Fabulous Females

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Desensitizing of the Sexes?

Is this possible? Here's a really interesting article I found by my favorite Jewish Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

http://www.shmuley.com/articles.php?id=708

Thoughts?

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posted by Jennifer @ 9:47 AM  

4 Comments:

  • At 5:00 AM, July 19, 2008, Blogger Nic said…

    That was really interesting. And it taught me some things about Jewish behaviours that I really quite like; e.g. the keeping of some male and female grooming behaviours separate.

    I don't know what it's like to be married, but I can't imagine things like showering in front of a husband (in a non-romantic context), because that's not something he would need to see.

    I remember something a now-married friend shared with me. Her fiance told her, "Once we're married, you can wax my back for me." She and I were a both bit horrified, because is that really a wife's job? Or is it male grooming and should therefore be kept separate?

    I like the idea of distinction, of keeping some things separate. It would allow you to more easily maintain the romance when you don't see him, say, picking out his nose hairs as part of his morning ritual!

     

  • At 10:55 AM, July 19, 2008, Blogger The Prufroquette said…

    Wow, that WAS really interesting.

    I'm of two minds about it: On the one hand, hooray, an argument for women never having to deal with their husbands' back-waxing and ingrown toenail operations! Conversely, for the men, an argument never to have to deal with the up-close-and-personal particulars of female "plumbing" (can't there be a slang term that makes us sound less like toilets and kitchen sinks?). It's hard to be continuously erotically attracted to someone who occasionally repulses you.

    On the other hand, one of the things I look forward to in marriage is the level of comfortableness with each other. I don't want to worry about my own husband "barging in" on me in the bathroom, and I suppose I'd have to read more Shmuley to get his definition (or interpretation) of what "modesty in the bedroom" means.

    On the whole, though, I really like his insights -- they make a lot of sense. It seems that we singles are discovering that the differentiation between the sexes exists (why else would we have this blog?), but in our current societal backdrop, all the mystery is gone. You can hear it in how we speak of the opposite sex in same-sex environments: Men are pigs, women are insane, men are jerks, women are bitches (this one I've actually overheard for myself, so I'm not evilly imagining). We wonder why we even like the opposite sex; we wish the opposite sex would disappear or be confined to an island somewhere so the rest of the world would be peaceful and make sense.

    Probably a lot of that has to do with the level of comfortableness with each other that overexposure brings. Women are almost always secretly (or not-so-secretly) grossed out by the belching and flatulence of men, particularly when it's unapologetic; and I've been told by guys that they are always grossed out by menstruation. And yet our very public school systems hammer into us that we not only have to accept these things we don't like about the opposite sex, but we have to train ourselves to like them and tolerate them in EVERY member of the opposite sex -- not just our parents, siblings, and significant others.

    It's sad that our default attitudes toward the opposite sex seem to be derision, resentment and repugnance, when we take the opposite sex as a whole. We've become nothing but math problems to each other; the mystery is gone, and we're tired, lonely and bored. It takes a lot to find magic.

    Unfortunately we can't exactly "go back"; I don't see society reverting to a more sexually differentiated culture. But there are things that we can take with us into our marriages and the rearing of our children -- a consideration of separate grooming, for the truly off-putting things (after all, in biblical times, men and women had separate TENTS where they could relax and groom themselves in like company without worry of offending), and a consideration, possibly, of single-sex schools for our kids.

    It would be much easier if the Christian faith had an equivalent to the Jewish Orthodox community; this is the kind of underground social structure that needs a great deal of self-support to sustain itself in the face of popular mores. Without something like that, I'd worry that my daughters would come out of their girls-only high schools fresh-faced and totally naive when they start dating the jaded, bored men raised by the public school system. And vice versa with my sons.

     

  • At 12:55 PM, July 19, 2008, Blogger Jennifer said…

    I agree, Sarah. It seems to have to be an all or nothing kind of deal. If part of the population does this, it's wasted, because the other section does not.
    If you guys find this interesting, read two of his books, Hating Women, and Why Can't I Fall In Love?
    Reading these books absolutely changed my life, and my perspective.

     

  • At 3:05 AM, July 29, 2008, Blogger Dawn said…

    I read through a bunch of his other articles, and some of them are fascinating. While I don't agree with him on everything, he's dead on in certain respects.

    Read this article--the first half focuses with clarity on our relationships with God.

    The Bible's erotic book.

     

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