Yevamot 54: Men and their Sexual Behaviours

The rabbis want to understand the precise ways in which a yevama is permitted to her yavam.  In ordinary circumstances, a woman is forbidden from marrying her husband's brother.  This is one of the forbidden sexual relationships explicitly explained to us in Leviticus.  Today's daf touches on who is forbidden to a yavam based on extrapolations from Torah law.  We are reminded that a mother's family is not meaningful regarding inheritance, and so the rabbis are more lenient about marrying into her family.  The relatives of one's father, however, are strictly forbidden.

Two other points arise in today's daf that jump off of the page, as they are continually part of today's discussions about sex, perversion, inclusion and religiously based shame.

First, we learn that a yevam must intend to have sexual intercourse for the yibum to be valid.  The rabbis go into great detail regarding the possible manners in which a yavam might accidentally have intercourse with his yevama.  He might be sleeping and tricked into intercourse.  He might be erect for his wife and then accidentally pressed into or forced into his yevama.  He might push up against a wall with a naked erect penis and accidentally push himself into his yevama.  Or he might intend to have intercourse with an animal and find himself somehow, accidentally, having intercourse with his yevama.  The act of intercourse does not have to be completed for yibum to be valid; just the initial stages of intercourse must have begun.  

The rabbis have not yet defined what is meant by initiating the first stage of intercourse.  Does that mean one thrust?  Does that mean genital contact?  It is amazing that the rabbis allow men to make such wild excuses for their behaviour.  Why could the man - even the man who might be coerced - not pull away from this illicit act?  If this were a woman, she would be judged as complicit unless someone heard her scream.  Why are the men allowed to be unaccountable for their actions when they could simply pull away?

We are reminded of Rabba's story of a man who accidentally fell from a building - for some reason being naked and erect - due to normal winds.  This man fell on a woman below, and was pushed by the force of the fall into her vagina.  The rabbis determined that he is liable for four of five counts in this case, and he must pay for injury, pain, lost wages, and medical costs.  He is not to pay for the shame brought about through this act of intercourse, for the act was accidental.  

If I have ever suspected the rabbis of fantasizing while insisting that they were interpreting text, this has to be my proof.  Falling into a woman? Such an act of intercourse is certainly impossible.  However, it does sound like the kind of sexual fantasy that a sexually limited and frustrated person might create.  At least the woman in this fantasy is provided with some degree of compensation.

Finally, we are told about the rabbis' views on sexual intercourse between men.  Because Torah verses state that men cannot lie with men as they lie with women, no form of intercourse that could happen between a man an a woman is permitted between two men.  Again, the beginning of the act of intercourse is all that is required.  This act is punishable by stoning, as is the act of intercourse with an animal.  We learn that intercourse with a forbidden yevama or intercourse with a menstruating woman are both punished through karet.

When the rabbis teach that men cannot have intercourse with other men as they would with women, I immediately hear a challenge.  What could men do with other men that women would be incapable of doing?  Perhaps those acts should be publicized as permitted.  I'm sure that there are a lot of creative men out there who would be willing to figure out which acts of intercourse would be permitted to them according to this interpretation of Torah law.