Modesty, Privacy, and Secrecy
I’m not a big fan of Vagina Monologue feminism (“the more we talk about our genitalia, the fewer women will be beaten and raped”). Separating public from private is part of being human, part of being civilized, part of being holy. Still – many of you will disagree with this, I’m sure – the concept of modesty can become oppressive, and it is often used to oppress women, in particular. Sometimes, I think that the emphasis on modesty with regard to T”H falls into this category.
At other times, I just think it’s an unnecessary nuisance. Like Desde, I don’t like lying, and I often feel that T”H is forcing me into a position of dishonesty. It’s hard to come up with plausible excuses for going out alone at night, and I can’t retroactively go grocery shopping if someone asks me where I’ve been once I’ve gotten home.
I appreciate that we all have different sensibilities, and I don’t begrudge Desde her right to keep her mikveh visits from her kids. My question is whether T”H must necessarily be regarded as such a private matter. Certainly, sex between husband and wife is private, but not everything related to sex is or can be. In the nineteen fifties, American women were expected to remain out of sight while they were visibly pregnant, pregnancy being a clear sign of having had sex. To my knowledge, Judaism never endorsed such an attitude toward pregnancy. Moreover, even in the fifties, Americans had public weddings, went on honeymoons, and were not generally ashamed of having children.
In many ways, observant Jews are actually more open about sex than other members of modern society. We congregate in the waiting rooms of mikvaot every month to be guided through a ritual that will allow us to resume relations with our spouses. We send rabbis our stained underwear, asking whether or not we can have sex at any given time. The Gemara is loaded with detailed discussions of sex and anatomy that would shock the uninitiated. With all this frankness, what harm would it do to say to a friend or acquaintance, “I can’t meet with you on Monday; I’m going to the mikveh”?
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I generally agree with you. I can count the times I've mentioned my mikveh visits to people other than my husband on the fingers of one hand. Mostly, they were particularly prying people who wouldn't have let me get away with not telling them what was going on. Once, my husband was away for the week, and I didn't think there was any harm in mentioning it. And once I lied, to my mother-in-law. That's kind of a separate issue, though; I didn't want her to know that I use the mikveh at all.
I have, however, alluded to the fact that I use the mikveh in general when there really wasn't any need for it. I tend to be pretty open about such things (and I don't see why I shouldn't be), but later I wondered whether I was violating other people's standards of decency. These things happen, and then I get angry at society, when it's really a mostly personal thing and I probably didn't offend anyone, anyway. Go figure.
I once had a really uncomfortable situation where my family was in town visiting on a weekend where I had to go to the mikvah Saturday night. We had been married only a few months then, and I was still very careful about not letting anyone know when I was going to the mikvah...so we had the fun situation of telling my father over and over that we couldn't get together Saturday night I was "busy" and "had to go somewhere." He kept asking in front of my little sister (then just about eleven years old) and I particularly didn't want to say anything in front of her. If he'd asked again a few days later I would have been fine with telling him (I think), mainly because I don't want him to think we were just blowing him off...but he's never brought it up since and now it just hangs in the back of my mind.
I have no idea what I'll do when we have kids. I'm generally a very open person, and when we have children we plan to promote open dicussion about sex and sexuality. This is an integral part of that, but I still feel like there's a certain line we shouldn't cross. Is it really the kids' business when Mommy and Daddy are getting it on?
Well, I would say no, it's not their business... and from the kids' perspective, we'd rather not know, thank you. My sister (who is married and therefore knows better) still pretends to subscribe to the "our parents have two kids, they did it twice, and that's all I want to know about" theory. So by me she knows we were together at least 6 times, lol.
But knowing that your parents have sex, and knowing that they're definitely having sex right now? Two very different things, and the more of a teenager you are, the less you want to think about it!
I agree with Shanna and Miriam - being open with the concepts and explaining principles (and morality) with your children is DEFINITELY different from providing personal details.
I was once in the rather uncomfortable position of needing to go to mikvah ON Shabbos as an out-of-town guest. It was supposed to work so smoothly; we got info off the web, I mostly prepared before leaving home Friday AM, and our hosts were making "early Shabbos", and my appt. would have been after dinner. . . . I really didn't think my hosts needed to be privy to the details. And then early Shabbos didn't happen.
I was NOT a happy camper. At least my hostess was understanding (although more modern, and "beyond" needing to go *that* desperately; she would have waited until after Shabbos for herself, I think)- but then her husband was in an UPROAR that we hadn't told him! My word! (But we *did* need to leave in the middle of the meal - and DH came, because I had been told not to walk alone)
Not a position I'd like to be in again. (By the time we came back - and the meal was over - he did apologize for having been out of line.)
I'll add my two cents of confusion to this one. When I was growing up (I'm a BT)my mom was very open about the birds and the bees (she could talk about this subject like any other biological subject and encouraged questions from me and my friends). After becomming frum and being newly married I had an episode that I'll still consider wierd many years later. I was visiting a new shaitel macher in her house and she wanted to know where I had found out about her. I had gotten the first syllable of Mi...(for mikvah) out of my mouth when she shushed me. "Shhhh... be very quiet my 10 year old may hear you." Land's Sakes!!! I live in the city- we are not exempt from very explicit billboard signs. With the age of puberty rising every generation -this 10 year old could already have started developing for all I knew. and the word Mikvah is too %^& for her pristine ears?! The mother put her business cards in the mikvah and yet the daughter is not supposed to know about it? I understand the concept of the time a person is going to be intimate and not a parlor term- but I do feel that sometimes people can be too Puritan in that the place itself becomes a "dirty" term.
Well, we don't go to that extreme! My kids know there is such a thing as a mikvah, although they mostly know it as a place to toivel dishes, not people. Familiar with "The Midrash Says" Series, and "The Little Midrash Says"? There's another set, for even younger children, called "My First Parsha Reader" that has a very nice (drawn) picture of a mikvah pool. I think it was talking about dishes, or at the most, the ritual purity associated with the Temple and the Kohanim. But it's still a picture of a mikvah, and that's how the picture is labeled.
Our synagogue takes it's high school kids to the mikvah as a field trip. I teach in the religious school and on field trip day one of the junior high kids noticed there were a lot of kids missing and
Kid: Where are all the kids?
Me: On a field trip?
K: Where to?
M: the mikvah
K: What's a mikvah?
M: (Pause and look at another nearby teacher) It's where someone who wants to convert goes.
K: Why don't the kids on the field trip want to be Jewish anymore?
M: They are still Jewish - they are just going to learn about it!
I wonder what sort of injustice I did to t"h by my answer.
I am not here to judge you, chana, but I probably would've been honest and said that that is where people go to purify themselves or something very straightforward but without all the details, such as women go there to purify themselves, (or even men and women, men go there to, and everyone knows about that)...
keilim! keilim! My kids have come along on many a trip to the local mikvah on a Sunday morning to tovel keilim.
And say amen to the bracha on tovelim keilim. And help dry and repackage the new kitchen accessories. Pizza pans, egg slicers, new Pesach stuff, . . .
but I can definitely see how being caught off guard can be unnerving.
I think I know how you feel, and by now I'm so fed up with what feels like excessive secrecy that, with female members of the family or close friends -- if I'm going to be put in the position of lying vs. saying I'm going to mikvah -- I'll just say I'm going to mikvah. We're all adults, we can hopefully handle it. I don't have any fears that they'll go off and tell their husbands that's where I am.
On the other hand, with adults there's usually no need to say where I'm going. Unless it's a special occasion where I'm going to hold everyone up, or something like that, people are astute enough not to ask further questions if I say "I'm going to be out that night" or "I have plans." Obviously one thing that crosses their minds is "She might be going to mikvah", but there could be other private reasons too, and I know when someone says that to me, at that point I try to shut off my inquiring mind.
I can see how this would be much more difficult with children who won't stop asking, but my mother pulled it off successfully for years. It wasn't until I was in college that I noticed some of the times my mother "went out" on unspecified errands, she came back with wet hair. I think, if you make a point of not always telling your kids where you're going, they'll accept mikvah night too.
Says the woman with no kids. :)
But although I'll tell if I need to, I still don't talk about it indiscriminately. To me there's a lot of worth in the concept. I don't think it's about being ashamed, it's about this being so special to me that I don't want to share it with anyone.
Saying you're going to mikvah is not like saying in general, we're married, we have children, we have sex. It's saying, we're having sex tonight. And not just sex, either -- this is like a honeymoon night, every month, the night when I'm reunited with my husband. I'd rather close the door and not have anyone but us know how lovely a night we're having.
eep! that was long. sorry - thought provoking post.