The Stakka
By J. Stone
notunrestricted@gmail.com
Copyright 2011 by J. Stone,
all rights reserved
*
* * * *
This
story is intended for adults only. It contains depictions of forced
nudity,
spanking, and sexual activity of preteen and young teen children for
the
purpose of punishment. None of the behaviors in this story should be
attempted
in real life. If you are not of legal age in your community to read or
view
such material, please leave now.
* * * * *
Synopsis: The author, an
Antropologist, witnesses a secret “rite of passage” involving seven
naked
youths, their mothers, their pastor, and his wife.
Comments
and critiques to notunrestricted@gmail.com
THE STAKKA, 1975
By J. Stone
© 2011
In June, following their
thirteenth birthday and in preparation for their passage into manhood,
youths
of a certain sect -- some might call it a cult -- are given over to the
"Rabbi"
and his wife for fourteen days of intensive, in-residence instruction,
known as
the "Stakka." While
rites of
passage are not at all unusual in human societies, the Stakka and the
ceremony
at the outset of the Stakka was, so far as Jeremy Stone could
determine,
unique.
The community of the faithful
for whom the Stakka was a sacred and very secret event was itself
unique. It was not
Jewish; its
followers believed in the
redemption. Yet
they practiced many of
the conventions of the Jewish religion, contending as a matter of faith
that
"catholic Christians" many centuries ago wrongfully abandoned the
sacraments and ceremonies of Jesus's birthright.
They observed Sabbath on Saturday; they
belonged to "congregations"; they ate no pork; they called their
pastors "rabbi"; they circumcised their male infants in a ceremony
they called "the Bris."
Jeremy discovered this unusual
community and learned of its practices in 1963.
One evening, while the Jewish youth of his undergraduate
Student's
Anthropology Association discussed the socio-psychological (or was it
the
psycho-sociological?) significance of their Bar Mitzvahs, Jeremy spoke
in
passing of his own initiation at age twelve into the all-male
priesthood of his
natal religion. And
when the chortling
faded, the only other Gentile of the group, Arthur, mentioned that he,
too, had
undergone an initiation of sorts at thirteen.
But when invited to elaborate, and apprehending (Jeremy
assumed) that he
also could become the butt of a Semitic joke, Arthur replied only: "It
was
nothing, really; not nearly as significant as what you've all gone
through." The
Jewish majority lost
itself, then again, in the mirthful exchange of happy Bar Mitzvah
memories.
Following the meeting, Jeremy
pressed Arthur unsuccessfully to explain his cryptic remark. The best of the
undergraduate Anthropology students
and already, as a Junior, thoroughly committed to a career in the
field, Arthur
was curiously reluctant to discuss his own cultural heritage. But during the next few
months, Jeremy's
persistence, empathy, and sensitivity -- these, and a promise, written
metaphorically "in blood," never to reveal anything that would enable
anyone to identify the religion to which Arthur (not his real name)
adhered or
to pinpoint the location of any of its congregations -- paid dividends.
What was immediately most
striking to Jeremy was the similarity between Arthur's heritage and his
own. Like Jeremy's,
Arthur's religion
emerged in the third decade of the Nineteenth Century from the
so-called
"burnt-over" district of Central and Western New York.
The adherents of Arthur's religion, like
those of Jeremy's, fled New York in the fourth decade of the Century to
escape
persecution, for the very reason practitioners of Moses's faith fled
Egypt
several millenia before. Moses's
tribe
parted the Red Sea; Jeremy's,
the Great
Plain; Arthur's, the primeaval forest.
Each found its Zion -- Moses's, in a God-forsaken strip on
the barren
Eastern shore of the Mediterranean; Jeremy's in the Great Basin, which
was then
in Mexico; Arthur's, in the largely inhospitable, frigid wastes of
Canada. Though
flight brought no end to the envy and
hostility of outsiders, all three tribes survived --
Moses's, by martyrdom; Jeremy's, by asserting
itself; Arthur's by silence.
Jeremy's
conquered its environment and grew, through aggressive "missionary"
activity, into a minor world religion, the nation's wealthiest
"charitable" organization, and one of its largest, most profitable
business enterprises. Arthur's
learned
to live at peace with itself and the world in its own tiny sphere -- a
few
thousand souls in a cluster of congregations that perpetuated itself by
procreating, rather than proselytizing.
Day by day, piece by piece,
charmed by Jeremy's gentle, sincere urging and compelled by his own
commitment
to knowledge, Arthur recounted the essentials of his community's
history,
beliefs, and rituals. He
volunteered,
ultimately, that he had been circumcised ceremonially as an infant, and
the
event had been reaffirmed ceremonially at thirteen.
Jeremy forgave Arthur's
failure to remember the rituals of his infancy, and he understood his
friend's
reluctance to speak of sacred, secret events of his adolescence. In practicing his own
childhood religion,
Jeremy had himself had experiences that he would tell Arthur only after
considerable hesitation -- his
baptism,
following his eighth birthday, in which he and other boys his age were
herded
into a makeshift dressing room in the basement of the chapel to be
stripped
naked and robed by their mothers in oversized white cotton knit
pullovers that
doubled as baptismal gowns; the billowing of the gown about his midriff
on
entering the font as a dozen others, male and female, watched, awaiting
their
turns; his
immersion at the hands of
Elder Harden, which had to be repeated when, on the first attempt, his
ill-clad
posterior bobbed to the surface; his
emergence from the font, the clinging-wet gown revealing the private
details of
his young anatomy; being
stripped again,
toweled, and dressed by his mother in the crowded, makeshift dressing
room that
satisfied the dictates of modesty only by giving eight year old girls
their
own, separate, similarly crowded dressing room.
Then, his participation at twelve in a Temple ceremony in
which, wearing
flimsy cotton shifts, he and Kirk and Perry descended steps into a font
to be
dunked by strangers, then mounted steps again to sit sopping wet on a
cold
stone pedestal to be confirmed by strangers, one after another, a dozen
times
in turn, in surrogate for those who had the misfortune of dying before
God revealed
to the prophet the Eternal Truth.
As he described his baptismal
experiences, Jeremy realized that he had never spoken of them before --
to his
parents, his sister, or his friends.
Nor
could he recall ever having heard anyone else in his family or among
his
friends talk about personal experiences with baptism or with that other
most
sacred sacrament of the creed, Temple marriage.
There was, Jeremy knew,
something very mysterious in a Temple marriage, though he knew very
little
about it other than that the bride and the groom were each given
"temple
garments," one-piece unisex undersuits that they were to wear forever
thereafter, yea even as they bathed, as a symbol of their eternal bond
to one
another. Temple
garments were hard to
hide: they had to
be washed and hung out
to dry from time to time. But
was there
something else in the ceremony so sacred that the memory of it could
not be
shared with others? Was
there something
done therein to or with the bride and/or the groom that made the couple
so
remarkably prolific (procreationally speaking) during its first two or
three
decades of wedded bliss? Fodder
for the
imagination.
Was the Stakka, for Arthur,
something roughly akin in "speakability" to the Temple marriage of
Jeremy's heritage? The
difference, of
course, was that Arthur had experienced a Stakka.
Jeremy had never been wed in a Temple, and
probably never would be. Whatever
the
case, Arthur refused to speak of the Stakka in 1963, except in the most
general
terms. But his
friendship with Jeremy
grew over the years until, overcome finally by Jeremy's persistent
entreaties
and his own growing respect for Jeremy's professionalism, Arthur
conspired to
permit his friend's participation in a Stakka, as an observer.
Consummating the conspiracy
took some doing. Arthur
introduced
Jeremy to Rabbi Harris in 1972. Jeremy
broached the subject. Harris
blanched: The
Stakka, he declared, was strictly a
private ceremony for the boys and their mothers.
"But," rejoined
Arthur, "Others have been admitted as observers from time to time. During my own Stakka, in
1956, a young man,
unrelated to any of the families in the Congregation stood alongside
Rabbi
Jensen during the initial ceremony and came along afterwards for the
retreat."
"I know. That was
me," said Harris.
"You mean you were
... When I ... "
"Careful, Arthur! Do
not give up the secrets of our
creed."
"Rabbi Harris!" Arthur
paused briefly, then continued:
"No one has more respect for our sacred traditions than I. Dr. Stone, though not of
our faith, shares my
reverence. I have
known him for ten
years, and during this time I have taught him all the tenets of our
faith,
except this one. He
understands what we
are about and respects us for what we are.
He is interested in the Stakka for professional reasons,
because the
Stakka represents a 'rite of passage' -- a very successful one, in my
opinion
-- and because he has turned himself into something of a specialist in
such
things."
The exchange between Arthur
and his Rabbi continued thus, off
and on
for several months, usually in writing, sometimes by telephone, and
occasionally (if rarely) in person.
Finally Rabbi
Harris relented:
Jeremy could observe the ceremony on condition that he play the part of
"Rabbi-in-training" and keep his mouth shut during and forever
after. Arthur's
nephew, Frederick, would
be among the celebrants.
The number of youths involved
varied from year to year as a function of demography and the size of
the
Congregation. Arthur's
Stakka in 1956
had but three celebrants. Ten
years
later, in 1966, there were seventeen.
In
1975, the year Jeremy Stone witnessed the ceremony, there were seven. By virtue of unusual
circumstances, one of
the youths entered a few weeks prior to his thirteenth birthday;
another had
already passed his fourteenth.
All seven had attended the Sabbath
classes that Rabbi Harris had conducted for them during the several
preceding
weeks. Without
revealing what would
happen during the Stakka, Harris taught the boys how to behave: they
were not
to be embarrassed by or ashamed of anything that might befall them, nor
were
they to hide their emotional and physical reactions, either during the
ceremony
at the outset of the Stakka or during the retreat.
Emotional and physical reactions were
expected in the passage from childhood to adulthood, part of becoming
men.
The Rabbi and his wife had
discussed the ceremony with the parents.
Each boy was to be given into the Stakka, preferably by
his natural
mother. In the
absence of a mother,
however, another female relative could serve as surrogate. In that event, the boy's
family would call
first upon the father's sisters, starting with the eldest, then upon
the boy's
sisters (if older than he and already in womanhood), the boy's paternal
grandmother, his maternal grandmother, his stepmother, the wife of his
father's
brother, and the wife of his own brother.
Of the seven given in 1975, one was given by his eighteen
year-old
sister; another by his aunt; a third by his stepmother.
The ceremony took place on
Sabbath, after worship. Rabbi
Harris had
directed the boys and their mothers (or surrogate mothers) to gather at
the
altar after everyone else had departed:
no one but the participants themselves and one outsider, a
Rabbi-in-training,
would witness the ceremony.
Jeremy found the Rabbi on the
appointed day, at the appointed time, exchanging pleasantries with his
congregation as it filed out of the main portal of his temple. Having bid farewell to
last of the group, the
Rabbi acknowledged the newcomer.
"Very well," he said, extending his hand, "follow
me." Entering the
foyer, he closed
and secured the heavy doors behind him, then led Jeremy into the chapel
to meet
the seven boys, their seven "mothers," and Arabella, his wife. The women, Jeremy noted,
were mostly at ease,
showing evidence on occasion of a quiet, reverent joviality. The boys, however, showed
signs of tension or
excitement or, perhaps, some of each.
Introductions done, the Rabbi
left Arabella and the other women behind to prepare the chapel as he
led Jeremy
and the boys into the school wing, across the well-polished floor of a
diminutive
gymnasium, and into the men's locker.
There, he handed each boy a bar of soap, a towel, and a
large brown bag
on which he (or Arabella) had inscribed the boy's first name. He told the boys to
disrobe, fold their
clothes carefully, and pack them into the bags together with anything
else,
such as watches, rings, and chains, that they might have upon their
bodies.
When the youths, nude,
finished their packing, the Rabbi ordered them into the shower. He admonished them to be
thorough in the job:
"Do not allow anyone to leave the spigot who is not squeaky
clean!" Then, while
the boys
scrubbed themselves and one another, Jeremy and the Rabbi carried the
bulging
brown paper bags back to the chapel.
They spent the next fifteen minutes or so there,
conversing with the
women and checking on the preparation of the dais, onto which Arabella
had
placed a small carpeted platform and, in front of it, a short padded
bench.
On returning to the Locker,
Jeremy and the Rabbi found the boys wrapped in their soggy towels,
fretting
noisily about what had become of their clothing.
When, finally, he quieted their entreaties,
Rabbi Harris spoke to the boys briefly about the solemnity and beauty
of the
occasion. He
reminded them of what they
had been told before: they
were not to
be embarrassed. They
were, after all,
creatures of God, boys on the verge of manhood:
"You must be proud of who and what you are. Rejoice in humanity, of
which you are part,
and in your bodies, which are merely expressions of your humanity. Do not try to hide or
suppress the emotions, the
feelings, the reactions you will have on this very special occasion."
Upon completing this
well-practiced soliloquy, Harris ordered the boys to follow him back to
the
chapel and leave their towels behind them, in the laundry bin, "for,"
he intoned, "you must go naked before God."
At the entrance to the chapel,
seeing their mothers gathered informally to the right of the dais, the
boys
stopped short, falling upon one another as they tried vainly to hide in
the
shadows or behind a neighbor. Hearing
the commotion behind him and the sound of an ill-suppressed chortle
from the breast
of a mother, the Rabbi turned toward the boys:
"Come, Thomas, embrace your Aunt."
His voice was firm, compelling.
"Come, Michael, embrace your Sister, who
loves you. Come,
all of you, embrace
your Mothers."
One by one, self-consciously,
the boys did the Rabbi's bidding.
Yet,
as they approached their mothers, they tried to cover themselves; and
upon
reaching the women, they tried to hide within the folds of their skirts. But the mothers and
surrogate mothers knew
what to expect and how to handle it.
Each grasped her son firmly, at the hips or upon the
shoulders, and
pushed him forward, into line with the others, facing the dais.
Standing in front of the
platform, Arabella to his left and Jeremy at his right, Rabbi Harris
called the
first boy. Mark,
with a helpful nudge
from his mother, moved to the dais and climbed upon the platform. He slouched, turning away
from his mother and
the other celebrants, hiding himself beneath cupped hands. The Rabbi whispered a few
words in his ear,
whereupon he turned, faced the Rabbi, straightened his body, dropped
his arms
loosely to the side, and lifted his head to gaze upon the stained glass
window
at the rear of the chapel. His
mother,
having followed him to the dais, stood next to him, on his left. She placed her right hand
upon his shoulder,
then cradled his penis in the palm of her left hand.
Mark flinched upon feeling the coolness of
his mother's hand on the underside of his organ.
He glanced furtively at that symbol of his
masculinity, then raised his eyes again to focus, if possible, upon the
glass master's
vision of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Rabbi Harris pronounced a few
words in Hebrew, a prayer about fertility.
He paused then, glanced at the mother; then at Mark. The boy showed no obvious
emotion. Then,
Harris placed his right hand atop the
boy's penis, wrapping his fingers around the mother's hand so as to
envelop the
organ in a tight, warm cocoon.
They stood thus -- the Rabbi,
the naked youth, and his mother -- while the Rabbi composed his
thoughts. A few
seconds passed. Perhaps
a minute. The boy
swayed a bit, from toe to heel and
from one foot to the other as he struggled intuitively to keep his
balance on
the small square beneath his tightly joined feet.
His mother shifted her weight ever so slightly. The Rabbi's grip upon the
mother's hand
relaxed a bit, then tightened again, fondly perhaps, as he thought of
Mark and
of all the boy was and could be.
However, neither Mark's mother nor the Rabbi sensed the
movements, the
moments, that Mark felt so strongly upon his Member.
After a bit, the Rabbi
pronounced a blessing in English.
He
spoke of the boy and of the man to be; having instructed Mark in
Sabbath
school, he knew the young man's personality well enough. He knew, too, what he saw of
the youth's
developing body -- and he saw it all -- and he felt the boy's
instrument in his
hand, and the devotion of his mother through hers.
The blessing for Mark, as for
every other boy, was unique. Some
youths
at thirteen are still children; in others, signs of emerging manhood
are
clearly apparent: wisps of hair on the pubes, enlarged testicles,
broadening
shoulders, tightening pectorals. Mark
was no longer a boy, physically. Nor
was
he yet a man. The
Rabbi spoke again of
fertility and the seed Mark would one day sow. Sometimes, at such
times, the
instrument beneath the Rabbi's hand remained flaccid, unresponsive, a
weak pupa
nearly imperceptible to the Rabbi and to the mother, to whom it was,
nevertheless, something precious and dear.
But usually, as in Mark's case, the swelling instrument of
the subject's
manhood throbbed in its sacred womb.
The
Rabbi knew the difference and all the variations between. He sensed the thoughts
racing through the
boy's mind. He
adapted his words to the
occasion.
When he finished his blessing,
a prophecy of what would be, or of what one hoped would be, the Rabbi
paused. A few
seconds of silence; then,
with a quick squeeze the Rabbi released the mother's hand. Mark flinched, again. The mother pulled away the
soft cradle in
which her son's penis had rested.
The
penis then lay (stood, in Mark's case) free of obstruction.
A small bowl of ruby red
liquid appeared beneath the penis, in Arabella Harris's right hand. She reached out with her
left hand, took the
organ firmly between her thumb and index finger and immersed its tip,
the circumcised
head, into the sweet, cold nectar.
Again
Mark flinched. Rabbi
Harris knelt upon
the bench. He
extended his right hand,
grasped the penis at its base, between thumb and index finger, and
pronounced
the following invocation:
Some thirteen years ago, on
the occasion of your circumcision, Rabbi Swenson, having filled his
mouth with
sacred wine, took this organ into it, and, so, cleansed and sanctified
the
fresh wound of your heritage. So,
too,
as a reminder of that day and to affirm your heritage, Mark, I cleanse
this
instrument, this gift of your birth and tool of your fatherhood, in
sacred
wine, and sanctify it by my lips, in the name of God.
Upon completion of this
blessing, Mrs. Harris released her hold upon the boy's penis; Rabbi
Harris
lifted it from the bowl, placed the dripping glans firmly between his
lips, and
with his tongue slowly, methodically, cleaned away the crimson fluid. When he finished this holy
task, he took the
bowl from his wife, handed it to Mark's mother, and invited her to
drink to the
spiritual and temporal health of her son and his progeny. She grasped the bowl in
both hands, raised it
to her lips, sipped from it fervently, then returned it, together with
most of
its contents, to the Rabbi, who handed it to the boy, saying: "Take
this
chalice, my son, and drink. Drink
to
your manhood, to all that you are, to all that you shall become." The
boy,
Mark, lifted the bowl to his lip and drank.
When the liquid was consumed -- for some boys, it was
consumed only
after several reprises -- the Rabbi rose from the bench, took the boy
by the
hand, led him down from the platform, and positioned him to the left,
near Mrs.
Harris, facing the platform, to witness the blessings that were
conferred upon
the other youths. The
mother returned to
her station on the right, and Rabbi Harris called upon the next boy to
mount
the platform.
When all the boys had been
blessed and the last of them had been escorted from the dais, Mrs.
Harris
handed each of the mothers three pieces of light, pure white linen: two
rectangular drapes, each about eighteen inches wide, thirty six inches
long,
and a long strip, about four inches wide.
Rabbi Harris invited the mothers, in turn, to dress their
sons. Mark's mother
was first. The two
drapes each had two five-inch straps
of linen, about an inch wide, sewn onto one end, about twelve inches
apart. The woman
tied a strap of one
drape to a strap of the other and rested the bow upon her son's left
shoulder. She then
tied the remaining
straps above the boy's right shoulder.
Thus was he draped, front and back.
She looped the narrow strip around his waist, like a belt,
and tied its
two ends in a bow at the front of his right hip.
And so, Mark was dressed, chastely, in one of
two garments he would be permitted to wear during the Stakka. One by one, the mothers
robed their sons,
kissed them upon the cheek, and departed. When
all had left, Rabbi and Mrs. Harris
shepherded the boys to the van for the two-hour drive to the lodge and
beginning of the retreat.
* * *
Jeremy had been warned against
any attempt to probe the deepest thoughts and feelings of the seven
youths. After
all, the power of the experience -- and
it was a powerful experience -- lay in its mystery.
The boys had been told, in general terms, how
to behave; they had not been told what would happen to them, or what
they would
feel. And from the
beginning they were
warned not to speak of the experience outside the Stakka, whether to
their
friends, their brothers, their fathers, their mothers -- least of all,
to
strangers. The
ceremony was a sacred,
private event that could not be discussed, except with the Rabbi and
his wife
and the other youths who shared the occasion.
One might have expected the
boys to exchange reactions, even to tease one another during the long
ride to
the lodge. But not
a word was said. Nothing
about the ceremony, about what might
happen at the lodge, about what happened two weeks before in Mrs.
Mimms's math
class. The Rabbi
and his wife respected
the silence, leaving Jeremy alone to ponder the events he had just
witnessed.
Sensuality, Jeremy knew, was
subjective. Others
might well have found
the Stakka ceremony repulsive. He
did
not. Indeed, as he
watched mothers, the
Rabbi, and the Rabbi's wife administer to the youths, Jeremy found it
necessary
to pocket his hands, to suppress the stirring in his own loins. He was not in position at
the time to see if
the Rabbi had a similar reaction.
Sensual or not, the ceremony was, by the social
conventions and mores of
outsiders, both pornographic and abusive?
Naked boys, attended by their mothers, submitted to
oro-genital
copulation at the hands (or rather in the mouth) of a grown man, who
was
abetted in the obscene act by his own wife.
Jeremy put the question to
Arthur some months later: no,
he had not
felt himself abused by the ministrations of his Rabbi, nor did he
consider the
events of his Stakka pornographic or sensual, and he knew of no one in
the
150-year history of the religion to have alleged any breach of morality
either
in the ceremony or during the retreat.
Jeremy learned, during the
retreat, that some of the youngsters of 1975 -- seven of seven -- felt
embarrassment at one time or another during the ceremony. No one would admit to
feeling shame,
however. Rationally,
there was no shame.
Should there have been? In
another context, perhaps. Six
of the seven youngsters experienced
erections of some degree during the ceremony.
Two appear to have been more or less continuously stiff --
from the
moment they approached their mothers 'til they boarded the van. Three ejaculated. Jason, the second youth on
the platform, left
a pearl of semen in the sacramental wine, which his mother sipped and
he
drank. Edward, the
third boy, came
moments after the strong hand of the Rabbi pressed the underside of his
stiffened organ into his mother's warm, soft palm.
Michael, the sixth, spilled his seed into the
Rabbi's throat, despite himself, upon feeling the first few gentle
lappings of
the teacher's tongue.
The erections were
commonplace: the rule, rather than the exception.
The one youth, in whom the ceremony failed
for one reason or another to stir the sensual essence of adolescence,
required
special attention. The
words voiced by
the Rabbi cast no stigma. There
was no
suggestion of dysfunction in the young man, who was at the time
suffering
familial trauma. Rather,
there was only
well-couched praise for his self-control.
And what of the
ejaculates? Jason
clearly knew that he
had left his semen in the wine, but could hope that neither the Rabbi
nor his
mother had noticed. Both
had, of course;
but neither said a thing. Michael. Michael resisted
ejaculation, until he could
no longer. His eyes
closed. His lower
jaw squeezed hard upon his
upper. His loins
quivered as he poured
his seminal fluid into the Rabbi.
The
Rabbi accepted the seed without response.
Mrs. Harris saw it clearly enough: she had seen it before,
in previous
ceremonies. It was
to her, as to the
Rabbi, something natural and beautiful.
The boy's surrogate mother, his sister, suspected: she was
near enough,
and her gaze was sufficiently intent to observe the muscular spasms
brought on
by the orgasm. Nevertheless,
Michael
thought that only he and the Rabbi knew.
Edward's ejaculation was
apparent to everyone. But
it, too, was
handled (metaphorically speaking) without comment or fanfare. Upon completion of the
Rabbi's blessing and
release of the boy's penis, Mrs. Harris produced a small basin of warm
water. Edward's
mother and the Rabbi, in
turn, washed the boy's sticky secretion from their hands, which they
dried upon
the towels conveniently provided by the Rabbi's wife.
The Rabbi then took the bowl into his own
hands. Mrs. Harris
dipped a corner of a
towel into the warm water and sponged the semen, gently and gingerly,
from
Edward's organ. Thereafter,
the ceremony
proceeded, as if the boy had never succumbed to the natural urgings of
his
blooming sexuality.
Edward found himself in an
unusual situation. Not
knowing of
Jason's gift to the wine, or of Michael's to the Rabbi, he believed for
a time
that he alone had sullied the sacred occasion.
In any event, his was the only indiscretion witnessed by
all. Everyone knew
about it. And to
make matters worse, he came into the
hand of his very own mother and left the platform, when the Rabbi was
done, sobbing.
No one, least of all Jeremy, knew
then exactly what Edward, Michael, Jason, Mark, Thomas (who
distinguished
himself by his restraint) and the other boys felt as they approached
the
platform with their mothers; as they offered themselves up to the
ministrations
of the Rabbi and his wife and the intent gazes of their friends and the
mothers
of their friends; as they left the platform then and stood naked beside
Mrs.
Harris, to await the conclusion of the ceremony.
They knew what they felt, surely.
But they were not accustomed to voicing their
feelings. And even
less were they able
understand, without help, what their feelings signified.
The fourteen days of the
retreat helped.
* * *
Though it was not always
apparent to the boys, the Stakka, like the Bar Mitzvah of Jewish
tradition,
represents a bridge of sorts between infancy and manhood. But unlike the Bar
Mitzvah, which stresses
the spiritual, the ceremony on entry into the Stakka emphasizes the
physical. It
affirms the emotional ties between mother
and son but, at the same time, symbolizes the separation of their
physical
beings. The mother
(or her surrogate),
through the medium of the Rabbi, gives her son over to manhood,
independent
manhood, in a rite that is an intensely emotional for her as it is for
him. She stands
witness during the
ceremony to a very physical, spiritually sensual affirmation of her
son's
humble beginning, naked from her womb.
She drinks the fluid that cleanses the organ of his
manhood, perhaps the
object of her desire, and, in the end, she dresses him in a simple robe
and
leaves him without protest, with a kiss upon his cheek, in a role and
situation
that is, like manhood, a radical departure from everything the boy-man
has ever
before known or experienced.
Does it work? It is
usual in Western societies for children
in their mid-teens to rebel, to establish identities for themselves
apart from
their parents in ways that are oftentimes painful to the parents and
destructive to the children. The
case of
Rabbi Harris's Congregation does not lend itself well to statistical
analysis:
the sample is too small, and there are too many variables. But anecdotal evidence
suggests plainly
enough that the male children of Arthur's religion had fewer troubles
in the
passage to adulthood than their counterparts in other cultural
groupings. The
ceremony of entry into the Stakka may
have had something to do with it.
Or,
perhaps, it was the retreat, the Stakka itself, that made the
difference.
The boys brought nothing to
the lodge but the clothing on their backs -- to wit, the simple
three-piece
garments (the "day-dresses") in which they had been clad by their
mothers. Other than
"night
dresses" -- white tank-top undershirts -- the boys had nothing else to
wear in retreat. Rabbi
and Mrs. Harris
handled clothing as had their predecessors since the beginning of time
(i.e.,
since the foundation of the religion).
On retiring for the night, each youth gave his day dress
to Mrs. Harris,
in exchange for which he received a towel.
When he finished bathing, he exchanged his towel for a
night dress. Then,
upon completing his ablutions each
morning, he exchanged his night dress for a freshly laundered day dress. Although the day dress was
chaste in
appearance, it afforded little modesty.
At eighteen inches each, the front and back panels
together were ample
enough to girdle all but one or two of the youngsters at the groin. However, there was nothing
to join the one
panel to the other below the shoulder, except the sash, and the panels
tended
with movement of the body to part at the waist beneath the sash. During the first three or
four days, most of
the boys fussed some to keep themselves covered.
But seeing the futility of this effort and
the apparent indifference of the Rabbi and his wife toward their
nudity, almost
all the boys had, by the end of the first week, become notably cavalier
about
clothing. By the
eighth day, three of
the seven were sleeping naked and donning their day dresses only for
meals. By the
twelfth day, only one was
still trying routinely to cover himself, professedly as a matter of
principle.
Dressed or not -- and dressed
was scarcely better than not -- the boys occupied their days with
typical
camp-time activities: swimming,
canoeing,
games (touch football, soccer, volleyball, softball), and fireside
chats. What was
most important, however, was the
conversation, normally inspired by the pointed questions of the
apparently
omnipresent Rabbi and Rabbi-wife.
These
conversations occurred whenever, at the spur of the moment, even in the
middle
or approaching the climactic conclusion of a soccer or volleyball game. Curiously, Jeremy noticed,
the boys seemed
not to resent the intrusion, but rather to enjoy the conversations as
much or
more than the games. They
talked
generally about most of the issues they were facing as they approached
adulthood: aspirations, disappointments, families, friendships, the
meaning of
life, the physiological and psychological changes they and their female
counterparts were undergoing. Love. Sex.
Jeremy would normally have
expected thirteen-year olds to display considerable inhibition about
many of
the subjects they discussed. That
they
did not necessitated reflection on his part as to the mechanics of the
situation,
by virtue of which thirteen-year olds could speak freely with one
another and
their elders about issues that were otherwise often very personal and
very
private.
The answer, Jeremy ultimately
concluded, lay in the first day -- the two-hour, painfully silent car
trip to
the lodge; the
vulnerability the youths
felt during the trip, wearing next to nothing, not knowing if there
would be
anything else for them to wear when they arrived, and not knowing what
to expect
during the coming weeks at the hands of the Rabbi, his wife, and his
Rabbi-in-training; and, on arrival, the catharsis.
They learned, first, that they would be
utterly dependent on the adults during the Stakka (Arabella Harris laid
out the
ground rules). Then,
they engaged in a
honest, no-holds-barred, four-hour exchange of information, insight,
and
feelings regarding the mother-son-penis-cleansing ritual that had taken
place
that very morning. The
dialog opened
with the questions, posed so bluntly, by Richard and Arabella Harris:
"Mark, how did it feel to
be naked in your mother's arms? How
did
it feel to be first?"
"Jason, what was going
through your mind while Mark was on the platform, knowing that you'd be
next? Did seeing
what happened to Mark
help you out?"
"Frederick, you had a
hard-on pretty much from the moment you took off your clothes in the
gym 'til
you boarded the van. What
were you
thinking of during that time?"
"Michael, does anyone
know, but you and me, that you came when I had your penis in my mouth? ("I guess they do now,"
replied
Michael). Why do
you think it
happened? How did
you feel about it
then? Would it make
any difference to
you to know that Mrs. Harris and your sister, Martha, saw it happen? How do you feel about it
now?"
"Edward, how did you feel
when you ejaculated in your mother's hand?
How do you feel now, knowing that you were not the only
one to spill his
seed? Would it help
you to know that
Jason also came during the ceremony and that Thomas came in the van,
after the
ceremony, when most of the rest of you had fallen asleep and he thought
no one
would see him pound his pud?"
It went on from there. Having
broached subjects the boys had long
deemed taboo, Rabbi and Mrs. Harris opened the floodgates. They talked freely then --
seven boys, a man,
and a woman -- about nudity, masturbation, and sex; about their
feelings for
(and experiences with) their mothers, sisters, and fathers; about their
feelings for one another, girls, and other boys; about the "perpetual
hard-on" of the adolescent male. Jeremy
observed the proceedings from a distance until Jonathan asked if adults
(meaning people the Rabbi's age) were ever sexually stimulated, like
teenagers,
without obvious, direct cause.
"Of course," replied
Arabella. "Didn't
you all see that
Rabbi Stone, there, had an erection from the beginning of the ceremony
to the
end? Perhaps he can
tell us
why!"
Thus was Jeremy drawn, kicking
and screaming, into the discussion.
He
lied. Then he
remembered his own “Rites
of Passage” and all they meant to him so many years ago, and so he
spoke the
truth. The ceremony
was sensual. The
boys to a man were sensual. It
excited him to see them naked, to think of
the emotions they were going through with respect to their mothers, and
their
mothers with respect to them, to think of the women (or girls) they
would one
day soon please so much. In
a word, it
excited him to think of them becoming, at so tender an age, sexual
beings.
Had Jeremy violated Rabbi
Harris's injunction concerning his silence?
Perhaps, but then it was Arabella's doing, not his own. Having been addressed
candidly in a world
that demanded candor, could he have replied any less honestly? Even so, having said what
he said, and
thinking that Rabbi Harris would take the theretofore un-heralded
evidence of
his sexual stimulation to represent puerile interest, Jeremy expected
imminently to be thrown from the lodge.
The Rabbi said nothing about it that evening or during the
remainder of
the retreat, however, though it was soon clear to Jeremy that he had
chastised
Arabella for putting Jeremy on the spot, for he, Jeremy, was never
again
addressed by either the Rabbi or his wife as anything but a passive
observer,
rather than as a participant, in the Stakka.
Even so, the forthrightness with which Jeremy addressed
his feelings
that first night, in explaining his own boner, served its purpose. It made him "one of the
boys."
What makes the rite of passage
appropriate at thirteen is the onset (at that age and for the next four
or five
years) of the "perpetual boner."
Once beyond the "serious" dialogs of the first two or
three
days, youths of the Stakka could well have abandoned themselves to
their
childish games, had it not been for the "perpetual boner." The rules of play were
simple: If you
notice an erection, stop at once;
insist that the erector tell, in detail, exactly what in his psyche
caused the
erection. Then
discuss it with him, with
the Rabbi, the Rabbi's missus, and everyone else.
One might easily assume that
such a requirement would not be unreasonably burdensome -- after all,
how many
erections does one typically detect in others each day?
On the other hand, how many erections as a
percentage of the whole are successfully hidden from casual observation
within
oppressive undergarments or beneath voluminous folds of sharkskin?
The boys of the Stakka had the
advantage of neither. They
were of an
age at which a fleeting thought could produce a hard-on that endured
much
beyond the memory of the thought, and also at an age at which almost
any
thought could produce a hard-on.
Moreover, it was extremely difficult for them to hide
their erections in
the Stakka, whether beneath their day dresses (they wore no underwear)
or when,
as happened increasingly, they chose to go about the camp naked (yea,
even in
the presence of the lovely Arabella).
And so, half a dozen times a day, the Rabbi and his wife
seized upon the
opportunity to re-open the psycho-sexual dialog with a "Frederick, what
got you so excited?" or a "Jason, why are you erect again?"
The responses showed clearly
enough the usual adolescent struggle with sexual identity. For example, when asked on
separate occasions
what inspired one erection or another, Mark supplied the following
answers -- "Thinking
about Mom holding onto my cock"; "Imagining that Mary Beth was here
without any clothes";
"Wondering how it would feel if Jason sucked my pud"; "Being here naked with
you, Mrs.
H"; and "Just
thinking about
jacking off." What
impressed Jeremy
especially was the candor with which the youths, all seven of them,
responded
to the interrogatories, despite the probability that an honest response
would
be, in the majority of cases, potentially embarrassing to the
respondent.
Notwithstanding the risk, no
one in the Stakka looked unfavorably upon the opportunity to discuss
hidden,
poorly understood, or undefined urges with one another, with the Rabbi,
and
with his wife. Most
of the boys thought
these free-wheeling, "let-it-all-hang-out" discussions the most
rewarding, most productive use of their waking hours.
And it happened only during
the waking hours, for once they donned their night dresses, the boys
were off
limits -- even though, dozing without covers on mats in the Common,
they
typically displayed the most glorious, unfettered erections one could
imagine.
When the Stakka ended, after
two weeks, Jeremy returned to New York (not an easy trip) knowing,
regrettably,
that having given his solemn promise, nothing he had witnessed and
experienced
in that remote Canadian village would ever appear in print, no matter
how many
books and articles he might write about Rites of Passage.
(The End)