In an early meeting with the patient, Bat Sheva Marcus, an Orthodox Jewish consultant, made a list.
The 20-year-old patient was wearing her devotional uniform: a dark suit with an unformed skirt under his knee, a dark stockings, a regular shirt buckled around his neck, wearing a wig and a crochet hat on the head.
She came to Marcus's office in Midtown Manhattan from a closed community in Brooklyn Park because she had been retreating after having sex with her husband.
There is pain for Marcus, and the more problematic is that there is no desire.
Marcus and her staff immediately reasoned that pain was the result of muscle contractions caused by childbirth;
This can be treated effectively with an expansion agent
There was no objection from the rabbi of the patient.
But deeper aversion is more complicated.
Marcus spoke to the woman at a round table in a room decorated with pear and Berry still life, and he wrote a list, lists the way patients and her husband can make love for her more appealing
These suggestions range from seemingly mild to more direct, from reading romantic novels to kissing with lights on, to wearing lace pajamas, to touching the clit, to using a vibrator.
The woman will take the list home to her husband, who will give the list to their rabbi, who will rule one by one whether these interventions are allowed.
"After her third child, she just found out what her clit was and where it was," Marcus said . ".
"She told her OB-
In their conversation, he told her about her anatomy.
With this basic knowledge alone, she is ahead of many Orthodox patients in Marcus, often from Satmar, one of the most strictly observed groups in Hasidic Judaism.
They are restricted in parts of Brooklyn or western New Jersey. Y.
A small village in the north of New York City has been completely isolated, and their world has no secular books, let alone television and the Internet.
With regard to sex, there has been no information in their minds, full of fear.
"They don't --zero —
The connection to happiness, "said Marcus.
"There is no vocabulary to start.
We have an application form to fill out and they reach "climax" and go to the receptionist and ask "What is this ? "?
When Marcus began to explore whether they were awakened, they knew nothing about the concept.
How common sexual aversion is in the extreme
It is impossible for Orthodox women to speak, and this issue becomes particularly difficult because there are many movements and denominations of different regulations and customs.
But all these cultures share a common erotic ideal.
Young woman married
As Satmar's wife Marcus told me, she often talks to a man who only met once before the wedding --
She should feel that sex is a blessing, a combination of Shekinah, the light of God, and not just a painful or exclusive reproductive household.
The rabbi calmly took care of his struggling wife by Marcus.
Her task is to instill desire in them.
Marcus, 53, is observant.
At her synagogue, at the north end of the Bronx, men and women sit apart, separated by wooden screens.
She hid her legs over her knees and her arms over her elbows.
Until menopause, she followed the rules of menstruation.
During her tenure and seven days after --
12 days or more a month until she is allowed to visit a mikvah and wash herself in the special waters there --
She slept apart from her husband and did not touch him at any time.
In her contaminated condition, whether she was careful or not that their hands were not touched, she did not hand him a plate of food directly.
It is forbidden to touch the same plate at the same time.
However, for anyone in the field of Orthodox, she is clearly not Harriet, nor is she a strict person.
She was raised and not over-raised.
Orthodox but modern Orthodox
There are no buttons on her neck.
She wears trousers sometimes.
Her synagogue separates gender from the man in front and the woman in the back.
Only shoulders on the screen-high.
Encourage women to make their own voices in prayer, rather than let themselves be quiet, so as not to tempt men into the idea of sin by the voice of their chanting.
Under her brown bangs, her eyes sometimes fill with tears when Marcus talks about Orthodox Judaism
The most important thing is that the most stringent branch of Harriet's Orthodox --
By instilling a physical shame and near-catastrophic sexual terror, by teaching tzniut the law of humility is broken, disaster will come, to quell the sex of women.
One of the rabbis I met compared sex to "nuclear power": Sex can bring disaster to the world, but he said, its "prudent regulation" can connect a couple with God and summon the "experience of excellence ".
Still, what Marcus sees is more depression than transcendence.
She tells a story about a Jewish woman who is about to be persecuted by Cossack as a girl and still teaches it to female students.
She will be tied right away and dragged across the street until she dies.
But before this happens, she manages to pin the skirt to the lower leg or to the lower leg and sew the fabric to the meat, so that, in the course of her painful execution, the dress infected the Jewish mind in an unspecified way and brought disaster to the Jewish people.
I spoke to a young woman from the puja of the hasidade --
She asked me not to use her name to protect her privacy, just like most Orthodox women I have interviewed --
Tell me she remembers to hear the version of the story repeatedly from 8 or 9 years old and recall her going with the eighth child
At another yeshiva's fair for girls near Brooklyn, grade students.
The fair is held in an auditorium featuring life.
The size of a mother bathing her daughter forever with boiling water --
Punishment for the failure of some undisclosed physical humility.
For the Harriet patients of Marcus, their whole sex education is likely to be done before the wedding, in class or in a tutorial with The kallah instructor (usually the rabbi's wife, the divine rules of teaching.
The semi-isolation of menstruation is a crucial lesson, usually for the rest of the month, to sum up in the bedroom what is allowed and what is not allowed, and some of the minimums are like it is recommended to use a lubricant in your sex preparation.
One morning, at the polished round table she spoke to the patient, Marcus handed me a copy of the bride's manual distributed by teacher kallah.
The book was written for the modern Orthodox Church;
It is relatively progressive.
For example, the clit is mentioned twice.
Even so, the most important thing is that the wife has the responsibility to keep the relationship in the right place of the law.
The handbook warns that the Talmud "indicates that in a marital relationship a husband may not look at his wife's makom ervah or kiss her private place ".
The lights should be off, the sheets should cover the couple, the location should be missionary
The wife is accused of keeping her spirit and being virtuous.
A parable in the introduction suggests that if she does not, God's choice may "fall on the edge of the cliff ".
Marcus reminded me, "the book is modern.
"Her Harriet women seem to feel that almost all of their bedrooms are tied up by the Talmudic" travel wire "and a wrong move can cause damage," she said . ".
When she started receiving treatment for a new patient, Marcus told me earlier this month, "I feel like I'm in the canyon and need to find some foothold.
"She looked carefully and worked so hard with each and every one of them to help them remember the moments of their recent or return to their teenage years, "When they feel something in their belly that feels interesting, the warmth of their genitals," although they may not recognize that feeling as sexual at all.
Despite their plain, resistant, and confusing voice, she coaxed them to recall these short experiences, connect them with ELOS, and understand that the feeling is positive.
"It gives me a foothold," she said . ".
"Then we can start to cheer up.
"I have to overcome their fears: How do I know that the place where you lead me won't make me want to do something terrible," she added ? "?
She reminded them that God wanted the husband to be close to his wife and assured them that she "led them to a better marriage and closer to God ".
Marcus traced her way to her father on vacation.
"He will tell you that he is definitely not a feminist," she said . " However, he was shocked when all his children went through modern life --
In Orthodox schools, only her brothers began to study the Talmud in the fifth grade.
Girls should not read the sacred text at any age, and this restriction has been lifted in certain parts of the Orthodox.
At home, he arranged Talmud pages for his daughters from the age of 10;
Earlier, he supported the path of independence.
Marcus chose a secular university, in part because the only religious choice that was open to girls seemed oppressive.
But during her college years she was ashamed of all the sexual things;
Her father was always open.
But the family is completely silent about sex.
In college, the topic made her furious.
She got into panic and couldn't even say the word "breast.
However, while obtaining a master's degree in social work, she makes friends in a small group of modern societies
Orthodox feminists have gradually discovered that she can talk about sex after all.
She worked with a Jewish organization to try to get younger professionals more involved in charity, and in 1998 she met urologist Michael Werner at the synagogue.
He asked her if she would join his management practice and help him to set up a sperm bank and a fertility clinic.
In 2000, she and Werner opened the women's sexual medicine center in Westchester (
Later in Manhattan).
When she is pursuing a doctorate in human sexuality, she treats secular patients with sexual problems, including low sexual desire.
About five years ago, a rabbi Harriet asked me to swear never to reveal his name --
To say the least, most Haredim is cautious about discussing pornography
Start introducing the patient to her.
The rabbi belongs to a well-known Orthodox fertility organization;
He advised women and couples who were pregnant or threatened with marriage due to sexual problems.
Other rabbis also sent him a case.
He finally heard a lot about women's antipathy to sex.
A character that is not as impossible as it sounds;
In Harriet's orthodox mind, rabbis are the ones who rule in private affairs, even if the field is a female body. (
If a woman is not sure if her period has started, she will put her underwear in a plastic bag and her husband will bring the bag to a rabbi who will check the spots and)
Over the years, the rabbi sent the sex woman to OB-
GYNs will be checked for medical problems, sometimes as a last resort, to be checked with a secular consultant.
The result is terrible.
These women may be pregnant, he said, but most told him they are still resistant to sex.
Then the rabbi learned about Marcus through Werner, who worked with some Orthodox men on fertility issues.
The rabbi visited the center's website, read the testimony of the women and met with Marcus.
He was encouraged by her Orthodox ceremony and decided to give it a try.
The other rabbis then heard about Marcus's work and sent the women to it.
Harry's about one now-
The fifth she practiced.
"We were surprised," the rabbi said of his colleague . ".
"We can't believe the difference.
"Even among the women who have been to other counselors, he has not succeeded, and now he has heard reports about desire, happiness, Shekinah signs in the bedroom.
"When it comes to how to help these young ladies, she was like Einstein in our time.
Marcus's religious beliefs and knowledge made her particularly sensitive, he said,
They helped her win the trust of women.
"No one came into the place and thought she was just a patient.
They feel like they are her daughter, her only child.
When Marcus advised her patients to try romance novels, pajamas, and kissing with the lights on --
As a way, she told me to move "from the dark" away from the teachings of fear and shame --
The Satmar woman replied that she was willing to try if the rabbi agreed.
But she said she was upset.
She doesn't want her close relationship with her husband to be rich-
Vulgar, demeaning Yiddish.
"We don't want to think about it like the rest of the world," Marcus recalls . ".
The woman soon reported that none of the three had been ruled by the rabbi.
Earlier, the rabbi warned her husband to pay attention to the clit;
He asked for permission after his wife got off work. GYN appointment
Now, however, the rabbi gives in: The husband can touch it if this is the real need for awakening.
He also agreed with the vibrator reluctantly.
The logic of the rabbi's ruling may be counter-intuitive to Marcus, confusing, and the decrees vary from Rabbi to rabbi, but seem to draw a line between body and mind.
The vibrator can be regarded only as a kind of machine and can be applied to the body in medicine;
Vivid literature or underwear can hurt the mind. (
To cleverly bypass the ban on reading soft porn, Marcus used to hire a cousin majoring in creative writing to make some of Harriet's super soft porn, and soon, she gave the woman a print, which eventually led to hassiddick's husband putting his hand on his wife's full-dress hip and giving her a "meaningful kiss ".
"But the tepid scene doesn't seem to help her patients much. )
For Marcus, urging her patients to use the vibrator is a way to build on the sensory memory she extracted from the vibrator.
Although she usually introduced the idea of the vibrator in the initial meeting, she did not tell her patient to actually try the vibrator until later.
First, she consolidated her trust and clarified it over and over again --
As God desires
For the benefit of marriage
At the same time, she asked the women to know their bodies at home alone --
For whatever reason, few women turn to their rabbis.
One of Marcus's patients did it last fall.
She was rejected.
Marcus appealed directly to the rabbi, an occasional step she took.
She carefully avoided the word "masturbation" and got his permission.
After several meetings with the Satmar woman, Marcus took out a wicker basket and put a series of vibrators on the table, starting with a small battery --
Operating models and conclusions with forearmsize plug-in version.
Marcus sent her patients to the examination room to try out the equipment and chose one to take home.
The Satmar woman did it obediently, but made it clear that she would never extend happiness to the climax, an experience that Marcus described to her decently.
In the following months of consultation, in order to check whether her husband was comfortable touching her with a vibrator, the woman's ban on orgasm was not lifted.
She is willing to be opened to make it easier for herself to accept him and to bring them closer emotionally.
She did not want to go beyond this divine purpose.
Speaking of the patients who defeated Harriet, Marcus said: "I told them that our values are the same, but to some extent I am not sincere.
In addition to working with women one-on-one, she also held workshops for Allah teachers.
She is in the midst of a crusade to try to bring new ideas about lust into Orthodox ideas, educators, and convince them to give the bride rich details about happy anatomy and orgasm.
There are not many teachers in her class;
Here, there are 8.
So far, although she would like to see a chain reaction, almost all of this is modern because her views affect other Orthodox cultures in some way.
"What is divine sex?
She asked at a seminar I observed.
"What is Jewish sex?
"She gave up the subtlety of the treatment process and came up with the idea that the bondage might be sanctified.
She discussed oral sex and anal sex.
She quoted what was called biah shelo k'darka in Talmud, which translated as "non-normal manner”;
She believes that passages like this mean that all pleasant acts between husband and wife are sacred.
But it is not always easy for her to reconcile her criticism of Orthodox norms and her own strict beliefs.
After one of her seminars, I asked her about her own compliance with the law of menstruation and why she did not openly oppose the law of menstruation even now, even though she told me, this can cause serious harm to women's appreciation of their bodies and their sexuality.
She was silent. She sighed.
Suddenly, her eyes welled up.
"I don't know why I'm crying," she said . ".
Later, she highlighted how important her religious beliefs were to her.
"I am part of a system that I value and love," she said . ".
She went on to say that at their best, the rules about sex can make sex feel sacred.
For her, the regulations related to menstruation do this.
She recalls that in a practical way, the imposed separation helps to restore her sexual desire, despite the fact that there are young children at home and in an unspeakable way, the monthly purification of the waters of mikvah "makes the people who meet again feel beautiful and sacred --
That's what the ceremony did.
In her heart, contradictions are sometimes painful.
The oppressive and transcendental nature of Orthodox is intertwined, and sometimes it is a blessing not to think, not to dwell on the paradox.
"Jewish law is integrated into your life," she said . ".
"You often don't think about it.
However, her work forced her to consider this and struggle in her own heart.
She embodied contradictions, endured contradictions, and did not let them destroy her determination.
If she had her own path, she said, "there will be fewer women living in the dark.