ABSTRACT
Perceptions of Orthodox Jewish sexuality throughout the twentieth century have largely been coloured by the belief that communal sex practices are essentially ‘deviant’. Attempting to address this stereotype, a string of popular publications by former Lubavitcher Rabbi Shmuley Boteach have attempted to normalise public understandings of sexual practice among Haredim and the Modern Orthodox, albeit within the constraints of heteronormative sexuality. In contrast to Boteach’s openness, the lived experience of sex and sexuality within these communities is typically fraught and subject to immense communal scrutiny. Open discussion of intimate practices is almost unheard of, with repression and avoidance hallmarks of what are in essence communities deeply conflicted about the role and place of sexual behaviour in daily life. This chapter explores how Orthodox community members have used digital technologies to step outside the narrow confines of communal control and create ‘safe spaces’ for the exploration of non-hegemonic sexual practices and sexualities, ranging from extra-marital affairs to the development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) support groups. I also suggest that, despite the creation of ‘safe spaces’ beyond these traditional auspices, alternative sexualities within the Haredi/Orthodox world remain disengaged from the non-Jewish non-heteronormative community, preferring continued engagement with the symbols, rituals and practice of Yiddishkeit. 1 In this way, non-heteronormative Orthodox Jews paradoxically both embrace the freedom of the Internet, while simultaneously ‘primitivising’ the medium to ensure that it conforms to and confirms their own worldview. This chapter first outlines some methodological problems and approaches to studying both the Internet and the largely closed world of religious Jewish communities, and continues by exploring the mythologies surrounding Jewish sexuality in historical and contemporary Western discourse, focusing in particular on anti-Semitic motifs and their connection to ideas of sexual perversion. I then analyse the literature of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and his idealised heteronormative construction of sexuality. To contrast Boteach’s narrative, I examine the normative discourse of sexuality within Haredi communities, particularly the muting of sexual difference, before looking at theories relating to the construction and exploration of safe spaces in contemporary Western theory. Finally, the chapter analyses a series of web-based phenomena that typify the counter-narrative of Orthodox sexuality, then advances some concluding thoughts that bring together the different themes covered.
