Niddah 18: Women's Bodies as Architecture

Both yesterday and today's daf debates several points regarding what is permitted around intercourse. One point is that a man should not be made to find his wife repulsive, and so if lights must be turned off to achieve that end, so be it.  Another is that one must not cut and dispose of one's nails in public. More: one should not eat peeled foods - garlic, onion, egg - after the day that they have been peeled, one should not have intercourse after bloodletting for it weakens the body and thus the person to be conceived.  

We learn that if snow becomes ritually impure, only the spot touched is impure.  However, if one holds an earthenware vessel over the pile of snow, the entire thing is not ritually pure.

A new Mishna teaches that a woman's organs are known as the corridor, which is the vaginal canal, the inner room, which is the uterus, and the upper storey, which is the bladder.  Blood from the corridor and the upper story are ritually pure, but all are said to be ritually impure because it is not known whether or not the blood originated in the inner room.  There is also said to be a vestibule between the inner room and the upper storey.  Blood coming from below the vestibule might be ritually pure.  It is difficult to understand how the the rabbis could imagine that this would be  determined.

Many euphemisms are used for sexual relations; particularly for women's body parts.  The face, eating bread... It would seem that the rabbis were embarrassed to discuss these things.  But clearly, they were not embarrassed at all.  Every subject is open for Torah interpretation.  Perhaps especially women's bodies, which are so often off limits in every manner.