From the Archives: Sholom Bayis

Check out some of the old Unpious favorites! This week, “Sholom Bayis” by Fruma Biegeleisen.

He stands over me, panting in my ear. You want this bitch, sluts like you like it this way. Am I supposed to smile? Will that make him happy? I smile. I turn my eyes away from him. I look at the candles, there are so many of them and all different colors too. He likes each of our sons to light his own menorah.
He’s pushing something into me, some sort of object, maybe a bottle or a cucumber. It feels more like a cucumber. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much. Rape by produce. I try to close my legs tighter but it just hurts more. I have to learn to relax and not fight it.

And check out the conversations in the comments, ranging from women’s rights in Judaism to the qualifications of Kallah teachers:

WhytheSocks: ….when searching for a woman’s sexual rights in halacha, you end up one notch above saying tikun chatzos. Their dignity is totally dependent on the righteousness of the specific man to whom she was betrothed. Which is about as much rights as the negro in the old south.

Tzippi Langstrumpf: Whythe – Quite contraire, unlike the slave, whose everything he picked up immediately belonged to his master – a woman is according to Halacha definitively ‘not property of her husband’, and as such – her own person.

Zil Gmor: Whats with you people? Don’t you all know that women are basically “shmates” in Judaism. Do they have an opinion by a Get? Is there anything in the good book with them in mind? Women rights in halacha is like kreplach by shulchan orach.

saramaimon: how can someone who never enjoyed sex be a kallah teacher. that’s a travesty. A hot and sizzly sex life should be the number one prerequisite for anyone who wants to pursue such a hallowed career. Instead I fear it is a way for them to vent their unfulfilled sexual frustration on unsuspecting neophytes.

Elana: …The problem is that the orthodox version of sex education is check yourself, dip in the mikvah and please your husband. That explains why so many women are suffering in silence. and i bet a lot of men are suffering too.