Lainie Speiser, publicist for Penthouse, writes me: As a survivor of 9 years at Yeshiva of Hudson County in Union City, NJ I can tell you, no woman can be possibly sexual AND orthodox at the same time. The rules of orthodoxy don't allow it
because it doesn't allow a woman to shine in any way shape or form whether it be showing her hair or singing in public.
Last week at my gym, I noticed an orthodox woman (I go to an all girls gym) watching me work out. I knew she was orthodox from her wig and the fact that she was wearing an oversize dowdy floor length skirt. Anyway, she came by to ask me about some arm exercises I was doing, I gave her some advice and she walked away. I wanted to ask
her why the hell she was wearing her wig and skirt in the company of other women, it is after all an women's only gym.
I felt sorry for this woman, really, really sorry.
I spent Yom Kippur at my mothers house. I struck a deal with her -- that I'd go to evening services Friday night and closing evening services on Saturday night. While my father, mother and sister were at the day services on Saturday I smoked pot like a teenager, with my body halfway out of the window, I napped, and I read a great book
by a great pulp fiction writer. I didn't eat, I didn't drink, but you see Luke I contemplate my existance every single damn day, I scold myself for any bad behavior every single damn day, and I try to be the best person I can be every damn day.
Hashem knows this very well about me, and I think he would've approved at how I spent Yom Kippur. And more than anything I made my family happy by being there.
Der Nister writes on Protocols:
To each his own, Lainie, to each his own. The more you suppress sexuality, the more sexual desire morphs to accomodate the suppression. Wrap a woman in a sheitl or a burka, then the wisp of hair that escapes becomes intensely erotic. Send the hemlines to the floor, and the glimpse of stocking is something shocking.
You can even argue, using the "don't think of elephants test," that all this suppression only intensifies the erotic atmosphere. Go to a typical Reform Friday night service, where women and men sit side by side and anything goes dress-wise, and you'd find more of a sexual buzz at the Motor Vehicles Bureau. Head to a hasidische shul and note all the sweating, the tight-packed bodies, the swaying and moaning, the peeks over the mehitza (in both directions). You can tell me Orthodoxy has channeled sexual energy, but they have far from eliminated it.
