Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture Read Online Free PDF Page B

metaphorical comparison is with the fact that while there are many categories of foods which are forbidden, those that are permitted may be enjoyed in any manner. Similarly, while there are sexual connections that are forbidden, those that are permitted may be enjoyed in any fashion. The overtone of male dominance is here and cannot be gainsaid or whitewashed, but it does not, on this reading, constitute the primary thrust of the metaphor, nor is the point of the statement that men can do whatever they want to their wives. The food metaphor in itself does not turn women into food. The Talmud also uses the metaphor of eating to refer to the woman's sexual experience. Thus the Mishna at Ketubbot 5:9 reads that a wife has the right to eat with her husband every Friday night, and in both Talmuds this is understood to mean to have sexual intercourse with him. 7 There are even places in the talmudic text, moreover, where children are referred to with food metaphors as well, and children are certainly not objectified as "consumables." This complex usage of the metaphorical field militates against the notion that its function is to define woman as "sex object." 8
The stories about Rabbi and the wives are much more resistant to reinterpretation, because they do relate to the wife's desire and do so in a negative way. Rabbi certainly seems to indicate that the Torah has nothing to say about proscribing certain sexual practices, even when the activities involved are distasteful to the wives. But, strangely enough, the redactor of the Talmud did not seem to feel that there was any tension between Rabbi's stories and the emphatic prohibition of wife-rape which comes just after them. Although the redactorial level of the Talmud often "harmonizes," tacitly reducing tensions that I wish to emphasize, in cases of direct (and felt) contradiction it explicitly attempts to reduce the contradiction. In this case, given the enormous rhetorical force of the prohibitions on wife-rape that this redactor encodes, it seems then that he, at any rate, did not consider these stories as being cases of rape. In both
7. I am grateful to Mordechai Friedman for reminding me of this reference.
8. My colleague Chana Kronfeld reminded me of this usage. Note that wives and children are in some sense figured as "property" of the patriarch for his enjoyment, but for his enjoyment as human beings in his world, not as objects to be used.

 
< previous page
page_117
next page >

< previous page
page_119
next page >
Page 119
Rabbi is, in effect, assuring them that such sex is permitted, and they need fear no repercussions from God. Alternatively, we might read him somewhat less charitably and assume that he (and the talmudic redactors) might have understood that once a woman has consented to sex, then her lack of consent to a particular position does not constitute rape. Note that according to this reading, "permitted you" is to be interpreted as the Torah has permitted you to engage in this practice. If, on the other hand, the practice referred to is indeed anal intercourse, then, it would seem, engaging in it without the express desire of the wife does constitute a rapenot, I hasten to add, because of the "unnaturalness" of anal intercourse but simply because penetration of a different orifice seems much greater a violation of the woman's will than the arrangement of the bodies. According to this reading, ''permitted you" would mean the Torah has permitted you to himthe Hebrew supports either construction. According to this latter reading, then, Rabbi's position is once more sharply antithetical to the rest of the text.
If we adopt the first reading, namely, that the wife desired sexas she indicates herselfand that all the husband proposed was to have her on top, then it is clear why Rabbi is not represented as referring to the very halakha which forbids a husband to have any coercive sex with his wife. If the other view is adopted, then it seems perhaps that