Acharei Mos—The N-word

Shalosh seudos, UWS shul.

Rabbi: “If people on a date would be as makpid on Leviticus 18 as they would be on the hechsher of the restaurant…”

Congregant (sotto voce): “Did he just say the N-word?” 

How do you solve a problem like Negiah, especially the unwanted kind?

Eliminate all extra-marital, extraneous communication between genders, especially during teen-age years, and insist on dress codes with varying levels of rigidity?  While one might think that it mostly works, and that there is no deviation from normative behavior in those communities, one would simply have to look at the narratives of more high profile offenders and communal efforts to spare consequences for that whole approach to be called into question.

Suggest that “covering up” will solve the problem? There couldn’t be a more blatantly obvious “blame the victim” approach.

Suggest that “rape culture” is solely the result of “buyer’s remorse” following an unsatisfying hookup, and would be solved if women would behave, while just accepting that “[m]en are creatures who seek physical gratification in the first instance and who, lamentably, could find intimacy with complete strangers and be satisfied”?  If a spiritual eminence wants to attack what he thinks is the over sexualization of the campus and culture, he might a] address that both genders need to behave and b] if he desires extra credibility vis a vis these matters, he might think twice about writing letters to mitigate the sentence of a sex offender who used an educational position to prey on minors.

(TB Kesuvos 10a relates that a newly married groom came to Rav Nachman to complain that his bride wasn’t a virgin.  The first thing Rav Nachman did was give the order to “Lash him with date branches! If he knows this, he must be regular with the harlots of the city!”  A clerical interest in reigning in both male and female sexuality—even making a token effort to recognize it—would be a more credible approach than throwing up one’s hands at the behavior of “men creatures”.)

Suggest that “yichud” might work better than “modesty”?  It won’t work if the predator is a relative, or if the predator is a position of power and can manipulate the environment to his—or her—advantage.

“Assume that everyone is shomer negiah”?  Ban all contact—even handshakes—from the workplace?  That it assumes that adult interaction and consent is impossible for anyone, leading to sanctions being levied at inappropriate times, which obviates both the need to draw lines, or the notion that lines have been drawn. 

Set higher strictures on touch because “touch is a potent marker of social power”, and turn shmiras negiah into a social justice mandate?  That would reduce human communication to yet another material currency in almost Marxist terms, and finish the job that pop culture seems to have done with sexuality: make it another currency.  Additionally, the statistics cited by the ostensible social justice warrior advocate for shmiras negiah regarding the incidence of assault within families and by familiar intimates indicate that it might be in those spaces where the restrictions are more palpable and the lines are more clearly drawn that there might actually be more danger.

Is the primary goal, then, a completely touch free-environment?  Is the primary goal drawing distinctions between consent and harassment?  Or, do halachic values mandate that the two are one and the same?

The real issue—and which educators might be able to use as an objective to reach the goal of the “touch-free” environment that they teach as demanded by halacha—comes from the “assumption” suggestion:

“Don’t encroach on someone else’s personal space.”

It then becomes a question of simple grown-up derech eretz: when someone says no, the answer is no.  At that point it doesn’t matter anymore what the motivation is.  And—if one assumes something along the lines that “no means yes”—it then progresses from a derech eretz issue to a police matter.

Similarly, for too long the price of ostensibly excessive female sexuality has been a lot higher than male randiness.  If nothing else, #metoo has led toward redressing that balance.  There have certainly been excesses and injustices in that pursuit (although the persistent reluctance to punish rapists almost hands a pischon peh on a silver platter to such progressive activists), but leveling the social price for extracurricular carnal activity on the part of both genders in a more equitable manner should be considered an appropriate educational objective, especially in the #metoo era.

Finally, one shouldn’t discount the power of bad publicity.  When R’ Yochanan ben Zakkai was on his deathbed (TB Berakhot 29b) he gave his students the following blessing:  “May it be His will that fear of Heaven should be upon you like fear of people…[w]hen a person sins, he is concerned that no one see him.”   One day, “conquest” and procurement will go the way of slavery and polygamy.

In the meantime, derech eretz and R’ Yochanan provide the baseline.