posted
So... last week, our women's prayer group met, and there were some new women there. A couple of them expressed interest in learning to read Torah, which is great, because I got stuck with way too much myself that week.
One woman was just so happy she'd found out about us. We were talking at kiddush after services, and Havah invited her and her husband to come for lunch this Shabbat. She said she'd love to come.
I talked with Havah later, because I was a little worried that maybe she didn't get that we're a couple. It's not exactly the usual circumstance in an Orthodox Jewish community. But she got that we lived in the same home, anyway.
She called us Saturday night after Shabbat to confirm, and to make sure she had our address right. And then last night (Thursday night), she called again. She said her husband just didn't feel comfortable coming here. She said she'd tried all week to convince him, but that he'd come home that day and asked her to please just call and cancel.
And I know that in the Orthodox community, people like her are a small minority and people like him are the vast majority, so I should probably be more grateful that she's like she is than bummed that he's like he is, but that's not how I feel.
posted
I can understand, but I'm sure over time they'll come to know you for who you are and not a label. I have had my ups and downs with gay prejudice in me- I know it doesn't help me or anyone else. I guess the main thing is that I fear socializing with gay people having an influence on my children. (Like they don't know 300 straight couples for any one gay couple we meet). And I'm always saying that fear is the devil's tool. Well, yeah.
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posted
Well, at least she had the gumption to tell you the truth - that indicates to me she liked you and respected you enough to feel like she needed to be honest with you, which I commend in her.
I agree, it's tough but do try to focus on the positive here. She sounds pretty cool.
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posted
I do admire that you don't let things like this interfere with your commitment to your faith, Lisa.
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posted
Hey, look on the bright side. Sure, he's avoiding you, and making his wife do so too, because of your lifestyle.
At least its not that she hates your cooking.
Or you have a BO problem you are unaware of.
Or that with a little extra effort, you could get that grundgy waxy film off of your coffee table, and then friends and strangers will always be willing to come over and visit.
Hey, her husband only wants you to change your orientation. At least he's not asking you to do the truly impossible, and change your politics.
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posted
What if it is that she has a BO issue, and the other woman is just trying to be polite about it? I've seen this type of excuse before, and what's terrible is that nobody seems to realize it until much later. That's why I use colgate's mouth wash 10 times a day.
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posted
scholar: when I was young and (sorta) attractive there was more than one "straight" woman who would get drunk and then put the moves on me. In fact, they would invite me out drinking despite the fact (at the time) I didn't drink.
So no, not ALL women are one drink away from a lesbian experience, but a significant number are.
JH: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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posted
Rather, that it's an attractive one for a straight man. Has it simply not occurred to them that there isn't a lot of room for them in the scenario?
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Rather, that it's an attractive one for a straight man. Has it simply not occurred to them that there isn't a lot of room for them in the scenario?
Depending on the perspective, there may be twice as much room. Regardless, I don't think there's a lot of "occuring" to people about things while they contemplate their fantasies.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Rather, that it's an attractive one for a straight man. Has it simply not occurred to them that there isn't a lot of room for them in the scenario?
I used to wonder this all the time. Then I realized that most men are convinced, consciously or unconsciously, that lesbians just prefer women, and wouldn't object to an extra penis here and there.
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posted
JH: Uh... mmm... how can I explain this without getting graphic... how about I just say "Yes there is."
Thing is, we, as humans, evolved from polygamy. Powerful men throughout humanities history (and well before history) have had multiple mates.
It only makes sense that women who have to share a man would develop the ability to enjoy each other. It also only makes sense that a man would enjoy "his women" enjoying each other.
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posted
JH: Nothing I say will make you "buy it" but the objective fact remains that *many* women have the potential for bisexual activity, especially after getting liquored up.. and MOST men enjoy it.
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quote: Number of homosexuals in Australia Nationwide figure - 1.2% of adults identify as homosexual or lesbian. * 1.6% of adult men identified as homosexual and 0.8% of women as lesbian. * 1.4% of women and 0.9% of men said they were bisexual.
...
CANADA – (as comparison) 1.3% of men and 0.7% of women considered themselves homosexual. 0.9% of women, compared with 0.6% of men, said they were bisexual.
Thus, at a quick glance it does seem that given two women that are interested in each other, there is at least a fair chance that they might be bisexual as well and interested in an extra guy.
At least, the chance is better than when given two men that are interested in each other (as to whether they'd be interested in an extra woman as well).
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quote:According to men, aren't all women just one drink away from a lesbian experience?
I've had a lot of close female friends in my life, and when I got to know them well enough, almost all of them have revealed sexual attraction to women. When did they reveal this? After a few drinks of course.
Even one of my friends who consistently said the idea was not the least bit appealing to her admitted one night while we were drinking together that she'd once had intercourse with a woman before, and that she liked it. Sometime down the line she forgot she had told me, and the next time she said "that's gross" I called her on it .
Add in the fact that I've seen "straight" girls at parties start making out with each other on more than one occasion, and the perception is pretty impossible to NOT have.
While I don't think every woman is sexually attracted to other women, I think it is true for a very significant percentage of them. I have had a very small sample size, so I wouldn't venture a guess as to what the percentage is. At least not on hatrack .
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posted
My gay friend tells me women are less defined sexually then men so women's views on orientation are not as applicable. I would be curious how much of that is society. It seems like if you are a guy and ever think about another guy, then you are gay. It doesn't matter how many women you have been with, if they interest you or not, one gay thought and you are gay. Wheras with women, society just thinks it is sexy.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Hmm...I don't buy it.
I'm a heterosexual female, and I completely buy it.
Have I ever made out with another woman? No. Do I see the appeal? Yes. Do I see the appeal it might have for a man? Yes.
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posted
I agree about the many women possibility (I think that 1) sexuality is a continuum, and 2) alcohol makes you do things you normally wouldn't), but I don't buy that most men are wired to enjoy it.
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And I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with how this topic has drifted. It's not like we were inviting them to bed or something. We invited them for a Shabbat meal.
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posted
Lisa- I don't think anybody was implying that this tangent applied to you or your situation. The conversation just flowed there.
quote:I don't buy that most men are wired to enjoy it.
I would agree that it isn't a genetic trait. I do think our society teaches boys that that's something they should find attractive, and so most men do.
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posted
I think alcohol doesn't make you do anything you wouldn't normally do, but does remove your inhibitions. At least that's what people who wanted us to take the Mel Gibson incident as an indicator of anti-Semitism were saying.
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But seriously, I'm glad that lady had the gumption to give you the skinny on the situation. I wouldn't throw your hands up and surrender though, it sounds like this woman tried harder then most to persuade her husband to change his mind. I assume she is going to continue to meet with your prayer group and possibly learn to read Torah. That likely means another occasion to invite her and her husband over again will come up, and who know, maybe he won't be able to resist next time. It could just be too much too fast for him.
I would not be surprised if your new friend is still chiding her husband for his behavior in this matter and that he himself feels like he made the wrong decision.
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quote:Originally posted by Amanecer: I do think our society teaches boys that that's something they should find attractive, and so most men do.
I would add though, I can't really imagine a hypothetical "natural man without society" coming across two women and being repulsed or neutral about it. Society may teach men to be *more* attracted by it (than two women separately) but there has to be at least some initial drive towards it.
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posted
I'll buy that most men are interested in it, but I think it's reasonable to be puzzled by the whole concept. After all, I'm intrigued by gay men being together, but most women think that's perverted of me. This is different from a gay crush, which I think relates to the hope that the right girl could turn a gay.
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I think you're making a false classification if you require being turned on by sex acts that don't include yourself as a requirement of normal masculine sexuality.
At the very least, you're certainly tainting any responses you get to the question.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Alcohol doesn't make you do anything.
And I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with how this topic has drifted. It's not like we were inviting them to bed or something. We invited them for a Shabbat meal.
True, well someone asked about your view of the Orthodox stance on homosexuality. Male homosexuality is forbidden, but women are not addressed in the law, is that correct?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Hey Lisa, don't be optimistic.
Heh.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: But seriously, I'm glad that lady had the gumption to give you the skinny on the situation.
Me too. I hope I get to see her again, if only so that I can tell her how grateful I am that she was respectful enough to tell me the truth. We've had some other people come up with lame excuses in the past. "We're going to be out of town. Forever." That sort of thing.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I wouldn't throw your hands up and surrender though, it sounds like this woman tried harder then most to persuade her husband to change his mind. I assume she is going to continue to meet with your prayer group and possibly learn to read Torah.
Oh, I do hope so. She said Kiddush for us after services, and she sang it beautifully. And you could tell that she was just overjoyed to be able to do so. Orthodox women don't sing in front of men, so ordinarily, she can't.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: That likely means another occasion to invite her and her husband over again will come up, and who know, maybe he won't be able to resist next time. It could just be too much too fast for him.
Oh, God no. We're not going to try and invite them again. That would be tacky. It would be putting her on the spot and making her feel uncomfortable. We don't have the right to do that just because we'd like it.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I would not be surprised if your new friend is still chiding her husband for his behavior in this matter and that he himself feels like he made the wrong decision.
If they want to invite us, we'll be there with bells on (whatever that strange expression means). And then we'll feel we can invite them again. It's a sensitive thing, you know. Tova has a friend from school whose mother has no problem having Tova over for meals and playdates, and having her daughter come over here, too. But they've never yet accepted a Shabbat invitation. I don't know if it's the husband in this case as well, but it could be. <sigh> I'm not so comfortable with social situations to begin with that I can deal with them being such friggin' minefields.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Alcohol doesn't make you do anything.
And I have to say that I'm a little uncomfortable with how this topic has drifted. It's not like we were inviting them to bed or something. We invited them for a Shabbat meal.
True, well someone asked about your view of the Orthodox stance on homosexuality. Male homosexuality is forbidden, but women are not addressed in the law, is that correct?
Actually, Omega had asked what the Orthodox Jewish position was. Not necessarily what I think it is. Bear in mind that you'll get a very different answer from Rivka (and probably a one-liner from Tante).
There's a sex act between women that's forbidden, just as there's one between men that's forbidden. The one between men is forbidden from the Torah, but the one between women... it's a matter of dispute as to whether it's from the Torah or whether it's rabbinic. Either way, forbidden is forbidden.
The catch is that not everyone agrees on what exactly the act is in the case of women. The term used by the rabbis is close to unique in Jewish literature.
Because of this, books in English (either translations or original works) tend to translate the term loosely as "lesbianism" or "lesbian acts", which begs the whole question.
A woman I know was told by a prominent rebbetzin (rabbi's wife) that it means having sex in the missionary position, and that anything else isn't a problem. In the case of men, sex acts beyond the one specific forbidden one are also forbidden, but to a lesser extent than the main one, and again, it's a matter of dispute whether these extensions are from the Torah or rabbinic. But no such extensions exist for the act that's forbidden to women.
A prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbi was interviewed for the movie Trembling Before G-d, and he said, on film, that there's nothing wrong with two women setting up a household together and living that way instead of getting married. Not that he thought it was optimum, and not that he was okaying any kind of sex or anything. Sandi, the director of the movie, didn't choose to include that clip in the movie (which was the main reason I had him take my name out of the credits).
The issue for lesbians in the Orthodox community is much more a social one than a matter of Jewish law. Which is not to say that it isn't major.
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posted
JH: Huh? Is that a response to me? When did I bring myself into the conversation?
As Douglas Adams said (paraphrased badly), we're not proud of our ancestors and rarely invite them over for dinner.
The upshot is that while I personally am not a big fan of the whole thing, I can recognise that if one of my great great great great (great...) ancestors came across two women doing a sex act in the middle of the African savannah, he would probably find it more attractive than say, a few more minutes of say foraging for grubs.
I would find it pretty unlikely if his thought process was "one woman? take a look! two women? WTH! Ignore them or run away!"
We're not making any moral judgements on the matter, that same great-ancestor deprived of civilization may very well not use toilet paper and drive with a manual transmission...and may very well be attracted to other people that don't use toilet paper.
That doesn't mean that I'm attracted to people that don't wipe and just because its natural doesn't mean I want to go back to that either.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert Hugo: Rather, that it's an attractive one for a straight man. Has it simply not occurred to them that there isn't a lot of room for them in the scenario?
Doesn't matter. Men are visual and simple minded. (That is to say we're rudimentary, not stupid.)
Men like looking at women. 2 is a bigger number than 1. So looking at 2 women is not going to be a bad thing, and has potential to be twice as good at looking at 1 woman.
I hope I stated all that with sufficient tact.
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I mean that Lisa said she was uncomfortable with her social thread being turned into a conversation about responses to watching lesbian sex.
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posted
You mean your post at 12:16? I was responding to the post at 12:06.
To clarify: As in I was skimming this thread for the non-Lisa conversation. Since the post at 12:06 was after pooka's I had (wrongly) assumed that the deleted post had to do with the other side of the thread rather than this side.
posted
Lisa, sometimes I just don't know what to say when I hear about someone being treated that way, but I'm afraid that my silence may be interpreted as not caring. I'm an Orthodox "Agudah" Jew, and it makes me ashamed that "my people" act this way.
Of course, it's not all Orthodox Jews, or even all "black hatters". Not everyone in the group is so narrow minded and bigoted. But it makes me feel ashamed to be associated with people who act like that.
You should know that you and your partner would always be welcome at my Shabbos table, and that my family would do all they could to make you feel welcome. I'd be honored to sit next to you in Shul, and to be your friend openly and without apology.
It's not all frum Jews who are bigots. Just the bigoted ones. I'm sorry that you had to cross paths with someone who hurt you. I believe that it reflects more negatively on the bigot than on the one against whom the bigotry is directed.
You are a proud woman, of great accomplishment. You deserve to hold your head high wherever you go.
You also should know that I've taken a stand, and it is a bit outspoken, not to remain silent in the face of bigotry. When I am talking with someone who makes a bigoted remark, I force myself to speak up and disagree, when I can. I try to set an example for my son, so that he understands that the sort of behavior that you were subjected to is not acceptable.
I'm sorry that this happened to you.
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quote:Oh, God no. We're not going to try and invite them again. That would be tacky. It would be putting her on the spot and making her feel uncomfortable. We don't have the right to do that just because we'd like it.
Interesting, I can certainly see how you might feel that way. Perhaps you are right.
quote:If they want to invite us, we'll be there with bells on (whatever that strange expression means). And then we'll feel we can invite them again. It's a sensitive thing, you know. Tova has a friend from school whose mother has no problem having Tova over for meals and playdates, and having her daughter come over here, too. But they've never yet accepted a Shabbat invitation. I don't know if it's the husband in this case as well, but it could be. <sigh> I'm not so comfortable with social situations to begin with that I can deal with them being such friggin' minefields.
I know exactly what you mean. But it's a marvelous gift to have been wronged and to still give the wrongdoer the opportunity to right it. I'm very glad you have taken this approach.
Your situation reminds me alot of being a missionary. The most similar situation would be a husband or wife who was a member while their spouse was very much against it. The member spouse would invite us over and it was a gauntlet to befriend the non-member spouse while trying to persuade them that we were not out to trick them into joining the church.
In the event the non-member spouse treated me impolitely I found the best response was to ignore it, and down the road never speak of it. More often then not the person who had been rude would approach me in their own way and reconcile things with me.
quote:Oh, I do hope so. She said Kiddush for us after services, and she sang it beautifully. And you could tell that she was just overjoyed to be able to do so. Orthodox women don't sing in front of men, so ordinarily, she can't.
posted
"Men like looking at women. 2 is a bigger number than 1. So looking at 2 women is not going to be a bad thing, and has potential to be twice as good at looking at 1 woman."
Or another way of saying it might be that many men like sex, and like watching it, and sex with more boobs and less penises is better.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: (and probably a one-liner from Tante)
Hardly.
I hope you didn't take that the wrong way. I didn't mean that you wouldn't take the maltreatment stuff less than seriously. Just that you don't really tend to get into the discussion on a halakhic basis.
I appreciate your friendship.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I know exactly what you mean. But it's a marvelous gift to have been wronged and to still give the wrongdoer the opportunity to right it. I'm very glad you have taken this approach.
Well... she didn't wrong us. And I can't really know what her husband's issues are. Maybe his parents divorced when his mom came out and he has a hard time because of that. Not that I know anything about him (or his mom or his parents in general), but that kind of thing is always possible. Beyond that, the average Orthodox Jew really does think -- not based on any personal learning of the material, nor based on having asked a rabbi, but merely based on a kind of "everyone knows" -- that gay/lesbian = icky/wrong. This guy is probably just operating on the basis of what he considers to be "common knowledge". I'm not angry at him. Just hurt. Again.
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I mean that Lisa said she was uncomfortable with her social thread being turned into a conversation about responses to watching lesbian sex.
I appreciate your concern. But I'm not really the topic "owner". It's nice that you're avoiding a topic drift that was squicking me out a little, but you don't really have to if you don't want.
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