Sodom – Feminism and Religion

This week’s Torah parshah is Vayera (Genesis 18:1– 22:24). The parshah contains the the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the questionable hospitality of Lot, the incestual sexual relationships between a drunken Lot and his daughters, the revelation of Sarah’s pregnancy, the birth of Issac, the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham’s family, and the legendary story of the binding of Isaac. Needless to say, there is much that can be said, but today I want to focus on the women from Lot’s and Abraham’s families.

Women figure prominently in Lot’s family. In the parshah, we first meet Lot as host. Two male visitors (angels) come to stay at Lot’s house. When some of the male inhabitants of Sodom learn of this, they come to Lot’s door wanting to harass and sexually assault the guests. To protect his guests, Lot offers his unmarried daughters to the men instead. Later in the text, we learn that Lot can safely leave Sodom because he is righteous (although what may have spared his life more is the fact that Abraham is his uncle). Continue reading “Vayera and Women’s Agency by Ivy Helman”

How do we begin to deconstruct the word sodomy so that it no longer associates and elicits hateful propaganda regarding the sexual activity of consenting gay/queer adults?

Meaning if often produced, not through a one-to-one relation to things in the world, but by establishing the difference you or a particular group of people have in relation to the activity/object you are distancing yourself from. The word sodomy is inextricably linked to the Old Testament (Genesis 19:1-11) and has become a popular manifestation for conservative and fundamentalist social and religious critics to use whenever they are critiquing why gay men are different or deviant from normal, heterosexual adults. Furthermore, sodomy has been and still is highly involved in constructing both positive and negative sexual ethics that often define and rule over the lives of those who participate not in sodomy but other forms of non-vaginal intercourse.

The word, action, and taboo of sodomy have blurred the real meaning of consensual non-vaginal sex between people of the same sex. Defined as “anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex,” sodomy has become the sign that defines the lives of gay men and keeps them in the social and religious shackles that perpetuates the public opinion that sex between men is deviant, devious, and dangerous to society at large. Continue reading “Sodomy and Gay Men’s Lives by John Erickson”