MeToo: Because Not All Nice Jewish Boys Are Nice
Somewhere out there — I think he is in Brooklyn now.
This is a nice Orthodox Jewish boy — now a man.
Facebook tells me that he has children, and his wife wears a sheitel, a wig.
Who sodomized me against my will when I was 17 years old — 20 years ago.
He was 23.
It was his idea.
As a frum girl from a “good home,” who had even heard of such things?
Yes, I went to his apartment.
Yes, I was in his bed.
Yes, I was curious about sex and excited about experimenting with this new discovery.
He liked me.
He thought I was pretty.
But it hurt.
I didn’t like it.
So when he wanted to try anal sex, I said NO.
Come on, he said, you’ll love it, everyone does.
NO.
I cried. A lot.
No, I don’t want to do that.
He did it anyway.
I was bleeding.
He didn’t apologize.
I went to the bathroom to “clean” up and shook and cried some more.
I never told anyone.
I had a cool older boyfriend.
When he got engaged to another young girl, six weeks after my father, who had intuited that this was an abusive situation, finally gave me the courage to break up with him, I was torn.
Do I tell someone?
Do I call this woman’s family?
I was only 18 years old and rebuilding my life.
So I kept quiet — until now.
Because #MeToo
And not all “nice Jewish boys” are nice.
Even when they wear black hats, daven, or pray, three times a day, and refuse to buy a non-kosher soda at McDonald’s.
Let’s do better with our daughters and sons. Even the girls and boys from “good homes” need to be taught that their bodies belong to themselves and themselves only. No one has the right to do something with your body that you do not want to do.
No one.
Even if you have a cool older boyfriend.
To share your #MeToo story, please email [email protected]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO