A Response
Someone in an LJ community asked how homosexual Jews resolve their homosexuality and teh clear halakhic prohibition against it. This was my response.
The prohibition in the Torah is against a man laying a man as he lays a woman. This refers specifically to the act of penetration. The penetrative act was and is seen in middle eastern society, especially ancient middle eastern societies, as a humiliating and punitive act. The position of women was inherently inferior to that of men, and the act of an Israelite, created in the image of God and chosen to be of the Holy People, submitting another Israelite, created in the image of God and chosen to be of the Holy People, to such a humiliation, was unacceptable.
The Torah is not irrelevant in our time, nor is halakha. But halakha has always evolved with new and changing cultural understandings of our reality. The prohibition against male penetration of another male had to do with domination, subjugation and humiliation of an equal. We do not now see the penetrative act as inherently humiliating as the authors of the Torah and the surrounding culture did. The prohibition, according to modern understanding should read “Do not subject an equal to humiliation as though they were inferior to you.” This is how a holy people acts. With dignity. So long as we as a society can dignify homosexuals and homosexuality, there is no conflict. Only a cultural misunderstanding.
June 29th, 2005 at 10:16 pm
And with your contemplations about what that then means for Jews who practice BDSM, my thoughts just now were that there is a big difference between the abhorrence of acting with severe malice (as in the case of the kind of dominance, subjugation, and humiliation involved in the halakhic prohibition).. or even petty malice (like Lashon HaRah)… versus the kind of play acting involved in role fantasies. It is hard to deny that Judaism has a strong focus on living ethically and on condemning malice of that sort. To do harm to a person is not ok. But to damage the flesh in a mutually consesual fantasy act… I don’t see the halakhic problem.
Many (including me) may not think all that highly of that kind of sexual fantisizing, but just because something is culturaly uncomfortable at any given time or for any particular person doesn’t make it halakhically incorrect.