Making Pornography (In)visible in the Religious Jewish Online Discourse

• In Event: Mapping Digital Jews

Abstract

Ruth Tsuria, Graduate Student in Communications, Texas A&M University, ruthless@tamu.edu

In this paper, I will show how sexuality is controlled and medicalized in the religious Jewish anti-pornography website “Guard Your Eyes” (hereafter GYE). GYE is an organization dedicated to providing tools and techniques for Jews ‘suffering’ from pornography addiction. It is specifically tailored for ultra-Orthodox communities. According to the website, within the Jewish world, GYE is recognized as "the number one resource for dealing with the growing problem of the struggle with addiction to inappropriate materials on the Internet and related behaviors in our communities" (guardyoureyes.com, 2014). The website has multiple texts and resources: guidelines, programs, chatrooms, forums, FAQs, rabbinical endorsements and more. In this paper, I shall conduct a rhetorical analysis of these texts in order to understand how the dissonance of openly discussing sexual taboos in this site is managed. Sexuality is a complex topic in the ultra-Orthodox theology and community, as it receives both negative and positive connotations. On the one hand, as a general rule, sexual intercourse is not only allowed, but encouraged. A healthy sexual relationship is seen both as a virtue and a duty between a husband and his wife (Rockman, 1995). However, this positive attitude towards sex is limited to a highly regulated kind of sex: between married heterosexuals, in the missionary position and only when the woman is “clean” (i.e. not during her menstruation) (Schwartz, 2012, 43). Furthermore, masturbation is strictly forbidden, which makes the consumption of pornography, often associated with masturbation, strictly forbidden. Nevertheless, the creators of the Guard Your Eyes website invite members of the ultra-Orthodox community to join their ranks and openly discuss their sexual habits under a protective cover of anonymity. I propose that this tension is solved by culturally “disciplining the self” (Foucault, 1978) and presenting pornography not as sexual desire, but as disease. The creators present their website as a professional therapy center by claiming that: “Our tools were developed with guidance from the best experts in the field” (guardyoureyes.com, 2014). Thus, they make consuming pornography a divergent act, an addiction, one that can only be healed through the services provided in the website.

author

• Ruth Tsuria, Texas A&M university