I don’t fear so often these days that I’m losing control. Therapy is calming. I can bounce my life off someone sharp and get greater clarity. It also gives me accountability.
My therapist names things I’m going through such as erotic rage and fear of abandonment. Then I can Google and understand more deeply what ails me. It’s comforting to know that I am not alone. It feels good that my problems are not unique. It makes me feel less ashamed. That there’s not something congenitally wrong with me. I do bad things at times but I am not inherently bad. I don’t have to hide who I am because it is just so darn awful.
I’ve never dated an Orthodox girl. That’s not my choice. That’s their choice.
I don’t think they’re frigid. The longer the skirt, the quicker it comes off.
Sure, there might be old, fat or dumb Orthodox broads who would date me but nobody primo. I want primo.
Orthodox women are in a position to know me best. They’re more likely to know people who know me well. They know the mores of Orthodox Jews and they’re more likely to be appalled by how flagrantly I’ve violated them.
Orthodox life is intimate. There are high standards. You get to know people. Really know people. It’s harder to fool an insider in your community than an outsider. When you deal with the non-Orthodox, they might not know you’re a dog.
Knowing I’ve never dated an Orthodox woman makes me feel like my Orthodoxy is a fraud.
I can’t even remember when I last asked out an Orthodox woman. It might be six years or ten years.
About ten years ago, somebody at my Orthodox shul who did not know me well set me up with a very plain Jane. We met for an hour over coffee. I liked her. She must’ve gone home and Googled me because when I spoke to her next, she was abrupt and couldn’t wait to get off the phone. She started referring to me as the porno guy.
About a year later, I dated her roommate, who was way into me but not as sharp as I like them. A lot of sweet women have been sweet on me, even some Orthodox ones, but they didn’t turn my pointer up.
In the summer and fall of 2001, I was ejected for being a fraud from three Orthodox shuls — in order, Young Israel of Century City, Beth Jacob, and Chabad Bais Bezalel. I hadn’t yet completed my conversion to Orthodox Judaism through a recognized Beit Din (Jewish law court) even though I’d been in the Pico-Robertson community since 1994. Also, I made my living from blogging about the porn industry at lukeford.com.
To the best of my ability, I kept quiet about these shortcomings within the community. Just had to get them straightened out and then I’d be my honest self.
A seminal blogger, I made most of my living most of the time from 1997 to 2007 writing about that other Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley, interviewing hundreds of directors, writers, producers, prostitutes and porn stars.
I heard once that you can tell a man’s character by how he earns his living. In that case, my character was decidedly stained.
When I quit writing on porn in October 2007 and sold lukeisback.com, I had $17,000 in the bank. Now I have next to nothing in the bank and $45,000 in credit card debt. Blogging about things outside of porn have not proved to be as lucrative.
I did not complete my formal conversion to Orthodox Judaism until September 2009. By that time, more than a decade of living a double life had taken its toll. I had a hard time looking Orthodox Jews in the face, let alone asking out their daughters. I felt my place in the community was so tenuous that I didn’t want to risk any blowback from an inter-community romance gone wrong. Dating shiksas was much safer.
I remember a one-night stand gone terribly wrong several years ago. The woman blogged I was a bad lover. She called me “Thumper.” She said I had no clue about how to make love to a woman. I just hammered away at her. Worse than that, I put my hand over her mouth when she moaned too loudly.
I live in a religious neighborhood. I’m surrounded by families with young kids. I don’t want them disturbed by some broad in the throes of cock-drunk ecstasy.
Geez, I should only use my dark powers over the opposite sex for good.
In the fall of 2001, after I had sworn off writing on porn and sold lukeford.com, I went to a labor day barbecue at the home of a member of my new shul. We’d gone to Talmud class daily for many months but only started talking over the past few weeks.
His wife was gorgeous. A gorgeous blonde grandmother. And she didn’t like me.
When she found out I’d never married, she said, “It doesn’t make any sense why anyone would be Orthodox if they didn’t have kids.”
Then she found out I was a convert to Judaism.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would anyone become Jewish? Unless you’re doing it to write an expose. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me and that’s what I believe.”
To get away from her onslaught, I started questioning this 18-year old girl. Her father thought I was flirting and commenced making inquiries about me in the community.
At the end of the davening next Shabbos morning, he and two other burly blokes waved me outside. The Australian gabbai, the one who’d given me an aliyah the week before and who himself would be booted from the shul in a few weeks, said to me, “This clearly is not the place you should pray.”
I stared, mouth open. He continued, “We don’t have to make a scene.”
I nodded, said, “Gut Shabbos” and walked off.
The experience didn’t sour me on Chabad. And I don’t blame these blokes who booted me. I could walk into that shul today no problem. I’m legit. No problem at all.
Haven’t quite done it yet.
I sport a nice long beard these days. If anyone questions whether I’m serious about Torah, they just have to look at me. I’m the real deal.
I’m letting down my hair at times. Occasionally, I stay for kiddush after shul. I talk to people. No single women, but people.
I signed up for frumster.com for three months. No luck. I have attractive female Facebook friends. And I have my goy therapist. I’m doing all the right things.
