Bodily autonomy

Bodily autonomy is a struggle over who may interpret the narrator’s body, set the terms of intimacy, and decide what obligations it carries. In her marriage to Eli, religious reasoning and domestic expectations make her feel responsible for his sexual needs while leaving little room for her own wishes. Later, her refusal to submit to mikvah scrutiny and her declaration that she no longer wants to feel obligated mark a change from managing his expectations to claiming authority over her own life.

Religious Obligation and Intimacy

Eli repeatedly tells the narrator that Hasidic men are forbidden to masturbate. He presents this rule as making her responsible for satisfying him: if she refuses, she would supposedly cause him to sin and share the burden of his wrongdoing. In this account, a restriction on men’s behavior becomes a demand placed on his wife. Her desire or reluctance is displaced by a framework that treats his sexual frustration as her responsibility.

The narrator finds it difficult to explain why she tenses when Eli approaches her. He does not understand why she would deny him pleasure, and she describes the encounters as leaving her dignity and sense of self-worth diminished. The account centers not on mutual intimacy but on the imbalance between his expectation of release and her inability to make her discomfort count. Her silence is not evidence that she welcomes the arrangement: it reflects the difficulty of communicating with someone who does not recognize the question as a shared one.

Pregnancy briefly gives her a practical way to avoid sex. Eli is afraid of hurting the baby and believes the baby might be able to see him from inside her. Although she knows this belief is mistaken, she does not correct him; the resulting respite is welcome. The episode shows how little direct power she feels she has to refuse. Instead of explaining her wishes and having them respected, she can rely on his fear to create a temporary limit.

Compromise, Resentment, and Distance

The narrator also learns that agreeing to Eli’s advances can help her get what she wants in other parts of life. Afterward, he is more likely to smile and let her have things her way; when she denies him, he becomes grumpy. Intimacy thus acquires a transactional use, even as she resents the conditions that make it useful. His brief warmth offers a contrast with his resentment, but it does not persuade her that he values her beyond what her body provides.

That sense of being used is sharpened by what happens after sex: Eli gets dressed and leaves. When she tries to tell him how the pattern makes her feel, he laughs her off and asks what else he is supposed to do if they are finished. The narrator recognizes that she does not want him to stay in the bed, and does not want him there in the first place. What she wishes she could escape is the painful clarity of the role she believes she occupies in the household, and the fear that her husband does not cherish her for more than the physical pleasure he receives.

Mikvah Observance and Private Decisions

The narrator eventually stops going to the mikvah. The week before each visit had brought stomachaches because she dreaded the questions about her cycle, miscarriages, and whether she was trying to become pregnant again. She also resented the women’s scrutiny of makeup and nail polish. Her account makes the ritual’s social surroundings part of the issue: the intrusion was not only the requirement to attend, but also the expectation that other women could question her private life and judge her appearance.

Instead, on mikvah nights she leaves for a few hours with a magazine. Sometimes she parks outside a Starbucks on Route 59 and watches modern Orthodox girls studying for exams. This interval is not described as an open confrontation. It is a private withdrawal from the examination she has come to dread, a way to make time and space for herself while keeping her decision out of view.

She understands the religious rule to mean that Eli should not have intercourse with her if she has not gone to the mikvah. He nevertheless does not hesitate, and she cannot tell whether his desire outweighs his religious fear or whether he suspects nothing. The uncertainty leaves her carrying the consequences of a concealed choice while the apparent rule remains in place. She fears the religious condemnation attached to women who act as she does, including the claim that a child conceived in those circumstances would be impure throughout life.

Her decision about contraception is more definite. She says she is not going to become pregnant because she is using birth control and does not intend to stop again. The statement places pregnancy within her own planning rather than treating it as an inevitable result of marriage or religious duty. It is a concrete boundary amid unresolved questions about the mikvah and Eli’s knowledge.

Unequal Expectations and the Final Reversal

The couple’s different expectations are also apparent before sex. Eli wants kissing and touching to make the experience last; the narrator wants it to be over quickly. Their arguments and periods of silence make his desire for a romantic lead-in especially discordant with the state of their relationship. He cleans the kitchen while she is supposedly at the mikvah, apparently hoping that she will be pleased to return to a tidier house. She doubts that housework can make her pliant or happy, and their brief kissing does not bridge the distance between them: she bites, dislikes the sensation, and he eventually gives up.

These episodes establish bodily autonomy as more than a question of whether the narrator can refuse a single advance. Her choices are constrained by religious guilt, the prospect of Eli’s resentment, the absence of mutual understanding, and the expectation that she attend a ritual involving intrusive questions. Even when she finds ways to delay intimacy or avoid the mikvah, secrecy remains necessary. The distinction between what she permits and what she actually wants becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

In her later account of freedom, she says she has broken free of both physical and intangible bonds and no longer experiences the physical symptoms of anxiety. She describes being able to understand and accept her feelings, and states that she does not want to feel obligated again. Her view of sex now includes a distinction between liking the act and liking the person with whom it happens; the latter matters more. She also celebrates making her own romantic choices, even when men call her bossy, and says she likes to call the shots. The arc does not erase the earlier compromises or make them seem freely chosen. It changes the governing principle: intimacy and romance must be compatible with her own judgment, rather than duties imposed through another person’s desire or religious authority.