That’s right: a leading men’s magazine, one which sets the standards for mainstream hetero male sexuality, has acknowledged publicly that Jewish Girls Are Hot. According to author Christopher Noxon, we’re no longer the Janeane Garofolo to our best friend’s Uma Therman. We, friends, are the leading ladies. This is quite the coup for us, who – as Noxon accurately reports – have been deftly maneuvering our way around the Fran Drescher stereotype and the backhanded “but you don’t LOOK Jewish” compliment for decades now. But before I launch into my analysis formally, I should say that my first reaction to this article was that it’s just Details being Details, looking for an excuse to show pictures of hot women under whatever guise they can. The Jew angle is a little new, sure, but they’ve certainly featured Mila Kunis and Scarlett Johansson enough to make it clear that they’d still be happy to bang a member of the tribe (always a giver, Details). However, this article examines the love for Jewish women a bit more closely, and subtly (if not accidentally) suggests that there’s something a little…more to us. See if you can figure it out from one of the magazine’s quotes from porn star Joanna Angel:

"I embody a lot of Jewish stereotypes. I have a Jewish nose and Jewish hair," Angel says of her black mane. "I also own my own company and feel guilty all the time."

Notice that? Angel is funny. And smart. And in fact, all of the women that author Christopher Noxon cites are self-made, self-defined hotties; girls who sell the sex that they’re into, rather than the sex that they hope you’ll be into. Angel, for instance, made her name by blazing the trail for a different kind of porn star (link definitely NSFW). Then you have “Claire,” who “runs Kinky Jews, a four-year-old group that mixes piousness with spiked heels and partner-swapping.” And of course, our very own Jamie Sneider, who made her own sexy, Jewish-food-themed calendar. The article also notably fails to mention any Jewish hotties who fit a more traditional mold, like model Bar Rafaeli or newcomer Esti Ginzborg. It’s almost as if Noxon is making the point that what makes Jewish girls hot (and hot we are) is not just our ravishing looks, but our attitudes, our wit, our minds – in fact, our very Jewishness. Now, however on target the article is about the sheer magnificence of Jewish girls, it’s still peppered with references to Judaism that are just a little bit off. This shouldn’t be too surprising, since a simple Google search reveals that this Noxon character is not a Jew (although it bears mentioning that his wife and kids are Jewish). The piece begins with his haphazard reference to Orthodoxy without making it clear that he’s talking about Orthodoxy: ‘Rabbis exhort their congregants to get busy on Shabbat, telling them it’s a "double mitzvah."’ (Really? Where was this frisky Rabbi when I was in conservative Hebrew school?) and his nonchalant lip service to what I believe he means to be a Holocaust reference “and indeed there can be something creepy about the desire to dominate a Jewish chick.” Then finally, there’s the comment that “Jews are comparatively cool about sex,” and Bam! That’s where we get into straight fetish territory.

On his website, Noxon claims to have plenty of Jewish friends, as well as a Jewish family, and yet he’s starting to sound like the guy that imagines us all hiding behind our thick black bangs, chain-smoking in the dark and listening to Bob Dylan and understanding the music better than he ever will, and in fact understanding the world and sexuality and life better, man, because the years on our calendar begin with the number five. Yeah, that’s kind of a fetish. A flattering fetish, to be sure, but a fetish nonetheless. As I’ve argued before (and so it must be true!) Judaism is no more accepting of experimental sexuality or flamboyantly female sexuality than any other organized religion. But, we do have a tradition of questioning things. Questioning rules, questioning authority, questioning, questioning, questioning. And so it holds that we ladies, many of whom are the daughters of 1970’s feminism, would turn our questioning minds towards the traditional role (or lack thereof) of sexuality in Jewish culture, and experiment with it in a whole new way. As Details points out in a related article, it’s not the first time that Jewesses have been sexy. In fact, we have a noted and distinguished legacy of hotness, dating all the way back to Esther (I’d argue it actually goes back to Rachel, that seductress by the well, but that’s just me). So this trend, if you can call it that*, represents a new generation of Jewish girls bringing sexy back, and applying our highly valued mental capabilities** to the non-traditional: porn, pop culture, gender roles, and sex. It’s something we’d be doing anyway; the fact that Noxon noticed it and Details published it is simply lox on the bagel.

*All this being said, I’m still not convinced that Noxon has stumbled on a trend so much as he’s done an interview with Joanna Angel and then provided a few other references. Regardless, the idea had Details editors sold, so maybe there is something to it (and that something might just be that Noxon writes a mean pitch). **I thought that maybe I was stereotyping here, but then, ask yourself this: have you ever met a stupid Jewish girl? I mean, really think about it. Because I don’t think I have.

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But as the half hour progressed, I couldn’t help but be struck by something peculiar. The prevailing aesthetic, I noticed, was one that screamed “Aryan Nation”: mounds of bleached blond hair, svelte hips…mounds of bleached blond hair.

Where, I wondered, were all the Jewish Playmates? Well, it turns out they’re not that easy to find because indeed, they are few and far between. Out of approximately 670 Playmates since the magazine’s inception, only a handful are known Jews. Cindy Fuller kicked it off in 1959, then Susan Bernard followed in 1966. Sally Sheffield posed in 1969, and Hef’s longtime girlfriend, Barbi Benton (nee Barbara Klein) was also a Jew. Lindsey Vuolo was next in 2001, and most recently, Anita Marks in 2002.

And so, when I first sat down to write this, I thought, “How unfair! Playboy gives preference to the goys, promoting a singular notion of beauty.” I thought I would be speaking on behalf of all Jewish women when I expressed my outrage that Jewish beauty is being overlooked or underappreciated.

But the more I look around, the more I realize that may be a bit out of touch.

Let us look first at Vuolo. Of all the Jews that have relieved themselves of their garments on the pages of Playboy, she seems to be the most notorious. Following her spread (haha), she was vilified by the Jewish community for the most part, and a nice summary of said vilification can be found here, in an interview she did with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. It’s a painful read, but if you feel like a humiliating smackdown, go ahead and click over. I’ll just wait. Done? OK. If you skipped that part, I’ll summarize for you: Vuolo felt she had done nothing wrong by posing in Playboy, and Boteach took her to task for it. By the end, Vuolo said that she had begun to feel “like a bad person.”

And Boteach isn’t the only one who feels like Vuolo let the Jews down; the same sentiment was expressed here at Jewcy. At other websites she was called stupid, blog commenters openly wondered what “happened to her,” and the general message was one we’ve all heard before: this is simply something that nice Jewish girls don’t do. I’m beginning to wonder: is the lack of Jewish representation in this mainstream magazine a result of narrow definitions of beauty, or have Jewish women opted out of the running? And if it’s the latter, is it because they truly don’t want to do something like Playboy, or because they’re afraid that if they do, they’ll risk rocking the Jewish community boat to such an extent that they’ll knock themselves right off?

Looking into our history and culture, it doesn’t take much digging to speculate about the root of our unease with exhibitionism, or nudity for any reason besides procreation or showering. In the strictest branch of our religion, a woman’s sexuality is literally hidden from everyone but her husband. It hearkens back to the notion that men will be too tempted to control themselves when confronted with female sexuality (ahem, Adam), and so it’s the woman’s job to cover up — which frankly doesn’t give much credit to women or men.

Additionally, typical antiporn arguments — which can be found at both of the above links — rely heavily on the notion of respect, or lack thereof, for women. Porn results in men respecting women less, society as a whole repsecting women less, and women respecting themselves less…in short, the complete undoing of everything feminism has accomplished to date.

But I would argue exactly the opposite. What is disrespectful is assuming that women who pose for porn magazines don’t know what’s best for themselves. What is disrespectful is analyzing porn only from the point of view of the consumer, thereby taking away the voice of the subjects, and all the while arguing that porn takes women’s voices away. And what is disrespectful is relying solely on stereotypes to understand the decisions a woman makes.

And besides — just to lighten it up a little here — broader representation of beauty is a good thing, whether it’s us Jewesses or another underrepresented population. I personally would like to see more curly hair, more dark skin, more curves. And I’d like for women who assume that being told that they “look Jewish” is a bad thing to have a change of heart (you know who you are).

Now, I’m not suggesting that every Jewish woman wants, or should want, to pose for Playboy. No doubt many don’t want to, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

But I’m disheartened, friends. I’ve always liked to think of Judaism as slightly more open-minded, but apparently we’re just another organized religion frantically waving our moral compass over the heads of our congregations (particularly, of course, our young women), and while we like to couch our panic in intellectual discourse, it seems we’re really no better than all the rest.

The post The Goyls Next Door appeared first on Jewcy.

To help answer my own (and G-d’s!) question, I’ve complied a short list. Here are some of the highs and lows of my twenties, in chronological order:

1. Backpacked through Europe: Sweet Jesus (am I allowed to say that on here?), was that really ten years ago?!
2. Followed my dreams: Moved to Hollywood to try and become famous. (Didn’t.)
3. Abandoned my dreams: To be fair, they stopped being my dreams after three years of waiting tables.
4. Put my youthful idealism to work: Worked at a nonprofit for four years.
5. Had said youthful idealism trampled: Worked at a nonprofit for four years.
6. Experienced quarterlife crisis: Flew into a complete panic upon turning 25. Drank heavily, pondered the meaning of my life, decided that I was no longer young, panicked more, drank more, made plans, forgot about them.
7. Took advantage of being a spring chicken: Worked in seedy and not-so-seedy strip clubs to make some real money while working at a nonprofit for four years (no, not as a waitress).
8. Had fling with wildly inappropriate individual: 20 years old. Bipolar. Temporarily homeless. Still managed to be incredibly sexy.
9. Went back to Europe: This time I went with a play in hand and dreams of making it big at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Fine, you caught me – my dreams weren’t completely abandoned, per list item three. Literalist.
10. Wrote book: Hopefully the thirties will see it published. (Publishers, feel free to email me at the address below.)
11. Mastered the art of shameless self-promotion: See number 11.
12. Had successful, adult relationship: So successful that I’m still in it, and in fact betrothed. All is not lost for my mother.

OK – that’s as exhaustive a list as I can muster at this moment, what with my old age and all. A few things that I have yet to accomplish but still hope to include garnering an invite to the Playboy mansion, going to Greece, and buying a large property in Montana for myself, my fiancé, and my dog.

So, back to my original question. For what need I atone? Judaism tells us that Yom Kippur isn’t about atoning for sins committed against other people, but about making things right between ourselves and G-d. Taking the liberty of interpreting this in my own way, a nonjudgmental G-d (the kind that I choose to believe in, thankyouverymuch) would ask in a kindly voice, “Well, what do you think you should atone for?” Good question, G-d. In the eyes of my native culture (the hard-knock streets of suburban Boston), some might say that a few of my particularly seedy undertakings would warrant atonement. Sex work springs to mind, for instance. It’s a questionable endeavor for a nice Jewish girl, and Julia Query certainly explored the guilt inherent in it enough for all of us in her documentary, Live Nude Girls Unite. Shameless self-promotion also seems a bit vain, a tactic from which an appropriately humble woman would perhaps shy away.   But frankly, I’m interested in a more personal kind of atonement. I don’t claim to be a Jewish scholar, and so maybe I’m approaching this all wrong. But I find myself less and less concerned with sins that have been laid out for me by a belief system I had no hand in creating. So, as I reflect upon the decade of debauchery, here’s what I think I should atone for: all the times in my twenties not that I let someone else down, but that I let myself down. Per my list:

• I stayed at that nonprofit for about two years too long, out of guilt and fear.
• I terrorized myself into believing that at age 25, my best years were rapidly passing me by. 
• I had a fling that lasted 7 months and 29 days longer than it should have.

In those moments, I knew that I should be acting differently, treating myself with more respect, and listening to the little Jewess inside my head who told me to get the hell out, be nicer to myself, and get the hell out again, respectively. A good friend told me that when I turned 30, a light bulb would go off over my head. And as of this Yom Kippur, I do believe I’m starting to see it flicker.

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