Texts in Conversation
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 for a short time. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Gittin describes a similar idea, showing that beliefs about the dangers of reversed sexual roles continued into antiquity.
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Summa Alu 104
Akkadian Omen Series
Ancient Near East
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.
Date: 2300 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Gittin 70a
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
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.
Date: 450-550 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and 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 ..."
Guinan, Ann Kessler
Auguries of Hegemony: The Sex Omens of Mesopotamia
(pp. 462-479) Gender & History, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1997
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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