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I have recently realised I am attracted to men (as well as women). I’ve kept shomer negiah for most of my teen life towards women, but now that I have concretely accepted my bisexuality, I feel like the logical (though not halachically attested) thing to do would be to be SN with both men and women. Do I try this and risk letting other orthodox men that I’m not straight? Do other orthodox bisexual people do this? Is it worth it/does it have any kind of precedent? Or, since you can’t yet get married to the same gender within Orthodox Judaism, do I give up being shomer negiah with men/either of the two/both? I really have no idea and would appreciate any insight! Also nervous to ask my rabbi…
More than outing yourself to other men, I would be concerned about touch starvation and social isolation.
Marriage has shifted from primarily reproductive to primarily companionship. Humans are no longer struggling with population decline, but cultures have not quite caught up.
I think that we will need to make larger shifts that recognize people outside of the molds of allocishet man and allocishet woman, but in the meantime, preserving your place among other men in terms of dancing and other touch is important emotionally.
tl;dr in your place, I would probably compromise by avoiding yichud but allowing touch in group settings
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That makes a ton of sense and avoiding touch with people you’re interested in rather than your entire gender is an elegant solution. That said, the image your comment first put into my head was of an Orthodox teen romance story when the lead gets butterflies from all the ways his crush doesn’t touch him