Rabbi Shmuley Boteach thinks that he is smarter than Freud…

The first reply to the journalist starts like an explosion:

"Lust was always supposed to be the cornerstone of a relationship. Everything else is secondary. Of course you need love in a marriage. Of course you need respect, appreciation, compliments, shared values. But if you are in a marriage where you don’t deeply desire the person you’re with, you are in a jail cell. It’s a form of incarceration. It may be a form of incarceration that has sex and love and caring and all those things, but you’re in a cell, because you don’t want to be there.

The essence of desire is choice. What I say in the book answers what Freud wrote to Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon’s great-niece in 1938. Freud said he’s been able to answer almost all questions of human psyche except one — one question that no one can answer: What is it that a woman wants?

I claim in this book to be the first man ever in history to answer that question!"

I nearly fell from my chair! This man knows what a woman wants? Wow! And the journalist replied the same. This rabbi thinks that he has invented hot water* (*French expression = he thinks he is the sharpest pencil in the box). Or his audience, apparently in majority feminine likes clichés.

He has no shame to brag! :-)
And then:
"It is based on my deep attachment to my feminine side. And the answer is this: A woman doesn’t want to be loved. If a woman wants to be loved, she would stay with her parents. Her parents love her unconditionally. Her parents are never going to divorce her. Her parents are never going to cheat on her. We rarely hear about parents going and taking the next-door neighbor’s kid secretly to the circus. … Parents can give their daughters everything but one thing: they cannot give them the gift of chosen-ness.
… So a woman wants to be chosen. The essence of lust and desire is chosen. Love is comforting, nurturing. But it does not make you feel special. It does not make you feel chosen. It makes you feel protected."

Is he right or wrong? I like that it comes from his "deep attachment to my feminine side" to make him talk in broader terms.

"A woman doesn’t want to be loved." Kidding?

To compare the love of the parents to the one of a lover/husband is just a very restrictive thought. The pursuit of love in our adult life is totally different from what we have known when we were toddler.

Lust is a choice, wow! If i have desire for someone, that's not a choice for me. But i have the choice not to have desire for someone.

I already read some of his tweets when he was in Rwanda and some other places.
He is good-looking, charming, married, 11 children and also Orthodox. The last point caught my attention more deeply. I don't know his life, i never met him, and nobody, except him, knows better the intimacy he has with his wife.

The journalist wants to talk about the other gender: men.
So let's go:

'It’s just that men need to feel needed in a different way. Men are much more prone to distinguish themselves, their specialness, their uniqueness, through their activity, through their doing. Men make the mistake of ceasing to be human beings when they try to become human doings. And women make the mistake of allowing that to happen — like being impressed by men who are successful, being impressed by men with money, being with the man with the plan. But really men want women to rescue them from that and to love them for their being, for who they are.
That’s why, by the way, when so many successful men have affairs they’re not even physical affairs — they actually do want someone to talk to, believe it or not. And why don’t they show that same vulnerability to their wives? Because a lot of them are convinced that their wives do not want to see weakness and vulnerability. They think their wives will respect them less. Their wives married them specifically because they are the provider, specifically because they are the knight in shining armor that takes care of the family. So when he feels totally broken, he doesn’t want to share that with his wife. Sixty percent of all affairs on the part of husbands today are asexual; they’re platonic."

Honestly, may i laugh? I am swimming in a middle of a lake of stupidness. 

Who wants to be loved for what we are not? 

Watch out! 60% of all affairs are platonic. Where did he get this number?

I agree when he says that men don't like showing their weaknesses. That's not new, thanks! Men like staying in their caverns…

He can say things like that, but he has to be more specific, and once again, not to talk in broader terms.

In NY, to show his/her emotions is a sign of weakness. In Europe, it's not! He is Orthodox, frum or Hasidic, i don't know, and there is another level with the lack of emotional intelligence that i met in this community. It comes from frustration in their religious upbringing that i already talked about. 

Hey guys, are you really looking for an ASEXUAL affair? Who can believe that? If so, don't call it an affair but a friendship!

I am stunned!

He likes talking, and probably charming his feminine audience… It seemed that it works pretty well for him. These Orthodox ladies who leave the room, full of fantasies, dreaming of his sparkling eyes and so. 

Not for me! :-)

The definition of lust was the last thing i could read.

"Lust is not of the flesh. Lust is rather an ethereal concept that can be superimposed onto absolutely anything. You can get people to lust after a telephone."
He is talking about Steve Jobs and the Iphone. First, mister rabbi, Steve Jobs has never invented the concept of the Iphone. He was just a very good marketing man to sell a concept he has reclaimed. 

I was very fond of his products before the fall of his company in the 90s, and the products were much better in quality. Since the Ipod, i had issues with all the products i bought.
"He did not want people to fall in love with his product. He wanted people to lust after his product. He wanted people to stand in line outside an Apple store for eight hours to buy his phone the way Romeo stood outside Juliet's balcony to get a glimpse of he did this a few ways."

Now, i say stooooooooooooooooooooppppppppppppppppppppp!

I will ask my horrible Iphone full of bugs if it loves me, and will be ready to stand outside for me. Because i never did it for it. 

So, yes i stopped reading this pulp novel, and went below to read the comments. 

In the Shmuley sphere, i am novice. I felt a sort of egocentrism from a man who is a sort of Steve Jobs who gives wet feelings in the undies of Orthodox women!

If he think he has understood everything about what women actually want, that's his business. So, my dear rabbi, i am not going to give one penny to buy one of your books. Your theory of love, lust and desire turns me off a lot. I prefer practice! :-)

I just broke up with him, his FB page and his tweets… 

This man will pretend soon that he is able to save the world. A new Messiah? Ver veys! :-)

A bons entendeurs, salut !* (*a word to the wise!)

If you have time to waste or not to read the article:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/shmuley-boteach-hails-the-saving-power-of-lust/#comments