By Yehuda Schneier
Special to YNOT
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Every so often, when I try to come to YNOT to read the latest news about organic, fat-free, strawberry flavored personal lubricant, or to see which European won the YNOT Grand Prix, I find myself on autopilot, accidentally whipping out a typo and winding up on another site I check regularly, YNET News.
Just the other day, it took me longer than usual to realize my error, in part because I’m badly colorblind, but also because the site that puts “Israel at your fingertips” had run a porn-related article of its own about the phenomenon known as “frum porn.”
For all you goy out there who don’t know what frum means, it’s a Yiddish term meaning “pious” or “devout” or “unquestionably right about fucking everything, period,” depending on the context in which it is used.
So, when someone says “frum porn,” what they’re talking about is erotic material that depicts (and is often performed by) Orthodox Jews in a sexually explicit way.
For some reason, the popularity of frum porn has a lot of people tsemisht, including a lot of people in the Jewish community.
How, they ask, can an Orthodox Jew not view pornography as being directly contradictory to everything we Jews are taught about modesty, sexual fidelity and the importance of not being a gemeyn little feygele all the time?
I guess my first question in response to such people would be: “What? Like you’ve never heard of a tsvoyak?”
To me, it’s simple: For as long as there has been a Jewish faith, there have been some really horny Jews (like me), who tend to say “To genem with the rules. I just really like to watch untshaste froy engaged in geshlekht — especially when the akt is downright shmutsik.”
Plus, it’s not like Orthodox Jews are alone among the devoutly religious in occasionally elevating libido over credo, people.
Remember that meshuge evangelist Jimmy Swaggart? Are you trying to tell me the so-called “New Testament” has some sort of exemption in it that says it’s OK for a preydiker to screw a prostitute, so long as he cries about it on television after he gets caught with his finger in the proverbial pirog? Please, don’t make me gelekhter!
It doesn’t matter whether you’re Muslim, Christian, Hindu or Scientologist, you’re still human, still fleysh and beyn, and you’re going to have certain appetites, especially when you’re an iungerman. Simply put, you’re not shlekht because you like to watch videos in which an alluring “tineyjer“ is playing the hoyt-fleyt*.
Frum porn serves a number of important purposes within the community. Most importantly, it keeps a lot of mensches from tshiting on their wives – which, as you know, is the second leading cause of divorce, right behind arguing over gelt.
At the risk of seeming like I’m playing the religion card here, I can’t help thinking the confusion over frum porn is falsely augmented by the fact Jews are at issue. I mean, there has been Amish bondage online for years, but I have yet to see any hand-wringing articles about it in an online newspaper that puts Lancaster County at my fingertips.
It’s also important to understand that just because a hardcore porn fan happens to be an Orthodox Jew, it doesn’t necessarily follow he or she is also a fan of frum porn. Take me, for instance: I don’t mind the occasional frum video, but my real favorite has always been Shvarts on Blondes and similar interracial action.
I hope this column has been educational, helping to demystify the appeal of frum porn and offering some insight into how Orthodox Jews view the ethics of pornography in general.
Now, kindly excuse me for making a hasty departure. As you might guess, I have some serious masterbeyting to do.
Yehuda Schneier is an Orthodox Jew, avid hardcore porn fan and long-time resident of the Borough Park area of Brooklyn, N.Y.
*skin-flute
