This is probably the most risque post I've ever written on this blog. Sex is not usually a topic I cover, but I've been reading this book, Hush by Eishes Chayil (pen name, obviously), and it's raised two questions for me.
#1 - The protagonist is told by her kallah teacher that, prior to sex, she should pull her nightgown up to just above her stomach but no higher than that. I always thought that, halachically, a man and woman are required to have nothing (no articles of clothing) between them when they have sex. Granted, I've never been to a kallah class, but I'm pretty sure this is what was taught in high school/seminary Taharat Hamishpacha class and it's why I always scoffed at the "hole in the sheet" myth -- saying such a thing was actually against halacha. So is it? Or isn't it?
#2 - The protagonist doesn't find out what she is expected to do in the bedroom (i.e., the technicalities of how babies are made) until well into her kallah classes. And then her friend says that the grooms don't find out until the day of the wedding. This can't be accurate? Can this be accurate?
I would usually dismiss all of these things as a lack of knowledge on a well-meaning author's part, but the back of the book claims that this author was raised in the Chasidic world... so she would know, right?
Thanks in advance for answers you may have. My curiosity is really getting the better of me right now. And btw, for anyone's who wants to know, I HIGHLY recommend this book. It is well-written, really sad (in what feels like an important way), and really interesting.
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5 comments:
I saw a PBS special in the late 1990s on Chasidism that claimed the same thing about guys not learning about sex until their wedding nights. I don't know if it still is available, but I rmemeber it was narrated by Leonard Nimoy and Sarah Jessica Parker, if that helps. Good luck!
http://www.nerve.com/features/ten-illustrated-stories-about-first-time-sex?page=9
Me Again -- I think I have that on a long list of things-to-watch/read. Thanks.
Hedyot -- Pretty interesting article. So I guess it's NOT against halacha to have something separating the bodies? Strange that I always thought it was...
I've got no clue about halacha, but I grew up in a chassidisha community, still have tons of friends from there, and both of them are true. Of course the teenager might have found out the mechanics of sex on his own or from another teenager in his all-boys yeshivah, well before his marriage, but the official hard line is, that you don't teach em about sex until the day of the wedding. And many a boy really found out that what has been preached to him as dirty and devilish, is what is now demanded from him. I've heard stories of real naïve bucherim who have fainted upon realizing what they are expected to do that night.
One of the things the chussen teacher explains to the boy is, that 'eventhe rebbi does it, so its ok'. Just goes to show you how immensely successful they were in hiding these teenagers out in a delusional world for years!
Shauly - Wow. Thanks for sharing that. So interesting. I'd be curious to know how you left that world (if you did?). Do you have a blog?
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