Jay Michaelson muses in Jewcy on sexuality and religion, primarily Judaism, and is upset that a sex scandal took down one of his favorite liberals, Elliot Spitzer. He's wise enough not to offer too many answers, but he does lay down some markers for a juicy debate.
The fact is that prostitution is a Christian, not a Jewish, sin. Look for the prohibition in the Torah and you won't find it. On the contrary, you'll learn of Judah visiting a prostitute -- without condemnation -- as well as of concubines and polygamy. (Cultic harlotry is banned by Deuteronomy 23:18-19, but not secular prostitution.) Even the Talmud is ambiguous; sometimes it appears to condemn prostitution and illicit sex of all kinds, and other times it tells of lusty rabbis visiting prostitutes and otherwise circumventing our expectation of chaste monogamy.
In fact, it was expected that men would have sex outside of marriage. It wasn't exactly celebrated, but it wasn't condemned either. In short, within the gendered context of Jewish law, it's a peccadillo.
Of course, Jewish law is very concerned about adultery. But "adultery" meant sex with another man's wife. As in the ancient British law from which the English term is derived, it was "adultery" in the sense of "adulterating" a man's bloodline -- and the offense was against the other man: abusing his property, confusing his lineage. The concern is about patriarchy, not sex. As usual, sex is problematic not in itself (indeed, you won't find any clear condemnation of heterosexual sex, by itself, in Jewish law) but because of its context.
1 comment:
As is often the case lately, Jay Michaelson is wrong here in his reading of the narrative where Judah visits a prostitute. Has he forgotten that the "prostitute" he visits is actually Judah's daughter-in-law, Tamar, who has presented herself in this way in order to get Judah's attention and force him to fulfill his promise to her? Michaelson is using the wrong biblical narrative to support another one of his attempts to garner attention. In the Torah, prostitutes are usually depicted in shameful ways (think Rahab), but this story of Judah is not about the prostitute's actions; it's about Judah's actions, about the way he has mistreated his daughter-in-law and forced her to shame herself. His actions with her (when she poses as a prostitute) are considered shameful, and he acknowledges this in the story and ends up giving to Tamar what he promised her, but only after she reveals that she has kept something that belonged to him as PROOF that he was with a prostitute.
Michaelson should try re-reading this story for its ethical nuances rather than reducing it to fodder for his purposely provocative points.
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