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Here’s an interesting column over at Faithhacker about whether oral sex for women is permitted under Jewish law.
Although some of the arguments are rather unfortunate/utterly misogynistic – for example, comparing women to meat and fish – I suppose you’ve got to give them credit for coming up with a workaround.
US grad student Tamar Fox says:
About ten minutes into the discussion one of the women brought up oral sex, and the conversation went something like this:
Various Middle Aged Women: “Well that’s not allowed, is it?”
“Not for men, because they can’t spill their seed, but for women it’s okay.”
“Thank God…”
Chabad Rebbeztin: “Actually there’s a prohibition against a man looking at his wife’s sexual organs.”
Long uncomfortable pause during which I consider fleeing.
Middle Aged Woman: Oh…Well…That’s good to know.
Eventually I extricated myself from the conversation, but since then I’ve been a bit concerned about this. I keep imagining signs: Warning: Do Not Look Directly at the Vagina. In the admittedly crude words of a friend of mine, “Blind muff diving? That won’t end well.”
I’ve actually just been interviewing feminists in Israel – including some Orthadox Jews – so this was pretty interesting. I admit, I didn’t ask about their sex lives. Maybe I should have! Fox doesn’t seem that concerned:
I find all this amusing, and ultimately comforting since it seems like the wives of all these rabbis (with the exception of poor Mrs. Dahabi) were getting theirs pretty regularly.