By getting involved with the wrong woman (weak, flaky, damaged, needy, desperate, stupid, untrustworhty, immature etc.). you think your love will save/transform her.

Unwilling to admit "need" for bonding and intimacy, you hide in excesses of work, play, drink, drugs, porn, and meaningless sex.

Unable to comfortably and proudly accept your inherant importance to society and family as husband and father, you bow to the false idols of money, toys, power and status.

Uncomfortable with feeling weak, vulnerable, useless, powerless, or rejected, you use intimidation, force, or passive- aggressiveness to regain control.

Taking an attraction, opportunity, or erection as a "sign," you measure your masculinity and power by sexual conquests, infidelities, and orgasms.

Lacking an understanding of the purpose, meaning, or value of marriage, you realize too late that you've gone down the aisle with the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and feel helpless to fix it.

Thinking that marriage is the honorable discharge from loving courtship, you continue to live as though you are single and that your "mommy-wife" will take care of everything else.

Believing that only women/mothers nurture children, you withdraw from hands-on parenting to assert your masculine importance, missing out on the "soul food" of a child's hug.

Having not yet worked out a comfortable emotional and social understanding with your mother, you form relationships with women that become geared to avenge, resolve, or protect you from your ties to Mommy.

Understanding the true and meaningful difference between being male and a man, you can become a man.

From TEN STUPID THINGS MEN DO TO MESS UP THEIR LIVES (CLIFF STREET BOOKS) by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

All in good humor...Don't let it be true in your life.

Why guys feel like no one wants them around.

"Because of this, I notice I pull out of conversation when it gets too personal. And despite the strongest of invitiations to connect, I feel, intrinsically, that the other person will eventually be burdened by his or her relationship with me.

I find myself doing a great job of small talk, trying to be charming and all, but when it comes time for a person to actually know me, I run for the hills. Any ability I have to be charming also comes from this desire not to be a burden.

If I'm light and easy to be around, my community won't want to throw me out, or they won't meditate at night on what a wonderful world theirs would be if I were not involved."--(To Own A Dragon, pg. 48)

Things that guys wonder about in the absence of strong fathers/mentors.

"I began to wonder if guys weren't designed to have a father, whose very presence would cause us[guys] to understand more accurately what our muscle is for, what we are supposed to do with our energy. . ."

"I began to wonder if those of us without dads aren't making big mistakes on our lives we wouldn't make if we had a father to guide us. . ."

"I wonder if people who grew up with great fathers don't walk around with a subconscious sense they are wanted on this planet, that they belong, and the world needs them. . ."

"And I wondered this: Is there practical information we are supposed to know about work, women, decisions, authority, leadership, marriage, and family we would have learned if there were a guide around to help us navigate our journey?"

"I wondered if some of the confusing emotions I was feeling weren't a kind of suspended adolesence from which the presence of an older man might have delivered me. . . "
(all quotes taken from To Own A Dragon: Reflections On Growing Up Without A Father, by Donald Miller, pg. 34).

Testicular cancer is the most common form of cancer among males age 15 to 44. After motor vehicle accidents and suicide, cancer is the leading cause of death in this age group, followed by homicide, heart disease, and HIV. Testicular cancer is known as the young man's cancer.

Early detection is the key to survival. Testicular cancer has a very fast onset since the tumors can be very aggressive. When the cancer is confined to the testicles, there is often no pain. By the time pain develops, it is often a sign that the cancer has already spread. Survival rates increase significantly if treatment has begun before the cancer has a chance to metastasize.

Upon reaching puberty, all men should conduct testicular self-exams at least monthly and preferably every time they shower. The purpose of a testicular self-exam is to familiarize yourself with the size, shape and texture of your testicles. If you notice any change, especially a lump, it is imperative that you see your doctor immediately. Diagnosis is non-invasive, and involves using ultrasound to look at the density, size and shape of the testicles and other masses in the scrotum.

http://www.beityeshua.org/docs/testicalexam.wmv Men get over your fear of self-exam. I have had two cousins that have had testicles removed when they were in their thirties. Check yourself out! It only takes minutes; this video demonstration will guide you. First and foremost, you should see your family physician if there seems to be any abnormalities.

The ancient way to reverse circumcision
I became curious about the nature of ancient Jewish circumcision when I came across the term epispasm. You probably haven’t heard of it. Very few people have. It isn’t even in the index to the Encyclopedia Judaica, although it is mentioned briefly in the article on circumcision.

Epispasm is circumcision in reverse. During the Hellenistic period, beginning in about 125 B.C.E., it became a fairly common operation among Jewish men. In Greek gymnasia and Roman baths, men worked out in the nude. The same for public games and athletic contests. Gymnasia and baths were where you established your social standing and where business deals were often struck. To expose the head of the penis in these circumstances was considered vulgar—or humorous. Certainly indecent. As a result, circumcised Jews were objects of laughter and ridicule.

Some circumcised Jews tried to hide their circumcision from gawkers by infibulation—pulling down what was left of the foreskin and securing it over the head of the penis with a light wooden pin called a fibula. Others, however, went for what has been called the “Cadillac of correctives”—epispasm. This involved freeing a sheath of skin from the remains of the foreskin or the shaft of the penis and flipping it down to form a covering of the tip of the penis—a fake foreskin.

I don’t think you have to be a doctor to realize that this won’t work on a circumcised Jewish penis today. Certainly not on a mass basis and not without enormous pain. “No one today would even try it,” an urologic surgeon recently told me.

This comment led me to explore whether circumcision was different in ancient times. It appears to have been. In a number of cultures it was a rite that prepared a man for marriage. Only in Judaism was it performed on an eight-day-old boy. And it had nothing to do with manhood or sex, but was a sign of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. When God instructed Abraham to circumcise himself, He told him: “You and your offspring to come throughout the ages shall keep my covenant... You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you. And throughout the generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days.” (Genesis 17:9-12)

Yes, it was a sign, but a private sign. It did not identify a Jew to the outside world; it reminded the individual of his covenant with God, of a Jew’s covenantal obligations.

But did this require the removal of the entire foreskin? The answer is no. Sometimes it was just a big nick or a V-shaped dorsal slice or otherwise a partial removal of the foreskin. It was the residue of foreskin that would, in the Hellenistic period, have made epispasm possible.

The Bible contains no instructions as to just how much of the foreskin must be removed to be the sign of the divine covenant. And the crude instruments used—flint and iron knives—made it unlikely that the entire foreskin would be removed. Moreover, the Hebrew term brit milah is related to the word for “cut,” but it has no implication of cutting around. Brit milah is customarily translated “covenant of circumcision.” It might be translated more accurately as the “covenant of cutting.”

Rabbis, understandably, didn’t like epispasm. It was they who established the intricate rules of modern circumcision. A circumcision is not valid if the foreskin still covers the greater part of the head of the penis. Just to make sure, rabbis decreed that the mohel must also remove the membrane under the foreskin where it attaches to the shaft of the penis, a procedure called periah, which means laying bare or uncovered. Otherwise, the circumcision is not valid according to Mishnah Shabbath 9.6 and its Gemara, b. Shabbath 137b. This is why epispasm is barely known today according to Shaye Cohen, a leading Judaic scholar at Harvard, who says that epispasm is “impossible” after periah.

EPISPASM

Circumcision in Reverse

R O B E R T G. H A L L

"Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised on the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." So said God to Abraham, establishing the covenant of circumcision, a covenant "between me and you and your descendents after you" (Genesis 17:10,14)

For centuries, Jewish boys have regularly been circumcised when they are eight days old (Genesis 17:12). An unusual challenge to circumcision developed, however, in the Hellenistic period (after about 133 B.C.E*). Hellenistic and Roman societies widely practiced public nakedness. But they abhorred baring the tip of the penis, called the glans. To expose the glans was considered vulgarly humorous, indecent or both. This combination of attitudes could be—and often was—devastating for circumcised Jews. Enjoying oneself in a Greek gymnasium or Roman bath, where nudity was de rigueur, was a popular and stylish pastime. Here politics was discussed and business deals concluded. Athletic contests and exhibitions were also conducted in the nude. Participation in athletics was often a prerequisite for social advancement. Yet a circumcised penis effectively precluded this participation.

Consequently, for hundreds of years some Jews underwent a surgical procedure known as epispasm—an operation that "corrected" a circumcised penis. Some might call it circumcision in reverse. From references and allusions to the procedure in classical and rabbinical literature, it appears that epispasm [CIRP Note: επισπασμοσ, epispasmos] reached its peak of popularity in the first century C.E.

The New Testament reveals bitter conflicts over circumcision among the followers of Jesus, conflicts expressed also in attitudes towards epispasm practiced by Jews. Paul, who thinks circumcision useless, nevertheless forbids epispasm: "Was any one at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision," he advises the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:18).

Numerous written sources from the second century B.C.E. to the early sixth century C.E. speak about epispasm and attitudes toward it.

During these centuries, foreskins assumed an importance they have rarely had before or since. The Roman emperor Hadrian (117-138 C.E.) loathed circumcision as much as castration—both were unnatural, an offense against the Greek idea of natural beauty of the human body—and outlawed both.¹

Males who wished to conceal an exposed glans had several options. Dioscorides, a first century C.E. physician to Nero's troops and master of herbal lore, helped those who, though not circumcised, had a defectively short foreskin. He suggested applying thapsia, an herb that causes swelling.² this would not work, Dioscorides recognized for those who were circumcised.

Soranus, author of a second-century C.E. medical text, prescribed a different method for correcting defectively short foreskins in infants: The baby's nurse should pull the foreskin forward over the glans and tie it with a thread. "For if gradually stretched and continuously drawn forward, it easily stretches and assumes its normal length an covers the glans and becomes accustomed to keep the natural good shape."³

A simple surgical procedure called infibulation, was another option for a defectively short foreskin. A surgeon would pierce the foreskin to receive a light wooden pin called a fibula.⁴ With the fibula inserted the foreskin was held neatly closed. Infibulation was supposed to improved the voice and health of adolescent boys, but Celsus, the author of a medical text from the first century C.E., doubts the therapeutic value of infibulation for this purpose.

Infibulation could also be used by those who had been circumcised. Some circumcised Jews concealed their circumcision by drawing the skin around the penis forward and securing it with a fibula—or with twine. Martial, the Roman poet, ridiculed an infibulated Jewish slave⁵ and derided another Jew whose fibula fell out at the bath.⁶

The Cadillac of correctives, however, was clearly epispasm: "If the glans is bare and the man wishes for the look of things to have it covered, that can be done," Celsus assured his readers.⁷ It was a variation of an operation recommended for congenitally short foreskins. For congenitally short foreskins, the surgeon would tie forward the foreskin, Soranus recommended, and cut the sheath of skin around the penis just in front of the pubic bone. When the wound healed, the surgeon would remove the twine.

Epispasm on a circumcised penis required a somewhat more difficult operation: The surgeon would cut around the glans freeing the sheath of skin surrounding the shaft of the penis, pull the skin forward and dress the wound carefully so that the skin would reattach to the glans leaving a foreskin. At a time before effective anesthesia, a man inclined to try this procedure had Celsus' assurance that it was "not so very painful."⁸

Epiphanus, the fourth century C.E. churchman, tells of a man who was circumcised twice, once as a Samaritan and again as a Jewish proselyte. In the course of the discussion, Epiphanus mentions a spouthisteros, a special implement for performing epispasm. He tells up, "If you can make circumcision uncircumcision, do not marvel at some being circumcised twice."⁹

Some Jews probably submitted to epispasm because they shared the common Greek and Roman revulsion toward circumcision. Even if they did not, however, societal institutions and attitudes exerted strong pressure against remaining circumcised. Jews of means naturally wanted to participate in gymnasium and bath. Not only were these a chief means of recreation, they also functioned as hubs for business. If Jews exercised or bathed while circumcised, they offended their gentile neighbors and submitted themselves to incredulous ridicule; if they did not attend, everyone knew why—and talked about it. Either way their business would suffer.

Other factors also encouraged epispasm.

Athletics constituted a chief avenue of social advancement for underclass boys. Greek cities competed with each other to grant citizenship to promising boys and to sponsor them at the games. Since athletes exercised and competed without clothes, this avenue was denied to those who were circumcised. What city would sponsor an obscenity?

After the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70 C.E., punitive measures against Jews were more easily enforced against those who could be identified because they were circumcised. Suetonius tells of an old man claiming exemption from the most hated of these measures, a two drachma tax to fund the worship of Jupiter. The court stripped the old man in court, found him to be circumcised and fined him.¹⁰ A Jewish man could escape such oppressive measures and the stigma attached to them by submitting to epispasm.

Obstacles to citizenship in Greek cities like Alexandria also encouraged Jews to undergo epispasm.¹¹ In Alexandria and perhaps in other cities formed on the Greek model, citizenship and the important privileges that went with it were granted only to ephebes, those trained for citizenship in the ephebaion. Since local law forbade Jews becoming citizens and since ephebes regularly exercised naked in the gymnasium, a Jew who appeared naked with a circumcised penis was unable to circumvent the law. Some Jews did evade the law, however; a Greek delegation from Alexandria complained about this to the emperor.¹²

Greek and Roman abhorrence of circumcision produced a variety of predictable reactions among Jews. Those who stood vigorously against Greek culture asserted the necessity of circumcision in stronger terms than ever. The Jewish author of Jubilees interpreted Greek culture as the product of the demonic world; circumcision he tells us, lifts Jews out of the evil realm and places them directly under God's rule.¹³

Other Jews who accepted Greek culture attempted to explain circumcision to the Greeks—and to themselves. A certain Jew named Artapanos (third to second centuries B.C.E.) took a novel approach: Moses founded the religion of Egypt and gave circumcision to Ethiopia.¹⁴ If Egyptians and Ethiopians in following their ancestral practices still keep the teachings of Moses, why should Hebrews not keep them as well?

The first century C.E. Jewish philosopher Philo defends circumcision in Greek terms by listing physical and allegorical advantages. Circumcised men are more fertile, less vulnerable to disease and being cleaner, are more fittingly set aside as a nation of priests. In addition the heart begets the thought, which is the highest human excellence; therefore penises should be circumcised to resemble the godly heart. Moreover, circumcision represents the excision of the pleasure of sex, which bewitches the mind.¹⁵

Some Jews, faced with overwhelming societal repugnance toward circumcision, probably neglected it. Many of these Jews ceased to practice Judaism at all and quietly faded into the surrounding culture. Other neglected circumcision but actively claimed their Jewish heritage. The evidence for uncircumcised yet practicing Jews is indirect but unequivocal.

For example, Ananius, after successfully convincing Izates, prince of Adiabene, to become a Jew, argued that he should not be circumcised.¹⁶ The Jewish author of the Fourth Sybylline Oracle urged gentiles to repent and immerse themselves in water but found no need to mention circumcision. Rabbis debated whether circumcision or immersion in water really made a proselyte.¹⁷ Philo tells us that the real proselyte circumcises not his foreskin but his passions.¹⁸ Such statements are readily explained if some authorities were contending that a person could be or become a Jew without being circumcised.

Philo rebuked Jews who allegorize the law to abolish Sabbaths, feasts, the Temple and circumcision.¹⁹ The Jews interpreted the Torah to justify their neglect of circumcision, which suggests that in their own eyes they remained observant Jews.

Both confirming that many Jews neglected circumcision and affirming the rabbinic commitment to it, the Talmud tells us that Jerusalem fell to the Romans and the Temple was destroyed because Jews "broke the covenant by failing to circumcise their sons."²⁰

Some Jews practiced a form of circumcision that did not show. The reaction can be seen in the Mishnah's* requirement that valid circumcision must bare the glans.²¹ The need for this ruling implies that some Jews practiced a form of circumcision—perhaps by simply nicking the foreskin—in a way that did not bare the glans. Removing only a little of the foreskin might obviate the need either for infibulation of epispasm. Jews who circumcised in this manner did not set out to abrogate the covenant of circumcision; they merely tried to keep the covenant without offending their gentile neighbors by baring the glans.

That epispasm was fairly widespread among Jews also seems evident from 1 Maccabees 1:11-15, where we are told that some built a gymnasium in Jerusalem and "made themselves uncircumcised."

As might be expected, the rabbinic references to epispasm condemn it (while at the same time reflecting that it must have been a fairly widespread phenomenon).

In Pirkei Avot** 3.16, we are told: "The one who voids the covenant of Abraham has no portion in the world to come."

According to the Talmud,^† even Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, cannot eliminate the transgression of epispasm.²²

In various midrashim^†† several notorious biblical sinners, such as Jehoiakin,²³ Achan²⁴ and Adam,²⁵ are said to have submitted to epispasm. As late as the 12th century, The Rambam (Moses Maimonides) stated that "anyone who elongates his foreskin [to conceal his circumcision]" is denied a share of the world to come.²⁶

On the other hand, some talmudic rabbis are less harsh. They consider whether one who has undergone epispasm (a mashuk) should be recircumcised when rejoining the rabbinic fold:

"Rabbi Judah says, `One who has his prepuce drawn forward [i.e., who has submitted to epispasm] should not be recircumcised because it is dangerous.' They said to him, `Many were circumcised [after epispasm] in the time of Ben Koziba and they had children and did not die.'²⁷

The references to epispasm here date from the second century B.C.E. to early in the sixth century C.E. As we have seen, however, epispasm was only one reaction to the Greco-Roman abhorrence of circumcision. Some Jews who rejected Greek culture heightened the religious and social importance of circumcision: Circumcision delivered one from evil. Others, like Philo, impressed by Greek philosophy, used arguments consonant with Greek presuppositions to support the practice of circumcision. Still others thought their religious obligation was fulfilled if only a minute part of the foreskin was removed. Those who interpreted the Torah by Greek methods and sensitivities, argued that the law, when properly understood, did not require literal circumcision. Such a wide spectrum of views allowed plenty of room for Jewish men to practice epispasm while still living as Jews. Many of these men never thought they had violated the covenant. They only wanted to live in both worlds. They had received circumcision; the second operation only made their circumcision less conspicuous.²⁸

Readers of ) will remember how central the debates over circumcision were to the development of early Christianity.**** Since the early church was part of the Jewish community, the Christian debate can be seen as part of the Jewish discussion about circumcision. Like the Jewish community at large, the church was divided between those who required circumcision and those who did not. Many Christians despised the arguments of those who in their view sought to gain the approval of their gentile neighbors by neglecting the covenant of Abrahmam. If circumcision defines the sphere where God acts on behalf of his people and uncircumcision defines the sphere of demonic control, then Jesus must act among the circumcised; circumcision is required.

When Paul in Galatians (6:15) claims that circumcision is irrelevant or when Luke asserts that gentiles entering the people of God need not circumcise themselves (Acts 15:19-29, they enter a debate that has already solidified. All the arguments have already been made and answered; the two sides glower at one another across an unbridgeable gulf. Merely repeating well-known arguments would hardly convince anyone. Paul and Luke can persuade only by transcending the former arguments; they can obtain a hearing only from the party whose arguments they adopt.

Paul enters the fray accepting the arguments of the circumcision party. Paul agrees that the world has been divided into two spheres, the sphere of the circumcised where God has acted, and the sphere of the uncircumcised "gentile sinners" where demons rule (cf. Galatians 2:15). But for Paul the world is where this distinction rightly applies is passing away: "[Christ] gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God the Father" (Galatian 1:3-4). Distinctions between circumcised and uncircumcised, proper to the old world, do not apply in the new. Since in Christ Christians are leaving the old world, circumcision has no relevance for them: "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation" (Galatians 6;14-15).

Luke also begins by accepting circumcision: he carefully depicts the circumcision of both John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:59, 2:21). But after the resurrection Jesus reveals a new plan of God to a very puzzled group of disciples (Luke 24:36-49), a new plan that includes gentiles (Luke 24:47). In Acts, Luke works out the consequences of this plan and chronicles the revelation to the disciples that under the new plan gentiles do not require circumcision (chapter 15).

By accepting as valid the arguments of the circumcision party, Paul and Luke could hope that their argument would be heard. By tying their conclusion that circumcision is no longer necessary to the new thing Christ has done, they could hope that the might convince Christians of the circumcision party who, of course, agreed that God had done something new by sending the Messiah. By denying the necessity of circumcision they could expect to attract gentiles to belief in Jesus. How well Paul, Luke and others like them succeeded appears from the result: Eventually the Church abandoned circumcision. The ancestors of modern Judaism did not; the wide variety of Jewish views on circumcision evidently died with the Hellenistic civilization that gave them birth, and Jews returned to the almost universal practice of the ritual of circumcision.

All Talmud citations are from the Babylonian Talmud.
¹ See E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden: Brill, 1976), p. 429.
² Dioscorides, De Materia Medica 4.153.
³ Gynecology 2.34, in Soranus, Gynecology, transl. By O. Temken (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1956), p, 107.
⁴ Celsus, De Medicina 7.25.2.
⁵ Martial, Epigrams 7.35.
⁶ Martial, Epigrams 7.82
⁷ Celsus, De Medicina 7.25.1 W.G. Spencer's translation, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press/London: Heinemann, 1938).
⁸ Ibid, p. 421.
⁹ Epiphanus, De Mensuris et Ponderibus 16, authors translation.
¹⁰ Suetonius, Domitian 12.2, in Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
¹¹ See Maccabbees 2:30-31, 3,21, 7:10-15. See also Victor A. Tcherikover, Hellistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia; Jewish Publication Society, 1959), pp. 311, 313.
¹² Claudius, "Letter to Alexandria," in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, ed. Tcherikover and A. Fuks (1957-1964), p. 153.
¹³ Jubilees 15:25-34. Similar ideas underlie the metaphorical use of circumcision at Qumran (CD 16.4-6; IQS 5.5) and perhaps a traditional Jewish blessing used at circumcision (Shabbat 137b and parallels). So David Flusser and Shumuel Safrai, "Who Sanctified the Beloved in the Womb?" Immanuel 11 (1980), pp. 46-55.
¹⁴ Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica 9.27.4,10;10; J.J. Collins, "Artapanus," The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. by J.H.Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 896-899.
¹⁵ Philo, Special Laws 2-11.
¹⁶ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.38-40.
¹⁷ Talmud, Yevamot 46a
¹⁸ Philo, Questions on Exodus 2.2
¹⁹ Philo, Migration of Abraham 89-93; see similar lists in Pirkei Avot 3.16 and Talmud, Yoma 85b.
²⁰ Talmud, Menahot 53b.
²¹ Mishnah Shabbat 30.6.
²² Talmud, Yoma 85b.
²³ Leviticus Rabbah 191.6
²⁴ Midrash on Sanhedrin 38b.
²⁵ Midrash on Sanhedrin 44a
²⁶ Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3.6.
²⁷ Tosefta Shabbat 15.9, transl. Br Jacob Neusner, in The Tosefta: Moed (New York: Ktav, 1981), p 59; see also Yevamot 72a.
²⁸ I have drawn freely from research for two earlier articles: "Epispasm and the dating of Ancient Jewish Writings," Journal for the study of Pseudepigrapha 2 (1988) 71-86; and "Circumcision," an entry soon to appear in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

*B.C.E (Before the Common Era and C.E. (Common Era), used by this author, are the alternate designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D. often used in scholarly literature.
**The Mishah is a compilation of rabbinic teaching gathered about 200 C.E.
*** Pirkei Avot is a treatise of the Mishnah. The English titele is "Sayings of our Fathers."
† The Babylonian Talmud is a sixth century commentary on the Mishnah.
†† Midrashim (singular, midrash) are interpretive Aramaic paraphrases of Hebrew scriptures.
****See Jack T. Sanders, "Circumcision of Gentile Converts-The Root of Hostility," BR, February 1991.

Here is some startling information on Christian churches in America; the same could be said for American Synagogues.

Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex:
A Real Look at Pornography

Finding freedom from porn addiction,
pornography addiction, the effects of pornography

Porn & addiction...sex out of context

On a cold, dark night, there's nothing better than a blazing fire in the fireplace. You can pile on the wood and let it burn nice and warm. It's safe, warm, relaxing and romantic. Now take that same fire out of the fireplace (which was built for it) and drop it in the middle of the living room. Suddenly it becomes destructive. It can burn down the whole house and kill everyone inside. Sex is like that fire. As long as it's expressed in the protective commitment of a marriage relationship, it's wonderful, warm and romantic. But porn takes sex outside that context.

Porn - A Big Business

It's a big business that makes a lot of money and doesn't care how. They'll show you whatever they think will make you come back and buy more. "There were 11,000 porn video titles last year verses 400 movie releases from Hollywood last year...[and] 70,000 pornographic web sites." (New York Times, May 20, 2001, "Naked Capitalists")

Porn's Image of Sex

One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted. The porn culture tells you that sex, love and intimacy are all the same thing. In porn, people have sex with total strangers -- people they just met. All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn't matter whose body I'm using, as long as I get it. Porn gets you to think that sex is something you can have anytime, anywhere, with anyone, with no consequences.

What Sex is Really About

Porn's outlook is stupid and shallow. Relationships are not built on sex, but on commitment, caring and mutual trust. In that context, like fire in the fireplace, sex is wonderful. Being with someone who loves and accepts you, someone who is committed to you for your whole lives together, someone you can give yourself completely to, that is what makes sex really great.

Effects of Pornography: The Lies of Porn

You can't learn the truth about sex from pornography. It doesn't deal in truth. Pornography is not made to educate, but to sell. So, pornography will tell whatever lies attract and hold the audience. Porn thrives on lies -- lies about sex, women, marriage and a lot of other things. Let's look at some of those lies and see just how badly they can mess up your life and attitudes.

Effects of Pornography: Bottom Line

Pornography makes a profit from the ruined lives of young women and entraps men who will spend lots of time AND money succumbing to their product.

Effects of Pornography: The Power of Images

effects of pornography - porn addiction - pornography addiction

It's dumb to think that the things we see and hear don't affect us. We all admit that good music, good movies and good books add a lot to our lives. They can relax us, educate us, move us or inspire us. Obviously, good images do good things to us. It's not hard to believe that bad images can do bad things to us.

Images can also persuade us. Businesses know that if they can get a persuasive image of their product in front of you during a highly emotional moment, it will sink into your subconscious mind. The advertising scientists are so good at what they do, they can predict just how much more of their product you will buy if you see their ad. Sometimes, viewers don't even see the name of the product. Reeses Pieces paid a huge price just to have their candy shown for a few seconds in the movie "ET," and sales of Reeses Pieces skyrocketed. Why? Because the emotions connected with watching that small boy reaching out to the alien were transferred to the visual image of the candy. If a split second view of a product -- even when it's not the center of attention -- can affect people's behavior, imagine the effect of a movie that keeps your attention glued to the screen for an hour and a half with sexually explicit images.

What are the effects of pornography on a man?

What kinds of ideas is porn putting into our heads? If the wrong things keep getting dumped in, your mental environment can get so polluted that your life is going to have problems. One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted.

Porn Addiction: The Pull of Porn

Not everyone who sees porn will become addicted. Some will just come away with toxic ideas about women, sex, marriage, and children. However, some will have some kind of emotional opening that allows the addiction to really grab hold. The porn companies don't mind at all if you become completely addicted to their product. It's great for business. Dr. Victor Cline has divided the progress of addiction into several stages; addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out. For porn addicts, I've found that there is another stage that comes first -- early exposure. Let's look at these stages:

Porn Addiction: Am I Addicted?

If you see any of these patterns in your life, you need to put the brakes on right now. Is porn becoming more and more in control of your life? Do you have trouble putting it down? Do you keep going back for more?

Porn Addiction: What Can I Do?

The first thing you've got to do is admit that you struggle with pornography. Believe me, you are not strange or unusual if you do. Millions of men are at various stages in the struggle with porn. It's really not surprising. The porn industry has spent billions of dollars trying to snare you. Is it really shocking that they have succeeded? For some of you there may also be issues in your past, such as abuse or sexual exposure, that makes porn addiction even harder to shake. There is only so much you can do in fighting addiction without help.

You need someone to help you break this addiction. Overcoming the secrecy is absolutely vital. You probably can't escape addiction without it. That doesn't mean everyone has to know you're struggling. Pick someone you can trust who counsels men who are having problems with addiction -- a Rabbi, a pastor, youth group leader or counselor. Someone you can completely trust, feel safe with and has experience in the area of addiction isn't going to be surprised.

Is There Any Freedom from Porn Addiction?

Pornography entraps you with lies. In contrast, G-D can lead us into truth. Yeshua said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."¹ Those who heard Yeshua say this were offended and countered, "We have never been slaves of anyone, how can you say that we shall be set free?"² And Yeshua explained that people are enslaved to sin, but that He can set you free.³

Sin not only enslaves us, but it distances us from G-D. And no one is perfect. No one is righteous in G-D's eyes. Instead we're told that "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way."⁴ We all deserve G-D's judgment and punishment. Yet G-D, who is holy and loving, provided a solution for our sin, so that we would not have to be justly condemned. He personally took the punishment for our sin on Himself. Yeshua the Messiah , the Son of G-D, was tortured and died on the stake for our sin so that we could be forgiven. Three days later Yeshua rose from the dead, just as He said He would. And He now offers you a relationship with Him. One of the most amazing statements in the Bible is this one, "If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."⁵

Are You Man Enough to ... 'Man'-cation?

Boys will be boys, but can they travel together?
April 12, 2007 - Frank Rosci, Jewish Exponent Feature
mancation

It used to be that when several men -- for this story, the focus is heterosexual men -- went away to spend time together for a weekend or longer, it was for fishing, skiing, days of golf, a hunting expedition or to bond in high-five style at a football game.

These and other outdoorsy-type outings were to do what most people call "guy stuff" -- days and nights, for example, of friends quaffing numerous Buds and other brews, and enjoying a good time generally with males only.

Now, come "man"-cations, in which men also go on what are referred to usually as real vacations to Europe, the Caribbean and elsewhere, destinations reserved normally for men, women and families. No doubt beers with the boys and a sports-oriented break from home, work and kids are still part of the process, but it's where men are going to do that and more that's so dramatically different.

"Since about 2005, the fact that men have been widening their travel horizons has become noticeable. They're stepping out of the box, so to speak, by going to many new places to do a lot of the things they've done before -- such as playing golf -- but in Spain, Scotland and Ireland now; fishing in places like Argentina, Chile, Russia and Alaska, instead of staying strictly in the U.S.," said Julie Steinberg, office manager of Rosenbluth Vacations in Center City.

Then, she added, there's "hiking and biking, but in Central American countries, such as Costa Rica and Belize, and seeing South America as well.

"In addition, of course, they're soaking up the culture of these foreign countries, as groups of men look for more exciting, more eco-friendly kinds of soft adventure travel."

As they expand what they like and want to do, Steinberg continued, men are willing to pay for their mancation pleasures. "This has become a huge travel market, with the cost of a trip -- which usually lasts from five to seven days -- priced according to where men go and when, and dependent on the kind of things they want to do. The sky is the limit when it comes to the complexity and diversity of these trips for which men are more than willing to pay."

Among the factors that make mancations such an attractive travel alternative are that men can break the mold and break away for a time, so that "in a very real sense, the trips are hassle-free with no strings attached ... men don't have to worry about what they wear or how they look," remarked Steinberg.

Niche Tourism
Beneath all of it though, she added, there must be an element of trust between men and women that will allow both to feel comfortable with the idea of a group of men going off on their own, and of their women being on their own for a time also.

At Temple University, Joseph Goldblatt, Ph.D., professor of tourism and hospitality management at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, talked about where the mancations' trend fits into the overall travel and tourism picture: "This is part of a much larger trend, and that is niche tourism, one of the fastest-growing travel areas. It's all about creating special-interest travel, which includes the pro-creation vacation, during which couples try to become pregnant, and the 'babymoon,' which has expectant couples taking a trip before their baby is born.

"I don't see the mancation phenomenon ending anytime soon," he said.

Mancations, he said, have their roots in the California of the 1960s and '70s, when men went to sweat lodges and engaged in Native American-style drumming, for example, as a way to release tension and daily stress, and create bonding relationships with other males. Sports and the military are traditional areas and sources of male bonding as well, he noted.

"Men, including baby-boomers, are looking to fill the niche that mancations to places such as the south of Spain, the Italian Riviera and Amsterdam offer. These and other destinations offer guys sun, sand and water -- as well as drinking and more -- and the chance for relaxation and bonding," he said. "Growing numbers of men are also going on mancation poker tournaments to Las Vegas."

Price can range from $1,000 per person for a few days to several thousand for longer trips, depending on destination and time of year, he said.

A mancation that Jewish men may want to take someday -- perhaps soon -- Goldblatt speculated, is one that involves a trip to Israel, and other places of Jewish heritage and learning to study Torah and Talmud: "Based on the religious and spiritual surge following 9/11, these kinds of trips could become popular with groups of Jewish men through synagogues and religious communities."

If Trust Is an Issue ...
As for the issue of trust, it varies by couple, said the professor, with older couples looking over their shoulders much less, and feeling more relaxed than newlyweds and younger couples about the dynamics that may play out in a mancation. "Actually, women are encouraging men to take a mancation so they can have girlfriend getaways," he acknowledged.

An experienced "mancationer" is Jonathan Orenstein, DMD, a dentist who lives and works in Marlton, N.J., and who takes an annual ski trip to Vail, Colo., with a group of his male friends.

"We have done that for the past 12 years, and for the first time this year, it was the first week in January -- seven of us went to Costa Rica to pursue a variety of interests, from enjoying good food, a great hotel and the beach to fishing and golf.

"Since I love motocross, I rode a motorcycle 200 miles through the mountains, through coffee fields across the Pacific Rim to the Pacific Ocean," he said, describing the entire time away from home as "a phenomenal experience, with a lot of noise, sound and excitement."

"What makes a mancation -- which, yes, does take money in the bank -- so different from vacations with wife and family is that while you're away, you don't have to provide or worry about a significant other. The psychology of pleasing the people you're with is totally different. If one of the guys doesn't want to go to dinner, for instance, it's no big deal.

"It's not that men don't care about home, it's just that for a time that obligation is removed, so that you come back ready to immerse yourself again fully in work and home."

While that first mancation may be an issue, he advised men to remember to always make time for their wives and kids, concluding that "when you make time for yourself, don't leave the people you love out. Plan vacations with them, too."

swish1

Bromance

Where are the Jewish Men? An Interview with Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein

by Jo Ellen Green Kaiser

ZEEK: A recent study by Sylvia Barrack Fishman and Daniel Parmer (Matrilineal Ascent/Patrilineal Descent, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University, 2008) seems to show that men are leaving Jewish congregational life. Do you see that trend at B'nai Jeshurun?

Marcelo Bronstein: Women participate much more than men in our congregational life. Don't misunderstand me: we have a full congregation, full of life. But the core of what we are about is thanks to women. If not for our women, we wouldn't have hazzanim, daily minyan, shiva minyanim, or chevra kedisha.

I am a product of the feminist revolution, so the fact that women lead most of the activities of our congregation never bothered me. I have always thought that the people who want to get involved, will get involved. I never paid attention to whether those people were men or women.

But suddenly, I began to hear people talk, and began to listen to others and even pay attention to what it was in front of my eyes. Also recently, I participated in a conversation at NYU on gender and education. Speakers said that finding a male educator, a male teacher in New York, would be very soon like finding a diamond in the street. They are that rare.

When you ask men who have left the congregation, men who have married outside Judaism, they say that Jewish women are too strong. They say they want to find Golde, the old-fashioned Jewish woman, but they can't find any Jewish women like her, so they turn to Asian women, women from other cultures.

Several men told me that, which confused me. I replied that the Golde in Fiddler on the Roof was very strong. They say, yes, strong but loving. Well, that is another conversation, a conversation about what men want or think they want in a woman. I felt that the answers they were giving me represented their emotional feelings, but maybe were not the whole answer to why they left.

When women were not happy with Judaism, they stayed. They stayed behind the mehitzha until they tore it down. But men are leaving. I am very concerned about Judaism. I don't think this is good for men, for women, for anyone.

MB: Well, I started a men's group, not because the men asked, but because I noticed these things. When I started, six men signed up, but at the first meeting, sixty came. They didn't want to sign up, but they wanted to come. Since then, we have held the group once a month.

I should say that creating a men's group at my synagogue, a very politically progressive synagogue in New York, was very politically incorrect. I thought someone would cut my head off. I was afraid of my feminist members.

So, before starting the group I went to talk to a feminist friend. I told her I wanted to start a men's group, and asked her opinion. She said, I love what you are doing. Why, I asked. She said, In the beginning, feminists chopped the testicles off men. That was a necessary act of war. Afterwards, when we achieved some equality, we sat and cried. Where are the men? They oppressed us, so we castrated them. So I like that you are trying to celebrate the differences without imposing power.

MB: Yes. In the beginning, I called some guys about coming to the group's first meeting, and they laughed. They said, Ok, we will come, but this can't be a rosh chodesh group. We are not going to talk about feelings, we are not going to cry. I put that in the advertisement. It became a kind of joke.

MB: They wanted to daven. They wanted to hear just male voices. So we met at mincha, Shabbat afternoon. We daven together, and then have whiske--a very good single malt scotch whiskey--and crackers and cheese. And then we have a conversation. At first, we did Torah study, but I realized that these men really wanted to talk. Recently, we talked about Esther Perel's book, Mating in Captivity.

She came to talk to the group. Men were mesmerized. Some men were crying, because they felt they were being understood and not judged. They wanted more of that.

I think Jewish men have not found themselves. This is something women did during the feminist movement. Women learned how to find themselves. In the Jewish world, women met in rosh chodesh groups, created rituals. They gained equality but also found a way to be Jewish women.

ZEEK: Yes, including writing liturgy for women's lifecycle events like menstruation and menopause. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews are doing that now as well, with queer retreats like Nehirim and new LGBT siddurim. But men, well, men used to be the ones to say kiddush while women lit the candles. Now, women say kiddush. What is left for men to do? What is their role?

MB: Jewish men are lost. It's not clear to men what it means to be a man. If they listen to women, what it means to be a man is to be bad, aggressive, fascist. All their good qualities--tenderness, compassion, empathy--are called their feminine side. So what is my masculine side, what is good there?

I feel comfortable, personally, as a man, so I was surprised when a male congregant said I was a feminine rabbi. Why do you say that? I asked him. Well, he said, you cry, you talk about feelings, you hug. I can't relate to that. I was stunned. So I was thinking, what is a male role model?

ZEEK: That question reminds me of the poet Robert Bly, who wrote a memoir titled Iron John about his need to recover his inner warrior. Feminists criticized him for believing that the only way to be masculine was to be aggressive, a warrior. Can't men find a way to be manly without masculinity being associated with aggression and dominance?

MB: That is what I don't know. I do think, though, that we have an imbalance in Jewish life. I believe that men don't see a place for themselves in Jewish life. Men are not needed anymore basically for anything--not for the minyan, not for the reading of the Torah, not for witnessing. In life in general, men are not needed not as providers, or even as the ones that will impregnate women. Sperm banks do that too.

If the paradigm of the provider, the hunter, the dominant one is past, we men have to generate another paradigm that is liberated from patriarchal weight.

ZEEK: Western culture tells us that men are violent, aggressive and women are peaceful, submissive. Why does that binary have to define us?

MB: Well, what do you think, as a feminist, that men could learn from the feminist movement?

ZEEK: I'm thinking about the physical body. The early feminists, the first wave, often hated their bodies because they saw the female body as soft and vulnerable and what they wanted was to gain power. But once women began gaining more power in culture, we were able to embrace our bodies. I wonder if that is what men need to do? If they need to--well, to be graphic--to reimagine the penis not as a weapon, as a symbol of power and dominance, but in some other way? To find a way to be proud of hardness and strength without it being tied to dominance?

ZEEK: Yes, perhaps someone like King David, who was warrior and lover, king and poet.

MB: I love the David imagery. Yes he was a poet, a lover and a king, though for some, he was not a very good king--he was too controlled by his passions. David was human.

Are men disappearing from Jewish life or from the world of education, social work, etc, because women came in? Because we men don't know how to be without being in control? If that is the case we desperately need to change the paradigm, because nobody is going back to the caves of inequality; that was a human's rights war and it was won.

In the equation of equal but different there is an answer, but I don't know which one is yet.

All in good humor...Don't let it be true in your life.

Why guys feel like no one wants them around.

Things that guys wonder about in the absence of strong fathers/mentors.

Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex:
A Real Look at Pornography

Finding freedom from porn addiction,
pornography addiction, the effects of pornography

Porn & addiction...sex out of context

Porn - A Big Business

Porn's Image of Sex

What Sex is Really About

Effects of Pornography: The Lies of Porn

Effects of Pornography: Bottom Line

Effects of Pornography: The Power of Images

What are the effects of pornography on a man?

Porn Addiction: The Pull of Porn

Porn Addiction: Am I Addicted?

Porn Addiction: What Can I Do?

Is There Any Freedom from Porn Addiction?

Are You Man Enough to ... 'Man'-cation?

What is a man crush?

Do I have a man crush?

Where are the Jewish Men? An Interview with Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein

by Jo Ellen Green Kaiser

All in good humor...Don't let it be true in your life.

Why guys feel like no one wants them around.

Things that guys wonder about in the absence of strong fathers/mentors.

Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex:A Real Look at Pornography

Finding freedom from porn addiction,pornography addiction, the effects of pornography

Porn & addiction...sex out of context

Porn - A Big Business

Porn's Image of Sex

What Sex is Really About

Effects of Pornography: The Lies of Porn

Effects of Pornography: Bottom Line

Effects of Pornography: The Power of Images

What are the effects of pornography on a man?

Porn Addiction: The Pull of Porn

Porn Addiction: Am I Addicted?

Porn Addiction: What Can I Do?

Is There Any Freedom from Porn Addiction?

Are You Man Enough to ... 'Man'-cation?

What is a man crush?

Do I have a man crush?

Where are the Jewish Men? An Interview with Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein

by Jo Ellen Green Kaiser

Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex:
A Real Look at Pornography

Finding freedom from porn addiction,
pornography addiction, the effects of pornography