Sanhedrin 108: The Flood; Animals in the Ark

A very brief note on today's daf:

We begin today's daf with a conversation about another group of people who will not see the World-to-Come.  These are the people of Sodom.  It is argued that all of that community was barred from multiplying and having many descendants.  

The Gemara shifts its conversation to that of those animals and people who were on Noah's ark.  The rabbis ask about Noah's righteousness that he was permitted to live when all others were destined to die in the flood.  The rabbis discuss the animals on the ark as well.  They surmise that only those animals who mate with each other were taken onto the ark.  Other animals might have entered the ark on their own.  The raven plays a large role in today's deliberations, particularly regarding its lack of a mate.  The rabbis discuss the possibility of a sexual relationship between a person and a bird in order to ensure the bird's continued procreation.  This is forbidden, of course, but even the discussion is bizarre.

Speaking of bizarre, the rabbis consider the temperature of the flood waters.  They use proof texts to determine that the water was hot.  Other analogies lead them to believe that the water was hot like semen.  The discussion turns to one about the animals and people being forbidden from any sexual contact on the ark.  There are a few exceptions to this rule.  

I wonder if today's world is so incredibly prudish about sexual behaviour that we find the rabbis' seemingly effortless conversation about sex to be off-putting.  Then again, in some ways modern societies are very open about sex and sexuality.  But perhaps not in an honest way.  When sexuality is paraded and removed from any relational context, we cannot say that we are particularly 'open' about sex.  And we certainly do not speak freely about water being like semen or about bestiality.