Israelis of all stripes were united in shame and disgust as the popular streamer Clavicular visited Israel last week.
Tel Aviv was only Clavicular’s latest stop in his global sex tour, or “geomaxing” in his vernacular.
While in Israel, Clavicular verbally degraded Israeli women and men alike, saying “tell the girls I’m just looking to have sex in the bathroom for five seconds, maybe ten if they’re lucky,” and Tweeting “imagine being the average normie in Israel conversationcelling and simping for hours in girls DMs and then an influencer geomaxes and mogs you.”
Clavicular was kicked out of clubs, lambasted in television interviews, and harassed by a rare united force of Mordekhai David and Asaf Gothelf (Israeli street provocateurs of opposing political persuasions), eventually cutting his visit short.
The public outrage was entirely understandable.
What deserves more attention, however, is not merely the decision of Jewish influencers to invite this particular sex tourist, but the broader marketing culture that has posited Israel for years as a destination for sex tourism.
Much of Israel’s public diplomacy has increasingly relied on selling an image of beaches, nightlife, attractive young people, hookup culture, and sexual freedom.
Social media campaigns celebrating shirtless soldiers on the Tel Aviv promenade, pages devoted to “Hot IDF Girls,” and the promotion of clubbing and casual sex as defining features of Israeli life all communicate a particular message to the outside world; marking Israel through sexuality.
The irony is that many of the loudest voices condemning Clavicular today simultaneously embrace this broad sex tourism strategy. Their outrage is focused narrowly on the specific figures who invited this particular influencer, when they themselves often do the very same thing on an exponentially greater scale.
Clavicular did not invent this phenomenon; he only took its underlying logic to its conclusion. He came to consume the version of Israel that had already been advertised to him.
Of course, “sex sells.” It can generate clicks, attention, and engagement.
Israel, however, is not Miami, Ibiza, or Mykonos. We have infinitely more compelling stories to tell. One can only look at these Hasbara sex-peddlers with suspicion as part of the larger campaign to divorce Israel from our heritage, culture, and identity in order to homogenize our nation into the Western-led globalized world.
The Clavicular episode must become more than an embarrassing controversy. It should serve as the beginning of a broader conversation about what Israel chooses to advertise.
If we market ourselves primarily through sexuality, we shouldn’t be surprised when we attract people who view our country through that lens.
But if we want to be respected for our actual identity and history, then those are the things that should be brought to the fore in our messaging to the outside world.
