I had a friend at Columbia named Rebekah; we met while playing on the women's rugby team. She was smart, passionate, and funny, and we got along like a house on fire. She was also an Orthodox Jew, and I'm beyond grateful for her patience and open-mindedness as she answered my ignorant questions about my own religion (I'm sure she still is all these things, but we lost touch when she graduated a year before I did.) My favorite memory of Rebekah is from a rugby social that had a Catholic schoolgirls theme: she wore a tartan skirt past her knees, a white tailored shirt buttoned all the way, pigtail braids, and a sign on her back that said "I'm waiting for marriage." Fantastic, right? We haven't been in contact for years, but I've found myself thinking recently about a story she told me once.
Rebekah is Orthodox, though not from one of the more rigid sects. One summer during college, while she was living and working in DC, she dated a Jewish boy who was more strictly observant than she was. (I'm sorry, I don't know the names for the different groups!) He wasn't permitted to touch women at all, and, though that wasn't a rule that she ascribed to, she understood it and respected it. They dated for more than two months - and, apparently, were talking seriously about next steps in their relationship - but never even held hands. However, they broke up when Rebekah found out he'd been seeing another girl. No, he hadn't just been seeing her; he'd been touching her. The other girl wasn't Orthodox or even Jewish, and, in his mind, she was therefore not marriage material and the usual religious restrictions didn't apply.
Now, this is an extreme example of the point I'm going towards here, but it absolutely goes to show that we each have our own definition of intimacy - and, sometimes, we have more than one. There are different kinds of intimacy, from the purely physical to the purely intellectual and/or emotional and everything in between, and you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who agrees completely with the line you draw on what kind of intimacy is acceptable with whom, where, and when.
I've been exploring that idea a lot recently as I've started learning about the modesty debates that are taking America by storm and as the DOMA and Prop8 cases were heard and ruled on by the Supreme Court. (The modesty issue, while most vocally discussed in conservative/evangelical Christian communities, is not unique to the Church; here's an interesting article on it from an Orthodox Jewish perspective.) What's astounding is that so many of the arguments are not actually about making sure we have the freedom to do (or not) what we want to do (or not), but about mandating what others can and can't do.
You know, dear readers, that I get frustrated when people don't respect the right of others to make their own choices. You don't think that gay marriage is okay? Then don't marry someone of the same sex. (There's a difference between a civil marriage and a religious marriage, and conversations about the latter belong only to your faith community.) You don't think it's acceptable to wear revealing clothes? Then please feel free to cover yourself when you leave the house. (This is why, although I clearly love the idea of the separation of church and state, France's ban on the hijab drives me crazy.) But we all have different definitions for what kind of intimacy is appropriate when and where and with whom, and it's unjust and insulting to not only expect everyone to agree with yours but to mandate that they follow your personal guidelines. Because no matter where you say your rules come from, someone else who claims to believe in the same things will disagree completely.
And do you know how to make sure that doesn't hurt you? By remembering that what other people do doesn't dictate what you have to do. By accepting that a different way of life doesn't necessarily threaten yours. And by understanding that alternative ideas don't mean that yours are wrong. For it is by having enough confidence in our own beliefs that we stop needing others to reinforce them.
