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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (255447)	7/9/2014 7:00:30 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542208

I have known a fair number of orthodox Jews, none of them were in the least like that. I don't doubt that there are small numbers of people like that. But it doesn't represent a majority or even a significant minority of orthodox Jews in the US.

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (255447)	7/9/2014 12:13:53 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542208

When we become a more civilized culture this sort of thing will be considered child abuse. But those who understand it is child abuse now, should speak out, IMO. A society's rights trump religious rights. That is very clear law and certainly a moral position. I like to live a moral life. <<The subject of sex was a total mystery to both you and your husband. What’s it like to embark on a sexual relationship when you have no idea how it works? No one ever said the word “sex,” or even “vagina,” to me. We had no clue. We were like, “It’ll work out.” It never worked out. There is an actual rule that you learn before you get married that you are never supposed to look at genitalia. You can’t look at yours, and you can’t look at his. It’s always dark. There’s no hole in the sheet, but it’s pitch dark and there’s no looking and there’s a lot of fumbling around, and you’re wearing your nightgown rolled up to your waist. There’s no boob touching. Mine were totally wasted! There is no oral sex. After the first time, you have to call a rabbi and he asks the man questions — did this happen? And he declares you either unclean, or not yet consummated. Once you’re consummated, you’re unclean, because you bled. So after the first time, your honeymoon is a no-sex period. For two weeks every month, [your husband] can’t touch you. He can’t hand you a glass, even if your fingers don’t touch. He has to put it down on the table and then you pick it up. Secondary contact can’t happen. If you’re sitting on a sofa, you have a divider between you. It makes you feel so gross. You feel like this animal in the room. If there’s a question about your period, you take the underwear and put it in a zip-lock bag, and give it to your husband. He takes it to the synagogue and pushes it into this special window and the rabbi looks at it and pronounces it kosher or nonkosher. It was so disgusting. … You say there were many ways in which you felt like your safety was not protected, because of the Hasidic reliance on faith. I remember always being in the front seat of a car when I was a kid, without a seat belt. It comes from this idea that you have so much faith that you don’t really have to do anything because God will protect you. It’s a very lackadaisical attitude toward health and safety. No one ever took me to a doctor. I was taught to believe that outsiders hated me. That if I talked to someone [non-Hasidic], I risked getting kidnapped and chopped into pieces. Never, ever talk to an outsider.