You Suck'th

Newsweek on Metzitza B'peh(almost)




By "Rabbi"Marc Gellman
Newsweek
Updated: 1:54 p.m. ET Nov. 9, 2005
Nov. 9, 2005 -
Last Sunday afternoon I had a nice chat with sixth-grade children and their parents about oral sex. Let me assure you that when I studied to be a rabbi, oral sex was not an elective in my seminary’s curriculum, but now it seems to me of much greater importance than teaching these kids how to bless a challah bread.
... it is just unbelievably embarrassing to talk about this stuff. I am a fearless public speaker but my palms were sweating all through the lecture last Sunday. In the follow-up to the lecture, the main question the kids had was, “Do you really have sex?”
...The avalanche’s roar carries a single message: love and sex do not have to be connected in any way at all. Sex can be just hooking up, this message says, and to avoid pregnancy (obviously true) and to avoid AIDS and STDS (utterly false) oral sex is seen by our kids as nothing more than an after-school snack. Many kids now consider it as nothing more than a social convention, a mark of popularity, a sign of sexual liberation and a pleasant way to pass the time in the back of the bus on the way to school.
...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.”
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.”
Then I surrendered to my need to explain that this was not just me talking, but our faith talking and so I quoted the Talmud to them: “Be very careful if you make a woman cry, because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a man’s rib: Not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be superior, but from the side to be equal. Under the arm to be protected, and next to the heart to be loved.”
And then I took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off my palms and watched their faces as they thought about something deeply important and difficult. Maybe I changed nothing. I think I started some important conversations at home, and all this happened in my synagogue. Last Sunday I know I did my job, and I did it without teaching anybody how to bless a challah.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

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