I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist, but in 1993, I converted to Judaism. I find that, by and large, Jews are more brash, direct, and blunt than Protestants (just as Australians are more blunt than Americans). Jews are more passionate. I sometimes enjoy that and sometimes not. For instance, I get jarred when Jews go off because of what seem to me trivial things, such as a hiccup in customer service.
For about six months, I’ve been starting my day with an inspiring 12-step phone meeting (not a meeting devoted to sex addiction) and the other day, one of the more frequent speakers started talking about how a guy on Grindr was offering him money for a blowjob. It was the first mention of a blowjob I’ve heard in my hundreds of hours in this program. It was the first mention of Grindr. It was jarring. Of course the speaker had a distinctive Jewish name and an Israeli accent.
