This Shabbos, serial speaker Rivkie Slonim was invited to enlighten the masses at Engelson’s on “the Jewish perspective on intimacy.” Quite a nice crowd showed up, almost 100 people crammed into the first-floor shul, roughly 70 girls and 30 guys. She started out with a breezy disclaimer: feel free to interrupt, ask questions, or throw the provided jellybeans at her if you took issue with anything she said. Sounds reasonable, right?
Rebbetzin Slonim opens with a little pop-psychology taxonomy: there are different “types” of intimacy: emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical. But, she announces, we’re not really here to talk about physical intimacy. No, that’s apparently not worth discussing (poor Rabbi Aaron). We’re going to focus on the real business: emotional intimacy, especially for men, who, in her view, apparently need to be brought up to the emotional standards set by women. From minute one, she’s locked the whole conversation into an inappropriately gynocentric frame, one where women’s desires and needs are simply the default, and men’s are remedial homework at best. The implication isn’t even subtle: men’s gateway to connecting is backwards, primitive, something to be outgrown or apologized for. And, for the cherry on top, she repeatedly referred to G-d as a “he-she.” Whatever that means in her religion of TED Talk Feminism Torah, it was clear that we weren’t exactly off to a swimming start.
One of the main points she hit on in her speech was the need to “acknowledge and understand the differences between us in relationships.” For one brief moment, I actually thought we might be headed in a productive direction. Maybe, just maybe, she’d address the actual, practical, biologically-rooted differences between men and women and how to address them in a healthy, uniting approach. Something relevant, you know, to 99% of the crowd looking for an opposite-sex partner. So, I pressed her: What are those differences we need to work with? Cue the crash landing. She made it clear she didn’t mean the differences between men and women, just generic, abstract differences between “people.” What an oddly stupid take to have in a conversation that is literally about how to be intimate with the opposite sex. This is someone who claims extensive expertise in relationships, and she can’t name a single substantive male/female difference? Presumably, this should be the one question she could rattle off answers to in her sleep. Instead, we got another bland spoonful of “everyone’s different,” as if that’s ever helped anyone in the real world. Politically correct, obviously false, and absolutely useless.
But let’s cut through the TED Talk fluff and get serious. A healthy, successful relationship does begin from a solid, grown-up recognition of the different orders that men and women actually connect and initiate intimacy. Once you honestly acknowledge that from a place of respect, then you have the ability to discuss and work on just how to handle those differences. Yes, men and women are different. This shouldn’t be a controversial statement, unless you’re Rivkah Slonim, then it’s apparently some kind of hate crime that the Dean of Binghamton will personally investigate.
Here’s the grown-up truth that Slonim’s gynocentric worldview can't handle, but would have been super helpful for everyone in the room to hear: for most men, emotional intimacy isn’t a prerequisite to physical connection, it’s the result of it. For men, acts of touch, sex, and shared experience open the door to vulnerability, emotional connection, and deeper love. Physicality is the bridge, not the reward. Women, meanwhile, typically require the inverse: an emotional bond is the foundation that makes physical intimacy meaningful, safe, and even possible. They need to feel heard, valued, and emotionally secure before they can genuinely want to connect physically. This is what should have been clearly acknowledged and expounded upon with subsequent practical advice on how to address these differences presented from such an "experienced" speaker on the topic.
A mature relationship, one that’s built to last, doesn’t imply or have undertones that one sexes pathway is “better” or “more meaningful.” It’s not about re-educating men to become more in tune with their feminine, or demanding that women ignore their emotional wiring. The healthy approach acknowledges that both sets of needs are legitimate, both are primal, given to us by Hashem, and both have to be enmeshed for anything resembling a healthy lasting relationship to occur.
This means men have to actually put in the work: to engage emotionally, to empathize, to provide the safety and understanding their partner craves, to be present and attuned, not just physically available. But it also means women need to recognize that physical intimacy isn’t some “bonus prize” for good behavior. It’s the pathway for their partner to open up, feel loved, and become emotionally vulnerable. When both sides truly acknowledge and understand this, and stretch beyond their default wiring, real, sustainable connection can be built. That’s what actual Torah wisdom looks like: not the Whatever podcast explained through a gynocentric lens, but a covenant of giving, stretching, and honest effort.
But with Rivkah Slonim, her faux-feminist Torah and her college-campus theology, suddenly only one side’s wiring counts. When pressed for real-world examples of many of the theoretical concepts she was discussing, she seemed either unwilling or unable to provide any. Rebbetzin Slonim (and the entire crowd of “empowerment” speakers she represents) takes the most unbalanced, unproductive approach imaginable: she implicitly treats women’s emotional needs as the gold standard, and valid, the only metric that matters. Men’s needs? Those are, at best, ignored; at worst, pathologized, as if a man whose beginning desire of physical intimacy is either immature, broken, or primitive. (She literally suggested I go watch porn as a response to my question on the topic. In addition to being highly inappropriate, that was likely the least productive answer that someone could provide.)
This isn’t just laughable. It’s actively destructive, especially in a generation where relationships are already fragile. It’s the kind of ideological poison that convinces women that their needs are profound and urgent, while men’s are animalistic, selfish, or simply shameful. If anyone took anything away from her speech, it would be a recipe for even more broken relationships: one gender’s struggles elevated as existential, the other’s dismissed as trivial. Progress, apparently.
If you want a healthy relationship with a member of the opposite sex, you need something Slonim will never offer: honest respect for the way Hashem created each sex and the differences He gave us. Developing an appreciation for these differences and understanding why Hashem made us this way allows us to see the unique strengths each sex brings to a relationship and to a family. This awareness is crucial for building real respect and love between partners.
You also need the maturity to meet your partner’s needs, even when it’s uncomfortable or unnatural for you. True intimacy is a two-way street: men must develop emotional muscles that aren't always innate, while women must value their partner’s need for physical connection as not just valid, but vital. Only when both sides put in real effort, stretching, giving, and respecting that the path to each person's needs looks different, can you build something healthy and lasting.
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