I asked the girls I teach and love last Sunday, “When you offer oral sex to a boy who does not love you and may not even like you and who will most probably destroy your reputation by telling his friends what you will do, are you proud of yourself? Do you think you are making your parents proud of you? Do you think this is what God wants you to do with your body? You are better than that. You are much better than that.”
The shame… the utter shame… is it me or did the good Rabbi just reinforce a sterotype that little girls only use sex to be liked…
I asked the boys I teach and love last Sunday, “When you ask or beg or plead or coerce or manipulate a young girl who likes you and just wants to be popular to go down on you, are you proud of doing that to her? Do you think you are making your parents proud of you? Do you think this is what God wants you to do with your body? You are better than that. You are much better than that.”
Boy… that is one hell of a POWER trip the good Rabbi is laying on these boys… who just wanted their dicks sucked…
Hey… I have a crazy far left wacko idea… maybe they are trying to engage in their version of protected sex… and call me crazy… but maybe it JUST FEELS DAMN GOOD. But it is nice to know that those supposedly in the know are trying to infuse shame a guilt into the picture… instead of acknowledging that sex is a basic human instinct… EVEN WHEN IT WAS REPRESSED BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS… Seems like it is easier for the religist to accept hypricrisy and guilt rather than truth…
Hypocrisy… the new morality
I generally agree that to equate sex and guilt is a bad thing…hey I grew up Catholic.
But there is a whole new dynamic out there where little girls as young as 8 or 10 are engaging in quick oral sex (never reciprocated by the way) as a way to be accepted by boys. It is very casual, at parties, in basements, behind the garage, in school bathrooms. It has become something that younger and younger girls are expected to do.
Oral sex is great..you won’t hear me saying anything negative about it. But when you are 12 years old, on your knees in some filthy bathroom stall, what the hell does that have to do with pleasure or love?
But that is NOT what he is saying.
There is nothing EMPOWERING about the good Rabbi’s message… He did not say… little girls must demand reciprocation… he just made the little girls feel like shit… and gave power to the boys that they even did not know they had…
Not to mention… that this IS used as a stop gap measure for girls not wanting to “GO ALL THE WAY*… kids are not stupid.
I see nothing wrong with the Rabbi’s message. The boys know they have that power over the girls; he did not tell them anything new.
This is a horrible, shameful trend and they all need a good talking to. Those girls have no self-respect and the boys are using them.
Also, I don’t believe they are using it to delay having “real” sex. Oral sex has just as many dangers as intercourse. These girls are at risk for all kinds of STD’s and AIDS.
The boys know they have that power over the girls
Okay that is bullshit… girls are not that weak and are not all victims. I had a shock when my cousin told me that she explictly told her boys to option out for oral sex if things got to hot and bothered…she did not want to become a grandmother in her thirties…
The point of the matter is the Rabbi did not make this situation better…but WORSE.
If you and he really think that girls are victims then tell them that they should demand for reciprocation… elsewise this kind of tonguelashing (pardon the pun) WILL INDEED make them victims if they were not before.
AND FINALLY ADMIT THE FACT THAT GIRLS DO ENJOY SEX…
I have spent the last 15 years parenting teenagers. I am in the trenches on this one. The rabbi is talking about very young girls and they’re generally naive, uninformed about sex, and have low self-esteem. Someone needs to talk to them about self-respect and if the parents don’t or won’t, than thank God the rabbi has the guts to.
Oral sex is terrific when you are in a real relationship with someone. I think this guy is talking to the trend of very very casual blow job parties where the boys basically line up in front of the girls. Google it.
But that is my point the Rabbi is NOT talking about self-respect … he is just reinforcing shame and guilt… which will only lower their self esteem.
Boosting self esteem would demand that they are satified too and telling the boys to satisfy the girls… but he doesn’t. He chickens out and employs the same useless ideology that is not for the benefit of the children (by promoting sexually healthy behaviors) instead his message is for certain parents who would rather be willfully ignorant and think that their children are non thinking non feeling humans.
It is not all dirty stalls… a friend of mine woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stopped into her 11 year old daugthers rooms… noticing a strange pair of sneakers… turns out a 12 year old boy was hiding in the closet.
GIRLS LIKE SEX TOO…
And as long as humans have instincts they will act upon them as they have had for millions of years. Unless you want McAmericans the best thing we can do is teach our children how to respect their bodies and be safe… shaming and guilting them is counterproductive.
I note that there is no mention of boys going down on girls in this little lesson.
Am I perverted for noticing this OR is it an astute observation based on typical male attitudes towards a male dominated society OR is it that the rabbi approves of guys going down on girls given his omission of a statement on this issue?
Ad to that the gay/lesbian/bi issues, that he doesn’t seem to address either, where the same inference of approval can be made, eh?
Ok… I think I have already said to much! lol
You don’t hear it because it doesn’t happen. There is no reciprocity.
Truth:
Little girls are oppressed by other little girls more than by boys.
I’m so sick of hearing exploitation described as “empowerment”. The incidents of casual oral sex in the middle (and, sadly, elementary)schools here involve very young girls and older boys.
If this were a manifestation of girls-like-sex-too and everybody-enjoys-sexual-exploration, where are the reports of basements full of high school girls demanding cunnilingus from twelve year old boys ?
I’m so sick of hearing exploitation described as “empowerment”.
Where is anyone promoting “exploitation”?
THAT IS MY POINT!!!
All this does is to reinforce stereotypes.
All of my comments about EMPOWERING have fallen on deaf ears…
I guess I am deaf. Are you saying that aside from the pressure to be thin, pretty, smart and popular, it is somehow empowering for pre-teen girls to be pressured into servicing boys?
yeah.. that is exactly what I mean…. geesh
would be that sex is not something you do because someone else tells you should but something you do because you want to. And so if a girl doesn’t want to and isn’t ready, she shouldn’t let anyone make her feel that she have to participate in any kind of sex act — from kissing to intercourse. The problem with his message is that it is all negative and built on shaming.
I definitely think that “slut shaming” is a crappy way to get girls to change their behavior. Not only does it lead to awful attitudes about sex and pleasure but a girl is much more likely to resist pressure to have sex if she has a good self-image than if she believes that the only reason to do so is to avoid having a bad reputation.
That is what I was trying to say… there is NOTHING in the Rabbi preaching that will create a POSITIVE change… In fact he just reinforces NEGATIVE stereotypes and unhealthy sexual behaviors by insisting on equating sex with shame and guilt
but I thought some expansion wouldn’t hurt — I think that sometimes having someone else restate a point helps to clarify it.
I think you have to separate sex in the context of a meaningful relationship and this type of sex, which I believe the rabbi is talking about, where young girls are expected to service boys.
In this scenario the boys are clearly using the girls in a shameful and disrespectful way. Pointing this out is not a bad thing.
BTW…I have seen a couple of shows where the young boys felt coerced into coercing the girls to fellate them and they felt demeaned because of it.
Again I am not talking about sex in the context of a healthy relationship.
I really do think that the way he is presenting the message that is bad:
He’s not telling them to look at what they are doing in terms of what they want for themselves but to look in terms of what others want and think. He’s not telling them that they are should be controlling their own sexuality but instead telling them that they should give in to external pressure. The way he’s trying to get them not to have sex is the same method that’s used to pressure them into it.
He is horrible… I wouldn’t want this fool within ten yards of my kids.
I see what you mean, but I think he is telling the girls not to do something that will make them feel ashamed of themselves later. I think he’s telling them to listen to their inner voice. As a parent, I hope that my teenagers have developed that voice and I hope that they would always let it guide them.
I wish that he would not bring God into it, but he is a rabbi and presumably the kids he is talking to already believe in God and are encouraged to let that belief guide them through life.
My kids certainly would not respond to that, but the rabbi’s message is very close to what I would tell my kids if I thought they were engaging in that type of behavior, minus the God part.
My kids learned about the mechanics of sex in public school, so most of my talks with them are about respect; both for yourself and who you are with.
No… he is decidedly trying to shame the girls for what they might have done… that is the problem.
What the rabbi and others religist wants is to INDEED bring back shame into sex. They want to pretend that little girls by the thousands are on their knees in dirty bathrooms… Sorry but that is not the case… and if it has happened it is a minority.
What the Rabbi and others are afraid of is little girls controlling their own sexuality… which is why he refuses to EMPOWER them … and he just tears them down…
We mustn’t have little girls growing up thinking that they control their own bodies….
The truth of the matter is that this behavior UNDERMINES the idiotic abstinece only bullshit that they are touting… therefore they must demonize it. Like I said my cousin explicited told her boys to have oral sex instead of intercourse. She knows that kids are sexually curiuos… and better to “let off steam” in a safe way than to leave them ignorant like the abstinece only little who end up not on their knees in a dirty stall… but in the local materinity ward having a baby at 12 years old
not to second guess your cousin, but I wonder what she would have told her children if they were girls.
Most likely the same… the key here is NOT shame nor Guilt but recognizing that KIDS ARE SEXUALLY CURIOUS… and that this is a “stop gap” measure from going any further…
She is very pragmatic… particulary since she had an abortion at 15 years old.
It is all about the SHAME
The point is the Rabbi is NOT trying to help these kids but trying to promote his own religisocity in the eyes of their parents. He is IRRESPONSIBLE and WRONG.
You are right he has taken a small fragment of unhealthy behavior in kids and has blown it (pardon the pun again) way the hell out of proportion. And as usual he has made the little girls into victims and little whores.
GIRLS LIKE SEX… GIRLS LIKE CUDDLING WITH BOYS… GIRLS LIKE KISSING BOY and GIRLS ARE JUST AS CURIOUS ABOUT SEX AS BOYS
This is the part that you have a problem with.
I WILL NOT agree with your notion that all girls are victims with low self esteem. Particulary at that age when they are more dependent on the social acceptance of OTHER GIRLS than they are on boys.
The right course of action would be to encourage BOTH the boys and the girls to engage in more meaningful relations with each other and above all practice safe sex.
I do not have a problem with girls liking sex. I am a girl. I have a daughter.
He is not talking about normal teenage sexual relations here, he is talking about a very popular trend among kids in jr. high. It’s not even high school. It’s 7th grade for pete’s sake!
Sorry, I just don’t buy that the girls are enjoying it. It’s just another way for insecure young girls to try to fit in.
There’s a pretty simple way to determine who is enjoying it. Who’s having an orgasm ?
As a woman with a daughter myself, and years of experience talking to hundreds of women about sex, I venture to say that you can look far and wide for quivering 12 year old girls, panting with desire to provide blow jobs to strangers in basements. The fantasy of a Little Lolita having a spontaneous climax from the sheer excitement of being allowed to service a man is an old myth often used to excuse incest and child abuse.
There should be only one reason any person has sex; because he/she WANTS to have SEX. Not because they can be talked into it, or because they want to be loved, or accepted, or supported, or popular. Not because they can’t take the pouting, the door slamming, the silent treatment. Not because of fear, or loneliness, or insecurity.
Sex is too wonderful and important to be treated like a commodity.
Even marriage to the one that you love does not garauntee an orgasm.
I have had college roomates who thoughly enjoyed doing every thing but… their frustration came from the guilt of not “being allowed” to go all the way.
What should be taught is respect for meaningful relationships and safe sex… after that their is not much that can be enforced short of locking them in their rooms.
“Even marriage to the one that you love does not guarantee an orgasm.”
You are absolutely right. Sad, isn’t it ?
I was fortunate enough fifteen years ago to finally meet a man who made my heart beat fast and my breath catch in my throat. We are separated by distance and can only see each other 8-10 time a year, but every meeting is miraculous. There is nothing more wonderful than making love when it is prompted by passion.
I was in my mid-forties before experiencing those feelings, and while I am profoundly grateful for finding true love, I must say that I was also happy during twenty years of celibacy. Having sex when I want to is great, but so is not having sex when I don’t. It was an enormous relief to never have to do it again, never have to pretend I enjoyed it, and never have to initiate it in order to protect the feelings of a man I loved very much, but who stirred no sexual feelings in me.
Imagine being a middle aged man who has never had an erection, but who is expected to be content with satisfying his wife’s sexual desires.
There is still a terrible double standard at work that implies women are being bad sports if they don’t just “do it”.
I just want girls to be intelligent about their bodies and informed about their actions.
I am not one to say that girls should remain virgins until marriage .. I am a realist… because GIRLS DO ENJOY SEX wether or not they are married….and should not be bound by so called societal stigmas and should enjoy themselves in a safe and PROtected manner as much as boys
I agree with you entirely that girls, boys, women,and men should be intelligent about their bodies and informed about their actions. The whole concept of virginity is ridiculous, and nobody should have mutual sexual pleasure regulated by social pressures that stigmatize them.
It is true that SOME people enjoy SOME kinds of sex with SOME people SOME times.
Can we be just as concerned that social pressure to have sex we don’t want is at least as damaging as social pressures that prevent us from having the sex we do want?
Can we be just as concerned that social pressure to have sex we don’t want is at least as damaging as social pressures that prevent us from having the sex we do want?
I went to an all girls school from 7th to 12th grade… I am sorry but these were the most sex crazed girls I had ever met and this was over 20 years ago… and the girls from the Catholic school were even more notorious… so maybe that is why out points of view do not mesh…
The only reason we aren’t connecting is because we’re talking about different things. Being sex crazed is great. Looking for love is great. It does not follow that young woman like the ones you remember wanted to have sex with anybody and anything. I doubt they all wanted to have sex with a goat or those guys in “Deliverance”, or some anonymous stranger in a basement. They were crazy for cute guys and movies stars and singers, and teachers, and lots of heart throbs who were safe because they were unattainable.
It’s about choice. Women can be goggle-eyed crazy about sex and still not want to want to make love with 99.99999% of the people they meet.
I agree that the Rabbi put his caution badly, but there are hundreds of reports of this being done to younger children by teen age boys, and that is horrible, abusive, and cruel.
Even though the religious leaders of America are theologically and politically divided on a host of topics, there ought to be, there must be, universal agreement that the national upsurge of oral sex between minors who do not love each other is not what God wants for them, even if, in a moment of boredom or passion, it is what they want for themselves.
Aside from the obvious issues here, it is always disturbing when another pompous zealot assumes to know what god wants, and I say this as a fellow Jew. And it is disturbing that a rabbi is “teaching” about this subject. I don’t want some rabbi teaching about this subject to my son, that is my job. Don’t usurp me.
They have certainly opened the door in this house for a lot of openess about sex! After moiv’s diary about the “abortion ward”, that was just another reason for my teen daughter and I to sit down and talk about it all some more. I have always been as persuasive as possible that she talk to me about being sexually active when she is so that she can have what she needs to take care of herself. It is sad to see the look on your daughter’s face though talking about the secret abortion ward and those who hurt themselves, but I truly believe that in that position she wouldn’t hurt herself and we would figure it all out together and safely because we faced the horror of it all last week together. Poor kid, hell of a time to be a teenager in America right now.
Compared to my adolescent and teenage years in the early sixties, I think this is much better. Truly, it makes me happy to see parents and kids talking openly about sex, pregnancy, and abortions and even happier for kids to be told that their parents will love AND support them. Much, much better than the original “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
And your daughter has very good taste in parents 😉
Thanks, Tracy and other commenters and Parker too for inspiring me to look up moiv’s diary and try to remember to make some time to talk to my teenager more about sex. I always think about it at the most inopportune moments — like when she’s away at basketball practice, like now.