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Sex and the Suburbs |
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| Find Out What Monica Lewinsky Has to Do with Bar Mitzvah Gifts | ||
 by Shulamit Reinharz, July 23, 2009 |
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From this Series
Forget Sex and the City: the real story seems to be happening in the suburbs. Witness Desperate Housewives. But perhaps we have desperate Jewish girls, as well. Or is that the real story?
As everyone remembers, Monica Lewinsky was a Jewish girl from Beverly Hills who got a position as an intern in the White House. It appears that she misunderstood what the word "position" meant.
At the height of the scandal, it seemed to me that our country had come a long way because no one was making an anti-Semitic generalization out of Monica's behavior. But I was focusing on the wrong issue back then. It wasn't that Monica was Jewish, but perhaps that Jewish girls were Monicas.
Everyone was rightly talking about Bill. What he did wrong - and wrong he surely did. But what about Monica? Had she been doing this kind of thing back in Beverly Hills or was this an entirely new extracurricular activity for her? Can we generalize to Jewish girls in Weston or Westfield or Westwood from what Monica was doing in the West Wing?
These questions came to mind recently when a woman in her seventies began sharing her concern with me about the custom in her granddaughter's prep school - Jewish girls were giving Jewish boys blowjobs as bar mitzvah presents! (Presumably because they've already got everything else.)
I couldn't believe my ears. But then she told me that this practice is so rampant that the Reform Jewish movement has taken it on as a national policy concern. I checked that piece of information out on Google, and sure enough there is an article to that effect dated November 19, 2005. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, addressed 4,200 people in Houston for its biennial convention and explicitly talked about oral sex and hooking up. Bravo, Rabbi Yoffie. For him the issue was that girls are "defining their worth by how they please boys." The degradation of girls flies in the face of the Reform Movement's dedication to the equality of women, he said.
To explore the topic further, I asked one of my (nice Jewish) male students at Brandeis (from another part of the country) if he had heard of girls doing this while he was in high school. He told me that this is particularly a "middle school thing" and it is common. Further, he didn't think it was so bad - using the same line as Clinton. "It's not sex," he said. In other words, the kids want to have intercourse ("real sex"), but feel they shouldn't. So instead, they have oral sex, which isn't sex. He also said that the girls who do it are not stigmatized; usually the boy and girl like each other. "It's safer than sex," he went on to say. He did not see it as a problem.
Never one to lose an opportunity, at a recent bat mitzvah I asked the rabbi if he had heard about this topic. He told me his youth group leaders are complaining that this behavior exists and that his synagogue will soon be introducing a curriculum to deal with it.
I'm not sure exactly what the curriculum will entail, but I would like to offer one suggestion. Talk to the kids. Find out what sex means to them; find out what is realistic. Find out if they see it as sex; if the girls feel they are degraded. Find out if the boys are pressuring the girls. Sexual drives and urges are present in young people and since the kids are not about to get married either in high school or shortly thereafter, they need to figure out how to cope. There aren't too many Jewish models of young people to emulate - think about Philip Roth's Portnoy or Woody Allen. I just read Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays and numerous other Jewish-boys-growing-up books. Sexual fantasies, exploits, doubts and adventures crowd out other topics. It's not just the videos and movies and songs - it's in our "fine literature" as well. Sex is ubiquitous.
In the meantime, I'd like to share a true story that probably sheds some light on this matter. During the time that Monica was getting her blue dress soiled, my 11-year old niece (from suburbia, but another state) visited our house. I went to turn off the TV which was broadcasting yet another story on the topic. She said I didn't need to do that because she knew what oral sex was. "Oh really," I replied, "What is it?" "It's when you talk while you're doing it."
That may, in fact, be the level of understanding of what sexual relations are all about among our tween-age Jews today. So, let's start talking.
This piece appears courtesy of Jewcy's partnership with 614, magazine of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.
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BrookeLynn
Whatever happened to chaperoning/supervising teen boys & girls? I hear they also have been known to dabble in alcohol & illegal drugs when nobody is paying attention to them.
Mikewind Dale - Michael Makovi
My mother used to tell me everything. If we asked her a question, she told us the answer. About anything. If I was five and asked what sex is, she'd tell me.
She also of course told me what marriage was supposed to be, how she expected me to treat women, what kinds of relationships she expected me to be involved with and not, etc. But none of this was part of a formal discussion, a "Let's sit down and talk..."; it was just part and parcel of our general conversations together. We'd talk about sex the same way we talked about homework or the presidential elections. Sex was a general part of life, and it had rules, just like the rest of life; you don't steal from others and you don't have premarital sex. And every time we did discuss sex, she always lumped it right with marriage and children, the same way one would discuss food and drink in the same breath; it was always obvious to her and to me that sex apart from marriage was an anomaly.
Just recently, she wrote me an email, saying, "I am reminded of an advice column - not Jewish - that I read once about teaching teens how not to make unplanned babies (besides the obvious). One writer said that a ploy sometimes used by boys on girls they wanted to sleep with was to tell them that they wouldn't conceive if they didn't climax. I remember being disgusted that any boy could be so selfish. If he's going to wheedle and cajole a girl into doing something that she feels she shouldn't be doing, the least he should do is to make sure she enjoys it! (No, I am not advocating sex between unmarried teens.)"
The previous is just an example of the way she'd talk to me, subtly mixing hard facts with her own morals that she expected me to live up to. In one conversation, she teaches me to avoid premarital sex and to be as concerned for the woman's pleasure as for my own!
Similarly, if she ever read a story in the newspaper of racism or theft or anything else unsavory, she'd tell me about the story in such a way that I learned what she thought about it. Even something as simple as her facial expressions and tone of voice could teach me volumes. And my mother never taught me that racism is wrong; I just saw from her practical example that she treated everyone equally, and that was enough for me to learn.
Everything she taught me was simply part of our general mother-son interactions, without any given time ever given to formal discussion of sexuality. She let me know exactly what was expected of me, without ever devoting a formal session thereto. I think this is probably the ideal model for sexual education, and for all parental education in general. Teach informally as part of the general fabric of the relationship, and make your beliefs known implicitly, in the way you speak about everyday topics. When discussing sex with your child, begin the discussion by saying "Someday, when you married...", or "After I married...". And do this from the child's youngest years, so that by the time your child reaches 15, he or she has had 10 years of constant subtle indoctrination.
Hatch
You think this is only happening at the bar mitzvah?
This is not a new thing, this has been happening for years and it will continue to happen. Yes, we need to educate our kids about this but it's not going to stop it. If you tell a kid not to do something they're going to at least want to do it.
Fishman
How many girls/boys in the US are virgins (complete virgins) before their wedding night?
I find it ironic that the bar mitzvah is mentioned in an article so biased against kids' free thought. At bar mitzvah a male receives the reponsibility to follow G-d's commandments, so he must also get the power to choose for himself which activities he engages in.
Otherwise, we should declare the entire ordeal a method to flaunt wealth, inspire envy in relatives, and milk Bubbie and Szaide for cash.
Instead of telling kids from a young age that sex is only appropriate after marriage, after you've notified the government of your intentions to sleep together, parents should warn the kids of the risks of sexual activities and educate them on how this risk can be minimized.
And then: let them decide.
BrookeLynn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu8VKi5jOwo
kellenkaiser
It was brought to my attention recently that my younger brother does not like giving girls head. The messenger was a friend from my years of attending Jewish summer camp. His younger brother was now on the staff with my younger sibling. The news was delivered with a tone of disappointment. Well, what we do about it, I asked. Have you encouraged him in this regard? My friend assured me that he had but with little effect. This was a shonda, an embarassment to the family-but brought up some interesting ideas for me.
When I think of Jewish sexual stereotypes the one that pops into mind is that Jewish girls are good at and like to give head. Monica Lewsinsky of course is an example. But in my hometown of Berkeley, CA and nationwide in my leftist hippie youth movement, Jewish men are just as well known for the affection for and gift with oral sex. There is a peer culture that supports it, unlike say in the African-American community, where it is done but not bragged about, or the Latino dudes who don’t do it at all. Why was it that the Jewish guys I know are such proud connesisseurs? Was it cultural? Perhaps it comes from their mothers. These fellows tend to have been raised by strong second wave feminist women who surely endowed their sons with love for the female body. On the other hand, this also describes my brother and he hasn’t coopted the giving strategy. When I asked my mom whether she had encouraged him to a be a giver in bed, she admitted she had not.
My best friend Jenny, whose Jewish boyfriend is a master in these respects, in her own estimation, told me that he had been instructed in the importance of giving oral pleasure to one’s lovers by his older sister. She had told him at a barely pubescent age to imagine it tasted like his favorite food, in this case- cheesesteak. So maybe I am the one who has failed? And what does this have to do with the Jews? Well, there is the insistence in Judaism that a man pleasure his wife and since a majority of women cannot climax through penentration alone, it seems maybe it’s religiously mandated. Maybe that’s the next approach i’ll try in convincing my brother to be a giver. I’ll tell him he’s a bad jew if he doesn’t. kellenannekaiser.wordpress.com
BrookeLynn
I'm curious here: Is there any topic which you and your family would consider to be a private matter?
I'm just trying to imagine the sheer terror I would feel to hear a guy say that he learned all his sexual techniques from his big sis.
Morganfrost
Really-- I hate to think of myself as a prude, but that really was way way too much info.
TokenWASP
Thanks, but I'm not sure we all needed to know that. Some things are better left undiscussed with members of your family. That would be way up there on the list.
El-Ezekiel
Sounds like you have a great mom, you know what they say: "Behind every good man is a great women".
El-Ezekiel
my comment was for mikewinddale
And to kellen: woawww, I'm really knew at all this (convert) , been of African heritage (not African-American) and catholic education, I am relatively shock to read and heard all that. I was Shock when the Rabbi was talking about sex (not used to that) but hey I have to say Bravo too, its a good thing to teach kids in a early age about sex and the responsibility to engage to sexual relations!!! I grew up in Belgium and oh boy I can say that AMERICAN ARE WAY TOO active too soon!!!!
Mikewind Dale - Michael Makovi
You're right, but usually, that woman behind the man is his wife, not his mother! Not that I want to forget my mother and abandon her to obsolescence (G-d forbid), but all the same, I hope I won't be one of those Jewish men who never reaches manhood until his mother dies! :P
Morganfrost
Have we no decency? Is there some reason that we can't just be a teeny little bit repressed about some things?
premshah12
hmmm......
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