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Features Interviews The Oy of Sex
Features Interviews The Oy of Sex | The Oy of Sex |
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| Written by Cara Herbitter | |||||
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An interview with radical Jewish sex writer and educator Hanne Blank Hanne Blank is a Jewish maven on a mission: to heal the world with pleasure and teach us all to revel in the divine power of sensuality. I first came across Blank’s work at Scarleteen.com, a sex-ed site for teens that Blank co-edits. Impressed by its no-nonsense, sex-positive approach, I began to track her work in book and article form. But it was only last spring when I was up late flipping through the collection Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism that I learned Blank is not only fabulous, fat, intelligent, witty and progressive, but also Jewish. Since I struggle to straddle the supposed divide between sacred and profane, I found in Blank’s writing an affirmation of my own quirky Jewish identity. As a writer, editor, public speaker, and educator, Blank’s work in the field of sexuality has pushed the borders of the acceptable, most notably by celebrating the bodies of people of size. Blank is the author of Shameless: Women’s Intimate Erotica, Best Transgender Erotica, Zaftig: Well Rounded Erotica, and Big, Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them, among other titles. Her fiction, nonfiction, essays, travel writing, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications such as the Boston Phoenix, Lilith Magazine, Bitch Magazine, Best American Erotica, and Good Vibes Magazine. In Blank’s article "The ‘Big O’ Also Means ‘Olam,’" Blank explains how Judaism pushed her toward the field of sexuality: "Part of the reason I do sexuality work, in fact, is because I am Jewish, and because my yiddisher neshoma, my Jewish soul, hates to see the pain and misery that so often and so avoidably stems from human sexuality." Taking a break from her hectic schedule, Blank shared some of her views on Judaism and sex with New Voices via e-mail. New Voices: You are an activist who celebrates the bodies of people of size in your writing. Do you think that any of your counter-cultural views on fat have roots in your Judaism? Hanne Blank: I grew up in middle-class America—just like a great many other American Jews—with middle-class American views on fat and body size and shape issues. Add to this the issue of assimilation and you have huge pressure to conform to an unrealistically thin, Anglo body type and shape in order to compete in a society that valorizes those characteristics. For Ashkenazi Jewish women particularly, body size and shape are also about racism (external or internal), anxieties about being identifiably "ethnic," and reacting to the xenophobia of a host culture—the same way that noses and kinky hair can be. On the other hand, I have heard some very encouraging things from women in less assimilationist Jewish communities, such as some Mizrachi and Sephardic communities, which point to a greater acceptance of bigger and lusher bodies. NV: How did your Jewish upbringing inspire your career as a writer, editor, and sex educator? HB: I guess I would say that I grew up with a sense that tikkun adam [healing people] and tikkun olam [healing the world] are everyone’s responsibility—even if many of the people around me when I was growing up wouldn’t have put it in precisely those terms – and when I made my own quirky, queer, Reconstructionist, feminist version of teshuvah [repentance], and did some learning about what tikkun means to traditional Judaism, it just clicked all the more. NV: How have Jewish communities responded to your work? What are some of the greatest challenges that you face as a Jewish sex educator? HB: I’ve had some very interesting fights with religious conservatives of various sexes and backgrounds about how what I do is not Jewish because it flies in the face of a lot of what has been handed down in regard to sex in their communities. It’s very difficult to get people to grasp that there is often a large gap between what Judaism teaches—what’s literally "on the books"—and what Jews do. I mean, there’s just nothing like the look on the face of a man who’s just told you that oral sex is forbidden to Jews when you look him in the eye and say "Oh yeah? Show me where." It’s pretty priceless. More frequently, I run into the problem that I’m considered too radical and outrageous for many Jewish communities, in which there is a very strong presence of the good old Christian distrust of the body, fear of a loss of sexual control, and terror of physical pleasure. There’s an argument to be made, on anti-assimilationist grounds, for rejecting the sex-negativity of the western, Christian-based host culture we live in: if you don’t want to have your sex life assimilated into the dominant culture, getting rid of the Christian thinking that sexuality is essentially shameful and sinful is an excellent place to start! NV: What do you do when you come up against a Jewish law or tradition that you find particularly problematic, or even offensive? HB: Simply put: I look for a way to fix it. I find the Reconstructionist notion that "the past has a vote, but not a veto" really helpful. For me, if a law or tradition ultimately violates what I see as the fundamental humanity and dignity of an individual, then there’s a really serious problem with that law or tradition. I have no problem with looking for exceptions, "hidden laws" that may now be considered outmoded or outdated, or, if it seems to be a reasonable choice in the situation, with simply taking the spirit of the law rather than the letter. Every minhag [tradition] had to start somewhere, I figure. NV: Can you give our readers some of your general suggestions for ways to incorporate their Judaism into their sex lives, however traditional or non-traditional they are in either realm? HB: I think the biggest general principle I try to communicate is that it is possible to be aware of the Divine in every aspect of sex: in the fact that it is possible for you to feel desire, in the beauty of your body or a partner’s, in the fact that the human body is designed to feel so many different kinds of sensation, in the fact that God has made us as beings that can feel things like lust and arousal and love and anticipation and giddiness and sexual communion and so many other things. We need to remind ourselves that sexual energy, like all kinds of energy, is just another aspect of God’s energy. Why not take a moment to be awed by the power of that sensation, by the force that feels so overwhelming, and remember where it comes from and realize that yes, it’s just another facet of the jewel that is our experience of that which is so much larger than ourselves? And if you can’t go that far (yet or ever) with your thinking about sexuality as divine, consider simply starting small: an orgasm is a perfect time for a Shehecheyanu [blessing recited on a new or momentous occasion]. A heartfelt "thank you" is always in good form, and a good reminder of where all your blessings come from too.
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