First place in The Degeneration of the Nation's short story competition: "Geography is a Matter of Pornography"

Judges' reasoning: "Geography is a Matter of Pornography" is a live report from the contemporary battlefield of gender relations - dating sites, seemingly written in real-time during the competition's publication on Passover eve. The broader Israeli reality, outside the state of "Haaretz", is reflected in it as an intense mix of traditionalism with permissiveness and secularism with righteousness - which in turn produces a new and daring ideology, both sexual and religious. As Passover turns into a porn festival, and personal sexual history collides with the frustrating technological present, and the ants remind us of the Israelites in Egypt, and breasts remind us of the yeshiva, and the stream of consciousness swirls and revolves around itself at increasing speed - the story reaches a new male festival of freedom at the center of the hurricane, in the eye of the storm.

Porn - The Elephant in the Room (Source)

I met someone on a dating site who wrote in her profile that she knows she's losing almost everyone here - but she's looking for someone who doesn't watch porn. Or for whom porn is a complex issue. Someone who watches but is aware it's not good for him, who might be willing to reduce, and if he's willing to examine the matter she'd be very happy to meet. The wording was heartbreaking: on one hand, the "shall not be seen nor found" of removing leavened bread - and on the other hand, waking up in the middle of the night to find your partner eating a biscuit in bed.

I immediately contacted her and said I don't watch, but not for ideological reasons. Because if you're hungry for bread, why would you want to see cakes on a screen? And I asked: do all men really watch? And she said that since she wrote that, she's had no responses. I said she's convincing me to try, maybe other men know something I don't. Maybe I'm just stupid and old-fashioned. And she said I'm not old-fashioned because she doesn't watch either and isn't old-fashioned. And I thought that if really everyone watches - even within relationships - then this is a secret social revolution. Could it be that porn is the male response to feminism? But I realized there was hope this time.

Because on dating sites you always have to think about what your relative advantage is compared to other men for the woman who's choosing. Because they're flooded. And because all the guys are running away, here I could get someone like her who would never want me otherwise. Like all of them. And here, for the approaching holiday, I received a gift from the site: a rare chance to escape the effect known as "the juice of the garbage" - the stage where only the most problematic in forming relationships remain and they still need to get along with each other. But she didn't want to say what she does for a living, because it's complex, and didn't answer questions and didn't want to give an email, only a phone number. So despite warning lights flashing, I asked for it right on the eve of the holiday. Because I really wanted to have someone so I'd feel that this Passover I'm leaving Egypt.

And right at candle lighting she sent the phone number and wrote me happy holiday and that we'd talk after. So I searched for the phone number on Google while the ultra-Orthodox uncles I went to - because I had nowhere else to be - were already pressuring me hard to close the phone because the sun was setting. And I discovered that she's a freak of militant feminism that only considers what the woman wants, especially in sex. Preaching. Do only what you want. Only what YOU want. And then I saw that her research dealt with pain during penetration. And I already felt like I was invading her privacy but I started entering all the places where she writes to women and discovered that the girl can't have sexual intercourse. And she built a whole ideology from this that sex isn't penetration and tries to convince other women of this too and opposes treating the problem. And she's entirely dedicated to destroying penetration.

And at first I thought I'd think about it, digest it, but then I felt I didn't want it to enter my soul all holiday and also why should she wait and be disappointed at the end. And what I hated most was myself, that here all the men who watch porn are the ones who are right and only I always fall for these sick ones. How can a man live without the most meaningful thing for him. What, just to touch breasts? And I also understood that I mustn't write her the truth because I'm hurting a poor disabled person. What kind of dark secret is it that she felt she had to share it with the whole world and ruin her life because of it. Dedicate her life to it. And drive away any chance of a relationship.

And I snuck the phone to the bathroom so I could write, while they're singing Ha Lachma Anya, it didn't help how much they called me from the bathroom. At moments like these you need to try to muster all your tact. And it got deleted three times and didn't send because there's no reception in the bathroom. Until I held the phone outside the ventilation window and begged God to get me out of this and finally somehow managed, hoping without hurting, but not like the first draft which was successful and sensitive. And it turned out I spent an hour in the bathroom and arrived in the middle of the Seder.

I wrote to her that I Googled and discovered, and that I have a very big aversion to political engagement, certainly in the sexual realm, by virtue of being an old-fashioned and conservative man who yearns for normal relationships, and who is repelled by porn as he is repelled by movies in general. And anyway I'm on the wrong side of history. That my aversion to pornography stems from being stuck in the past, unlike her who is stuck in the future. That I don't put myself in the battlefield between the sexes, certainly not when I'm on the losing side. That I'm sure I'm phrasing things in a messed up way and that she'll hate me but I'm here on the toilet, holding the door so it doesn't open from inside because it barely closes, at the ultra-Orthodox hosts, and everything's already been deleted for me and I'm writing again from scratch and maybe not as well. And apologizing for disappointing her on the eve of the holiday meal. And maybe that's why I'm alone. Hope this sends this time... and sorry.

And all holiday I thought about what she would answer me, because I didn't dare open the phone again. It makes a noise when it opens. And I thought about what I would answer her, what if she gets angry or offended. And how I hate her. After all, she and pornography are in the same category for me, both are agents trying to kill what I love most.

And then I went to synagogue. Because they asked me what I was still doing at home and that everyone had already gone. And I sat there in prayer without saying a word and thought that I need to repent. And I looked in the women's section from below, to see if there are more normal women there than the secular ones. And I couldn't see because everything is dark there. But I thought maybe someone would see me looking and think about me and maybe even ask. But I realized that maybe they wouldn't like me looking. And that I need to pretend I'm praying. And I turned to the front side of God, because the women are behind, and I looked at the wall and despaired. All the girls on the site, how much time I wasted on you, on trying to attract your attention with words. And it didn't help me. Because what always determined were the pictures.

And somewhere it's already better to be alone. Another person is a nightmare. Unless it's a woman. But women today are no longer a woman. They're a person. Who needs that. After all, every time I start with someone and in the end it doesn't work after I courted and made an effort - I suddenly feel relief. Because why should I look for a queen and then have to serve her. So here, I've done my part and I'm clean before God and man. And can finally eat. Don't need to think about a growing belly, or what she'll think about these things you write and don't show anyone. And her you'll have to show. And then she won't like, or she'll say yes but suddenly feel like she's looking at you differently. Or, and this is most correct, that she's not interested at all.

And I fled from the synagogue and went to sit in the back, and found myself among ants. For years I haven't observed ants. Spring has come, an ant has arrived. And I'm looking at these ants running in a visual pattern too complex for me to grasp and I'm getting high from it. Because apparently I accidentally stepped on some convoy there before I sat down. Because there seems to be some scurrying and checking and assessment of the situation there, as if there had been an attack. And it's like the Germans may their name be erased these industrious ants. And I think why is the ant so efficient, unlike almost any other animal? Because they don't reproduce. This answer pops into my head and immediately I understand there's more depth to it than I thought, and I must find it.

Because the lazy and messed up among other species do reproduce. While a lazy ant whose genes got messed up let's say, it can happen like to any animal, but unlike it they don't reproduce and don't pass it on. And only who programs the ants, the queen, she inherits. And therefore their programming will always be good. Meaning there is no selfish gene in ants. And suddenly these ants scared me, after all I don't see countless separate creatures here, but only one creature, divided into many black pieces moving frantically. And this is exactly like how the cells in the body are all industrious. Disciplined. The cells are much more efficient than the whole person. And that's because they don't reproduce. Only the sex cells reproduce, and therefore they are lazy and easily messed up. Meaning all the body cells including in the brain are all judged exploited by the sex cells. That's where the queen sits.

And suddenly I understood the connection between evolution and psychoanalysis - that everything is sex. And from that to feminism. Because it's exactly like the rabbi said in the synagogue that there are 4 different levels in a person corresponding to 4 cups: body, soul, spirit and essence. So evolution is the internalization that everything is sex at the body level, and psychoanalysis the internalization that everything is sex in the soul, and feminism is sexuality as spirit, as gender, and now will come the era where even in the essence they'll say everything is sex. Sex as the measure of all things, including in the essence, including in writing itself. Because literature can also be treated as the sexuality of culture. Where the genetic code is. For example of the religions of the Book. And therefore there is so much laziness and inefficiency and misses there, there are almost no perfect works that editing wouldn't improve. Even the Bible looks like a genetic code that was edited carelessly. Things that don't work well - that's where things reproduce. Therefore sexuality is such a messed up thing, the system that works worst in the body, more than digestion, nerves, growth, anything else. And the brain is also messed up. Because it too is a king. It is after all part of the sexual system, because it determines who to mate with and does it badly. Attracted to unattainable girls and asshole guys. Prefers huge breasts over mothering skills. And instead of real women with real craziness - porn.

And then I remembered the dream about the cows. Because after the Seder night I snuck a glass of milk before sleep to fall asleep, after they had already fallen asleep without them seeing, because we ate meat. And I thought that all this mixing of milk and meat - that's the secret of breasts. And then at night I dreamed that I had to choose the animal I would most want as a partner, and I deliberated between all kinds of animals, until I chose a doe, I traveled to the Carmel to catch one, but she kept running away and didn't want to, and when I put her in a cage she tried to bite me and I couldn't catch her. I'm many things but not a rapist. And the closest thing was that they told me you'll choose cows, because they have the biggest breasts, but I didn't want to choose the cows standing there in the barn. If already the sexiest animal it's a doe. Although animals are disgusting. But what can you do?

The good girls are rare and taken. Although breasts are seemingly within reach, still wandering here and there, it's not such a rare trait in the population. And it's really not fair that women have such a weapon that will always bring me back to them no matter what. I wish them to go to hell but I can't resist that charm. Too bad there aren't institutions for weaning from this thing, after all that's the original meaning of weaning, weaning from breasts. Let's say "Anonymous Breasts". Because we were all addicted. Born addicted. And then they try to encourage the addict that if he managed to wean from breasts then he'll succeed in weaning from the drug, and that's why they call it weaning, that's the Freudian meaning. But it's a lie, because he never weaned from breasts.

As long as I can remember myself they were a dizzying thing, their round shape causes such a whirlpool in the brain, and at the center of the hurricane, the calm at the heart of the storm, the nipple, and with all that I could still deal if there weren't two hurricanes in opposite directions, between which darkness and shadow of death, meaning some entrance to the heart, but you can't really penetrate the heart, and therefore it's a built-in miss, as if everything is built for you to enter there, but precisely there at the peak of attraction, in the most magical valley - there's no hole. In the Talmud they call this place "the glory of her beauty". They say that Gehazi pushed with the height of rudeness the Shunammite woman, who came to beg the prophet Elisha to save her son, and they ask where he pushed her, and answer in the glory of her beauty, and Rashi interprets that this is the place between the breasts, where the peak of a woman's beauty is, this is in Tractate Berachot and it's the thing I remember most from the whole tractate.

I remember the first time I saw breasts, it's one of my earliest memories. I was a 4 year old child and was frightened by the neighbor breastfeeding her child, she had like long worms spilling there, breasts that seemed to me to be falling and falling to the floor, huge, she did it next to the neighbors, and I saw and was very afraid of it, I was frightened that maybe other women also have such things, and I was probably afraid that maybe my mother also has them, although it was clear that my mother doesn't have them, but this is apparently a mutation of nature, something not normal, in my memory they fell at least about 40 cm down, and I think the neighbors said something about it, that only she has them, in any case I remember those breasts to this day, no one thought they needed to hide such a thing from a 4 year old child and at that time all the men were at work in the afternoon so she could simply breastfeed there in the yard next to the other women, during a neighbors' conversation, I remember I saw and ran away.

It's possible I ran home to check that my mother doesn't have such things, but it still scared me that such things could grow on women, and how does it happen, because I think the neighbors remarked something there about these huge breasts, which today of course I would die to touch and grab, but then seemed to me simply scandalous, a disease even, something unnatural, I remember the huge fear, and the even bigger fear that to everyone it seemed natural, it's one of those childhood fears that you felt and didn't tell anyone, that you were ashamed of the fear itself, because I immediately understood that there's something shameful about it, about the whole story.

There were many such fears, which were terrible, but precisely because of that you didn't tell anyone. I'm sure there were but I can't remember any now, but I'm sure I can remember. I was such a child who was very mature and open ostensibly and talks with adults, on the other hand always hiding from adults with a feeling that there are things that are forbidden to say even though they're obvious but precisely because of that you need to hide them, because it's a very deep shame that they would know, and especially that they would know that I know. And so I walked around with the fear of breasts and what women have in their chest, maybe the kindergarten teacher also has it, maybe it's contagious, it was clear to me that it's something not okay and precisely because others treated it as okay it's dangerous.

And then I also remember the first time I heard about porn. Today elementary school children watch porn but then it wasn't like that. It was in connection to one of the students in the yeshiva high school who always talked obsessively about breasts and was always amusing his best friend with it, the most handsome student in the class, with pleasure and embarrassment. And then it was revealed to me after a decade, from a story I wasn't supposed to hear, that he's gay. And in retrospect all the talk about breasts was meant from his perspective to arouse the friend, that's why he disguised his homosexuality precisely in the greatest vulgarity towards women. But actually, it can't be that I was so blind and he really loved women. And they told about him that he would go first to porn movies, and then they told for the first time what porn is, and it seems to me they knew what porn is more than him. Because he was terribly shy and every time a girl talked near him he would get confused and blush like the red of the watermelon (he's the one who invented the fruit categories of breasts that became the class classification). Or maybe a gay man can also love breasts, just not love women. And actually the gay man is one who wants to penetrate between the breasts.

The ants had already gone home, maybe they found some piece of bread from the removal of leavened bread, and I thought to myself that it's a shame they didn't make me the rabbi instead of the nudnik babbling there now. And because of him the prayer doesn't end and they go to eat. Because I would explain to them about the two challah loaves of Shabbat, which are certainly a Freudian symbol for breasts. And in contrast the matzahs of Passover are porn, two-dimensional bread of affliction that didn't rise. And if so Passover is the festival of porn. We remembered the watermelons we used to eat in Egypt! - I would bang on the podium and wake up the sleepers. And then preach enthusiastically to the holy congregation: After all, why did we go down to Egypt in the first place if not to break bread? How fun it was in the granary of the ancient world, before this desert. There, between the pyramids, it was good for the last time! Yes, we really only want girls. Only women are the future. Every son that is born you shall cast into the river. And then you still need to bring him a wet nurse from the Hebrew women so he doesn't die. Addicted to breasts, addicted. We were slaves, slaves. And now thanks to porn - free men.