click here to see other free Stop The Cyborgs, anti-google glass images.
Back in 2006 Justin Timberlake promised that he was “bringing sexy back”, but I guess he never got around to it because this past week we found out the profound function of last year’s most exciting invention, Google Glass. There is now an app. for having sex with your Google Glasses on so that you can see an image in your glasses lens of you having sex, but from the perspective of your partner’s link of his/her pair of web-enabled camera glasses. Do I really want to see myself having sex – while I’m having sex? Jon Stewart pointed out that this takes “Go F’ yourself” to a whole new, more literal level. It’s not just Google that is helping to drive away the sexy, apparently there is an Facebook app. to see which of your friends is “down” for a hook-up. Back in July, the New York Times reported in an article “Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, too) that casual sex just seems to work for some college women (presumably, just as it has for men) who just don’t have time for a relationship – they feel it would take them off track with their studies and their career path. Regardless of which gender, I hope I’m not alone in finding this trend as incredibly ‘unsexy’.
I mention Justin Timberlake and his song SexyBack because I’m a romantic and I worry about humanity loosing it’s sexy. Sex, in the hook-up culture that we have developed seems like a commodity, something to gain, to acquire, instead of something to share. If only JT was successful – surely we rabbis have done nothing to bring the sexy back.
There is a classic joke about the man who, before his wedding, goes and asks the rabbis just what is permissible between he and his soon-to-be wife.
“Go ahead, ask, ask,” the rabbi said.
The man asked question upon question, about whether one position or another was okay. To each inquiry the rabbis responded, “Yes, that is fine, between a man and his wife, its all fine.”
The man was relieved and so he asked about more and more erotic things; about each, the rabbi said it was fine. It was all fine until the man mentioned one last thing that he assumed would be fine like all the previous questions he asked.
“Tell me, rabbi, why is this last thing not permissible if all the other things were?”
The rabbi replied, “That last one is no good. It could lead to mixed dancing!”
Serious Question: Can rabbis help us bring sexy back?
My colleague and friends, Rabbi Elliott Dorff, wrote about the values of Jewish sexual decision-making. He articulated 8 sensibilities that would apply in marital or even (gasp) non-marital sex:
1) Seeing oneself and one’s partner as the creations of God
2) Respect for the other
3) Modesty
4) Honesty
5) Fidelity
6) Health and safety (including emotional safety)
7) The possibility of a child
8) The Jewish quality of a relationship
It’s a beautiful list, I agree with each value, but it’s not sexy.
So Jewishly, where does that leave us regarding “sexy”?
Until modern Judaism becomes more adept, and willing, to talk about the value and beauty of sex in a relationship rather than some variable of self-gratification which is how I understand the current trend, we’re left with only some biblical verses that are only vaguely sexy, and only if you read them with the proper wink and nod:
“And he knew her.” (oooooo)
“And he took’ Sarah.” (oooooh)
“I have compared thee, O my love, to a steed in Pharaoh’s chariots.” (Steamy!)
Regarding Google Glass in bed: I suppose I can call it kosher under two conditions: 1) people keep from posting these things on the web, and 2) it doesn’t lead to mixed dancing.
kosher
Pronounced: KOH-sher, Origin: Hebrew, adhering to kashrut, the traditional Jewish dietary laws.
