Heterosexual men and Yom Kippur: critical questions

You asked for it

I appreciate the deep questions I received on the previous post.

1. In a modern, democratic world, no one should be punished for their sexual choices or practices. We should be free to love who we want.

You are right. We need to make a sharp distinction between moral law, that is, free ethical advice, and the penal code, which tells citizens how to act.

As long as one doesn’t harm anyone, we all should be free to choose the norms to live by privately and personally, while criminal law is prescriptive.

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2. You make a distinction between men who you claim have a Gay and a Straight sexual orientation. But how is anyone supposed to know what they are? And even more importantly, not everyone admits to this dichotomy.

I already gave a hint on how you can tell the difference. However, I don’t advocate experimenting. You could ask an honest therapist to work it out with you, but how can we tell if they are truly impartial and skilled enough?

Most men seem to know somehow. The first hint is how deeply meaningful a wink, kiss, or hug is (not) to them. Of their not-preferred gender, it might be nice, sweet, and warm; of their fancied gender, it may be mesmerizing, dazzling, and fascinating. Yet, sexual fantasies, dreams, obsessions, and attractions may be a wake-up call but are not decisive. Neither is a fear of intimacy with one gender indicative of one’s orientation being to the other.

Decisive is that both sexual attractions and repulsions can be reduced by good therapy (say, in half a year), and sexual orientation is unchangeable.

Clearly, choosing labels is not to say one is different from everyone else but rather to create a home to belong and a safe place to grow. Thus, everyone should be free in choosing their own label (including the ‘no label’ label).

I only say that, next to that, there are neurobiological imprints from around the time we’re born that determine our handedness, gender, and sexual preference. These inborn settings don’t force what labels we choose. Labels can be intricate, while our neurological states seem much more binary.

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3. How can you be so sure that conversion therapy will never work?

The best answer is that I gave the best conversion therapy (for little money, without hurting clients). Even my most promising clients stayed Gay. And all the big advocates decades ago came out Gay. Also, I never met an honest conversion therapist. They’re all in it for the money, and clients who don’t end their life or therapy over decades pay the value of a house per person.

The sporadic ‘cures’ are very suspicious. To answer you with a comparison, when Gentiles convert to proud Jews, you may expect some of them to be vocal against Antisemitism. If Gays sometimes would convert to Straights, how come none of them ever stand up against LGBTQAI+ Oppression?

Of course, it’s possible to ‘cure’ someone of being Gay who never was Gay. Straight men with a sex addiction for men (because they don’t bond with them; they go from man to man) can be ‘cured’ “Hey presto!” of being Gay. People with a character as warm as a snake or crocodile can bond with neither men nor women. Such people can be ‘cured’ by fake attachment.

In many cases, it is possible to get a homosexual man to overcome his heterophobia and have sex with a woman. Yet, what he can’t do is bond with a woman. These men ‘die’ from loneliness and either cheat with men and/or eventually insist on breaking up to go live with a man—disaster.

You also can’t ‘cure’ someone from being left-handed. You can make him feel miserable and do things the ‘normal way,’ but that’s it. The difference with sexuality is that it also needs to help us bond. It seems unfair, but the gender we can bond with is not up to our choosing, as is our handedness.

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4. What is wrong with asking homosexuals to try not to be sexual and so be more holy than everyone else?

Good question. In Judaism, holiness isn’t refraining from worldly pleasures but restricting them to make them kosher. Not partaking at all and totally rejecting any of G^d’s generosity to us is actually an affront and chutzpah.

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5. The Torah text only forbids homosexual intercourse. There are so many other ways still left for Gay men to be sexual.

That’s right. In Leviticus. But Jewish Law forbids sex with oneself and other alternative activity that leads to sexual climaxing, except when one sleeps. Jewish men should not even sleep on their front to prevent overheating.

I found that all sexual laws are reasonable and rational advice. Sex seems excellent to end our existential loneliness. Superficial and solo sex ingrain isolation and therefore are not a good idea. ‘It’s not good to be alone.’

The only way to allow for Gay sex is for Gay men to have relational sex with other Gay men. Just like the Rabbis don’t like to regulate Straight sex (it’s greatly left to the couple), Gay couples should do whatever they please.

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6. How can you, and who are you, to suggest a change in Jewish Law?

Good question. Well, generally, being an Orthodox Jew means leaving important questions to someone who knows Jewish Law to decide for you. Just like you don’t treat life-threatening conditions yourself from a Google search. You ask a medical specialist and may even seek a second opinion.

In Jewish Law, it works like that too. If the one you ask doesn’t know of any microwave, they’ll quiz you on it, study it, and ask around. You rely on that.

How different is it when your decider is ignorant about sexual orientation and too stressed to ask you about it, study it, or ask equals or superiors!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Jewish Law was never fixed about this—though some people pretend it was. I’ll describe this clarity historically.

* The Talmud (as I mentioned) says that [a man] having intercourse with a man as with a woman misleads and leads him to leave his wife and kids.

* Maimonides, a leading physician at his time and probably the greatest codifier of Jewish Law, in a letter to the Jews in Yemen, rules that in case of scarcity, two Jewish males may sleep (naked) under one blanket because sex between men is ‘a non-Jewish disease’ we don’t need to worry about.

Maimonides was, of course, referring to the practice of Roman, Greek, and other Gentile societies, which knew of sexual relationships between men, though often between masters and slaves or grownups and youths. He ruled that we don’t see that among Jews. He must have thought of Straight men only. It’s unthinkable that Gay Jews weren’t around or that he would not know about them. Generally, Jewish Law doesn’t rule for exceptions.

(Among Jews, this notion of homosexuality as an un-Jewish thing is very much alive today. Together with our ingrained obsession with procreation to survive persecutions, it makes many Jews uncomfortable with Gay sex.)

* Later authorities on Jewish Law expanded on this ruling, saying there are exceptions. In lewd times, when everyone seems to be sexual with almost everyone, we even find among them Jewish men having sex with men. Also, we’d prevent our boys from secluding with a Jew who had sex with men.

* In the Sixties of the previous century, several things happened at the same time. The Vietnam War and the ‘make love, not war’ movement. The contraceptive pill disconnected heterosexual sex from procreation; sex just for fun came up (Woodstock). Stonewall—Gays and Trans fought back and demanded rights and respect. Many of those were Jews. If I were an Orthodox Rabbi at the time, I would have made the same mistake as they did. You see lewd times and Jewish men having sex with men. This must be the known vulgarity. These are not Gays. They should take therapy to heal.

* Later Rabbis didn’t have the guts to correct the mistake. But no Jewish Law was ever proclaimed for Gay Jews. They were mistaken for Straights. So, no Jewish Law needs to be changed to rule that Gay men, of course, are not on the level of Moses over the age of 80, the only time a Jew was ever commanded to live celibately. Gays could (or should) not live without sex.

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7. It seems that with so many Gay men around, this can’t be a fluke of Nature or a slipup by G^d, Heaven forbid. How can we appreciate this?

You’re right. At first glance, it’s odd that evolution would produce people whose natural partner choice won’t give kids. But there’s more to survival of the species than biology. The Torah, world history, and the news testify that most problems in the world are caused by (heterosexual) men. How elegant to have Gay men around to support women against sexism, teach men and women to get along better, teach men to love and support each other instead of competing and killing, model proper empathy for kids, and show heterosexual couples what true commitment and love can look like.

Gay men and women have so much to give (like Jews). How stupid of the world to make them so miserable that little energy is left to profit others.

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8. What do LGBTQAI+ want from us who are not?

Good question. Speak out positively about Queers. If you do that from the heart, they will come out of the closet to you from everywhere. In your close family, in your circle of friends, at work, in the neighborhood, etc. From some, you’ll think, ‘I thought so,’ and from others, ‘I’d never guessed.’

Smile. Listen. Ask open questions like, ‘How do you feel about …?’ or, ‘What is it like to …?’ Admit you’d be timid, insecure, and desperate at times if you grew up without role models, with lots of secret questions, amidst so much hostility, and without allies. Say what you admire about them and ask what they’re proud of. Ask how it is to come out all the time (as it never seems to stop). Ask what you can do to make the world a better place in a wider sense. Make friendly Straight-Cisgender friends who are also bold allies to support each other, cry and laugh together, and talk about your pride, mistakes, guilt feelings, insecurities, fears, hopes, and activist plans.

Learn and teach everyone around you about the two steps of suicide prevention. You never know when it comes in handy, when suddenly all hope is gone, even for yourself. 1. The despair is real. I believe you. You see no light at the end of the tunnel. I’m with you on that. 2. There is hope that you don’t see now. That’s OK. While you’re going through this dark valley, others will keep a flame of hope alive. Give it time. It’ll get better. I promise.

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9. What do you think the leading Orthodox Rabbis and Poskim should do?

I expected critical questions about my piece, not about others. But now that you ask, I can tell you what I think. * They should proclaim an international day of fasting to mourn as a People how much wrong we did to countless innocents. * They should admit that especially their fears to speak out and their carelessness did much irreparable damage. * They should organize funding for therapy for survivors and bereaved. * And they should ask forgiveness for the greatest scandal ever done by Orthodox Jews of:
* The Gay men persecuted based on a sloppy/careless reading of Leviticus;
* The Gay men who committed suicide and of their families and friends;
* The Gay men who escaped or were chased out from our ranks;
* Their Allies who left our ranks, appalled by how Gay men were treated;
and all those whose lives depended on theirs or were indirectly hurt.

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Answers to other questions you may find in my blog post from yesterday.

Happy Yom Kippur!

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