Short Story About a Hasidic Girl

Author Rachel Ament emailed me a link to a very good short story she wrote called I Am a Criminal. She says it's "very loosely" based on stories told to her by neighbors in Boro Park. Excerpt:

Tamar opened the door to her apartment, pulled me inside with a hug.

“Baruch Hashem! Baruch Hashem!” she cheered. She led me to the dining room table where we played Gin-Rummy with Chinese playing cards. She held her fan of seven cards real close to her face. “Masha, stop looking,” she kept saying. Her mother soon entered with a casserole dish in hand, steam waving from its crust and her six or seven kids took their seats at the table. I took a seat diagonally across from Menachem, looked at him every now and then using only the corner of my eyes. He had grown into an attractive man, that Menachem. His face was quite youthful, all rounded edges, nice copper eyes that turned green in bad lighting. The only problem was his mouth which was rowed with these huge splint-sharp teeth. Teeth for a rodent, my mama once whispered to me with a laugh.

I didn’t want to stare at him so I tried to find something else to do with my eyes. I looked at my arm hair. I looked at the dog. I looked at Tamar, who was cutting her potato kugel into the shape of a star, swinging at the crust with these grand, seesawing motions, like she was sawing wood or something. She was no doubt about it soliciting for attention.

“Tamar,” I finally gave in, “What are you doing?”

“Its just, well you know… kugel,” Tamar’s face grew serious. “It's just so ugly, it's like...orphan mush. I’m just trying to make it more attractive.”

“You are so mental,” I said.

“She really is,” Menachem said, staring at his plate, already regretful. As he should have been. Menachem was a frum boy, mind you, and was weeding his way into conversation between two girls, one of whom was not related to him!—surely this meant our great solar system had kicked out of orbit. Surely this meant the planets were suddenly rotating the sun in the broken-wheeled motions of the hora instead of in its usual clean circuit. I mean surely.

My father once said that sins happen in clumps. You bee-bee-gun a bird for pleasure, enjoy the thuggish feeling of watching feathers blasting with blood and you begin killing animals higher up the kingdom. Shoot to the top, so to speak. I guess the same phenomenon was happening with Menachem. He began talking to me with longer and longer sentence and it was not long before he had curled his upper lip behind his gumline and smiled at me. It wasn’t some shy smile either but a giant comedian performance smile toppling over with all sorts of chemicals and romantic implications. I even spotted a matching wink in his left eye.

Premarital Sex: Risk vs. Reward

Last month, I wrote that I support responsible and safe unmarried teen sex. Of course my Orthodox readers responded negatively, with various reasons, but one argument jumped out over and over again: it's just too risky. And there are serious risks, of course, ranging from simple hurt feelings to unwanted pregnancies to STDs.

But what about the benefits? It should be obvious to everyone that many or most teens desperately crave sex. And it's not just a fantasy that can't be matched by reality -- teenagers who have sex rarely decide that they don't like it and it's not for them. Sex is actually a really enjoyable thing, especially when you're an adolescent. I mean, duh, right? But religious people never talk about that side of the equation.

Part of the problem is that they're usually talking about other people. It's easy to declare something not worth the risk when you don't get to enjoy the rewards. People who love smokers generally want them to quit more than the smokers themselves do -- smoker-lovers have to live with the risk of their loved one's illness and death but they don't get any enjoyment the smoker gets from puffing on his cancer sticks.

The same thing is true with teen sex. If you have a sexually active teenager, you're not going to get much pleasure out of that idea unless you're unusually capable of enjoying another person's happiness even when it grosses you out. But you do feel every risk as acutely or more acutely than your teen does. Chances are that you'll be approximately as upset as she is if she gets pregnant or contracts an STD, but only she will get to enjoy the sex. So to you, the proposition is all risk, zero reward. The choice is clear.

But what about your daughter? Do you really have the right to make that choice for her? Well, yes, of course you do if she's young enough to not understand or appreciate the risks involved. Teens really are more impulsive than adults, and they have a tendency to underestimate risks. But doesn't there come a point where they get old enough and rational enough that you've got to let them make that choice for themselves?

It's not like there's a right answer and a wrong answer. Is driving a car to your friend's house in the next town worth the slight risk of death and dismemberment that accompanies driving on the highway? Is eating a charred hamburger worth the risk of cancer? Should we abstain from dessert because who can eat just one cookie? We make decisions like these every day, and there are no right answers. Some questions (Is the potential reward of injecting heroin of unknown purity worth the risk?) seem easier than others, but all ultimately come down to personal preferences.

Some neurotics refuse to shake hands because they're scared of germs and some rock stars plan to party hard and die young. I'd probably prefer my kid be the neurotic than the rock star, but should that really be my choice? Ultimately it's his life and his body. All I can do is make sure he really understands the rewards and the risks and hope he makes a decision that I'm happy with. But why should my desire to have grandchildren trump his desire to have as much sex and drugs possible even if it kills him?

So back to teen sex. (Come on, Google hits!) Is there any pleasure in life comparable to having sex as an adolescent? I'm thinking no. I'm sure religious people and others will say that getting married or having a child is somehow more enjoyable, and I'm positive that someone somewhere has argued that learning Talmud is better, but overall, it's got to be one of life's chief pleasures.

And it's not just a shallow pleasure, although it is that as well. Sex (I'm using the term broadly -- i.e., in the non-Clintonian sense -- now) plays an integral role in relationships that boys and girls start having in their teens. Orthodox Jews would have you believe that relationships that don't lead to marriage are worthless at best and downright harmful at worst. I don't think that's true. While some relationships are harmful (just as some marriages are) one of life's more sublime pleasures is having intimate relationships with other human beings.

So what if puppy love tends not to last? Am I somehow worse off for having had a few relationships before I met my fiancee? I don't think so. And what if it'd turned out that a high-school relationship blossomed into a life-long marriage? Who would be better off if I'd avoided entering into it because my parents were scared that dating leads to sex and sex leads to babies?

So let's stop looking at just one side of the equation. Obviously if we were talking about a pill that produced no benefit of any kind but carried a tiny risk of pregnancy and/or STDs, nobody should take that pill. But we're talking about sex. Sex is really, really fun. And it's the glue in a lot of meaningful relationships. So you've got to balance that against the risk. And it's really not fair to make that decision for someone else when you stand to get hurt by the risks but share no part in the rewards. That's just selfishness masquerading as concern.

Previously: Memories of an Orthodox High School Romance.

Religion and Teen Sex

From The New Yorker:

Last year, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published a startling book called “Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers,” and he is working on a follow-up that includes a section titled “Red Sex, Blue Sex.” His findings are drawn from a national survey that Regnerus and his colleagues conducted of some thirty-four hundred thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, and from a comprehensive government study of adolescent health known as Add Health. Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them. (Jews most often cite pleasure as a reason to have sex, and say that an unplanned pregnancy would be an embarrassment.) But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection.

American evangelicals toe a strict ideological line that is counterproductive. Shocking.

For the record, I support responsible and safe premarital sex, including among mature teenagers. We should teach all teens how to use contraception, including emergency contraception. It would probably be a good idea for all parents to promise not to punish any kids who come to them for help getting to a doctor to get emergency contraception, just as many offer to pick their children up from parties they aren't supposed to be at if they get in trouble, no questions asked.

Abstinence-only education does not work. Teaching kids that sex is dirty and sinful is not just wrongheaded and out of date but counterproductive as well.

Via the Friendly Atheist.

(Previously: Abstinence Only Sex Ed, including some facts you might not know if you went to a school without good sex ed.)

Palin's Daughter

Besides the cheap (but truthful) shots about abstinence-only education and the correlation between religious fundamentalism and unwed pregnancy, the latest revelation that Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant raises serious questions about Sarah Palin's "family values." She knew that accepting the VP nomination would thrust her daughter, already going through a trying time, into the national news and probably turn her into the butt of late-night television jokes. I have nothing but sympathy for the daughter, who is after all just a kid and not a national political figure, but I can't see how Sarah Palin is okay putting her through all of this.

I guess it does reinforce her anti-abortion cred. It also puts human faces on the abortion debate. Between Palin's new granddaugher and her own recent newborn with Down's, we'll see two adorable (aren't they all?) babies on that national stage that many people would have aborted as fetuses. I'm not sure who that helps, politically, but at least the Palins are wealthy and powerful enough that the children will have all the health care and other services they need. This isn't a 17-year-old who's going to be on her own raising her child, and this won't be a Down's Syndrome baby who wants for all of the various therapies he will need throughout his life.

Orthodox Jews and Sexuality

This is just crazy:

So, now we've come to the point where if you dare to compliment your date on how nice she looks, if you even think to acknowledge and appreciate the effort that she puts into looking nice, if you have even a single thought as to her physical appearence, you must be a "sick, one-track-minded pervert."

That paragraph brought back memories! Since I left Orthodoxy, I've hardly heard the word "pervert," but back in high school, it was thrown around all the time. To me, it describes a pedophile, or perhaps one of those people that gets turned on by wearing diapers. To some of my peers, it meant being attracted to girls. (Not that, God-forbid, being attracted to boys was okay!) Say that a girl is hot, and you're a pervert.

I wrote in the comments:

So much religious "morality" can be summed up in the idea that a man who notices a woman's appearance is a "pervert."

And a woman replied:

I don't think a guy is a pervert for commenting on a girl's looks, but it is not always appropriate. One guy I dated told me on our second or third date that he thought I was pretty and it distracted him. I thought it was totally inappropriate and that was one factor in our break-up. His comment made me VERY uncomfortable. I didn't like him enough or felt close to him to accept that comment.

A guy can say "cool outfit" etc. but should hesitate before he says something more personal.

What's there to even say about that?

Shocking News: Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Has No Effect

Via Oliver Willis, a new study:

WASHINGTON - Students who took part in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes that were reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex at about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc.

The federal government now spends about $176 million annually on abstinence-until-marriage education. Critics have repeatedly said they don't believe the programs are working, and the study will give them reinforcement.

However, Bush administration officials cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions from the study. They said the four programs reviewed — among several hundred across the nation — were some of the very first established after Congress overhauled the nation's welfare laws in 1996.

Officials said one lesson they learned from the study is that the abstinence message should be reinforced in subsequent years to truly affect behavior.

"This report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines. You can't expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career," said Harry Wilson, the commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the Administration for Children and Families.

Doesn't that just sum up the Bush administration? "What we're doing isn't working? Let's do more of it!"

There was some good news, though:

"I really do think it's a two-part story. First, there is no evidence that the programs increased the rate of sexual abstinence," said Chris Trenholm, a senior researcher at Mathematica who oversaw the study. "However, the second part of the story that I think is equally important is that we find no evidence that the programs increased the rate of unprotected sex."

Trenholm said his second point of emphasis was important because some critics of abstinence programs have contended that they lead to less frequent use of condoms.

Maybe sex ed isn't really that important. I mean, what is there to teach, from a health standpoint, besides, "Use a freaking condom!"

I still think purity balls are the creepiest thing ever.

Should Incest Be Legal?

I'm aware that the anti-gay crowd is fond of using the slippery slope argument to claim that if we let gays marry (or have sex, before that argument was rendered moot by the courts) then there's nothing stopping us from legalizing bestiality, incest, and polygamy.* Part of me therefore wants to keep quiet about my feelings on incest and polygamy for fear of giving ammunition to the opposition's (false) argument. The part of me that's in control, though, prefers to speak his mind.

In Germany, there are brother and sister who are fighting for the right to continue having sex with each other. The story goes that the brother was given up for adoption and didn't meet his sister until he was 18. They soon fell in love. (Strangely, this is pretty common for siblings who meet for the first time.)

After the couple met and began a sexual relationship, they had four kids, with tragic results:

All but one of them have been placed in care and two are mentally damaged as a result of inbreeding. In 2002, Mr Stübing was given a one-year suspended sentence after being found guilty on 16 counts of "illegal coitus" with his sister.

My personal morality stems from the idea of "your right to extend your fist ends at the tip of my nose," or, if you're not hurting anybody, what you do is your own business. So masturbating while thinking of a child sodomizing a sheep might reveal that you have some mental problems, but I wouldn't consider it immoral. Stealing, murdering, abusing, etc. are immoral because they cause harm to others.**

It's clear to me that having kids through incest should be illegal because of the grievous and unnecessary harm to the children. Although this belief has some troubling implications, not least the very slippery slope towards criminalizing having children with people with low IQs, minor genetic disorders, etc., I think that in instances where the harm is grievous and predictable, like brother-sister incest that leads to children, we can safely make that ruling.

What of siblings who have no chance of having children?

Mr Stübing, an unemployed mechanic, was released from jail last year and is still living with his sister. Although he has had himself sterilised to avoid fathering more children, he could be sent back to jail at any time for persistently reoffending.

By what justification may the government prevent them from having sex today? That most people find sibling sex repulsive? Repulsion is no basis for law -- we allow neo-Nazis to speak, after all. (Actually, Germany doesn't, but even though I disagree with that stance, there's at least conceivable grievous harm that stems from allowing hate speech.) If religion is a suitable basis for secular law, then the case is clear, but as you might imagine, I don't think religion is a good basis for law. The only other arguments I can imagine are similar to those used against gay couples -- that they set a bad example, or otherwise pose some threat to "traditional" families or children. I do not find such arguments convincing.

I therefore believe that consensual, adult incest should be legal and is not immoral, provided there is no chance for children to result from the union. Where to draw the line on infertility is another troubling and complex question, of course. Simply using condoms or the pill is not sufficient to rule out the possibility of children, but having the government mandate surgical sterilization is distasteful, to say the least. While I'd encourage siblings who get pregnant to have abortions, government-mandated abortions would be deeply disturbing as well.

I think the only coherent policy is that brother-sister incest that may result in children is disallowed as reckless endangerment. The government should not mandate sterilization, but simply recognize that the problem is the reckless endangerment of offspring rather than the act itself.


* For the record, I believe adult, consensual polygamy should be legal, although not necessarily institutionalized by the state as marriage, and am unsure about bestiality because of the question of the animal's consent. Bestiality should be treated as a subcategory of animal cruelty .

** Things get complicated when all choices are harmful and you must pick the least harmful one, like killing in self-defense or putting violent criminals in jail. There are also some gray areas in which people can reasonable agree like whether a aborting a fetus is a significant harm or whether it's okay to harm non-human animals or other organisms. (I eat meat, but even most vegans are happy to eat plants, fungi, and bacteria.)