(6) The Wedding Night

Many couples await the wedding night with anticipation and excitement, as they are finally permitted to express their desire for one another and to consummate their relationship.  For some couples, however, the wedding night, and sometimes the weeks and months thereafter, can be a source of anxiety and distress, and represents an obligation they struggle to "perform successfully." How do couples negotiate the transition from abstinence to full sexual intercourse?  What happens when one partner is not ready or is hesitant, anxious or afraid? Is wedding night sex an Halachic obligation and if so, how can it be fully consensual?  In this episode of Intimate Judaism, Talli Rosenbaum and Rabbi Scott Kahn  discuss the reasons for wedding night stress, and the ways these issues should be addressed to enable couples to approach the wedding night  with communication and mutual consent.