When we weren’t fucking – or trying unsuccessfully to grade together – Chana and I often talked about religion. I’d had modern Orthodox friends in college, but I’d never dated a woman for whom Judaism was so central. Though she didn’t keep Shabbat, or go to synagogue, she lit candles every Friday night and read the Midrash on Saturdays. I was fascinated. I knew so little about my father’s family history, other than that they were Austrian Jews and most had died in the Holocaust. Chana gave me a window into a world both exotic and familiar. My infatuation with her bled into a fascination with my own Jewish heritage. But Chana never failed to remind me — with a scrupulousness that was kind, firm, and disconcertingly consistent — that her future lay with a Jewish husband.
After ten days of sleeping together, she got her period, a fact that she announced with her habitual matter-of-factness when she came over to my apartment one evening. I told her I didn’t mind if she didn’t. She grinned. The blood spattered the sheets and the bedroom walls, got on our faces and in our hair, mixed with come and sweat. I couldn’t have cared less. At least, I didn’t care until Chana told me that when she got married to her “future Jewish husband,” she’d never have sex while menstruating. Lying on the stained bedclothes, she explained Niddah to me. When I snorted derisively at the idea of abstaining for so long because of some false notion of impurity, her voice grew sharp. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Hugo. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s how I will choose to live.” I was utterly confused.
As she sensed that I was falling for her, Chana grew blunter, often to the point of teasing cruelty. She started calling me her “goy toy,” a term I loathed as much as I loved the “sweet boy” she used all too sparingly. “It’s just because you’re my hot younger Christian lover,” Chana said, “it’s really a compliment.” Except that it didn’t feel like one. It felt like an unkind way of reminding me that what we had was not only temporary but insignificant. When I responded with petulant indignation, Chana would turn chilly and distant. The message was clear. She liked me. She certainly liked fucking me. But if I were to think for one instant that I was charming enough to override what she saw as both her identity and her destiny, I would be sent the unmistakable message that I was being a fool.
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
The Jewrotica event “Evening of Jewrotica: Bedside Reading” was awesome. As Master of Confessions, I got to read the deepest, darkest secrets of people in the room out loud… It was scintillating, titillating, and – yes – even educational!
Jewrotica is inspiring Jews and erotica with holiness and coolness, and is the pride of progressive Judaism. Jewrotica – awesome!
I’m so glad that Jewrotica is represented here at Jewlicious! It’s bringing voices that need to be heard in the Jewish discussion and Jewish climate environment.
Jewrotica rocks. It’s funny, it’s informative, it’s sexy, it’s interesting. Check it out!
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
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