Noah Benjamin Bickart Yale University

Room 305 451 College St New Haven, CT 06511 646.248.9231 [email protected]

Crimes Against Nature: Male/Female "" in Rabbinic Literature

Abstract: Despite a general predilection for leniency with regard to non-Jews vis-a-vie Jews, in three places in the corpus of Palestinian rabbinic literature, non-Jews are explicitly enjoined against engaging in male/ anal intercourse. Conversely, this act is understood by the Mishnah to be "normal" intercourse for all practical purposes for Jews. The Bavli depicts Rava, a Babylonian sage, as having been surprised enough by this distinction to radically reinterpret it, declaring to be not "sex" at all for gentiles. Comparisons to contemporaneous Roman poetry demonstrate that the Palestinian texts actually reflect a widespread cultural disapproval of anal sex between men and women. Conversely, Rava's rereading makes perfect sense in the light of Sassanian Persian sexual norms. In both cases, Rabbinic culture is shown to police the boundaries of Jewish communities by means of this particular way of copulating. 2 Crimes Against Nature: Male/Female "Sodomy" in Rabbinic Literature

From a strictly jurisprudential perspective, Rabbinic or "Talmudic" literature envisions not one but two legal systems which, from the perspective of the authors and editors of this body of literature, ought to govern the world.1 The first is Sinaitic law, the body of civil and religious law assumed and detailed by the Biblical text and thought to have been transmitted by God to

Moses directly, and interpreted and developed by an unending chain of interpreters. This body of law is conceived as essentially nationalist; applicable to the ethnic category Israelites/

Hebrews/Jews wherever they may be,2 but especially focused on the duties and obligations these citizens have to one another and to the divine in a polity in the Land of Israel. And yet, Rabbinic literature sees another body of law as mandated in the biblical text, a simpler set of fewer laws which are enjoined upon all of humanity. These are the "Noahide" laws, derived in various ways from the biblical account of Noah and the series of divine commands given to him and his family upon exiting the ark and repopulating an earth destroyed by divine wrath.3 In the most familiar

1. Suzane Stone, "Sinaitic and Noahide Law: Legal Pluralism in Jewish Law," Cardozo Law Review 12 (1991), 1157. See also, Devora Steinmetz, Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law (Philadelphia: 2008), 20-39; Christine Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law? (Princeton, NJ and Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2015); 331-370. 2. On these names in antiquity, see: Martin Goodman, "Romans, Jews and Christians on the names of the Jews," in D.C.Harlow et al., eds., The‘Other’ in Second Temple Judaism, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Mi. and Cambridge, 2011), 391- 401. 3. Ironically, some of the prooftexts offered come from Biblical commands given to Adam and Eve, and not to Noah and his family. See below. 3 schema,4 these laws cover seven discrete areas: mandating the creation of a just legal system,5 while prohibiting murder, theft, idolatry, blasphemy, tearing a limb from a living being and, fi- nally, certain sexual behaviors and/or partners.6 Thus, "Jewish law" mandates a kind of legal plu- ralism, in which overlapping yet distinct bodies of law are concurrently operative.7 Yet these two systems also draw and maintain boundaries between the people who are the subjects of one or the other of the systems.

4. Devora Steinmetz claims that the Bavli contains two different presentations of the seven laws, the first of which reflects classical notions of Natural Law, and the second of which appears more similar to contemporary views of Natural Law. See Steinmetz, Punishment and Freedom, pp. 31-33. Hayes, however, notes that other Rabbinic sources preclude viewing the Noahide laws as reflecting Natural law, and that the Bavli's presentation of a "natural law" theory sees such a claim as sui generis and rejects it. See Hayes, Divine Law, 363-4. 5. How this system of laws does and does not conform to Jewish jurisprudence is a matter of considerable debate, see: Nahum Rakover, “Jewish Law and the Noahide Obligation to Preserve Social Order,” Cardozo Law Review 12 (1991): 1073-1136. 6. This topic has been the subject of a number of scholarly monographs and articles, see for example, Beth Berkowitz, Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); David Novak, "Les Lois Noahides et les Relations entre Juifs et non-Juifs," La civilisation du judaïsme (2012) pp. 197-213; David Novak, The Image of the Non Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws (NY and Toronto: 1983); Isaac W Oliver, "Forming Jewish identity by formulating legislation for gentiles." Journal of Ancient Judaism 4,1 (2013) 105-132; Nahum Rakover, Law and the Noahides: Law as a Universal Value (Jerusalem: 1998); Hayes, Divine Law, 331-70. 7. Steinmetz, ibid. contends that two jurisprudential systems are represented here. The Noahide laws reflect a set of unchangeable moral principles which serve as basis for all human conduct, and are thus analogous to Natural Law, whereas the covenant at Sinai represents Legal Positivism, in the which divine and later human commands form the body of law, which is distinct from abstract notions like morality or nature. As with almost all statements concerning basic tenets of Rabbinic Judaism, however, the texts do not speak with a single voice. There is a stream of thought within the tradition which sees the Sinai moment not as a radical break with the legal past, but as its summation. In other words, the process of revealing divine law to is one which began with the first human being but which culminates with the giving of the Law to Moses. As Christine Hayes puts it, "The rabbinic idea of continuous divine lawgiving collapses the difference between creation and revelation. By dating the inception of the revelation of concrete laws to creation, the rabbis brought creation under the umbrella of Sinai." Christine Hayes, Divine Law, 333. 4 Scholars of Rabbinics tend to treat sexuality as an aspect of culture which was not, as

Michael Satlow puts it a "strong site for a distinctive identity,8" assuming that Jews and gentiles generally shared ideas about sex. Indeed, there is considerable overlap between the sexual part- ners and acts prescribed and proscribed for gentiles and Jews. But they are not identical. To com- plicate the matter, Rabbinic documents are no more univocal about sex than they are about any other topic; different sets of texts present different degrees of overlap between the two bodies of legislation. As Yishai Kiel explains: The Palestinian sources tend to extend the levitical laws of prohibited sexual part- nerships to non-Jews, thereby applying a nearly-universal (there are a few excep- tions) standard of sexual morality; the Babylonian Talmud takes a particularistic approach, differentiating between Jews and non-Jews vis-a-vis accountability for . On the Babylonian Rabbinic approach, the levitical sexual prohibitions apply only to Jews, whereas the sexual prohibitions governing non- Jews are derived from pre-Mosaic legislation and narrative. Consequently, the le- gal standards that apply to non-Jews are considerably more lenient, as non-Jews are essentially permitted to engage in a number of sexual partnerships that are prohibited to Jews.9

In Kiel's schema, while the Talmuds disagree as to whether legislation for gentiles is more le- nient or equally lenient as it is for Jews, gentiles are not prohibited from engaging in sexual be- haviors which are licit for Jews.

Yet one of the unstated exceptions at which Kiel hints but does not state outright, presents a stark counter example. In three places in the corpus, non-Jews are explicitly enjoined against engaging in male/female anal intercourse. For Jews, this act is not only tolerated, but considered

"normal" intercourse for all practical purposes as can be seen clearly from the last line of mYe- bamot 6:1:

8. Michael Satlow, "Rabbinic Views On , Sexuality, And The Family," in Cambridge History of Judaism Vol. 4, edited by Steven T. Katz (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2008), 612. 9. Yishai Kiel, "Noahide Law and the Inclusiveness of : Between Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia." Jewish Law Annual 21 (2015): 60. 5 משנה יבמות ו:א (כי"ק) (Mishnah Yevamot 6:1 (MS Kauffman A50 הבא על יבמתו בין שוגג בין מזיד A Levir] who has with his brother's widow] בין באונס בין ברצון אפילו הוא whether accidentally or on purpose, unwillingly or willingly, and שוגג והיא מזידה הוא מזיד והיא -even if it was accidental for him and on purpose for her, or on pur שוגגת והוא אנוס והיא לא אנוסה pose for him and accidentally for her, against his will but willingly היא אנוסה והוא לא אנוס אחד for her, or unwillingly for her and willingly for him, whether he המערה ואחד הגומר קנה ולא .[only penetrates her partially or fully, he acquires her [as a wife חלק בין ביאה לביאה: .And no distinction is made between [types] kinds of intercourse

The "types" of intercourse referred to here are vaginal and anal modes of sexual intercourse,10 both of which change the legal status of the woman in question. No longer a shomeret yavam, "a widow awaiting levirate marriage," she is now a "wife."

The prohibition against gentile anal sex appears in three places in the Rabbinic corpus: בבלי סנהדרין נח ע"ב (כי"ת15) בראשית רבה פרשה יח (13Vat. 30) ירושלמי קידושין11 א:א (נח ט"ג) ר' שמוא' ור' אבהו רבי שמואל רבי אבהו א'ר אלעזר בן16 ר' חנינה ר' אלעזר בש' ר' חננא ר' לעזר בשם רבי חנינה בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה 14 חייב חייב מיתה... נהרג במאי טעמיה והיך עבידה, מה טעם 12 ודבק באשתו ודבק באשתו והיו לבשר אחד ודבק באשתו והיו לבשר אחד במקום ששניהן עושין בשר אחד ממקום ששניהן עושין בשר אחד ולא שלא כדרכה

10. Though admittedly only implicit in the text itself, which mentions neither orifice explicitly This is the unanimous opinion of the medieval commentators, like Rashi and Maimonides. 11. The text here is from MS Leiden, the sole witness to this passage. 12. Genesis 2:24 13. The passage can be found in the Theador/Albeck edition on p. 167. The text above is from MS Vatican Ebr. 30, as transcribed by Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language: http://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/ PMain.aspx?mishibbur=14000&page=28. High resolution images of this MS are available at: http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.ebr.30. See: Michael Sokoloff, "The Hebrew of Genesis Raba According to Vat. 30" [Hebrew], Leshonenu 33:1 (1968): 26-43, Lewis M. Barth, An Analysis of Vatican 30 (New York: HUC, 1973): 15-23. 14. Genesis Rabba includes the following insertion here, which is not germane to discussion: R. Issi said: Every prohibition which is written אמר ר' איסי כל איסור שכתוב בבני נח אינו לא בעשה in reference to the children of Noah is neither a ולא בלא תעשה, positive nor a negative command. 15. MS Jerusalem (Yad Harav Hertzog) Yemenite. :Here is a full synopsis of all witnesses to the passage .א"ר All other witnesses read .16 6 Yerushalmi Kiddushin 1:117 Genesis Rabba 18 Bavli Sanhedrin 58b R. Samuel [reported to] R. Ab- R. Samuel [reported to] R. Ab- R. Lazer the son of bahu [who reported to] R. bahu, [who reported to] R. Lazar [who reported the fol- Lazar [who reported the fol- lowing tradition] in the name lowing tradition] in the name Ḥanina said: of R. Ḥanina: of R. Ḥananiah: If a Noachide has anal sex with If a Noachide has anal sex with If a Noachide has anal sex with his wife, he is guilty. his wife, he is killed his wife, he is guilty of a capital offense...18 What is the reason? Now how do you arrive [at the What is its reason? present law]? [From the verse], And clings to his wife, so that Hence a man leaves his father And clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh (Genesis and mother and clings to his they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24) [this means that he shalI wife, so that they become one 2:24) cleave] from the place where flesh: [this means that he shalI the two of them form one flesh. cleave] in the place where the two of them form one flesh.

We see here a basically stable tradition encoded across these three sources. Given the tradents in- volved, especially R. (E)lazar, it seems reasonable to assume that the Ḥanina in whose name this tradition appears is Ḥanina bar Ḥama,19 who was a student of Judah the prince,20 and holds a lim- inal place between tannaim and amoraim, and can thus be dated, more or less,21 to the turn of the

Vilna אמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה חייב Barko אמ' ר' אלעזר אמר ר' חנינא בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכ' חייב Munich 95 א"ר אלע' א"ר חנינ' בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכ' חייב Karlsruhe א"ר אלעזר א"ר חנינא בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה חייב Jerusalem א'ר אלעזר בן ר' חנינה בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה חייב Florence אמ' ר' אלעז' אמ' ר' חנ[י]נא בן נח שבא על אשתו שלא כדרכה מחייב 17. Translations are my own except as noted. Biblical verses are quoted from the NJPS translation. I thank Shira Shmidman for her helpful suggestions on the best way to Translate the Palestinian sources. 18. See note 14 above. 19. A. M. Hyman, A. M., Toledot Tannaim veAmoraim (London, 1910), 484-492. 20. Hanoch Albeck, Introduction to the Talmuds (Jerusalem: D'vir, 1987), 155. 21. I am making no claim that Rabbinic sources preserve ipsima verba, nor do I necessarily trust the attributions found therein. I do accept, however, the approach of Richard Kalmin, who shows that "it is frequently possible to divide the Talmud into its constituent layers and reach significant conclusions about the literature, personalities, and institutions of the rabbis who flourished prior to the Talmud’s final redaction," (Kalmin, "The Formation and Character of the Babylonian Talmud," in Katz, Stephen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 4: The Late Roman- 7 3rd century. Ḥanina here reads Genesis 2:24,22 not as an etiology of the institution of marriage as the plain sense of the biblical text indicates, but rather as a law which enjoins human beings to refrain from anal sex in favor of vaginal sex. This reading is, in a way, a direct appeal to Natural

Law; the world operates on the basis of certain foundational principles which are themselves nor- mative.23 Focusing only on the strange etiological insertion of the anonymous narrator of Gene- sis, the midrash does not actually address commanded law at all.

Ḥanina's dictum applies only to gentiles. Nothing in the Levitical lists of prohibited sexu- al partners and acts, or in Rabbinic interpretations thereof forbids male/female anal intercourse for Israelites, and as we see in the mishnah cited above, anal sex is perfectly acceptable way of effecting the kids of legal status changes which are occasioned by sexual intercourse. Rava, the

4th century Babylonian sage, surmises as such, and thus reacts with great surprise to this midrash:

Rabbinic Period, (New York: Cambridge, 2006), 844.) As such, I do believe that traditions attributed to a sage of a certain generation do tend to reflect the views of Rabbis during that period. See Christine Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Difference in Selected Sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah, (New York: Oxford, 1997), 10–16; and David Kraemer, "On the Reliability of Attributions in the Babylonian Talmud," HUCA 60 (1988):175-190. 22. Though I am using the term "Noachide" to indicate Rabbinic law for Gentiles, a careful reader of the Biblical text will see that this passage has nothing to do with Noah, but with Adam. The Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 56a-b derives a number of the "Noachide" laws from Genesis 2:16, and both Genesis Rabba and yKiddshin mine Genesis 2:24 for a broader prohibition for Noahides on adultery. 23. Steinmetz, Punishment and Freedom, 31. 8 Bavli Sanhedrin 58b בבלי סנהדרין24 נח ע"ב Rava said: is there anything for which a Jew is not אמ' רבא ומי איכא מידעם דישראל לא מיחייב וגוי !?punishable and a gentile is punishable מיחייב Rather, Raba [interpreted the traditions as follows]: A אלא אמ' רבא בן נח הבא על אשת חבירו שלא Noachide who has anal intercourse with his fellow's כדרכה פטור wife exempt [from punishment] ;What is the reason? his wife but not to his fellow's מאי טעמא? "באשתו" ולא באשת חבירו .And clings but not anal intercourse "ודבק"- ולא שלא כדרכה

Rava's assumption that the prohibition on anal intercourse in Ḥanina's midrash applies to gentiles but not to Jews astonishes him.25 After all, isn't Jewish law always more restrictive than

Noachide law?

Rava's assumption, dubious though it may be,26 accords with the general view of the anonymous voice of the Talmud Yerushalmi. In an unrelated discussion, which concerns a prohi-

24. MS Jerusalem (Yad Harav Hertzog). On the excellent quality of this manuscript and its readings, see: Mordechai Sabato, Kelav Yad Temani le-Massekhet Sanhedrin (Bavli) u-Mekomo bi-mesoret ha-Nusah (Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 1998), 3, 333-43. 25. The language is admittedly strange, for, technically, the issue at hand is culpability for the act and not the legality of the act. See Ran and Yad Rama ad loc. who understands Rava to read the מי איכא מידי דבישראל לא מיחייב ולא מידי" or ".מי איכא מידי דישראל שרי וכותי אסור" ,meaning as follows respectively. See also Shmuel Eidels, Chiddushei Halachot ad loc, who amends the ",ובכותי מיחייב text accordingly. 26. Historically, the real answer to the above question is "no." See Hayes, Divine Law, 359-60, who shows that at least one tannaitic text, reads Deuteronomy 21, as establishing a general principle that some behaviors are legal for Jews, but prohibited for gentiles: (.Sifrei Deut. (ed. Finkelstein pp. 141-2 ספרי דברים ראה פיסקא עו (A]nd you may not eat the life with the flesh (Deuteronomy 12:23] ְולא־ת ֹא ַ֥כל ַה ֖נֶּ ֶפשׁ ִעם־ ַה ָבּ ָ ֽשׂר, זה -this means [eating] a limb from a living [animal]. But this can be de אבר מן החי, והלא דין הוא מה rived from logic! For just as the consumption of a combination of בשר בחלב שמותר לבני נח -meat and milk which is permissable for noahides is nonthless forbid אסור לישראל אבר מן החי den for Israel- [eating] a limb from a living [animal], which is שאסור לבני נח אינו דין שאסור ?forbidden for noahides is it not logical that it be forbidden for Israel לישראל, No!] Let the beautiful captive woman (of Deuteronomy 21:11) and] יפת תואר וכל הדומים לה those similar to her challenge [the above logic]! For she is forbidden תוכיח שאסורה לבני נח ומותרת .to noahides and permitted to Israel לישראל -Do not be surprised, therefore, that [eating] a limb from a living [an אף אתה אל תתמה על אבר מן -imal], that even though it is forbidden for noahides it [could be] per החי שאף על פי שאסור לבני נח .mitted to Israel שיהא מותר לישראל 9 bition on a gentile man's marrying his father's sister it is noted that Exodus 6:20 describes Moses' own father Amram has having done such a thing, and so it asks: (Yerushalmi Yevamot 11:2 (12a ירושלמי יבמות יא:ב (יב ט"א) [כי"ל] But can it be possible that the Israelites had a practice that מעתה אפי' כבני נח לא היו ישר' נוהגין even Noahides did not [engage in]?!

Rava, assuming that the answer to the Yerushalmi's rhetorical question is "no,27" radically reinter- prets the tradition at hand, creating a thoroughly new midrash, which asserts that for Jews, anal intercourse constitutes "sex;" for gentiles it does not.

This position aligns with other statements of Rava in the Talmud. For example, in tractate

Sotah, we see the following analysis of a central verse in the Bible's description of the ritual of the same name, concerning the woman suspected of adultery by her jealous husband. As with so much midrash, this text seeks to explain an apparent redundancy. Numbers 5:13 reads as follows:28 I]n that a man has relations carnally with her unbeknown to]... ְו ָשׁ ֨ ַכב ִ֣אישׁ א ֹ ָת ֘הּ ִשׁ ְכ ַבת־זֶ ַר ֒ע ְונֶ ְע ַל ֙ם her husband and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled ֵמ ֵעי ֵ֣ני ִאי ֔ ָשׁהּ ְונִ ְס ְתָּ֖רה ְו ִ֣היא נִ ְט ָ֑מאָה .herself without being forced, and there is no witness against her ְו ֵע ֙ד ֵ֣אין ֔ ָבּהּ ְו ִ֖הוא ֥לא נִ ְת ָֽפּ ָשׂה:

שִׁכְבַת־זֶרַע֒ lit. he slept [with her]) and the construct noun pair) ,וְשָׁכַ֨ב In this verse, both the verb

(lit. an ejaculatory sexual experience), indicate penetrative sexual intercourse. The Talmud, as-

means "normal," that is, vaginal sex,29 questions the purpose of the the second וְשָׁכַ֨ב suming, that

27. While I do not suppose that Rava was aware of this passage in an edited Yerushalmi, his knowledge of Palestinian content is well attested and it is not impossible that he assumed such a general principle on the authority of Palestinian traditions. See Tzvi Dor, The Torah of the Land of Israel in Babylonia, [Heb] (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1971), and Richard Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia Between Persia and Roman Palestine (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 4, 149, 175. 28. On the issue of focus on redundancy, see: Neusner, J. & Avery Peck, A.J., 2005, Encyclopedia of Midrash: Biblical interpretation in formative Judaism, Vol. 1, Brill, (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 296. 29. On the broader notion of "normal" and "abnormal" was of having sex, see Noah Bickart, “Overturning the ‘Table’: The Hidden Meaning of a Talmudic Metaphor for Coitus," Journal of the History of Sexuality 25:3 (2016): 489-507. 10 phrase, and cites a baraita which answers the questions by arguing that the second phrase hints at another sex act altogether:30 Bavli Sotah 26b31 בבלי סוטה כו ע"ב (T-S AS 75.64)32 -What then is the purpose [of the phrase] carnally? It is in ואלא שכבת זרע למה לי מיבעי לי -deed necessary, as [the following] Tannaitic [source ex לכדתניא שכבת זרע פרט לדבר אחר plains]: carnally’ [means the] exclusion of "something else." "?What is the "something else מאי דבר אחר R. Sheshet said: It excludes the case where he warned her אמר רב ששת33 פרט לשקינא לה שלא .against [having] anal intercourse כדרכה "Rava said to him, anal sex?! [impossible!] "lyings of woman אמ' ליה רבא,34 משכבי אשה35 כת' (Leviticus 18:22) is written! Rather, said Rava, it excludes the case where he warned her אלא אמ' רבה פרט לשקינא לה דרך .against intercrural sex א<בר>ים

30. Compare Sifra Metzora Parshat Zavim 3, chapter 5: .A woman,] with whom a man sleeps- this excludes a minor] אשר ישכב איש פרט לקטן .with her- this excludes a bride, according to R. Yehudah אותה פרט לכלה דברי רבי יהודה ?The sages] said to him: what proof do you have for a bride] אמרו לו לרבי יהודה וכי מה ראייה לכלה "Rather, with her- this excludes "something else אלא אותה פרט לדבר אחר (an ejaculatory event excludes partial insertion (of the penis שכבת זרע פרט למערה: 31. There is an almost exact parallel to this sugya at bYevamot 55b: בבלי יבמות נב ע"ב (Cambridge - Add. 3207) בבלי סוטה כו ע"ב (T-S AS 75.64) שכבת זרע דסוטה למה לי ואלא שכבת זרע למה לי לכדתניא שכבת זרע פרט לדבר אחר מיבעי לי לכדתניא שכבת זרע פרט לדבר אחר מאי דבר אחר מאי דבר אחר אמ' רב ששת פרט לשקינא לה לכשלא כדרכה אמר רב ששת פרט לשקינא לה שלא כדרכה אמ' ליה רבא הא משכבי אשה כת' אמ' ליה רבא, משכבי אשה כת' אלא אמ' רבא פרט לשקינא לה דרך איברים אלא אמ' רבה פרט לשקינא לה דרך א<בר>ים 32. Neil Danzig dates this fragment to the early 11th century. (Personal conversation, 11/25/16). is missing in this fragment geniza, but present in as such in MS Munich 95 and in אמר רב ששת .33 :Full synopsis .רב אשי the printed editions. In MS Vatican 110, the tradent is ד מאי דבר אחר אמר רב ששת פרט לשקינא לה שלא כדרכה אמר ליה רבא שלא כדרכה משכבי אשה כתיב M מאי דבר אחר א' רב ששת פרט לשקינא לה שלא כדרכה א' רבא משכבי אש' כתי' V מאי דבר אחר אמ'(ב) רב אשי פרט לשקינא לה שלא כדרכה אמ' רבא משכבי אשה כת' ג מאי דבר אחר פרט לשקינא לה שלא כדרכה אמ' ליה רבא משכבי אשה כת' which ,רבא in place of רבה Many witnesses both here and in the parallel at Yevamot 55b read .34 is thoroughly normal; the distinction between the names only becomes fixed after printing. See: Shamma Yehuda Friedman, "The Orthography of the the Names Raba and Rava in the Babylonian Talmud" [Hebrew], Sinai 110 (1991):140-164. 35. Leviticus 18:22: Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an ְו ֶ֨את זָ ֔ ָכר ֥לא ִת ְשׁ ֖ ַכּב ִמ ְשׁ ְכ ֵּ֣בי ִא ֑ ָשּׁה תּוֹ ֵע ָ֖בה .abhorrence הִ ֽוא: 11 Rava interprets the euphemism in the baraita to mean intercrural sex,36 but he makes a fascinat- ing inference from the prohibition on male/male anal intercourse in Leviticus 18:22 in order to

mishkevei isha), the lyings of women- in the) ִמ ְשׁ ְכּ ֵ֣בי ִא ֑ ָשּׁה do so. There, the Bible uses the phrase plural, to analogize a man's penetration of a man with a man's penetration of a woman. Rava, likely drawing on Taanaitic material,37 infers from the Bible's usage that there are multiple ori- fices, which when penetrated by a penis, constitute "sex." One of these acts is anal intercourse, prohibited for two men, yet perfectly legal for a man and a woman.38

As a number of medieval commentators note,39 anal sex is mentioned explicitly in other places in the Bavli as well, such as in this passage from kiddushin. Bavli Kiddushin 22b בבלי קידושין כב ע"ב (MS Vat. 111) If, as you say (above), that if [a slave] is lifted by his השת' דאמר' כיון שהגביהו לרבו (לא) קנאו master, he is [thereby] acquired. So then a Canaanite אלא מעתה שפח' כנענית תקנה בביאה maidservant is acquired by means of sexual intercourse! No!]When we say this [regarding the slave] one derives] כי קאמ' זה נהנה וזה מצט' הכא (נמי) זה נהנה pleasure and the other pain, but here both derive וזה נהנה pleasure.

Rava is likely drawing on a passage in the Sifra. See below, note 37. 36. i.e The rubbing of the phallus between the clenched legs of a partner (διαµηρίζειν in Greek). See: K. J. Dover, "The Prosecution of Timarkhus," in Greek Homosexuality. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1978), 98. 37. A similar midrash appears in the Sifra Kedoshim 4:10, see also tKeritot 1:16: a man- this excludes a minor (יא) איש להוציא את הקטן who sleeps with a male- including a minor אשר ישכב את זכר אף הקטן במשמע lyings of woman- Scripture informs that there are two modes משכבי אשה מגיד הכתוב ששתי .of "sex" with a woman משכבות באשה 38. Daniel Boyarin makes a similar claim, writing, "Rava argues from the verse that treats of male anal intercourse. His argument is that since that practice is defined... as "a woman's lyings," it follows that anal intercourse with women is indeed defined as intercourse. Crucial in the context of the present inquiry is Rava's proof that male-female anal intercourse counts as full intercourse for the purpose of definitions of adultery from the fact that male-male anal intercourse is defined by the Torah as "a woman's lyings [i.e., as intercourse in the fashion of lying with women]"! From the verse prohibiting this behavior between men, we learn that it is appropriate when practiced between a man and a woman. Daniel Boyarin "Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality?," Journal of the History of Sexuality, 5:3 (Jan., 1995): 345-6. ".מי איכא מידי דלישראל שרי ולכותי אסור" .See: Tosafot to Sanhedrin 58b, s.v .39 12 ?What about anal intercourse שלא כדרכה מאי איכא למימר :R. Ahuh b. Aha said אמ' רב אחוה בר אחא40 ?Who is to tell us that there is no pleasure for her מאן נימא לן דלא הנאה אית ל?(י)?ה Furthermore, "lyings of woman" is written, so the ועוד משכבי אשה כת' הקיש הכת' שלא כדרכה Biblical text compares anal sex to vaginal sex לכדרכה Here, the Talmud is analyzing the ways in which a non-Israelite slave can be acquired, and notes that if, as posited, such a slave can indeed be acquired through an act of lifting his new master, then a female non-Israelite slave may be acquired through an act of sexual intercourse. This sug- gestion is rejected by the anonymous editor on the grounds that since sex is pleasurable for both parties, it can not be an act which effects acquisition.41 This, in turn, presents an opening, again for the Talmud's anonymous voice, to propose that anal penetration might be effective for acquir- ing a non-Israelite slave woman. The Talmud rejects this suggestion in two ways. First, R. Ahai b. Adda of Aha,42 is quoted as asking rhetorically if women do indeed experience no pleasure

40. The witnesses disagree significantly on this tradent. Vilna אמר רב אחיי [בר אדא] דמן אחא Venice אמר רב אחיי דמן אחא Spanish Print אמר רב אחוי דמר אחא Vatican אמ' רב אחוה בר אחא Munich 95 אמ' רב אחדבוי ברי' דרב אח' Oxford אמ' רב אחוי דמר אחא "which is also the word for the way women are "acquired קני The verb here is from the root .41 in marriage, for which sexual intercourse is affective. See mKiddushin 1:1. 42. I am struck here by the fact that the textual witnesses really disagree as to who this is. For the purposes of the argument here, it makes no difference who it is, or even if it is a made up memra. See: Shamma Friedman, "Do Not be Surprised by an Addition which is Mentioned in the Name of an Amora" [Hebrew] in Sugiot BǝḤeker HaTalmud, (Jerusalem: JTS, 2012), 57-135. 13 from anal sex.43 He assumes, to the contrary, that women enjoy anal sex.44 As such, anal sex does not differ from vaginal sex with regard to pleasure, and can thus not effect purchase.

A second refutation is brought anonymously. This is essentially the same midrashic asser- tion made by Rava in the text from Sota above; Leviticus 18:22 is marshaller to demonstrate that legally, "sex" is a set of multiple behaviors and that both vaginal and anal sex qualify. Indeed, the Talmud here quotes Rava, albeit detaching his name from the statement.45 Rava's dictum that anal sex is simply one kind of "sex" has been accepted by the anonymous redactor of the

Talmud. Additionally, the topic is broached in tractate Yevamot:

43. The absence of women's voices here is astounding, yet again we get the picture of the production of rabbinic teaching as an exclusively male enterprise. See: Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, "Regulating the : Rabbinic Legal Discourse and the Making of Jewish Gender," in the Cambridge Companion to The Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, Fonrobert, Martin S. Jaffee, eds. (New York: Cambridge, 2007), 270-294. 44. The anonymous editor is likely drawing on material which does equate anal sex with pain, connotes, most notably a midrash to Genesis 34:2. That verse, describing .ע.נ.י which the root and [he] took her and lay with her by) , ַויִּ ַ֥קּח א ֹ ָ֛תהּ ַויִּ ְשׁ ַ֥כּב א ֹ ָ֖תהּ ַויְ ַענֶּֽ ָה ,Shechem's of Dina, reads ַויִּ ְשׁ ַ֥כּב force). The anonymous voice of Genesis Rabba 80:1, (ed. Theador-Albeck, p. 956) reads by force) as referring to anal) וַיְעַנֶּֽהָ he] lay with her), as referring to vaginal intercourse, and]) א ֹ ָ֖תהּ sex. Rav Papa makes a similar move at b.Yoma 77b. However, according survey results published in 2010, 94% of women who had anal sex in their last sexual encounter report . Clearly many contemporary American women enjoy anal sex, though retrojection is dangerous. Correlation is not causation, however. One can imagine the opposite, of course; women whose partners routinely bring them to orgasm might be assumed to be willing to be penetrated anally, despite discomfort, to please their equally indulging partners. See Debby Herbenick, Michael Reece, Vanessa Schick, Stephanie A. Sanders, Brian Dodge, and Dennis Fortenberry, "An Event- Level Analysis of the Sexual Characteristics and Composition Among Adults Ages 18 to 59: Results from a National Probability Sample in the United States," The Journal of 7 Issue Supplement s5 (2010): 357-8. 45. This phenomenon is well attested in the Talmud, and has been treated by a number of important scholars. See Y.N. Epstein, Introduction to the Text of the Mishnah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1947), p. 1296; Shamma Y. Friedman, The Sugya and its Constituent Parts [Hebrew] in Sugiot BǝḤeker HaTalmud, (Jerusalem: JTS, 2012), 51; and David Weiss Halivni, Sources and Traditions: A Source Critical Commentary on the Talmud Tractate Baba Batra [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 38-9. 14 bYevamot 34a-b:47 בבלי יבמות לד ע"א 46 But there were Er and Onan [who had sex with Tamar והא הוו ער ואונן before Judah]! .[Er and Onan had [only] anal sex [with her <ער ואונן> שלא כדירכה שימשו But there is a] contradictory [tannaitic] source: For] מתיבי כל עשרים וארבעה חודש דש twenty-four months he threshes inside and winnows מבפני<ם> וזורה מבחוץ דברי ר' אלעזר outside- so says R. Eliezer. !They said: These [months] are what Er and Onan did אמרו לו הללו אינן אלא כמעשה ע<ר ואונן> This is both like and unlike the acts of Er and Onan. It is כמעשה ער ואונן ולא כמעשה ער ואונן like the acts of Er and Onan, as it is written, "[he] let it go כמעשה ער ואונן דכת' <ושחת> ארצה to waste when ever he joined with his brother's wife". It is not like the act of Er and Onan, because there it refers ולא כמעשה ער ואונן דאילו התם שלא .to anal sex and here vaginal כדירכה והכא כ<דרכה>

Here, the Talmud seeks to delineate Tamar's sexual experiences before her eventual union with her father-in-law, Yehudah, in Genesis 38, whom the Talmud asserts is the man to have penetrat- ed her vaginally. When the Talmud challenges this assumption on the basis of a baraita which clearly intimates that both Er and Onan engaged in vaginal coitus interruptus, the Talmud for- mally rejects the challenge by claiming (implausibly) that Er and Onan who, as a matter of fact, had only anal sex with Tamar, nonetheless withdrew before . Perhaps the midrash is attempting caricature. Yet for the purpose of the act in question, the anonymous redactor of this passage assumes Rava's approach: anal sex is sex. Because the Bavli is the definitive source for later Jewish law, Rava's reimagining of this midrash, along with the concomitant assertion that anal sex is simply one of multiple ways of having sex, became the codified view in later Jewish law.48 But a number of questions remain: Why would R. Hanina have read the Bible in such a way as to intuit such a prohibition for gen- tiles only? And, more puzzling, why did such a prohibition, assuming that such a notion once ex-

46. The text here is from Cambridge - T-S F1 (2) 122, the lacunae have been filled in with Oxford - Bodl. heb. d. 45 (2674) 34-37. 47. Michael L. Satlow, "'Wasted Seed,' The History of a Rabbinic Idea," HUCA 65 (1994): 153-4. 48. Maimonides, Laws of Kings and Their Wars, 9:7. Shulchan Aruch Even Haezer 6:9, 20:1, 25:2. 15 isted, make so little sense to Rava in 4th century Sassanian Mahoza,49 such that he needed to so radically alter the tradition? Simply noting Rava's surprise is likely due to the vastly different cultural assumptions about sexuality in Rava's time and place as opposed to R. Hanina's goes a long way towards answering these questions.

Thankfully, our understanding of the ways in which Imperial Roman society understood sexuality in general and anal sex in particular are well studied by scholars of ancient sexuality.50

Furthermore, the prevailing assumption is that the documents of Rabbinic Judaism reflect the broader Roman ideas about sex.51 As a way of entering the world of the constructed sexuality of the broader culture in which the Rabbis were ensconced, we will delve into the explicit and often obscene Roman epigram,52 below. In this literature, we see Roman sexuality as broadly defined

49. There is ample precedent for Babylonian authors misreading Palestinian sources due to fundamental differences in the conceptions of sexuality. See, for example bNazir 59a in which a Palestinian condemnation of male depilation, presumably part of a worry about cinaedi, is understood by the Babylonian editor to refer to the possibility that a man may infiltrate female spaces. See Satlow (2008), 62,1 n. 49. 50. The best relatively current overview of Greco-Roman Sexuality remains, Ruth Mazo Karras, "Active/Passive, Acts/Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities," The American Historical Review, 105:4 (2000): 1250-1265. 51. For example, Michael Satlow writes, "The parallels between these Palestinian rabbinic assumptions about sexuality and those of their non-Jewish neighbors suggest, although they do not prove, that these rabbis were echoing assumptions shared by the non-rabbinic Jewish community in Palestine (or at least in the Galilee). If this assumption is true, little evidence exists for a distinctively Jewish sexual ethic or praxis in Palestine. When thinking about sex, Jews might have understood the nexus between gender boundaries, self-control, and sexuality as inextricably linked to the God of Israel and Torah, but their attitudes were essentially part of their wider cultural milieu." Satlow (2008), 616. 52. Defining , ancient and modern alike, is notoriously difficult. John Woolsey's definition has had the most lasting impact: "The meaning of the word "obscene" as legally defined by the Courts is: tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts." (United States v. One Book Called "Ulysses," 5 F Supp. 185) Yet the nature of the case regarding Joyce's Ulysses demonstrated how difficult it is to apply such a definition, as Woolsey believed that Joyce's novel was, "a sincere and serious attempt to devise a new literary method for the observation and description of mankind," (189) and that as a work of art, it had to be judged on the basis of the entire work, and not only on particular sections. Thus that which is literary is merely "erotic," while that which isn't is "obscene." See: Marisa Anne Pagnattaro, "Carving a Literary Exception: The Obscenity Standard and 'Ulysses,'" Twentieth Century 16 by what Holt Parker terms "the teratogenic grid," in which sexual behaviors are understood on an

sex") is a broad term for") ביאה axis of "active" and "passive.53" Unlike Rava's schema in which multiple behaviors, Latin has a different verb for each of three penetrative sexual acts: futuere (to penetrate a with a penis), pedicare (to penetrate an with a penis) and irrumare (to penetrate a with a penis).54 The sine qua non is the phallus; other activities may well be sexual, but do not define sexuality as such.

The penetrator is a vir (literally a "man"), who penetrates and only penetrates. Those who are penetrated, whether women, male slaves, or adolescent boys are thus constructed as a gender of other- as "non-men.55" Unlike in our own culture, is which is constructed on the basis of the sex of one's partner,56 for the Romans, the issue was whether or not one is pene- trated. As such, the roman vir is not at all synonymous with the modern conception of the "het- erosexual" male, who penetrates only women.57 Among these "non-men," in addition to women

Literature, 47:2 (2001): 217-240. Amy Richlin concludes that the Romans had a similar conceptual framework. Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor, (New York: Oxford, 1992), 1-31. She concludes, "If the domain of obscenity in language and literature is definitely outside the domain of the nonobscene, it is still clear that the poet of the obscene was free to travel between the two, and was a welcome visitor." (ibid, 31.) 53. Holt M. Parker, "The Teratogenic Grid," in in Roman Sexualities, ed. Marilyn B. Skinner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 48. 54. Ibid, pp. 48-49. 55. Kirk Ormand, Controlling Desires: Sexuality In Ancient Greece And Rome (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009), 135. See also Jonathan Walters, "Invading The Roman Body: Manliness And Impenetrability In Roman Thought," in Roman Sexualities, ed. Marilyn B. Skinner (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 31. 56. David Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, (New York & London: Routledge, 1990), 15. 57. Many scholars see the terms "homosexual" and "heterosexual," which are so dependent on modern conceptions of individual identity, as deeply problematic when retrojected onto pre- modern cultures. Since the late 1980's, largely as a response to Foucault, a major debate has raged concerning the degree to which ancient societies "constructed" sexuality such that the modern homosexual/heterosexual binary simply did not apply. See: Froma I. Zeitlin, John J. Winkler & David M. Halperin, eds, Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, (Princeton: Princeton, 1990), 4-5; John Winkler, The Constraints of 17 and boys, of course are the cinaedī,58 citizen men who subvert the normative paradigm by seeking to be penetrated.59 This rubric has an obvious parallel in Rabbinic literature: women, slaves, and minors, the classic rabbinic trio of those who are not fully obligated to perform the commandments might well be translated "the penetrated."

This rubric of Roman masculinity is seen clearly in invective Latin epigrams. Anticipated by Gaius Valerius Catullus in the 1st century B.C.E, this style of poetry found a full flowering around the turn of the 2nd century C.E. in two corpora: the epigrams of Marcus Valerius Mar- tialis,60 and the Liber Priapeia, written anonymously, perhaps by a single author (though often mistakenly attributed to Ovid), likely some time during the 2nd century C.E.61 Use of these two

Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece, (New York: Routledge, 1990), 17-40; David Halperin, 100 Years of Homosexuality, (New York: Routledge, 1990), 17-23; and Leonore Tiefer, "Social Constructionism and the Study of ," in Forms of Desire: and the Social Constructionist Controversy, (New York: Routledge, 1992), 295-324. However, Amy Richlin has argued that these authors ignore the results of Feminist scholarship, and argues that ancient types like the cinadus should in fact be seen as analogous to modern conceptions of the "homosexual." For, as modern America remains a patriarchal society in which masculinity is defined by aggressive sexual power, positing radical differences between ancient Roman and contemporary western societies is inappropriate. See Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, xxii- xxx, and Ibid, "Not before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Men," Journal of the History of Sexuality 3:4 (1993): 523-573. 58. Greek κίναιδος. Roman literature also has a name for a woman penetrating woman, the tribas. See Marilyn B. Skinner, "Introduction" to Roman Sexualities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 21. See also: Judith P. Hallett, "Female Homoeroticism and the Denial of Roman Reality in Latin Literature", Yale Journal of Criticism 3:1, (1989): 209-227. 59. Craig Williams, Roman Homosexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 1-18. See note 57, above. 60. I am not qualified to make a critical assessment of the textual transmission of Latin texts, and have relied therefore on the Latin texts found in the electronic edition of the Loeb Classical Library, available at: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/collection.php?cpk=1031 (accessed 12/11/16). I am exceedingly grateful to Yale for providing full access to this database, along with VPN access to all the Library's digital resources. For an brief survey of extant manuscripts of Martial's work, see: Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, Edited by Leighton D. Reynolds, N.G. Wilson, et al. (New York: Oxford, 1983), p. 241. 61. Richard W. Hooper, The Priapus Poems: Erotic Epigrams from Ancient Rome, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1999) pp. 26-31. 18 collections for comparison to Rabbinic texts is not without its problems, of course. I am not sug- gesting that the Rabbis of the Mishnah analyzed Catullus, Martial, or poems on statues with big penises in Roman gardens. I make no claim that Talmudic views of Roman sexuality flow direct- ly from texts like those we will encounter below. Instead, I propose the comparison for under- standing the broader structural situation of Roman sexuality in which the Rabbis lived.62 Roman poets of the late republic and early empire, as part of the educated elite, wrote not only for their

Italian city-state, but for a megalopolis which exerted hegemonic military and cultural control of the entire Mediterranean basin. They drew on widespread and deeply held ideas about the meaning of sexual practices, especially when they sought to subvert them. If we want to under- stand the assumptions the rabbis held about the sex lives of Roman pagans, we need to listen to

Roman voices themselves. Recent studies that have done just that to explain 1st Century Jewish texts include Bernadette Brooten's work on how Roman views about female homoeroticism are important for understanding Paul,63 and Jason Von Ehrenkrook's analysis of crossing gender boundaries helps a passage in Josephus's Jewish War.64 I propose that a similar approach be taken to try to contextualize R. Ḥanina's midrashic assertion that heterosexual anal sex is transgressive for gentiles.

62. Here I am directly influenced by Adam Becker, who writes, "[I]n further 'comparative' inquiry we need to make a clear distinction between close textual work that finds subtle connections between Jewish and non-Jewish texts (due to a variety of reasons and with a multitude of explanations) and broader structural comparison. This distinction is obviously only heuristic and in dialogue over time scholars will be able to bring these two distinct methodologies and their results together." Becker, "Positing a "Cultural Relationship" between Plato and the Babylonian Talmud," JQR 101:2 (2011): 269. 63. Bernadette J. Brooten, Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 64. Jason Von Ehrenkrook, "Effeminacy in the Shadow of Empire: The Politics of Transgressive Gender in Josephus's "Bellum Judaicum"" JQR 101:2 (2011): 145-163. 19 The collection of poems called Priapia is associated with the personage of Priapus, a mi- nor deity whose likeness was found in and thought to protect gardens.65 Usually depicted as hav- ing a small body and an enormous, engorged phallus, Priapus was adorned with short invective poems, almost mock graffiti. These obscene poems adopt the voice of the god himself, and threaten rape to those who might find themselves in the garden illegally.66 Here are three particu- larly apt examples: Priapeia 13 Priapeia 1367 Percidere, puer, moneo; futuere, puella; You will be sodomized, boy, I warn you, girl, you will be fucked; barbatum furem tertia poella manet. A third penalty awaits the bearded thief. Priapeia 22 Priapeia 22 Femina si furtum faciet mihi virve puerve, If a woman steals from me, or a man, or a boy, haec cunnum, caput hic, praebeat ille This one her cunt, that one his head, the third his nates. . Priapeia 74 Priapeia 74 Per medios ibit pueros mediasque puellas My cock will go through the middle of boys and the mentula, middle of girls, barbatis non nisi summa petet. but with bearded men it will aim only for the top.

We see throughout, that Priapus threatens each class of trespasser with a particular sex act. Women are penetrated in the , boys in the anus, and adult men in the mouth. The Pria- pus poet draws on "normal" anal sex, an act specifically associated with pederasty in which a vir, accustomed to penetrating both women and boys, penetrates a boy who himself does not (yet) penetrate.68 Conversely, when Priapus threatens to demonstrate his superiority and power over

65. David Leeming, The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. s.v. "Priapus". (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 66. Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, p. 121. See also: Elizabeth Marie Young, "The Touch Of The Cinaedus: Unmanly Sensations In The Carmina Priapea," Classical Antiquity 34/1 (2015): 183- 208. 67. Translations here are my own. I have chosen to ignore the meter for the sake of the translation. 68. Amy Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Men," Journal of the History of Sexuality, 3:4 (1993): 533-534. 20 adult men, the threat is that of irrumare, or forced ;69 pedicare is apparently as "abnor- mal" for two men of equal caste and, importantly for our line of inquiry, for a woman and a man.

Indeed, when Roman invective epigrams do describe anal intercourse between a man and a woman, such behavior is marked linguistically as transgressive- a woman who is penetrated anally is described as being a puer, a boy.70 Martial makes this distinction explicit in a number of places. Here is one obvious example: Martial Epigrams 9.67 Martial Epigrams 9.6771 Lascivam tota possedi nocte puellam,cuius All night long I enjoyed a wanton girl, whose nequitias vincere nemo potest. fessus mille naughtinesses no man can exhaust. Tired by a modis illud puerile poposci: ante preces totum thousand different modes, I asked for the boy primaque verba dedit. routine; before I begged or started to beg, she gave it in full.

Here, Martial's narrator succeeds in convincing his partner to engage in "the boy" routine.72 She, however, is described as "lascivas" and "nequitias," both of which suggest negative moral quali- ties. The anal sex only happened after a long time of "normal" sex, and was purposefully and ex- plicitly transgressive.

Martial also treats the difficulties men in his world had adapting to marital sex:

69. Amy Richlin, "The Meaning of Irrumare in Catullus and Martial," Classical Philology 76.1 (1981): 40–46. Unlike in which one partner licks or sucks on a penis, is the the forced insertion of one's penis into the mouth and throat. See J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982), 211-214. 70. Jonathan Walters, "Invading The Roman Body: Manliness And Impenetrability In Roman Thought," in ibid, p. 31. 71. Martial. Epigrams, Volume II: Books 6-10. Edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library 95. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1993), 286-287. 72. Martial also describes anal sex between two adult men in the language of puer, here as a punishment for adultery: Martial, Epigram 2.60 LCL 94: 168-169 Uxorem armati futuis, puer Hylle, Hyllus my boy, you fuck the wife of an armed tribune, tribuni, supplicium tantum dum puerile fearing nothing worse than a boyish punishment. Alas times. vae tibi, dum ludis, castrabere. and alack, you’ll be castrated as you sport. Now you’ll iam mihi dices ‘non licet hoc.’ quid? tu say to me: “That’s not allowed.” Well, how about what quod facis, Hylle, licet? you’re up to, Hyllus? Is that allowed? 21 Epigram 11:78 Epigram 11:7873 Utere femineis complexibus, utere, Victor, Practice feminine embraces, Victor, do, and let ignotumque sibi mentula discat opus. flammea your cock learn a trade unknown to it. The texuntur sponsae, iam virgo paratur, tondebit veils are a-weaving for your fiancée, the girl is pueros iam nova nupta tuos. pedicare semel already being dressed, soon the newly-wed will cupido dabit illa marito, dum metuit teli be cropping your boys. She will let her eager vulnera prima novi: spouse sodomize her once, while she fears the first wound of the new lance, saepius hoc fieri nutrix naterque vetabunt et but her nurse and her mother will forbid its dicent: ‘uxor, non puer, ista tibi est.’ heu happening often and say: “She’s your wife, not quantos aestus, quantos patiere labores, si fuerit your boy.” Ah what embarrassments, what or- cunnus res peregrina tibi! ergo Suburanae deals you will suffer if a cunt is something for- tironem trade magistrae. illa virum faciet; non eign to you! Therefore hand yourself over as a bene virgo docet. novice to an instructress in Subura. She will make a man of you. A virgin is a poor teacher.

Victor,74 the newly married subject of the piece, has to adapt. He has been used to penetrating boys, and now that he is married, will have to learn new a new set of sexual behaviors. While it is obviously physically possible to have his wife replace his former partners, again we see that such behavior transgresses gender norms. The nouns uxor (wife) and puer (boy) refer to sex roles here, and neither to biological sex nor socially constructed gender. To be a "wife" is to be pene- trated vaginally, to be a "boy" means to be penetrated anally, regardless of sex. Individual brides and grooms might prefer pedecare, he out of habit or familiarity, and she out of fear of pain,75 but the older women who here represent societal order, intervene to teach proper sexual roles.76 Mar-

73. LCL 95. pp. 64-67. 74. This name may well be a pun, "Victor" is a loser in bed, whereas "Martial" is victorious is sex. See Lavigne, "Embodied Poetics in Martial 11," 301 n.53. 75. Seneca also allows that women might practice anal intercourse before marriage to remain "virgins." See: Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1.2.22, in Seneca the Elder, Declamations, Volume I: Controversiae, Books 1-6. Translated by Michael Winterbottom. Loeb Classical Library 463. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1974), pp. 86-87. 76. Donald Lavigne, "Embodied Poetics in Martial 11," Transactions of the American Philological Association 138:2 (2008), p 302. See also: Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality": p. 535. 22 tial's speaker, afraid that his novice friend will not succeed in conforming, encourages him to find a prostitute in one of the numerous brothels in the Roman neighborhood of Subura.77

Finally, we see Martial describing a woman berating her husband for having affairs with boys: Martial Epigrams 11:43 Martial Epigrams 11:4378 Deprensum in puero tetricis me vocibus, uxor, Catching me with a boy, wife, you upbraid me corripis et culum te quoque habere refers. dixit harshly and point out that you too have an arse. idem quotiens lascivo Iuno Tonanti! ille tamen How often did Juno say the same to her wanton grandi cum Ganymede iacet. incurvabat Hylan Thunderer! Nonetheless, he lies with strapping posito Tirynthius arcu: Ganymede. The Tirynthian used to lay aside his bow and bend Hylas over: tu Megaran credis non habuisse natis? do you think Megara had no buttocks? Fugitive torquebat Phoebum Daphne fugitiva: sed illas Daphne tormented Phoebus: but the Oebalian Oebalius flammas iussit abire puer. Briseis boy bade those flames vanish. Though Briseis multum quamvis aversa iaceret, Aeacidae often lay with her back to Aeacus’ son, his proprior levis amicus erat. parce tuis igitur dare smooth friend was closer to him. So kindly mascula nomina rebus teque puta cunnos, uxor, don’t give masculine names to your belong- habere duos. ings, wife, and think of yourself as having two cunts.

Here, Martial is explicit. The fact that his wife has an anus is irrelevant; anal sex is for penetrat- ing lower status males (or making equal status males subservient), not wives.79 This is, in fact, a radical mapping of Martial's poetic landscape onto to the very body of his wife, as Donald Lavi- gne writes, "Martial... controls the women whose bodies make up the matter of their poetry.

77. Lawrence Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1992), s.v. "Subura (2)." 78. Translation is taken from Martial, Epigrams, Volume III: Books 11-14. Edited and translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library 480. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1993) pp. 38-39 79. Another example of this idea is found in the last line stanza of 12:96: Martial Epigram 12:96 LCL 480: 166-167 scire suos fines matrona et femina debet: A married lady and a woman ought to know her limitations. cede sua pueris, utere parte tua. Leave their parts to the boys and use yours. 23 Moreover, Martial typically embeds his women in recognized social roles, thereby highlighting the tension between the real and the literary world his embodied poetics requires.80"

Even when Martial presents his narrator as desiring male-female anal sex, as in Epigram

11:104, he emphasizes how transgressive his desires really are: Martial Epigram XI:104 LCL 480: 84-85 Uxor, vade foras aut moribus utere nostris:... Wife, get out of my house or conform to my pedicare negas: dabat hoc Cornelia Graccho, ways.... You won’t let me sodomize: Cornelia Iulia Pompeio, Porcia, Brute, tibi; dulcia used to do that favor for Gracchus, and Julia Darbanio nondum miscente ministro pocula for Pompey, and Porcia, Brutus, for you. Be- Iuno fuit pro Ganymede Iovi. si te delectat fore the Dardanian page mixed their sweet gravitas, Lucretia toto sis licet usque die: Laida cups, Juno was Jupiter’s Ganymede. If grave nocte volo. manners please you, you may be Lucretia all day: at night I want Lais.

Richlin notes two very important aspect of this poem. First, the speaker does not ascribe any beauty to the backside of his wife, nor does he describe any pleasure associated with the act. That he is for it in a "general sort of way," only emphases the mocking tone.81 She plays her "wifely" role to a fault, and refuses to transgress social norms. Furthermore, Richlin adds: The image of the most famous and virtuous of Roman women allowing their hus- bands anal intercourse is a striking addition to the more usual mock-epic compar- isons. The words of the comparison to Andromache are closely adapted from Ovid, but the point is changed to make a much more straightforwardly prurient image, including voyeurism within the poem to match the voyeurism of the reader.82

All of this serves to show how subversive this poem is. It is exciting for the reader in large measure because it plays upon ideas of "normal" and "abnormal" sexual behavior that Martial's readers would have been familiar with.

Having examined these passages from Martial and the Priapia, the selections from

Yerushalmi, Genesis Raba, and the Bavli snap into focus. 2nd century Rabbis were, it would ap-

80. Lavigne, "Embodied Poetics in Martial 11," 284. 81. Richlin, Garden of Priapus, 54 82. Ibid: 159-160. 24 pear, well aware of the ways in which Roman culture characterized different sex acts into "nor- mal" and "abnormal" in general, and that for the Romans, heterosexual anal sex was seen as in- appropriate and transgressive. Thus the statement, "If a Noachide has anal sex with his wife, he is guilty" was probably understood in this context. Was such a Noachide "guilty" of a particular offense against state law? Unlikely. Yet the Rabbinic sources do seem to be tapping into some- thing quite real in the culture, and place it within the broader context of Jewish/Noachide legal systems, to demonstrate that their own views differed significantly. The Rabbis did share aspects of broader Roman sexuality, but they were very much aware of significant differences.

This context also helps explain why Rava so radically altered the tradition he received.

Living in Sassanian Babylonia, and despite the degree to which the Sassanian empire was "hell- enized,83" Rava appears to have been wholly unaware of the opprobrium levied against male/fe- male anal sex in Roman culture. Rava, of course, in comparison to his peers, seems to have been particularly acculturated to Persian norms in general and to Persian sexual norms in particular, as

Yakov Elman, Shai Secunda, and others have demonstrated.84 Unlike the Roman texts we saw above, which depict anal sex between men and women as socially transgressive, Zoroastrian texts, actively prohibit anal sex between people of any gender.85 This might owe to a lack of pro-

83. See: Daniel Boyarin, "Hellenism in Jewish Babylonia," in Charlotte Fonrobert and Martin Jaffe (eds) The Cambridge Companion to The Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 336-365. 84. See Yaakov Elman, "Middle Persian Culture and Babylonian Sages: Accommodation and Resistance in the Shaping of Rabbinic Legal Tradition," in the Cambridge Companion to The Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, Fonrobert, Martin S. Jaffee, eds. (New York: Cambridge, 2007), 171-3 and Shai Secunda, "Reading the Bavli in Iran," JQR 100:2 (2010): 310-342. 85. Ehsan Yarshater, Introduction to Cambridge History of Iran Vol 3:1: The The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods (New York: Cambridge, 1983), xliii. Sad Dar 9:7, though not itself a Pahlavi text, contains the following, "And when they commit the sin with women, it is just the same as that with men." Sacred Books of the East, vol. 24, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885) p.268. 25 creative possibility but primarily seems to be connected to particular negative associations with the anus.86 For example, in the Mēnōg ī xrad, the Dānāg (the “knowing or wise” one) asks the

"Spirit of Wisdom" what sin is considered the most heinous.87 The spirit answers, "of the sin which people commit, unnatural intercourse is the more heinous. The second is he who has suf- fered or performed intercourse with men."88 It is the penetration of the anus here which is partic- ularly disgusting to the anonymous author of this text.

It is possible that Rava might have shared the notion that anal sex is disgusting. But, awareness of Zoroastrian ideas does not mean that the rabbis always accepted them, and there are numerous examples of rabbinic texts which can be read as polemics against Zoroastrian beliefs about the body,89 especially those which seek to map cosmic dualism onto the human body, and which therefore associate the human anus with the evil and demonic. Rava has a theological stake in the unity of the human body as a rejection of Zoroastrian dualism. In order to draw a dis- tinction between his own community and that of the majority culture, he argues that, disgusting or not, anal sex is simply another way of having sex, unlike for Zoroastrians, for whom the anus had particularly negative theological connotations as part of the negative lower half of the human body.

Strikingly, we see through this study of references to anal sex in Rabbinic literature that in both contexts, Palestinian Roman and Babylonian Sassanian, that this particular sexual act is

86. Elman, "'He in His Cloak and She in Her Cloak': Conflicting Images of Sexuality in Sasanian Mesopotamia," in Discussing Cultural Influences: Text, Context, and Non-Text in Rabbinic Judaism, ed. Rivka Ulmer (Lanham, Md: University Press, 2007), 146. 87. On the term "Mēnōg", See Shaul Shaked, “The Notions mēnōg and gētīg in the Pahlavi Texts and Their Relation to Eschatology,” Acta Orientalia 33 (1971): 59–107. 88. Mēnōg ī xrad ("The Spirit of Wisdom") Chapter 36:1-4, Translated by E. W. West, in Sacred Books of the East, vol. 24, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885), 71. A similar formulation is found at Vidēvdād 5:27-28. 89. See Secunda's treatment of b.Sanhedrin 39a, "Reading the Bavli in Iran," 321-31. 26 something that the authors and editors of these texts use to identify and police the boundaries of their communities. Both before and after Rava's exercise in rereading anal sex is two things: first it is an act which is legally "sex," and second, that it means something different for Jews than it does for gentiles. As such, the discourse surrounding this particular act allows us a glimpse of how a minority culture within the broader context of the two major empires of late antiquity mapped out its ideological discourse on the copulating bodies of its audience.