First Dance
Shoshana Blum2013EssaysFirst PersonTopicsLove & SexReligionThe Frum World
The craigslist ad sounded mad sketchy. It wasn’t clear what the job was, but they wanted girls who were “slim, attractive, and personable… who are able to utilize their charm and femininity.” I was all of those things and more. I wanted to think they were looking for girls just to pour drinks and flirt with guys and look sexy, but it was easy to tell there was probably more to it.
The ad also said the pay was good: “Up to $1,000 a night.” It seemed like a good opportunity.
Also, I was feeling angry.
I was a Bais Yakov girl, full on. Nineteen years old, I could quote Rambam and Mishneh Brurah like the best of them. I had spent my whole life doing what was right, my sins limited to violating curfew in seminary and indulging an occasional bit of lashon hara.
Over the past year, however, I’d become disillusioned. It began with a bad breakup. The boy I was shidduch-dating, so perfect in every way and whom I was certain I was going to marry, had turned out to be a disappointment. He hadn’t asked for much, but we were taught that holding hands was as bad as having sex, and in my head, it was all yeherag ve’al ya’avor. The two adult mentors I turned to for advice made me feel like a slut for even thinking about it. When it ended, I blamed it all on being shomer.
This job, whatever it was, would be the perfect fuck you. To my teachers. To my parents. To my rabbis. To all who led me to believe that my happiness lay in their endless rules. I wanted now to be reckless, to search for temptation and give in to it. I would be a bad girl, and I would be bad all the way. Strip-club bad, not making-out-with-sketchy-YU-guy bad. If by their phony standards I was a slut, then bring it, I thought, and get me a one-way ticket to slutsville.
It was a classy-looking nightclub, and I stood with a group of a dozen girls who had replied to the ad. They were all the same type: pretty college girls who figured it was an easy, harmless way to make money. I wondered if any of them had, like me, never touched a boy.
The main room was like a regular bar. There were lots of girls in very revealing short dresses being chatted up by Wall Street executive types. Every now and then, a couple would go off into the next room. Through a large open door, I could see several couches bathed in the soft glow of dim lighting. That was, apparently, where the action was.
The manager, a man with a nice suit, a long ponytail, and really creepy eyes, described the job. In businesslike fashion, he spoke of the job’s sheer awesomeness, how empowering it was to girls, how much money a girl could make, how satisfied a girl could be. Also, he said, just in case we hadn’t figured it out, the job was to give lap dances. I wasn’t sure what a lap dance was, but I got the basic idea. I was pretty sure we were expected to do them topless, but the man said nothing about that, and so I hoped I wouldn’t have to.
The girl at the bar, Tanya, soon cleared up any such doubt. “Helllloooo, sunshine,” she said with a mock-scornful tone when I asked if topless was part of the job description. “What do you think these guys are paying for?”
Tanya was a goth-looking, pale, stick-thin thing. I told her she looked like Jennifer Connelly—a good way to make friends is to give compliments. I was trying to get some tips before heading off to find a customer. I told her it was my first night, that I came from a very religious background, and that I’d never done anything like this.
Tanya laughed. “Honey,” she said, “I’m from Utah. Been in Manhattan since I was 19—seven years. My folks have no idea what I do here.”
She suggested I get a Long Island Iced Tea. “Fastest way to get buzzed.” To pay for it: “Go kiss up to Rob.” Rob was the pony-tail manager guy, who, Tanya claimed, was happy to buy you a drink as long as you hid your underage wristband. “Just bat those long eyelashes at him.”
“You teaching her to beg?” Rob shouted to Tanya. But he seemed pleased, and grabbed my ass and gave me a friendly hug.
“So,” I said to Tanya, sipping my drink. I felt foolish and silly and like the crazy child I was, and I just blurted it out: “What exactly is a lap dance?”
Tanya gave a shrill laugh, then a brisk wave with the back of her hand. “A lap dance is whatever you want it to be. And I can tell,” she added, “you’re a little actress. You’ve totally got this whole sexy act going on.”
I bet she’s right, I thought. I am a little actress, and I bet I can pull this off. I slipped off the stool, gave Tanya a wave, and set out to find my first client. I can do this, I said to myself. Screw Bais Yaakov. Screw my parents. Screw that boy I thought I would one day marry. It’s my life, and for once, I am going to do whatever the hell I want.
I remember a conversation with a frum boy, sometime after my breakup. We talked about the concept of shomer, and all the pressures that came with it. At one point, the boy remarked casually, “You know, that stuff is all made up. There’s nothing in the Torah that really says you can’t touch boys.”
That didn’t make sense, but he insisted it was true.
“There is nothing in the Torah about tznius either,” he said.
How was that possible?
“It’s about the men,” he said. “They’re the ones obligated not to gaze, to avoid places of immodesty. It’s the man who must look away, not the woman who must cover up.”
I did not know what to make of this. I had imagined a posuk somewhere: Beware not to violate the laws of tznius, otherwise Hashem, your God, will smite you as he smote the Egyptians. I had imagined pages and pages of gemara about the evils of uncovered knees and visible collarbones. I imagined an entire volume of Shulchan Aruch about the thickness of stockings.
None of that existed, the boy said.
Boys knew things that girls didn’t, and so I began to look things up. It didn’t take long for me to realize just how ignorant I was. We were taught to accept unquestioningly. I had spent 19 years of my life reminding myself of what God wanted of me, and it turned out, it wasn’t all that clear that God cared, and most of it was only about helping men with their obligations.
I felt cheated. I had been so strong and determined, and now I was left with a terrible empty feeling.
A lot more began to fall apart. I soon discovered just how much of our lifestyle was made up by rabbis less than 100 years ago. They had declared everything ossur. Precaution against precaution, all to keep their utopia safe. I wouldn’t have minded if they were suggestions, but why were they upheld as laws?
Did even my teachers know the truth? I wondered. What else was I lied to about, simply because they trusted a girl would never open a sefer to look things up on her own? Was anything at all really forbidden?
I set out to walk across the room, to find someone to talk to, and immediately felt the intoxicating rush from the men’s gazes all around. I was wearing a skimpy cocktail dress over lacy black lingerie, and had never been so exposed in public. The feeling left me heady and slightly overwhelmed, almost as if I’d shot myself with some powerful substance. I felt invincible—men all around me, glancing, winking, beckoning, all of them willing to pay money just for me to take my shirt off.
Every anxiety I’d ever felt about myself fell away. As a teenager, I had been a nerd and a bookworm and was always spewing random information just to show people I was smart and knowledgeable. In response, I got bullied for it and called names. As an adolescent, I developed body image problems. I was the kind of girl who always thought I needed to lose weight. Or get a boob job. Or straighten my hair. Or get a complete face reconstruction. I still remembered the words of a teenage friend, with whom I had shared about an upcoming visit with family friends who were not frum. I was excited, I told her. They had a son my age who I thought was cute, and so I was looking forward to it. My friend looked at me with a kind of pity mixed with disgust. “Why would he bother looking at you? He’s not frum. He could have any girl in the world.”
I was 17, and I believed her. When I started shidduch-dating, I realized that guys thought I was attractive, but nothing like this. The attention now was dizzying. All these men, they wanted me, and all I had to do was look around and decide whom to pick.
He was a blond, blue eyed German. His taller, more portly friend had beckoned me over, but soon another girl was called, and we paired off. He was very polite, my German client, although I could barely hear what he was saying over the booming music. I did catch that he was in his 30s and worked in finance.
He ordered a beer, and I got a Malibu Bay Breeze. Just as I took a sip of my drink he put his arm around me. It was like he was laying claim to his territory, and I felt a shiver of disgust. I had held so many notions about the sacredness of touch that when it came, so casually and from a stranger, I could only flinch. I pulled away just slightly and explained it was my first time. That I was nervous. Could we take it slow? Could we just talk for a bit first maybe?
That was fine, he said. He seemed gentle and kind, and his friend leaned in just then to tell me how lucky I was, I got such a nice guy for my first dance. Suddenly, all I wanted was for my first dance to be over. The guy was telling me about his life, about a recent trip he took, or something or other, but I couldn’t focus. I could see his lips moving, the expressions on his face, but I could hear no words.
“Shall we go dance now?” I said.
For a second he looked surprised, then he stood up. “Sure.”
I did my best catwalk strut across the room, while he held his arm around my waist. I think he felt smug knowing he got me, and it felt strangely satisfying.
The lap dance room was small, with a curtain separating us from the main room. There was a loveseat and two stools, the lighting casting a purplish haze over everything. The guy sat down, and I stood opposite him.
How did I get here? I thought, as I began to gyrate my hips. Just a few months ago, I wouldn’t hold hands with my date. Just a few months ago I would go from friendly to fierce if my date so much as gave me the wrong look, and I thought he might kiss me. Just a few months ago I was convinced that if I so much as allowed the touch of a hand on my arm, he wasn’t going to marry me. That’s what they had all said: Let him touch you, and he’ll never marry you. Give in and you’re as good as pre-chewed bubblegum.
And now I was about to do a striptease for a blond, German guy who didn’t even know my name. The strangest thing was that I was liking it. With each passing moment, I found myself sliding deeper into a trance-like state. The music pumped from all around, the alcohol tingling my senses, and I felt as if possessed with some strange and foreign spirit, one that had come to liberate and empower me after so many years of being told to hide my body, suppress my desires, flee the male gaze that sought to soil my pure soul. With one fluid motion I slipped my sparkly cocktail dress off my shoulder and let it fall to the floor. I could see the man’s lower lip hang limp. “Wow,” he mouthed, as I unhooked my bra and threw it to the side. I stood in front of him for a moment, then stepped towards him. He reached for me, and I leaned in, pressing my body against his. I could smell his cologne mixed vaguely with sweat, felt his erection against my leg, and I thought: Fuck you, God.
There were other men, and more dances, and it all felt like good fun and good money too. And yet, this wasn’t me. Just a day earlier I had thought of myself as a typical Bais Yakov girl who was still shomer, who kept Shabbos and kosher and wore long skirts and demure tops.
Later that night I found myself in conversation with one of the security guys. He was a tall black man, who I imagined had seen it all. He was friendly, but kept himself aloof from the business in the club, claiming he had a long-term girlfriend, and he spoke of the club’s clientele with a touch of disdain.
I needed to share about myself, to let someone into my private drama, and told him it was my first time, that I’m not really like this.
He looked unimpressed. “Every girl’s got her first time.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I’m very religious.” It took some more explaining about my background, until he accepted that this was indeed unusual.
He then gave me a long silent look, as if unsure about something in his head. Finally, he asked: “So… what are you doing here then?”
What was I doing there? I didn’t quite know how to explain it, to the security guard or even to myself, and went home that night wondering about his question.
In my mind, I had wanted to act out a revenge fantasy. To get back at someone: God, my parents, my teachers. But now that I had done it, I knew that it was not about them. I was just hurting over a boy, still hoping, wishing, pining for something that was not to be. Perhaps I had come to wash away my pain through the affections of strange men, but it hadn’t worked; it only reminded me of what I’d lost.
And what I’d lost, I realized as the days and weeks passed, was a boy who wanted something that I wouldn’t give. Being shomer had nothing to do with it. Perhaps he just didn’t deserve me.
40 Responses
A still-frum female friend of mine recently had the same awareness dawn on her; that it’s not her problem if men look at her, it’s theirs.
It’s interesting to think about what it would be like in the frum community if they lowered the rhetoric a little. It’s nice to think about how they’re driving their own people away with their extremism, but on the other hand, they’re really making life miserable for many many people. Which is sad.
When I was 19 and after social abuse in the religious community, I ran away and had nothing. Being without experience, I thought maybe “exotic dancing” would be not as bad as its image. After all, I was much better than my social immage.
When I walked into the club and saw what this “dancing” was, I didn’t strip. I didn’t do it. I had no reason, I didn’t know why not. I just knew that I could NOT do this.
I lived in poverty. I had no food and hardly any clothing. But I was happy always because I always knew that I was a good straight person who simply got the wrong attention and had the courage to walk away and also be willing to stick to my dignity.
I was so young, but now I’m 30 and I can only be so full of gratitude to my religious backround, that even though it wasn’t 100% straight with me, at least it created me to be a moral person.
Maybe I left my backround and lowered the standard, but I always kept my dignity and that’s what counts.
Thank you God and thank you Judiasm.
Unless there were unstated interim steps between yeshiva boy date and stated event, this story just doesn’t ring true.
BHB — Why do you say that?
As a feminist, I cannot help cringing at this story. I’ll admit it’s well written and gripping, on some level. It is raw and rebellious and there’s a certain freedom in the anger, the revenge, the free-wheeling consequence-less actions of a newly minted high school graduate. Those years when you can do some pretty wild stuff and escape serious damage.
Maybe it sounds quaint to say, gosh, freedom is so intoxicating, couldn’t you craft a thousand and one better ways to drink it than bare your breasts for some hungry stranger? You simply can do better. As you yourself discovered.
What appears liberating…isn’t, in the end. I can relate to that heady terrified sensation of tossing off the cloak. It came in stages for me but it still came pretty quickly. My daughter recently remarked, it’s taken you weeks to decide between an iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy, how on earth did you steal away to college behind their backs, and defy them when it came time for the shidduch dates?
How were you so resolute?
When I think of freedom, that’s what it came down to. College, career, an educated husband with a profession. Resolution. Iron resolve. You had to be. There was no other way to do it. Hold your breath and jump out of that airplane.
It sounds a little common now. It’s what we all want. Decades ago, I was the first (the first I knew of, that is) and I stood to lose everything. I wasn’t about to throw it all away for some quick cash on someone’s lap.
Correction: there were no shidduch dates. Shidduch meets is more like it.
When we “out” ourselves
It takes on a new meaning
Just like the life we have never had
For every woman who has a first leaving the world she is happy to leave behind it is a freedom no one else can understand or relate to
Unless they have been there
and done that
Both Literally and figuratively
It’s the process of self discovery
A lesson we have been denied
Its called life
and its real
when you live for yourself
Yeah, I’m going to have to go with BHB on this one… The story sounds, at best, wildly exaggerated, but honestly smacks of wholesale fabrication to me. I just don’t buy it; even if a frum girl decided to give exotic dancing a try, she certainly wouldn’t be hired (and paid!) to do it with zero prior experience, as the story claims. The other characters are more than a little cliche/unrealistic as well. Maybe try the fiction section next time.
Anna makes a good point here.
it is way in my past ,i really do not have the time to comment, but to all those that think that it could not be true you are nuts. i am one of several(that i know at least) former frum girls that i know who have supported ourselves and put ourselves through school through paid dating and exotic dancing People don’t talk about us but we are here and now. That is what happens when you throw us out and leave us to make it on our own without an education. No leah i do not believe you were were raped but i do believe you slept for rent money because i was there too No shame to you but shame to your parents and mine who abandoned us because we did not share beliefs. I will leave with one final observation to all you that like to call us shiksas more than once i looked up at you, the the fat heavy slob breathing heavy on top trying to do your best that your seed lands in a woman, any woman, even one you think is a shiksa and and asked sweetly so WHAT TIME IS SHABBOS THIS WEEK?
CM
I don’t believe the story for the reasons given above but it doesn’t surprise me to hear that OTD girls end up as prostitutes and strippers.(Nor does it surprise me to hear about some frum people succumbing) If the author fell for some boys line about there being nothing in the Torah about Shome Negaih she clearly wasn’t the Rambam expert she claimed to be.
I don’t know if this is autobiography or fiction (either is fine). That an awkward teenage wallflower “blooms” on her first dance sounds fantastic.
What struck me, though, was how the protagonist (on purpose or inadvertently) relived as “first person” the advice given by R’ Elai the Elder on Page 40A of Kidushin: “If a person sees his impulses gaining on him, he should go to a place where he is not known, dress in black (what color was the lingerie again?) and do as his heart desires.” (אמר רבי אלעאי הזקן אם רואה אדם שיצרו מתגבר עליו ילך למקום שאין מכירין אותו וילבש שחורים ויתכסה שחורים ויעשה כמו שלבו חפץ.) Bravo!
What is the wors Aveira you can do?
To forget that your a bas melech
This is an old story. Cliche. It happens….mormon girl from Iowa, innocent girl, rebellious girl, angry girl.
It’s about self-esteem.
Hi everyone.
Thank you all so much for your feedback.
Maybe I should just clarify a few things. This story is true, I did not make it up…I can hardly see what the advantage to me would be to fabricate such a story and publish it as non-fiction. For one thing, I am anonymous, and for the other thing, Shulem Deen has a multitude of other interesting stories he could get. So I would not waste my time writing it if it did not actually happen.
You do not know who I am, who’s to say that I am not as good as any of the strippers out there? You think the average stripper is “groomed” for her career? Most of them are just your average pretty working girl / struggling college student looking for creative ways to make money…whoever said it is cliched is right, in fact.
In retrospect I don’t even think becoming a stripper is such a bad thing, its just that I went straight to that from being a shomer negiah top-of-the-line bona fide bais yaakov girl. Obviously there were some imbalances and trauma in my life I suffered that caused me to disregard what I had previously held sacred and come to the realization that most of my values were complete BS.
What can I say, these stories could happen with bais yaakov girls too, just because it sounds cliched doesn’t mean its not true.
And there was more stuff going on that I didn’t include…that would probably be material for another article.
Anyone who wants to contact me, feel free to do so through this blog.
Anna, you are incredibly naive if you think the average strip club will not hire a girl with no experience. Do you have any idea of the turnover in this industry? Do you have any idea how many unscrupulous business owners and clients thrive on taking advantage of inexperienced sex workers who don’t know the ropes and haven’t established their personal boundaries yet? Pshah…
J, as a feminist, you might try to respect women who choose to earn a living in ways other than you would. Judgmental much? When women achieve sexual emancipation on a societal level — in that shame and stigma are not the consequence of consensual, legal sexual acts — we will be closer to the notion of equality that lies at the core of feminist dogma.
Sex work can be extraordinarily liberating and empowering. We are all sexual beings, and sex work can be a healthy outlet for fantasy and interpersonal exchange. It isn’t often viewed as such because of negative preconceptions by people who often have zero personal experience with the trade — like yourself for example. Women in the sex industry often have very high earning potential compared to people in other fields that similarly require little to no prior training or experience. There is little more empowering than the independence that comes with being able to support oneself — and in this case, handsomely. Further, one can often maintain a flexible schedule and enjoy more leisure time than many working people are afforded.
Sexual stigma is harmful to women. It results in the criminalization of harmless, consensual acts, it inhibits health and safety regulation, and inhibits the prosecution of violent crimes committed against sex workers. Working to eliminate the stigma forced upon women who choose to act with sexual agency outside of the context of marriage and family, will help bolster gender equality in society. We are all sexual beings, and feminists who follow the reasoning you espouse might start to think in a more nuanced way about the very complex issue of divining equality from entrenched, world-wide, patriarchal structures.
i just want to tell you something im also a bais yakov girl and i sometimes feel like the things they teach us is BS but guess what its not i asked a lot of people and a lot of question about shomer and tzniut and its not to help out the guys from not looking at us. we are bnos hashem and hashem wants us to be hidden meaning tzniut he doesnt want us to expose our bodies to the world to see our bodies should be hidden from the world. and by you going and becoming a stripper because you had problems in your life is no excuse. i bet you that jewish people in the world went through harder things that you went through and still stayed tzniut and didnt go and become strippers so if youre just trying to use your suffering as an excuse to go and be a stripper you cant. you went and became a stripper because you wanted to rebel against hashem for some reason but please dont blame it that the torah is a lie and that youve been brain washed in school because all school is trying to do is help you.
Hmm Adina, I wonder who you went to for the answers to all your existential/religious questions…something tells me it was not an objective 3rd party that would give you an unbiased answer. So forgive me for not taking you seriously.
Let me tell you something, when I believe something, I do it all the way, no matter how hard it is and what is going on in my life. Before I was 19 I never did anything that was considered “rebellious”. I saw all OTD people as lazy people who left Judaism for the drugs, sex, rock n roll kind of lifestyle.
I do not have time to go into detail here, but I tried very hard to seek answers. I went to all different kinds of sources.
I am by nature a skeptic though and I don’t take BS from anyone, I examine every claim on its own merit. I go by the Rambam’s dictum, “kabel es ha’emes mimi she’amra”. (side point: for whoever commented that I “am not a Rambam expert”, I do not claim to be one, but I do know what the Rambam says on the posuk, “lo sikrav legalos ervah”. that is a da’as yochid, not a straight out halacha, as I was taught in Bais Yaakov.)
I don’t understand why you think that the answers are so black-and-white. If that were the case, maybe more than 10% of American Jews would consider labelling themselves “Orthodox”.
Your comment is so full of logical fallacies that I don’t have time to refute each one in turn. But even according to Talmudic thinking, Don’t you realize that the burden of proof is on you?!
Shoshana, why is the burden of proof on her? Orthodoxy demands that we effectively sacrifice much in order to be Orthodox. Strangely, that demand is placed on only a teeny tiny portion of humanity. Why, because of an accident of birth, should she be required to do other than what her heart tells her. Clearly, the burden of proof should not be on her.
Shoshana,
I won’t argue you further but either you were fooled or you are fooling yourself.(The latter possibility is more likely)Shomer Negia most definitely is a clear cut Halacha as you were taught in BY.While the Ramban holds the gemorah is an asmachta no one disagrees with it being a clear cut Halacha. And the Rambam is NOT a daas yochid as you claim.The statement “there is nothing in the Torah about Tznius or Shomer Nigie” in the manner you understand and quote it is false.And that is without factoring in your lack of understanding of Rabbinic Authority the Torah gives.You claim to have found just how much of our lifestyle was made up by rabbis less than 100 years ago. They had declared everything ossur.The statement is too vague to really comment on but if you were led to the conclusion of Was anything at all really forbidden? there are clearly things you don’t understand that aren’t difficult to answer. (Whether you believe in Torah and Rabbinic authority is irrelevant .The issue is your presentation of it here)
On a personal level, please don’t ruin your life.I’m NOT saying this from a frum perspective. Most secular boys also wouldn’t want to marry a stripper.I’m confident the majority of people who go to prostitutes and strippers really look down at them and would be horrified if their daughters became one.A cousin of mine did something similar to you about thirty years ago.Then we were so horrified at her behavior.Now that she is in her 50’s we all look at her at being a big time nebich case.And she does not look at all like a happy person today.
I apologize if I wrote anything you find too offensive.I will not post further on this topic or blog.
“Most secular boys also wouldn’t want to marry a stripper.”
Your point?
Most secular boys don’t want to marry frum girls either.
Advo, you write: “Do you have any idea how many unscrupulous business owners and clients thrive on taking advantage of inexperienced sex workers who don’t know the ropes and haven’t established their personal boundaries yet?”
And then you scold me, “J, as a feminist, you might try to respect women who choose to earn a living in ways other than you would. Judgmental much?”
Yea, I suppose. I guess I’m just not rooting for “unscrupulous business owners and clients who thrive on taking advantage of inexperienced sex workers…” Doesn’t sound like a career path worth applauding. Sounds more like manipulation and power. Which can and often does lead to abuse. Subtle or not.
Advo then goes to say: “It isn’t often viewed as such because of negative preconceptions by people who often have zero personal experience with the trade — like yourself for example.”
Oh, dang. Of all the things I wish I’d achieved, all the experiences I still hope to achieve, all the things I didn’t get to do, drat. Never got to work in the sex trade. Bummer. Look what I’ve missed out on!
Nah. I’ll pass. Life is short, too much left to do. I’m not going to cry in my old age that I missed out on this.
I don’t know where this myth about it being ‘his’ problem alone comes from. I guess it’s the American selfishness, looking out for #1 at play. The halahka is quite clear that a woman is supposed to be modest. Don’t be so outraged by that. Men have plenty of obligations that exist for the sake of women, like supporting them financially their whole lives. She has no obligation to support him. Talk about unfair. I’d switch in a minute to wearing a modest dress from to schlepping to work, sitting in a cube, and being abused by customers for 40 years.
J, thanks for the reply.
First, your retort about not rooting for unscrupulous business owners has no teeth because the “manipulation and power” you condemn exists in all virtually all industries. If it were endemic to the sex-industry you might have a point. Currently waves of workers in the U.S. are rising up to protest unsustainable employment policies. Think of the McDonalds walk-out for example. Rather than pay a living wage and cut into their profits ($27 million in 2012 btw, per Forbes) McDonalds has even set up a hotline to advise employees how to apply for taxpayer-funded foodstamps. Or, consider the current Walmart strikes. Four people from the Walton family are among the top ten richest people in America (per Forbes) while the average hourly wage, before taxes, of a Walmart employee is $8.81 (per labor advocacy group OurWalmart). Sounds like manipulation and power to me. Ugh. Don’t even get me started on energy company practices…
The point is that social stigma around sex work, which you embrace, leads to a public policy of criminalization, which is harmful to women for reasons mentioned previously. Outside the realm of marriage or reproduction, the sexually active woman is a “fallen” woman. Not cool, and not feminist. From a human rights perspective, shaking your tits in a consensual, mutually satisfying exchange (she gets paid, he gets off ) isn’t really so repugnant when you think about the grand scale corporate “manipulation and power” that results in egregious income disparity and is the driver of epic environmental destruction. But, I don’t know, maybe in your eyes the corporate hegemony is still a better “career path worth exploring.”
Second, I’m not going to regret never becoming, say, a skydiving instructor while on my death bed, but my point is that your judgments aren’t based on knowledge gained from viable sources — patrons and providers — but on knee-jerk conjecture. Ya dig?
Peace.
Advo, I love your binary choices. You’re either a sex worker making a bucketful of money or you’re flipping burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage. This is often the grim scenario posited when luring young women. You sure paint a pretty dreary picture of the workplace.
Whoever said the face of work is rosy? Of course there are myriad injustices that should be corrected. I’ve been subjected to plenty of them. But your argument, based on the main premise, is weak.
As i read this article one thing came to my mind, (I’m not much of a learned man myself but i did happen to take this Judaism class) the rabbi was speaking about the rape of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob to be mentioned in the torah. the rabbi was speaking about Dinah when she went out in the city of shechem, she was approached by shechem and he kidnapped her and defiled her.
So now i just want to break your article and answer some misunderstandings through what i was taught. (again im no rabbi so dont assume that i will be looking these laws up.)
1) Tzniut – according to the story of Dinah, she had her wrists bare. this enticed shechem so much so as to rape her. Now, I dont really know what you look like but I assume you never been raped for exposing your wrists. I believe that this teaches us a little about Tzniut.
2) Disgrace to the name of Israel – im sure you know what simeon and levi did to the city of shechem. I really love what they answered to their father when he said to them – “Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, ‘You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.’
– But they said (Genesis 34:31), ‘Should he treat our sister as a harlot?'”
I’m sure you are not a bad person and you are probably very intelligent, but you really should have less hate in your heart. There are challenges in this life and trust me some are harder than others, (in the words of Rocky Balboa) “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward.”
All the best.
God needs to pinch you on the breast w a little cancer. Guaranteed you’ll come back to him. He’s just waiting for you to awaken yourself w/o that.
God needs to pinch you on the breast w a little cancer
What a horrible thing to say. Wow, talk about really awful
Oh so we have different understandings in what the word ‘Awful’ stands for.
This above article depicts acts that would be shunned by your ancestors (except if your atheist mind believes you descended from monkeys)as ‘worst of the worst’. They would let themselves be burned in the marketplace not to transgress those AWFUL sins. They would sit Shiva for a child committing such acts. Yes, your ancestors all the way up some 150 or so generations. But,, what did those old timers understand,,
When the grandchild writes without embarrassment on a blog for all to see –and I thought: Fuck you, God.– That’s OK, not awful,,. So we are not allowed to talk awful to people, talking awfully to God, is not a problem. Reminds me of the German theory: To ban Shechita for animal protection reasons, whilst butchering humans in the millions.
Well, Don’t worry, if there’s no God, there’s gonna be no cancer, I guess.
Yes, she did something that her parents would not approve of, and she did it because she was mad, so you want her to die from cancer?
I have had friends died from Cancer and it was horrible, they went threw years of torture. If you think wishing cancer on someone is a way to bring them back to G-d you are dumber than you sound.
You didn’t comment on what she did you just wished she would spend years dealing with a horrible condition. Because thats what you do for people you love.
And I will stand by my statement, wishing someone to get cancer is awful,
It seems that you can’t tell the difference between these two statements:
I hope you find your way back to observance of mitzvot.
I hope you suffer from years of torture.
Or maybe you can and just have no human compassion for anyone who is less perfect than you think yourself to be
Zachary, Mansur is either a troll or an idiot. Either way, it’s not worth engaging him in conversation.
Be very carefule mansur, curses on others have a way of coming back to oneself.
I think this applies here http://xkcd.com/386 — SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!
Zachary,
What worth is there to blesses and curses if we don’t believe in God? What are you afraid of?
I said pinch with a little cancer. Yes if he can pinch, then he can heal too.
Keep on F-kn at God but dare he let you suffer for years. I mean that suffering is horrible!
Baal Habos feels I am an idiot.
Maybe for carrying a conversation on this site.
I shoud’ve blessed her “I hope you find your way back to observance of mitzvot.”
Oh The Torah in all places of repenting, mentions punishment and then states that you will come back and do Tshuva. So I follow in that trait rather in the “Liberal American” way.
I hope you all find your way back to observance of mitzvoth, but that’s NOT going to happen if you don’t believe in God. Seems to me that you all will not believe in him without some “signal” of his.
So I’ll bless you all to grasp his signal as long as it has not brought big damage upon you and your loved ones.
Again all those above words could have been written by your and her ancestors just several years ago. Ancestors who had compassion and loved other jews including those that might of gone off track. Repeating the Torahs words to bring a young shnuck to rethink the path she’s taken is nothing short of Mercy!
A person who talks like you has never been through suffering. You are haughty because you were never struck down. I hope you are and learn some compassion
why is it all or nothing?.
throwing the baby out with the bath-water.
so you don’t like being ultra-frum chill but still keep the mitzvos.
this extreme behavior demonstrates confusion or instability either temporary or more long term
Funny I really like all these OTD people who make like they really know what halacha is dictating.
You say the boy says there really isn’t anything in the torah saying anything about tznius or ‘shomer’ wearing a hat for davening…… What a total joke, like these ‘boys’ all really big masmidim and have learned through all 6 chalek of mishne brurah and he knows. The boy knows nothing most probably never learnt through chamish chumshas torah and these ‘boys’ are telling you whats in it! The girl most probably knows more than these ‘boys’. Its a shame these girls and boys don’t have someone qualified and caring to answer all their questions. May hkb’h grant you a way to do teshuva and return to a beautiful heritage. It pains me to see so many ‘otd’ who just throw it off and are ‘oiver’ arayos…I sympathize with your ultra strict upbringing. but if that didn’t work go to a more liberal community and re-invent yourself and find a different mehalch hachaim. hashem loves you and is pained just follow the torah dont go with all the chumros that you were brought up with. Wishing all my lost brother and sisters out there a good elul and yomim no’roim!
Chaim, what you don’t realize is that today’s chumras are tomorrow’s halachos. And today’s halachos are yesterday’s chumras. And that is true for all the prior generations.
Yes im 1000 yiddish and as happy as could be. Now to the story. The writer blames some faulty and unjust laws that exist in the ultra orthodox community . . . Well what the story makes clear is that it has nothing to do with the jewish law that bothered her. . . Its just that she wants to be able to do WHATEVER she wants WHENEVER. With WHOEVER she likes. Ok. . . Can she name ONE SINGLE religion that would encourage or allow or even Accept this type of behavior? NO SHE CAN’T CAUSE THERE SIMPLY ISN’T. Now. Our gemara tells us that adultery etc are among the several ‘commo sense’ mitzvos. And thats universaly understood. When clinton or spitzer or weiner are forced to resign because of their shmitz it has nothing to do with jewish law. It simply is the way rightful people have lived for thousands of years. She simply decided to give in to some short-lived crave for some attention to her body from a stranger rather then looking for attention to her talents of having a nice and modest yidishe mishpuche. Too bad!