The conversation briefly continued, during which my mom warned me not to tell my Oma (grandmother) about the project.
“Why not?!” I exclaimed.
“Look, she’s been supportive of your circus arts and she’s even come around on the RV…” My mother proceeded to list a number of unconventional activities that I had taken on – each of which my Oma eventually embraced. “But this is just too much. She’s not going to like it.”
I have always been a respectful, loving and even dutiful daughter… but this was a challenge! I found myself at Oma’s apartment the next day, where I cautiously and mischievously broached the subject.
“Oma, I’m going to need to take a phone call for about fifteen minutes. I’m doing an interview for my new project.”
“Oh, bubbelah, that’s great! Who’s interviewing you and what is your new project?”
“Well, I’ll be speaking with the Forward.” (At this point, she makes a bit of a fuss because what Jewish grandmother hasn’t read the Forward?)
“My project might seem a little bit ‘out there’ to you… I am founding an online community for Jewish sexual expression. We’ll be featuring sexual education pieces, reflective essays and Jewish text studies, but also… confessions and Jewish erotica. It’s called Jewrotica. I was nervous to tell you. What do you think?”
I realized that I was holding my breath and biting my lip. I looked up to make eye contact and barely a moment passed before my Oma broke out into a big smile and pronounced: “Bubbaleh, I’m on the last six pages of Fifty Shades of Gray. I’m no prude. This is great!”
Oma proceeded to call me her mazik (troublemaker), my lifelong nickname in the family, and I gave her a tour of the site. She is now one of our regular subscribers.
We often assume that people are more prude than they actually are. Perhaps we should feel more comfortable talking about these things with our friends and family instead of assuming that they are off limits. And, who knows? Maybe your Bubbe and Zayde, Oma and Opa, Nana and Papa, or Grandma and Grandpa will love Jewrotica, too!
So, to be totally transparent, I still very occasionally experience doubt or feel daunted by what a tremendous undertaking I’ve taken on, but now that I have Oma’s approval, I know that we’re moving in the right direction!
Wishing everyone – especially our brothers and sisters overseas – a safe, peaceful and restful Shabbat.
Light and Love,
Ayo
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
What an incredible night Jewrotica was!!!! There was this fantastic moment, in a sea of Jews of all sexualities, ages, backgrounds and denominations, that I realized we were all in this together! I hope that there are many more events coming to Austin soon!
Learning about sex and what’s right and wrong when it comes to sex from a Biblical standpoint was an eye opening experience. I completely enjoyed it and think something like this could be a very cool thing to bring to even high school aged Jewish youth groups.
Bedside Reading with Jewrotica was funny, sexy, and hot all at once. The readings were honest about all kinds of sexuality, but the highlight of the evening was definitely the confessions, written by audience participants. Nobody knew who wrote them, and most were tell-alls that would make your bubbe blush. Unless your bubbe was very, very cool. Then maybe she’d make YOU blush!
Jewrotica was everything I had dreamed of and more: sexy attendees, tantalizing confessions, and well-written literature to boot! More importantly, it empowers us Jews to reach inside and own our sexy selves and heritage!
I love the inclusiveness – there is something for everyone, in and out of the Jewish community.
I attended and participated in last month’s Jewrotica event. The engaging performers and Ayo, our inviting host, inspired the audience to feel like one big community. What a great way to inspire our community to embrace sex as a beautiful thing that can be fun, exciting, sacred, sensual, ridiculous, scary and everything in between!
My opinion on Jewrotica is: It’s sexy. It’s awesome. It’s Judaism to the next level. It’s what we should all be getting into!
Such an amazing experience! The Sarah Lawrence Jewrotica workshop was more than I could have ever expected – a comfortable, safe, sultry environment where participants clearly felt good about sharing or listening to each other’s intimate experiences and relating them to sexy stories from the Torah. From the moment the workshop began, Ayo had a sweet presence that was kinetic and spread around the room; her storytelling abilities had everyone enraptured and made the conversation topics relata… Read more
You may not tell your mom that you’re going to a live Jewrotica reading (or whatever clever name you will dub these events) but you will tell your friends. However, both would be jealous if they find out that they missed it. I think it will only be a matter of time before Jewrotica helps us reclaim the term “Dirty Jew” the way rap music has done for “The ‘N’ Word.” I know I am now proud to be a Dirty Jew!
I’m Heshy Fried from Frum Satire and I am very, very frum. And I completely support Jewrotica – it’s doing a service to the frum community. We need some sort of kosher sexual education. Jewrotica even has a system that allows frum filters to filter out certain things to make it PG for us. It’s mamish Torah. It’s like The Little Midrash Says for sex.
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