It has been a good run, as good as any large tract of land in the northeastern United States could hope for. Thousands of people have trod my grassy paths and subtle hills, playing soccer, making friendship bracelets, learning valuable life lessons from the Torah, and engaging in the other prescribed Jewish summer camp activities. Were that all that were asked of me, I would be content for this to remain my identity for many years to come. But alas. The cars come. The parents help with the unpacking and drive away . And then for two months, hundreds of teenagers have sex on me. They do it everywhere. They do it constantly. They have no sense of propriety or cleanliness. And I no longer wish to be a Jewish summer camp.
Oh, how I long for a more hands-on approach by the staff to preventing these young people from learning about their bodies. With every first awkward boob grab behind a tree, every misplaced attempt at sensual force that sends a porta-potty crashing to the asphalt, every make-out sesh they think is unnoticeable under that bench because everyone else is at Shabbat services, I become more and more defiled. It shocks me daily that new flora will even deign to grow on me.
I get no rest day or night, as even my most idyllic groves and gardens become, in their eyes, nothing more than watering holes to mess about in, leaving my verdant meadows strewn in push-up bras and chewed gum. Even when inclement weather forces the degenerates to remain in their own cabins, the gay ones are undeterred. Each creak of shoddy wooden construction is like a slap to my face, though I don’t have a face as I am a piece of land.
This is to say nothing of the slightly larger children who somehow have been placed in charge, and have some misguided idea of what they’re doing sexually. These ones, with access to my breadth the campers can only dream of, have lain over the years a thick coat of semen that covers my entire domain. Were I a human vagina, instead of a rustic hundred acres of deciduous vista, I would surely have borne enough children by now to quell the fears of Rabbis citing lowered congregational attendance.
And so I’ve been used and abused time and time again. Though Judaism is a beautiful religion, and some of my best friends are city blocks of Brooklyn, I believe our relationship has to end. I no longer wish to be a Jewish summer camp. If I must be populated, I should prefer to be a retirement home campus. I’ve got to assume old people don’t have sex.
— NP ’21