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Summa Alu

Akkadian Omen Series

About this book
Chapter 104

1 If a man approaches an old woman (for sex) he will quarrel daily. 2 If a man is eating during intercourse, an attack [...] 3 If a man approaches a woman (for sex) while standing up, this activity is not good, the illness will afflict [him]. Alternatively, this man will suddenly collapse, afterward he will fall ill and the water of womanhood is neglected. 15 If a man gives into (his) manliness in captivity and while erect provokes the erection of (another) man: manliness is taken away from him, in distress he will see misfortune. 16 If a man is regularly engaged (in sexual activity) in the daytime of the afternoon: this man will have luck, happiness will be established for him. 17 If a man, a woman mounts him, this woman will take his manliness, for one month he will not have a personal god.⁠ 18 If a man speaks with a woman on a bed and he rises from the bed and acts in the way of a man (has an erection) this man, happiness and exultation will be established for him. Wherever he goes, he will find acceptance in every respect, he will always reach his goal.

Texts in conversation

Compare Summa Alu 104 and Gittin 70a

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Rabbinic

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Summary

A Mesopotamian omen in the Summa Alu warns that if a woman takes the leading role in sex, the man loses his strength and his protective deity. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Gittin echoes this, showing that these ancient beliefs continued into antiquity.

Passages

Summa Alu 104

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Akkadian Omen Series
16 If a man is regularly engaged (in sexual activity) in the daytime of the afternoon: this man will have luck, happiness will be established for him. 17 If a man, a woman mounts him, this woman will take his manliness, for one month he will not have a personal god. 18 If a man speaks with a woman on a bed and he rises from the bed and acts in the way of a man (has an erection) this man, happiness and exultation will be established for him. Wherever he goes, he will find acceptance in every respect, he will always reach his goal.
2300 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Summa Alu

Gittin 70a

Rabbinic · Babylonian Talmud
Rabba bar Rav Huna says: One who came back from traveling on the road and engaged in sexual intercourse immediately has weak children conceived from those acts of intercourse. The Sages taught: With regard to one who comes in from the bathroom, he should not engage in sexual intercourse until he waits the measure of time it takes to walk half a mil because the demon of the bathroom accompanies him. And if he engaged in sexual intercourse without waiting this measure of time, he has children who are epileptic. The Sages taught: One who engages in sexual intercourse while standing will be afflicted by spasms. One who engages in sexual intercourse while sitting will be afflicted with dalarya. If she, the woman, is above and he, the husband, is below during sexual intercourse, then he will be afflicted with dalarya. The Gemara asks: What is dalarya? Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said: The remedy for dalarya is dardara. The Gemara asks: What is dardara? Abaye said: Saffron of thorns. Rav Pappa would chew [aleis] and swallow this remedy. Rav Pappi would chew and spit it out.
450–550 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Gittin

References

"... If human sexuality is experienced as liminal, then the omens that consider occasions of sexual marginality can be considered doubly liminal. These body-related sex omens represent liminalities of two types. They deal with sexual interactions that take place on the boundaries of male and female bodies (omens 2, 3, 4, 12) and with the ominous import of body emissions (omens 6, 7, 8, 11(?), 17). The asymmetries of power and the binary construction of gender electrify the boundary between male and female bodies and constrain the way the erotic body is experienced and deployed ... A woman who is allowed to take a sexually dominant position is able to rob a man of his physical power. The sexual inversion of gender hierarchy deprives him of his vigor and his personal god, in essence, his drive to pursue his proper place in the world ..."
Ann Kessler Guinan, “Auguries of Hegemony: The Sex Omens of Mesopotamia,” Gender & History 9.3 (1997): 462–479.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Summa Alu 104 and Gittin 70a

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