Whither The Shiksa?

Los Angeles Review of Books: The point of all this is that the pejorative of shiksa has been hollowed out: “shiksa” today is used as often as not in winking self-reference. Drew Barrymore, wife of Will Kopelman, recently called herself a shiksa on national television. “The Shiksa” is a popular cooking blog authored by a convert. Shiksa, by Christine Benvenuto, is a book about the difficulties of intermarried and converted wives and girlfriends. Boy Vey!: The Shiksa’s Guide to Dating Jewish Men is exactly what you fear it is.
If the shiksa is the one chasing Jewish men, and not the other way around, then the shiksa has defeated her own purpose, has run her course. Jewish men need a new romantic aspiration. In The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin submits a candidate. “I’m developing an algorithm to define the connection between Jewish guys and Asian girls,” says one Jewish nerd to another in the 2010 film. “I don’t think it’s that complicated,” the second Jewish nerd answers. “They’re hot, they’re smart, they’re not Jewish and they can’t dance.”
The question, then, isn’t whether shiksa is a pejorative; it’s whether she’s even relevant. As a mere aesthetic description, “shiksa” delivers none of the thrill of the forbidden, is no longer the go-to object of lust, is someone your mother would just as likely approve of as not. It may be that she’s become perfectly harmless, despite what the Toronto Police would have you think.