Two little drops of reddish brown on my underwear. Here we go again.
Since I had kids, my cycle is irregular, which wouldn't be a big deal except that I'm an Orthodox Jew and I can't even pass the salt to my husband--let alone touch, kiss, or have sex with him--for 12 days after my period starts. We never know when we'll have to sleep in separate beds or place a vase with a single rose between us on the dinner table as evidence of our separation.
I was beginning to hate the rigid restrictions on my sex life until the other day, when I was sitting on a blanket with my two toddlers in a suburban Detroit park, eating pretzels from Ziploc bags and listening to other moms talking about their sex lives.
"We haven't had sex since we conceived the twins," said one mom. "And they're a year-and-a-half old. Add nine months to that."
"I just don't feel like it since I had my baby," confessed another, stroking her 15-month-old's hair.
Then came the really shocking admissions. "I'd love to have sex," a third mom said, "but I'd have to do all the work. My husband isn't interested." A fourth mother described her marriage as being more like a brother-sister relationship than a passionate or fierce one.
As I listened to one woman after another bemoan her sad sex life, I thought about how, after five years of marriage, Avy and I are hotter than ever. Suddenly, I felt very religious.
When I was a horny college senior in love with a Catholic boy from the East Coast, I never would have believed that one day I'd be an Orthodox Jewish wife with two beds in my room. "No way," I'd have said, if you'd told me that my husband would sleep in a twin bed shoved against the wall and I would check the color of mucus in my underwear until seven "clean" days had passed since my period and I could dunk in the ritual bath, or mikvah.
I've always been Jewish, but I didn't become Orthodox until I was in my twenties. I chose this way of living because I liked the way Orthodox husbands looked at their wives--with smoldering sensuality, hidden knowing, and reverence. They spoke sweetly and didn't play games, and I never saw the flicker of distance in their eyes. After years of dating guys who didn't pay for my dinner, much less pay attention to me, I was ready for a real connection. Hooking up wasn't getting me what I wanted: love. It was time to try something else, and this looked like a world I could get into. There are many elements of Judaism that keep me religious, but the most compelling one is observant marriage.
The night before my wedding, my mother and sister came with me for my first dunk. By the Orthodox Union's estimate, there are roughly 300 mikvahs in America, but they aren't listed in the phone book, and they don't have big signs proclaiming their purpose. Hidden from the road by tall fencing and overgrown shrubs, the mikvah's bricks held secrets. Bayla, a rabbi's wife, was waiting for us. Brides can dunk first, before sunset, while other women don't start preparing until they see three stars in the night sky. Bayla led my mother and sister on a tour. "Try it," she said, pointing to an empty tub. "Walk down the steps. You'll see how it would feel." They stepped down hesitantly and looked back, half-smiling, before retreating to wait with folded hands on stiff chairs.
I carried my backpack into the changing room and latched the door behind me. I washed my hair and combed out tangles, flossed my teeth, filed my nails. I stared in the mirror, wondering if this ancient ritual would keep my marriage alive through decades of humdrum, everyday life.
IT'S NOT JUST the mikvah that makes Orthodox sex so great: The entire system creates over-the-top intensity. To start with, you're shomer n'giyah, so you don't touch anyone of the opposite sex--no handshaking, air-kissing, or friendly hugs. In my world, every touch is electric. Then there are the laws of yichud, whereby a man and woman who are not related are never alone in a private place. When my neighbor's husband came to help with the sprinklers when Avy wasn't there, he walked around to the backyard instead of taking the shortcut through the house.
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