In the frum world homosexuality is often criticized as being unnatural. But there's another problem with it which is that it tries to circumvent one of the purposes of heterosexuality which is to force people out of their own world to understand the world of another. Men and women are different species. Or as the Gemara phrases it, "Women are a nation unto their own." To be with the opposite sex a person must understand where this very different person is coming from. That's crucial in helping us to overcome our egos and our limited view of life. And that helps us connect to G-d because limited minds have a limited connection. G-d is One, meaning totally different from anything else. Learning how to connect with a person who is different from us helps us to connect with G-d Who is different from us.
In our confused century, culture has us seeing men and women as being the same, dressing the same, and occupying the same roles. And there are shared traits -- there are shared traits among all living things such as the need for water -- but certain differences cannot be overcome. Just consider how ridiculous a transgender person looks, in whatever direction they "transitioned". The more physical the issue, the more the differences are obvious.
In general, men look more ridiculous when trying to appear as women because a woman's beauty cannot be counterfeited. Women's beauty is really one of the wonders of the world. This isn't just about anatomy. It's also grace, intuition, the soft voice. There are many parts to it.
Men in women's sports and women in men's sports is another area where the differences are clear with women looking ridiculous when trying to compete in men's sports. Tennis analyst John McEnroe noted that Serena Williams, who he regards as the greatest women's player ever, would be 400th on the current men's circuit. I suppose that would put her at 1000 or lower on the all-time list. Women cannot compete in men's sports just as men cannot compete in beauty contests or, more importantly, in developing a baby within one's body. That's the biggest wonder of them all. There are some sports such as women's gymnastics where women reign supreme since the sport was designed for women.
There are instincts that come along with sex that also differ enormously between the sexes. Most women have a strong desire to have children. I don't recall any of my childhood or young adult male friends ever once mentioning a desire to have children. Young women do this all time. That's why little girls play with dolls. The boys play with trucks because someday they will support a family by working with trucks or something like it.
The girls also play house and build little home interiors with their play mobiles. Boys play cops and robbers or basketball.
So it goes that most women want a house and kids, and they need a man to make this happen in a healthy way. This puts tremendous demands on the man. He marries and is forced to dedicate most of his life to what she wants. She assumes in her narrow view that he wants this too. However:
This is true for many men. To me a house is a burden. I would prefer to live in a shack by the ocean or a small cabin in the Rockies.
But men have needs of their own and sex is the major one that is unique to them. They need sex and lots of it. Women don't have this need. Some people try to pretend that the need is the same but it so clearly isn't. Women have romantic needs, but the need for physical sexual action is nowhere near the same. Tiger Woods, Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Bill Clinton -- so many famous men have been brought down through promiscuity. I can't think of a woman that this happened to.
I think it's fair to say that what women ask for requires much more of the man than the reverse. Supporting a family is a full time job and raising that family is another job. The former is a 50 hour a week job. The latter is a least 20. That 70 hours a week.
And what about sex? That's 2 hours a week, two times at an hour each. So it's 70 hours versus 2 hours. Not a bad deal for the woman. If you want to add dieting, exercise, and dressing well to that, it's 70 verses 10 hours.
This isn't to say that a man doesn't appreciate having kids or a nice home to live in. But it isn't a need. Sex is his need. Once he has children, it's good for him. But he didn't crave it.
Likewise, a woman can enjoy having sex. But it isn't a strong need usually. I know many divorced or widowed women who go 40 years alone, many of them never even trying to remarry. Clearly, they aren't aching for sex, and their emotional needs are satisfied on some level via relationships with their children.
Many women in our foolish era of feminism are annoyed by sex. They laugh at it as if having a lovely house is any more idealistic or logical. They mock sex. They ridicule it. Many female stand up comedians base their whole routine are mocking men's sexual needs.
This goes beyond comedy to real life situations. A guy once approached me at work asking if I knew of any massage parlors. I asked why. He said that his wife denies him sex so he wanted to try a massage parlor. This is a super nice Italian guy. How the Italians have changed.
His wife is being so stupid. Kids need a father. Homes without fathers are a mess. And homes with stressed out and frustrated fathers are a mess. He is unwilling to leave his children, but he's stressed out. (Many men do leave because of denial of sex.) To keep the man or keep the man happy, the wife needs to engage in sex and enthusiastically.
Many women aren't so into sex so they assume from the contemporary training that men and women are the same, that the husband is just like them, even though the evidence of men's sexual needs are everywhere in society and even in the Bible, especially in the Bible. But these women are self-absorbed and fail to see this. Or they are so selfish that they just don't care. Some engage in a little unenthusiastic sex so as not to fall into the category of sexual withholders but that's only marginally better. Mechanical or minimal sex can be a worse experience than no sex.
Should he engage in a little house? You have to do it full throttle. Even if sex isn't her thing, she needs to make it important if only for him.
You hear all kinds of talks in the media about increasing women's sex drive or men learning techniques to please the women. Maybe this is possible, maybe not. I believe it is limited. These talks assume that men and women are the same, which they are not. Religious people and anybody with common sense can see this.
The task isn't to turn women into men by giving them male sex drives. It's for the women to do their wifely duty, as it was understood for millennia, just as good men do their husbandly duty in a thousand ways that many women take for granted. This includes marching off the war to defend their families.
This applies in all marriages, including those in the frum world. BT women might start to take a Catholic view of sex since they are taking on so many other self denial and ascetic practices. Certainly, there is niddah and modesty and all that. But addressing sexual needs is very much part of the Torah. The Talmud talks about it specifically even mentioning positions. The Rambam says that the wife must never withhold intimacy in order to hurt him or increase his love and should do it whenever he wants. Are Jewish women taught this? I doubt it.
A frum woman accomplishes many mitzvahs with sex. There's puru u'ruv of course. There's keeping him from sin. For BT men this is even more crucial because they are drenched in titillation since childhood. It's impossible to overcome fully. In the Gemara Rav says he is greater than his colleagues because he married at 16. Had he married at 14 he'd be even greater.
There's also simple chesed via bringing physical relief to a person who is suffering in actual pain. This is better than bikur cholim. It's actual healing. And she is his only recourse. He has no other means of relieving the pressure. Women who stay sort of half fry mimic women from secular culture where men have other options.
There's giving of pleasure, which is chesed. It is at least as valuable as cooking a chicken for a neighbor who just had a baby.
There's freeing up his mind for Torah, tefillah and other mitzvos. This benefits her in this world and the next. Just as he cannot relieve his sexual frustration except through her, she cannot earn schar for the chiyuv of limud Torah except through him. She cannot daven with a minyan except through him.
There's healing the relationship and bonding. There's shalom bayis.
Women fulfill many mitzvahs with sex. I just named seven of them. Yet for many women, it's 25th on the list at best of things to do. She is busy with the house and the children. By the time she gets to bed she is exhausted. She collapses and goes to sleep while he lies there staring at the ceiling. He had been waiting all day for this. He thought about it at work. She had a busy day but fails to realize that she was satisfying her needs with most of it. You say that she is giving to the children, but she is the one who wanted to have children. She forgot about him. She thinks, didn't I give to him by taking care of the house? And the answer is, somewhat, but that isn't his primary need.
Women like this don't realize that they are jeopardizing their own interests. They cherish the house and kids, but even if they don't cherish the man, they need the man around. Sorry to put it in such blunt terms, that means sex. And if she does cherish him, she must remember that he's a different species. He's not a girlfriend. He's something different. His sexual needs, the things that please him are a mystery to her. Why should touching this or that matter? Why should clothing matter? It's not logical, but again it's no less logical than a couch that matches a rug. But you don't achieve 7 mitzvos by matching the couch to the rug. With sex you do.
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