What Makes Sparks Fly Between Men and Women?

I am a great believer in single-sex education and would not consider sending my children to a co-ed school. Children who are overexposed to one another from the earliest age become desensitized to the attraction of the opposite sex. That's why we see co-ed schools so focused, in their yearbooks and other arenas, on superlatives like, "Most popular," "Most likely to succeed." When I was graduating junior high school, I was amazed that our yearbook had so much of this elitist drivel (and yes, I was jealous that I had not made any of the lists). But after some thought it all made sense. Overexposure to the opposite sex made us all ordinary to each other. Because we had become so desensitized to the magic of the opposite sex, the only thing left was to be impressed with those who really stood out. It was the superlatives who were noticed: the most athletic, the best looking, the tallest, the most handsome. You see the same thing in virtually every high school movie where the "ordinary" boys and girls, which constitutes 90 percent of the grade, are treated as uninteresting nerds who get wedgies while the quarterback and the head of the cheer-leading squad are treated as movie stars. It is incredible how at even an early age, when teenagers are so hormonally charged, they are erotically desensitized to the vast majority of other teenagers, feeling attracted only to about ten percent of the class.

Single sex schools are attacked for not allowing boys and girls to learn how to get along with the opposite sex. But more often than not the opposite is true. A single sex education leads to boys who are generally interested in crossing the divide and getting to know a girl even if she does not rank in highest beauty percentile.

This also explains something far more insidious in our culture. The fact that people date and date without falling in love and without getting married. The great challenge to the Jewish community in the United States is no longer intermarriage, but lack of marriage. Tends of thousands of singles congregate on the Upper West Side of Manhattan or the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles. They attend singles synagogues. They go to and endless variety of singles events. They date about fifty people each. And still no magic. They just don't fall in love and fail to develop an erotic spark.

But notice how in what is often referred to as the 'ultra-orthodox' community, where I was educated, this rarely happens. On the contrary, most men and women get engaged after dating, perhaps, their fourth or fifth person, and after dating just a few weeks. I know what you're thinking. Yeah, you religious kooks will marry almost anybody. But give us a bit more credit for our discernment. The real reason we get engaged so much more quickly is that the two sexes have been largely separated since birth. So when they finally go out, they don't need to be impressed with superlatives. They are attracted to good enough - someone who satisfied their needs - as opposed to mounting a fifteen-year search for "the best." When our men and women go out, the date itself is erotic. The distance between men and women exists in the very educational structures so that when the two are brought together, even in a non-sexual environment, an immediate sexual spark is felt. They go out and guess what? They're actually attracted to each other.

Husbands and wives need to recapture some of that same erotic longing by ensuring they never grow into being the same person and always maintain erotic differentiation.

The erotic mind works through differentiation. Sexual polarity is key. When, say, a husband wife become too alike, when they do everything together and never have any space, they begin to tire of one another. This is not only due to the loss of novelty, but more importantly to the loss of sexual polarity. This is a strong argument for the need for zones of privacy even in marriage. Yes, when we marry we become one flesh. But it's important that we remain one flesh clothed in two bodies. We dare never become one person.

To be sure, I am a great believer in the most intense intimacy in marriage and would never advocate distance between husband and wife in the most important spheres. But there is a good reason that Jewish law says that a wife should preserve a modicum of modesty even in the bedroom and that a husband should be careful never to attend to his hygienic needs in his wife's presence. Not everything in marriage is designed to be shared.

This is why the Bible insists on certain incontrovertible differences that must forever remain between men and women. It says that men cannot wear a woman's clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5) and men are not to uproot the hair on their faces (Leviticus 19:27) (yes, that is the reason we Rabbis have such undeniably sexy beards). Even in external appearance, men and women are supposed to look different. In the Jewish religion, men and women sit separately in the synagogue, with a literal divider down the middle, all designed to heighten, while never overdoing, the sexual divide.

One of the best ways to ensure this erotic differentiation is for men to once again become gentlemen and for women to become ladies. No, I am not advocating that men wear britches and women go back to rib-crushing corsets. But one of the reasons we love watching Victorian-period dramas, like Jane Austen films, is because of the erotic charge that always seems to exist between men and women. Yes, I know that Victorians have become metaphors for erotic repression and sexual hypocrisy and I'm not asking that any of us go back to a time when women were treated as porcelain dolls. I've got five daughters, and I want them to have every opportunity that a man has to use their brains and God-given talent to make a positive, intelligent, and knowledge-based impact on the world. But the reason these period dramas are so naturally romantic is that the differentiation between the sexes is so strongly pronounced. The men are gentlemen, the woman are ladies. There is a certain refinement of character that each possesses. And if husbands and wives would act more accordingly, the erotic spark between them would naturally grow.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who hosts a daily national radio show on 'Oprah and Friends,' is currently working completing a book on the eight principles of erotic attraction. www.shmuley.com

Comments

[Chrisallalone]

As the parent of a newly minted teenage girl, I find it refreshing to read that our children attending coed public schools are "desensitized to the attraction of the opposite sex." I suspect other parents of daughters I know are more worried about the opposite.

But while I appreciate Rabbi Boteach's statement that he wants his daughters to have all the opportunities available to any man, in practice the kinds of ideals he's espousing don't seem to work out that way very often. I'm not sure humans are able to divide themselves into groups without one group quickly becoming the dominant one, and thus the division of the sexes seems reliably to lead to male dominance. And traditional views of male and female roles almost always seem to go along with large families, which women are naturally expected to devote themselves to producing and nurturing. In practice these beliefs can be very limiting, even if the intent is good.

I've read other articles about Orthodox traditions enhancing sexual attraction, and if it works for the Rabbi and other writers, who am I to argue? But there are so many other cultural consequences, some of which might even be more important than maximizing sexual interest or pairing up with a spouse who's "good enough."

[Cathexis]

What I find problematic in this perception is identifying "What the supposed gender poles are" as well as the propensity to misuse this advice in order to keep women subordinate.

A lot of what might be considered "male" or "female" is very subjective.

Personally, I find an assertive woman to be "sexy." I'm not really into passive, submissive women ... even if they pledged to be my personal Love Puppets. ;-) I like women who are bright, intelligent, and people in their own right. Are these traditional feminine traits? Masculine? Or are they transcendant to gender?

To pursue or be pursued? Heck ... is one or the other *really* objectionable? Personally, I don't mind either. (Or didn't -- I'm off the market, as of these past few years.) Does any man really object to being pursued? Should women object to taking initiative, if they are attracted?

Perhaps these definitions of polarity are culturally-learned preferences, and not hard-wired biological ones.

The trouble is, I can easily see Rabbi Boteach's advice being used as yet another effort to keep women conditioned as second-class citizens.

[Hmmm624]

I agree. We have lost polarity. Most people don't even know what it is or understand it. Polarity is crucial for attraction. Hopefully we will learn more about this in the near future. Though I don't think we should look at the bible for tips on polarity (or anything else for that matter), but rather try to understand what attraction is. Men and women are equal in value, but not in anatomy or psychology. They are complimentary opposites, and that's not a bad thing.

[pamelab52]

The Rabbi may be on the right track, but it isn't about separating the sexes, it's about our culture of superlatives. There isn't much parental input to deflect or redirect teenage hormones and energy, and the culture at large is all about the fastest, most, best, perfect, winningest things. It's a culture of competition and selling.
I'm all for uniforms in the lower grades, up to senior year so at least the competition for who dresses best, weirdest or whatever is kept at a minimum. Generally our culture is overly indulgent and many parents want their kids to like them and thus sacrifice necessary discipline in the effort.

[Badbone]

Hmmm, a group of Middle Eastern men, insisting that women cover themselves and act more modestly. Why does that sound so familiar?

[BadCompany]

Does the bible say anything about barefoot, pregnant, and kitchens?

[lizbunz]

They are not as repressed in Europe and I don't see a culture falling apart for lack of sexual interest. I am speechless.

[jaycg9]

I have a segment of family that are Lubovitch. At a cousin's Bar Mitzvah a number of years ago, the tables were mixed gender. A Lubovitch teenager sat next to a modern Orthodox girl. He spent the entire reception rocking back and forth in prayer. Raising your kids with this kind of awkwardness doesn't seem wise to me.

[jayrayspicer]

Yes, and perhaps women should be required to cover every inch of skin, and live in cells, and not be allowed to see men they are not married to, and not be allowed to vote, or speak in public, or, well, you get the idea.

Many, many preindustrial societies had girls and boys growing up side by side with little in the way of clothing, and somehow they managed to find each other sexually attractive enough to propagate the species. This article is so over-the-top nonsensical, so self-refuting, it's hard to understand how anybody could write it. Spare us your neuroses, Mr. Boteach. You might want to check your watch. It's off by a couple millennia.

[klmebane]

i wonder what he means by being modest in the bedroom. are we never supposed to see each other naked, either?