The Sex Manual for Ultra Orthodox Jews | Hacker News Reader

The Sex Manual for Ultra Orthodox Jews

bbc.co.uk

8 pointspiqufoh8 comments

> Ultra-Orthodox boys and girls are educated separately, and have little interaction with the opposite sex until their marriage night, when they are expected to consummate their union.

Pardon my lack of cultural relativism, but why do people do this to themselves?

So, without relying on cultural relativism, it's because they have priorities and they absolutely do not compromise their priorities. If it's time to do something, they do it. If it's not time to do something, then they don't do it.

I'm not sure of the relevance of this article to Hacker News. Is it relevant as a business opportunity?

In at least one way, Israel provides a tremendous degree of reproductive health assistance. It provides in-vitro fertilization at no cost to the woman up to age 45 and two children, regardless of marital status, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity.

However, providers of sex therapy to the Jewish religious community are reportedly few. (By the way, while that community is large, most of the Jewish people in Israel are not part of it.) Here is an interview with one of them, in which she describes what scholars know about sex education in that community. http://www.amotherinisrael.com/interview-with-an-orthodox-se...

"Orthodox" and "Jews" don't form a combination. The Jewish religion is "Judaism", whereas the term "orthodox" in religion can refer (as far as I know) only to the Eastern branch of Christianity, and _it_does_not_include_ Jews.

"orthodox" simply means conforming to established doctrine, often with an indication on hard line conservatism. You can use orthodox to refer to any especially conservative group in any religion. It is very common to talk about orthodox Jews, Catholics and Muslims. In the context of Judaism it's generally used to means Haredi Judaism, but can sometimes include other conservative groups. The phrase The Orthodox Church does refer to the eastern branch of Christianity, but beyond that there is certain amount of ambiguity in the term.

> You can use orthodox to refer to any especially conservative group in any religion.

You can also use it to refer to non-religious contexts e.g. "medical orthodoxy" is simply the established medical order, what is currently accepted as "true medecine". In a religious context, orthodoxy generally designates traditionalists.

Without qualifiers, but generally easy to disambiguate through context, "orthodox" is commonly used for both judaism (where it means "traditional") and christianity (where it usually means either "Eastern Orthodox Church" or the distinct "Oriental Orthodox Churches", which split from the "catholic" church in 451 by rejecting the Council of Chalcedon where the Eastern Orthodox Church split from the Catholic Church after 787's Second Council of Nicea)

> In the context of Judaism it's generally used to means Haredi Judaism, but can sometimes include other conservative groups.

That's actually a common misconception.

While all "Haredim" (ultra-Orthodox) are Orthodox Jews, the majority of Orthodox Jews do not belong to this group. In fact, nearly all Jews in Israel are technically Orthodox (that is, they have their Bar/Bat Mitzvas in Orthodox synagogues, have weddings performed by Orthodox rabbis, etc.), even if they are almost entirely secular.

In the US and Western Europe, there are two other popular denominations— Conservative and Reform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Judaism

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