Written by Aryeh Hareef. Aryeh is a first-time Jewrotica writer.
“Just give me permission,” he says, as they stroll side by side in the early autumn dusk, time and seasons transitioning from summer fertility to winter dormancy. Their hips bump once, maybe twice, accidentally but now so frequently grazing against one another that it has already become the first tacit agreement in their budding relationship.
He struggles to restrain himself from turning his head to look at her as they stay in step effortlessly, her long, lean legs carrying her lithe figure so regally that he can’t help but think of how casually giraffes graze on the tops of trees. Impossible animals, giraffes; a constant reminder from the Conductor to always keep one’s sense of humor.
He is keenly aware of the heaviness of the moment, the density of all possible futures wrestling with destiny’s desire that the most difficult of struggles obtain. He knows that he must not speak, regardless of how long the silence grows. He takes a moment to internally thank God for this magical creature striding beside him and how easy she has been to talk with, how comfortable and achingly close to release the silences have been. It is as if they have been locked in an embrace of moving one another closer and even infinitesimally closer to getting there together for the first time, yet they understand that real life constraints prevent their poetic souls from achieving what their fleshly bodies long to do.
She mulls over the audacity of his question just long enough for it to register that it wasn’t even a question. He is so brazen that even in asking for permission he makes it a command rather than a request. She feels her anger rising but quickly quells it, realizing that she doesn’t want to be angry at him. It may have been a command but it was uttered gently, as all his words seem to be.
She recalls the timbre of his resonant voice and allows it to echo between her ears. She gets lost in her mind in the depth of it, the quiet confidence that projects from the calm vibration deep along his vocal cords. This is a voice comfortable commanding men and seducing women. This is a voice that had always been divinely gifted and had emerged while he was studying for his Bar Mitzvah. This is a voice that could have been cantorial in another place and time, if not for the familial rupture of the Holocaust and the bitterness, anger and hatred the Shoah had instilled in him. It is a voice that had found its stride when he had been a DJ at his college radio station and realized that coeds were calling in and nearly begging that he just speak to them for a while off the air while he played long songs so they could pleasure themselves to completion.
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
Celebrating 10 Years & Marking the End of An Amazing Project
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.
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.
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!
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!
I stepped out of my comfort zone to be a part of this. I was glad to open up the topic of sexuality in my community. We are trying to build a safe space to talk about sex. The result I am most happy about coming from this event is that hopefully now my friends know they can come and talk to me, that I can be their ‘safe space’.
While many people fear the “sex talk,” Jewrotica offers an opportunity for writers and audiences to speak about sexuality in a open and safe space. When I attended a Jewrotica reading, I heard stories that reminded me that love takes many forms, and that expressing it is a vital part of who we are as a people.
Jewrotica is inspiring Jews and erotica with holiness and coolness, and is the pride of progressive Judaism. Jewrotica – awesome!
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
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!
At Jewrotica’s Evening of Bedside Readings, students declaimed monologues on sexual encounters that had a Jewish twist. At Columbia/Barnard Hillel, the speakers pushed their own boundaries by performing a range of explicit narratives that challenged how the audience thought of the relationship to Judaism and sex. During the speakers’ preparation, the arguments about which narratives would be appropriate forced students to take a stand and voice their opinion on their own beliefs about Judaism an… Read more
Copyright © 2014 Jewrotica.org. All Rights Reserved.
Built with Love and Mischief.
Designed by Ayo Oppenheimer and
David Abitbol
2 Comments