciate all of your insider knowledge about "alt-porn", i'm sure you know that's a term that joanna herself shies away from, so you might have to look for a new way to refer to it.

just something to think about.

Jessica Pauline

I fail to see how porn isn't demeaning to women. Essentially, the idea of porn is: women are nothing but sexual objects, so let's put them on display. Porn is a lot like the zoo, except in print rather than behind cages.

The whole point of tzeniut is to avoid representing oneself as an object, and/or to avoid seeing others as objects. (Rabbi Marc Angel's Losing the Rat Race, Winning at Life excellently makes this point, using Buber's I-Thou relationship as his springboard; we are to relate to others as "Thou"s, not as objects. For a more involved psycho-philosophical exposition of this thesis, see Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits's "A Jewish Sexual Ethics" in Crisis and Faith and in Essential Essays on Judaism (ed. Hazony). Berkovits's thesis is that Judaism aims at redeeming sexuality from animality, and instead investing it with humanity and personality. The climax of his essay is when he brings the famous Talmudic aggadah about the yeshiva student who visits a prostitute and gets slapped in the face by his tzitzit. Rabbi Berkovits notes that initially, the man and the woman are referred to as "the man", "the woman", in third-person. (For example, the man journeyed to "the prostitute", and the prostitute's secretary/bouncer called out to her, "the man who paid 200 zuz is here", etc.) It is only when his tzitzit slap him in the face and he and she descend from the bed and refrain from sex, do they begin to refer to each other as "you", as human personalities with biopsychic/psychosomatic reality, i.e. with body and soul.

Cf. Tamar Biala in To Teach Tsni’ut with Tzni'ut On Educating for Tsni`ut in National-Religious Schools: "Again, instead of confining the conversation to strategies for confronting the sexual impulse (regarded as threatening and uncontrollable), we sought to focus on strengthening the sense that one is capable of maintaining human relationships with another person to whom one is not married. In contrast to seeing the other primarily as a sexual object, we tried to emphasize the concepts of personality, soul, and self-control. ... Observance of sexual tsni`ut is part of the demand that one conduct oneself with tsni`ut in all aspects of one’s life in this world. As we have seen in the various sources, there exists in every one of us an impulse to see the man or woman standing before us as a sexual object; and there sometimes exists an impulse to present ourselves to the man or woman before us as entirely or primarily a sexual object. The sexual component of our selves is important and blessed, but we must take care not to place it alone at center stage in the connections we form with others. Connections of that sort constitute “objectification” (that is, they involve seeing the other or presenting ourselves exclusively as a sexual object) and disregard the full range of the personality of one created in the image of God. Sexual tsni`ut, accordingly, does not mean nullifying or even weakening the sexual impulse; rather, it means assigning it its balanced place within the full scope of our existence as human beings."

Rabbi Berkovits also makes the crucial point that a human can never be a healthy animal, for even to consciously desire to be a healthy animal is something an animal cannot do. A human has both body and soul, and there is nothing one can do about it. Thus, one can either be a healthy human who appreciates his or her full biopsychic/psychosomatic/body-soul reality and that of others as well, or one can be an unhealthy human who vainly attempts the impossible task of becoming a healthy animal.)

In short: pornography exhibits women as being nothing but bodies, and reduces them to the level of animals. Like I said, the only other thing we put on display is animals in the zoo.

--------------------------

Another point: even those men who themselves look at porn, they would never suffer their daughters to be published in porn. Adam Carolla, on the Man Show put it well: every man fantasizes about having a loose scantily-clad girlfriend, but no man would ever actually want such a girlfriend in real life. Why? (The following is me, not Carolla.) Because he wants someone reliable and trustworthy. Every time a woman dresses scantily, she is selling herself short, because she (whether intentionally or not) is telling the other men that she is personality-less meat on display. Every man, when seeking out a real intimate relationship, will forgo the scantily-clad women, and will go for the woman he perceives as being wholesome and reliable and possessing of real personality and humanity, viz. the woman dressed modestly. Behind every woman who dresses immodestly is the lack of a father who taught her what men really think (see Dave Chappelle's What Men Want).

Therefore, even the men who look at porn, would be aghast and heartbroken if their own daughters were to be published in pornographic venues. (That is, assuming they actually respect women. In Hitch, a sexist pervert comes to Will Smith (who plays a "date doctor") to help him have sex with a certain woman. Will Smith replies that he only works with men who "actually like women", and the pervert replies, "Let me make one thing clear to you, rabbi...".)

Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating that we seal up women in their homes as sexual objects. Just the opposite! In fact, the Haredim themselves are the most egregious violators of the ideals of tzeniut! For the object of tzeniut is that women present themselves as full humans, and that men appreciate the women as being more than just bodies. But Haredi tzniut hypersexualizes men and women, making women out to be nothing but sexual objects, and making men out to be nothing but seekers of sex. I prefer what (Orthodox) Rabbi Avraham Shamma says in Kol b’Isha with a Current Perspective:

"If a person asks what the meaning is for us in our times of the ruling to "distance oneself from women very, very much", as the Shulhan Arukh rules, I would answer and say that if I were asked to express this [ruling] in a form that is relevant to our times, I would say thus: 'Women and men should behave in a manner that reflects great respect for one another; they should not consider one another in a crude manner such as sexual objects; they should not dress provocatively, nor should their body language be provocative; they should not digress to intimate conversations and they should not exaggerate their physical closeness when having a discussion, or the like; the wise person has his eyes in his head and not find loopholes in the Tora, but should know that no two situations are exactly alike and therefore should use good judgment with integrity and honesty, because the essence of these laws is not to observe them literally and formally, but rather their purpose is to improve society.' It was my intent at the outset to phrase my words in egalitarian language, addressing men and woman equally, [language that does] not objectify women or men: women are not defined as [objects of] lewdness nor are men [defined] as male animalistic or chemical creatures that are pheromonally attracted, without control, to females. Rather, the definition [of men and women that I suggest] recognizes their self-control and demands of them behavioral standards. Even more, this formulation does not attempt to 'defend the purity of men' at the cost of hiding the women and covering them."

Cf. Tamar Biala in To Teach Tsni’ut with Tsni’ut: On Educating for Tsni`ut in National-Religious Schools: "The conduct of “normal” activity in which men and women share the same physical spaces requires a degree of tsni`ut, and we tried to clarify that the tsni`ut is the responsibility of the one who is “looking” and not of his or her object. In doing so, we made use of halakhot and talmudic stories and of the responsum by R. Ben-Zion Me’ir Hai Uziel, dealing with the participation of women in elections for public office (Resp. Mishpetei uzzi’el, vol. 4, Hoshen mishpat sec. 6). ... Again, instead of confining the conversation to strategies for confronting the sexual impulse (regarded as threatening and uncontrollable), we sought to focus on strengthening the sense that one is capable of maintaining human relationships with another person to whom one is not married. In contrast to seeing the other primarily as a sexual object, we tried to emphasize the concepts of personality, soul, and self-control. ... Sexual tsni`ut is equally binding on men and women. Every person must take responsibility for his or her sexuality and not take advantage of or deprecate the sexuality of another person. Women must take care to avoid exploiting the sexuality of men, and men must take care to avoid exploiting the sexuality of women. In contrast to the concept that requires the other to limit himself or herself in order to avoid causing me difficulty or complicating my struggle with my impulse, tsni`ut is an action I take toward myself, an act of self-restraint, sensitivity, and concern taken as a result of maturity and health."

I used to tell my students that the biggest danger of "porn" was getting hit by the double doors separating the "porn" films from the others (ok-i am old-this was before DVD). Of course we all knew the real danger were the slasher films. Then we tried to differentiate porn and erotica-a difficult but fruitful endevour. Then we started to study the effects of the internet-no final word out yet. It still seems that many that criticize porn have problems with the sex but will have no problem with violent non-sexual films.Then there are those that are ok with the sex but very concerned about violence. So it seems you are talking about erotica and the erotics of the Jewish female body. I am very pleased that you took the sex and body positive approach that is very much lacking in todays society. Most of the messages are negative (e.g. the Rabbi's example that you described). Maybe people (especially men) are still uncomfortable with the power of womens sexuality. Nevertheless, your article if very thoguht provoking.

Maybe that is the question that should be asked. Despite the best efforts of some folks to redefine what does it mean to be a Jew - we are still people of the Book. And whatever way you like to read the Book: as a fundamentalist considering it to be the history of the World, or as an atheist - reading it as just a collection of our national folklore - it would be very difficult to disagree that the first ever human emotion described in the book is a shame, more specifically a shame over naked body.

I'd like to think so.  We classy ;)

I agree, though more with the Jewish part and less than the nice.  American Jews are raised to grow up, get an education and get a good job.  Porn seems to be more of an option for those who aren't guided to make such choices, so porn would appear as a logical avenue to money.  Plus, given the preponderance of Jews in the Feminist movement, our ladies are raised to respect themselves and would hence be adverse to pose naked for the public.  Agreed, our education might allow for a sense of overliberation where Jewesses might want to buck against the prevailing trend of respectability, but for the most part, our ladies just go to law school instead.

thanks for your comments.

@mikewinddale: "Essentially, the idea of porn is: women are nothing but sexual objects, so let's put them on display." see, there's where you're wrong. that's how YOU interperet porn. and that's how a lot of people interperet porn. but my point is, that's actually NOT what the idea is. those women that you're objectifying (yes, you're doing it, the porn itself is not doing it) are, in fact, people. they are people who made the decision to do porn. like i said in the article, by only analyzing porn through the point of view of the consumer, you take the subjects' voices away, and you yourself make them only sexual. and btw -- it's not just women who do porn. men do it too. do you feel it's demeaning to men?

your comment is also rife with sexism and stereotypes. for example: "Every time a woman dresses scantily, she is selling herself short, because she (whether intentionally or not) is telling the other men that she is personality-less meat on display."

and:

"Behind every woman who dresses immodestly is the lack of a father who taught her what men really think (see Dave Chappelle's What Men Want)."

it's fine for you to have personal preferences in terms of women you may want to be with, but that hardly makes it acceptable for you to make these kind of sweeping assumptions about people based on the way they look or dress.

fianlly, adam carolla on the man show??? that's your reference for thoughtful commentary on sexuality and gender issues??? i think your comment was generally thoughtful and well-supported, but you really lost me there. and dave chappelle, while funny (more than i can say for carolla), is not much better in that respect.

@sociologist: "Maybe people (especially men) are still uncomfortable with the power of womens sexuality." I think you hit the nail directly on the head here. 

Jessica Pauline

I should clarify:

I am not saying that I necessarily agree with everything I said. I was only speaking for men in general.

You can think whatever you want of Carolla and Chapelle, but the fact remains that what they said is what most men think, like it or not. I don't know much about Carolla, but whatever he is, he remains - so far as I know - an ordinary male, and what he said resonates with what other men have said and with what I myself know as a male.

I really don't see the point of criticizing what I said. Unless you can cite sources to the contrary, I think that my view - supported by my own experiences as a man and as one who is often surrounded by other men talking as men do talk around other men - is pretty substantiated, and I don't foresee the nature of males changing anytime soon. You can think whatever you want to think, but the nature of the male remains what it is.

 I am not saying that what males think is good, or praiseworthy, or to be consciously and deliberately inculcated in the next generation of men (G-d forbid!). But until someone figures out "What can change the nature of a man?", you cannot but reckon with the nature of a male. You can work only with what's been given to you.

I will be blunt: no matter how wrong men are, no matter how sexist they are, no matter how disgusting are, the fact remains: men see women the way they do. If women wish to gain respect and dignity in the eyes of men, or wish to engage in authentic romantic relationships with men, then the women must reckon with the nature of those men. This may be tragic, this may be pathetic, this may be awful. But a fact it remains, a self-evident one I should think. 

Ironic. I'm usually accused - by men and women alike - as being a bleeding-heart feminist, this being a criticism of me. 

I can't win. 

And then, last week, I was talking to a woman about my personal views on women's bodies and sexuality, and when I finished, the woman accused me (at http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com/2009/10/cherry-picking-on-online-datin... and at http://michaelmakovi.blogspot.com/2009/10/cherry-picking-on-online-datin...) of being not superficial enough, of being too concerned with her personality and not being concerned enough with her appearance. I just cannot win.

The only reason I haven't jumped into this discussion earlier is that I'm not sure I consider Playboy to be much more "pornographic" than Cosmo magazine, judging from the cover photos + article titles of each.  To my mind "pornographic" always has to involve an activity, not just simply nudity.

That said, Jessica, please don't allow that which sells magazines (airbrushed boobies) to have such an impact on your concept of what is truly beautiful.  And, last thing--while I'm all for equal rights for women, feminism always involves the following crazy belief:  All men are evil. 

"And, last thing--while I'm all for equal rights for women, feminism always involves the following crazy belief:  All men are evil."

Well, if I were to make that claim, at least I'd have the credentials. :P

But seriously, it's an interesting dialectic for men: on the one hand, men almost literally do think about sex every five seconds. And when he sees a woman dressed scantily, he does NOT think she's cute, and he is NOT thinking about having a serious relationship with her. Rather, he is thinking that she has a nice body and is good for a merely physical relationship.

On the other hand, once the guy desires a serious relationship, physicality matters far less. It is well known - at least among men - that if a man is attracted to a woman's personality, her physical attractiveness will increase in her eyes. (I've found this in my own personal experience, and Dennis Prager said he actually ranked the female students in his class at the beginning and end of the semester and found that their physical attractiveness rose based on their performance in the class. Of course, we could now get into the discussion of whether his testing method was ethical, but the results remain the same.) 

I would put it this way: for a man, a woman's attractiveness is like drug-laced icing on a cake, and this icing is laced with every single addictive and psychoactive drug known to man. But at some point, no matter how addictive the icing is, and no matter how much it dominates his thoughts, in the end, he wants cake. It may require an almost superhuman effort to free himself from the thrall of that drugged icing, but once he does, all that matters to him is the cake.

And that's why men, whose thoughts are almost totally devoted to sexual thoughts about a woman's body alone, can love their wives even when they're 90 years old and stooped over. 

My rabbi tells a story: One of his students had been dating a young woman for some time, but seemed trouble. My rabbi asked him how it was going, and the student, embarrassed, replied, "Well...it's going well, but...but..". My rabbi finally got him to speak, and he admitted sheepishly, "Well, she's not exactly a supermodel." My rabbi says he was absolutely flabbergasted, but once he finally regained his composure, he told him, "But don't you see? You cannot marry the prettiest woman on earth - I already did." And at that moment, says my rabbi, his student got the look of a flash of realization on his face. 

Before I married I did find porn exciting. My husband never bothered with porn and therefore it did not become a part of our married life. I am so glad that neither one of us reads or looks at porn now. We find one another stimulating enough.

when my teen -age son left porographic materials where I could easily find them, i threw them away. i don't look through his desk or book bag. But if its not hidden its going in the trash.

"Joanna Krupa Says Posing for Playboy Empowering for Women"

I just read that headline in the news.  I am so certain the first female Commander in Chief of the Armed Services will be a public nudist!  lol

That you dont see any Jewish girls in playboy, its a trashy magazine full of trashy          " women" with no morals, on one hand I do understand why you would want to see Jewish girls in playboy,since magazines like that tend to show what is considered beautiful in this country but its ridiculous that a bunch of overly bleach overly tanned and overly augmented girls should be seen as ideal beauties and we should stop buying into it. You should want to see more Jewish girls in music, acting and ( regular, clothes on ) modeling.

@mikewinddale: You’re suggesting that every single man's opinion of women is the same, and so it should go unchallenged because that's "the nature of men?"

I could just as easily say that it’s women's nature to want to dress sexy, so men have to sac up and deal with it. Women don’t have to cater to men in relationships, nor the other way around -- relationships have to come from a place of mutual respect, not herd-like thinking.

i also think you'll find that there are men out there who treat women as individuals and respect their hoices, although they apparently are not the men you hang around with.

also, don’t be too worried about “winning” the game of feminism. If you look at the feminist blogosphere and you'll find heated fights over what it means to be a feminist, which shows you that even amongst women who are feminist for a living, there is little agreement as to what that label actually means. so, your friends saying that you're a feminist doesn't work as support to your point of view.

you also seem to almost deliberately misread comments directed at you. Namaah (from your link) makes the case that women do not want to be viewed as unattractive by their partners, which is totally legitimate. she never asked you to be more superficial, that is a complete exaggeration.

and @BrookeLynn: i think you completely misread my article, if you read it as these magazines shaping what i see as beautiful. so please don't be patronizing.

anyway, the irony with all this is that i'm arguing for women to be allowed to be sexy and still treated with respect. 40 years ago, feminists were arguing for women to be treated with respect based on something other than their sex appeal. the bottom line is, we should not need to be one way or the other for men and society to respect us.

Jessica Pauline

   I've written about Jewish porn stars, both male and female, in Shmate magazine back in the 1980s and have a continuing interest in the matter.

  There are about 30 female porn stars currently in the business who identify as Jews. (A "star" has done at least 10 hardcore features since that is how long it takes for any woman to get a vocal fan base).  In alphabetical order by last name, they are:

Joanna Angel, Stephanie Cane, Dana DeArmond, Gwen Diamond, Nina Hartley, Cherie Houston, Arianna Jollee, Louisa Lanewood, Jaime Langford, Shy Love, Amber Lynn, Melissa Monet, Carmel Moore, Nicole Moore, Heather Pink, Raylene, Daphne Rosen, Avy Lee Roth, Riley Shy, Alexis Silver, Jules Sterling, Britney Stevens, Jessica Sweet, Tiffany Sweet and Isis Taylor.

  Prominent retirees include Annie Sprinkle, Gloria Leonard, and Susie Nero, who was the first one to publicly identify herself as Jewish in the 1980s.

...that Mathew Blaze of Dollhouse Digital produced his first video, "Nice Jewish Girls".  It was issued last month, and stars the aforementioned Dana DeArmond, Louisa Lanewood, Jules Sterling, Nikki LaMont, Kelly Divine, and James Deen. 

Deen is Joanna Angel's hot Hebrew hunk, and Kelly is the only Gentile actress in the cast.  I suppose the film lot was treated like a temple, so Kelly was brought in as its Shabbes Goy <g>.

More importantly, the video treats Jewish women as inherently hot and sex-loving, not like the Hollywood stereotype of sex-negative JAPs which has brainwashed many American Jewish men into pursuing Gentile women, thereby ramping up the intermarriage rate.

   Are you sure about Demi Marx?  I'd love it if someone with that stage name were Jewish!

I have no problem with Jewish women in Playboy, or porn.  Jewish women are pretty much absent from film and television and when portrayed, are usually devoid of sexuality. I've always been tickled by Nina Hartley's porn stardom and was secretly delighted by Monica Lewinsky's infamy as a blow-job queen.  Their acclaim is an FU to the finger waggers and naysayers among us.  Poor Lindsey Vuolo, I wish she had the stuff to stand up to the Shmuley the nag.