The Internets are all a flutter about the latest news coming out of Yeshiva University. It all started when the Yeshiva University Beacon published an anonymously written article about a sexual rendezvous at a Manhattan Hotel involving a girl from Stern College. The administrators at YU insisted that the editors of the Beacon take down the offending post or risk losing their affiliation with and funding from Yeshiva University. The editors chose to keep up the post and sever their ties with YU. The post in question wasn’t a modern day Venus in Furs or Lady Chatterley’s Lover. As a stab at erotica it failed to titillate – absent the Orthodox context it would be unremarkable.

The author describes Manhattan as “a city of over 1 million people.” Yes dear, just a little over 1 million. Also noted was that this was one of a series of “rendezvouses” – Oh hon, the plural of “rendezvous” is in fact “rendezvous.” A number of brands are mentioned, namely a Longchamps bag, a Hadaya necklace and Stella Artois beer. Fake Longchamps bags are very popular in China town and with middle class suburbanites who feel that the brand confers upon them some kind of chic Parisian air. It doesn’t. It just means you’re a brand whore. Hadaya necklaces, made in the Old City of Jerusalem and adorned with some pithy engraving (If I forget thee O Jerusalem…) are a favorite of Seminary girls who spend a year in Yerushalayim, as well as Brandeis students studying at Hebrew U on their Junior Year Abroad. Stella Artois beer is notable because it sounds sophisticated but is in fact probably the most boring beer to come out of Belgium, a country noted for its quality beer, chocolates, waffles, fries and incestuous dungeon sex. In other words, also not so sophisticated.

With all that brand name dropping, why does our heroine simply spray on some anonymous “floral perfume?” Was it L’Air Du Temps by Nina Ricci? Light Blue by Dolce & Gabbana? Daisy by Marc Jacobs? Why are you suddenly holding out on us!? She describes “Peeling off my Stern-girl exterior I slip on my lace” – what lace? By who? Is it a pedestrian piece by Victoria Secrets or something fabulous and expensive by Agent Provocateur? These kids are meeting regularly in Midtown Hotels, one has to assume they have some gelt. But wait, later “she” talks about having her dress taken off and her bra discarded… huh? And before that, her lover uses a key to enter the Hotel room. Decent hotels in Midtown don’t use keys.

Ultimately, this simply doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t even believe this was written by a woman. It reads like the work of a hormonally hopped up freshman from Flatbush engaged in wishful thinking and dreaming of being the next Bret Easton Ellis or Jay McInerney. For this the Beacon Editors caused such a hullabaloo? I think they made the intern at New Voices cry (Please, someone explain permalinks and favicons to New Voices?). New Voices of course, broke the story. It has since been covered by all the big New York media outlets, turning this post into an international shanda (!) and causing one of the Beacon editors to resign.

This story was even covered by Gawker in a story titled “Laughably Mild Sex Story Torments the Very Soul of Yeshiva University.” I really enjoy Gawker and this inspired one of the commenters to pen his own Jew sex story that’s worth reading for its sheer ridiculousness and the massive amount of Jew envy that it demonstrates (“Did I mention I was Jewish? Well Yarmulke Yarmulke. There we go.”). You can also read the more realistic One Night in Washington Heights: A seminary story.

Ah well. This is quite a mess. Wait for my next post titled: “I Blame the Maccabeats.”

About the author

wendy in furs

I live and blog anonymously from New York. If my boss knew this was me, I'd be fired in a nano-second. Ha ha! Screw you boss man!

15 Comments

  • That’s what I get for sleeping, somebody else covers the story and does a better job than I would have. The key was also the tell- tale sign for me. But mostly it was just a lame, poorly written story. Your post, on the other hand, and the “One Night in Washington Heights” story brought out peals of laughter.

  • I thought those girls go for Coach bags. Then again, “Longchamp” is what I might nickname a Hungarian lover.

  • TM: Wendy actually had this ready on Friday but I wasn’t able to add the graphic until tonight.

    Froylein: Oy! But yeah, the typical Longchamp bag is really big, allowing you to easily and discreetly stow toiletries and lacy underthings. They actually make smaller purses and clutches that are legitimately cute though. Don’t ask me how I know this.

    • Oy? Don’t ask me how I know this. ๐Ÿ˜‰

      But this tells us that the lace wasn’t silk. You can fold even a silk nightie down to the size of a matchbox.

  • I would be happy to lead a discussion on this topic. Y.U. needs someone to facilitate a conversion regarding having loyalty to Y.U. and creating a safe forum for students to discuss issues of concern. Y.U. is a fantastic school and I have spent most of my life there as either a student or teacher. I am greatly disturbed by the bad press this article has created. No other institution can match torah umadah which is communicated at Y.U. Let us graduates and students have pride in our fantastic place of Torah learning . RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG

  • Dear Rabbi, the first place you should look is the student association at YU which took the steps of pressuring the Beacon because of this story and essentially caused this publication to become an off-campus YU publication by forcing it to choose between its freedom of speech and the values of the leadership of the student association.

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