APPLES AND ORANGES, CATS AND DOGS, BIRDS AND BEES: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

[A rabbi makes the case for sexual attraction as one of the best reasons for marriage, full story here, excerpts, below]

"Notwithstanding my own conservative credentials, I have long championed the fair and equal treatment of homosexuals. . . There can be no question that gay sex is prohibited by the Bible, but that need not lead to the demonization of homosexuals. It is a sin not unlike desecrating the Sabbath, and it shouldn't be singled it out for particular opprobrium.

In my lectures around the world on relationships, I often ask the participants, "What's more important: attraction or compatibility?" Nearly every hand shoots up to vote for compatibility. Attraction is disparaged as shallow. The most important thing, in the minds of most men and women I encounter, is having lots in common -- becoming best friends.

Now this is curious. If compatibility is the mainstay of a relationship, then homosexuality makes much more sense. After all, two men have a lot more in common than a man and a woman. How many women enjoy watching hours of football, or seeing Mike Tyson tear out an opponent's spinal cord? And is there a husband who really enjoys spending the day at the mall trying on outfits with his wife?

Why do men and women want to drop their same-sex friends, with whom they have so much in common to spend the rest of their lives with the opposite sex? Why does a man give up his male drinking buddies, hide his inner Neanderthal to go home to his wife? Why would a woman leave the chatty, sympathetic company of her female friends and share her life with a monosyllabic brute?

The answer is that all-powerful thing called attraction. No matter how much football two men watch together, they rarely feel romantic toward one another. In my view, compatibility has little to do with romance. Rather, it is that belittled little thing called attraction that creates that crazy little thing called love.

Like the force of gravity that causes planets to revolve around the sun and keeps the heavenly bodies all rotating around one another, the mysterious yet supremely strong force of sexual attraction has historically drawn men to women and women to men, not because of what they have in common but despite what they lack in common.

And therein lies the reason for society's incredible interest in homosexuality. Attraction, once so strong between men and women, has greatly waned. In a world where natural attraction between men and women is weak, compatibility has risen to fill the vacuum. Attraction has been diluted to such a point that a much weaker force has arisen to take its place.

Recently I was invited by the network show Blind Date to counsel a couple about to embark on their second date. I asked them if they had had sex on their first date. They giggled and said yes. I explained that by having sex so early they left themselves little to look forward to in the relationship. The man, all of 24 years old, was incredulous. "I don't know what you're talking about. To me sex is no big deal. We had a good time on the date, so we had sex. It was that simple. I don't look forward to the sex. We have so many better things to look forward to."

"Wow," I joked, "that must have been some really bad sex."

They didn't laugh.

"These other big things that you are both looking forward to," I said. "Give me an example."

"Like trust and friendship and sharing. All those really special things."

Little did he realize that he had just reduced his new girlfriend to one of his buddies.

No wonder Sex and the City is one of the most popular shows on TV. It's about four women who behave just like men (sex without commitment, whining that nobody's good enough, discarding men as if they were rotting fish) and who have platonic gay relationships with each other. They love and trust each other far more than any men, and they treat each other as soul mates.
I personally can't watch the show any more. It's far too cynical for my romantic tastes. But it's a taste of things to come if we don't start radically changing heterosexual relationships.

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posted by maggie at 11:41 PM VOTE

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