All A Guy Ever Wants Is Sex, According to Charedim
Charedim try to "dance at all parties" by making sex completely taboo, yet fearing it looms around every corner.This past week's Chinuch Roundtable in the Yated made me kind of upset.
The question came from a parent who has two teenaged daughters and an 8-year-old son. They live near a frum drug rehab center. The residents there are in their 20s, have gone off the derech, many come from rabbinical households or yichus, and are"hungry for a home. "
She asks whether she should worry about the influence that these kids will have on her children.
"I would like to know your feelings regarding exposing children to these types of boys and their sometimes off-color comments." In other words, do the benefits of such a mitzvah outweigh the risks?
In my opinion, she answered her own question when she ended her letter with the following, in parenthesis for some odd reason, "In the last few years, some of these boys have become Shomer Shabbos. One went to Eretz Yisrael and one even married a frum girl."
The rabbis on the panel were faced with a tough question. Many of them wrote that they asked their own rabbonim to get their thoughts on the matter.
What surprised me was the number of rabbis who chose to focus on the males in their 20s in the presence of teenaged girls. It's not about the drugs. It's not about the off-color comments. It's not about the 8-year-old getting funny ideas in his head. No. It's about the chance that one of these guys would hit on the teenagers.
Notice that the writer didn't mention anything of that nature that happening over the past few years. I think these guys know that if they were to do anything inappropriate, they wouldn't be allowed back there. Thus, had they attempted to hit on the daughters, the writer would no longer have this question.
Clearly, these young men value these meals, and are grateful to be invited to a warm, welcoming frum home, and they are willing do what it takes to maintain a good rapport with this family.
I have a lot of respect for this family for giving these guys something that they perhaps lacked throughout their teen years. A warm, welcoming home. We don't know for sure, but I'd venture to say that this family had a share in the other young men's successes.
The rabbis go so far as to say even if these guys were bachurim in a yeshiva, they don't belong in a home with teenaged daughters.
This attitude only allows me to conclude one thing. These rabbonim seem to think that every man is a horny animal and every woman is a sex object.
I have a brother 3 1/2 years my senior. Does that mean he should never have any friends over? Do these rabbis think that we'll be playing footsie under the table since he's a guy and I'm a girl?! Is every guy that horny?
A healthy ta'avas nashim is necessary for the functioning of any male in society.
In other words, yes, men want to have sex. That is how Hashem created them.
Nonetheless, this doesn't mean that every guy is a sack of raging hormones, and every girl is a sex object. There is more to both sexes than, well, sex.
One rav wrote, "Even if these bochurim were the best bochurim in Lakewood, they should never be invited to a home that has older daughters." (If "older" is 19+ and they are seeking a learning guy -- well, G-d forbid a shidduch come out of this and prevent the two of them from experiencing the sometimes painful shidduch system! That would be just tragic, wouldn't it -- Sorry, I digressed. Couldn't help it.)
Clearly, the other very important issue at hand, which I believe is what the letter-writer was really asking, is whether these guys who "fell into the wrong crowd" and throw in an off-color comment once in a while, put the children at risk. That is for another day, perhaps.
posted by Michelle @ 8:20 AM
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