Yevamot 59: Sexual Behaviours that Disqualify a Woman from Marrying the High Priest

What a disturbing daf.

To begin, we learn about the High Priest who betroths and then marries a minor girl who grows into a woman under him.  We already know that a High Priest cannot marry a widow nor can he marry a divorcee.  Now we learn that the rabbis argue over whether or not he is permitted to marry an adult woman.  Likewise, with a minor who grows under the High Priest, the rabbis do not want her body to have changed.  It is as if she is two different people, we are told.  However, it seems obvious that the High Priest is to procreate with girls who are young teenagers.  These girls have not been acquired by other men.  

Then we move into a discussion of women who have been raped - whether by the High Priest himself or someone else, who have had atypical intercourse - a nice way of saying anal sex, and who have had sex with animals - both typical and atypical.  The rabbis even tell the story of a young woman who is sweeping when a dog has anal intercourse with her.  Is she allowed to the High Priest?, they ask.

Along the way, we are told about other concerns.  These include the increased likelihood of a damaged hymen as a girl ages, the likelihood that all girls will have experienced anal penetration due to pebbles (when wiping after defecation), when a woman might be called a zona and when she might be called a non-virgin, and whether or not animals paid for through prostitution or for sexual acts can be used as sacrifices.

Today's daf teaches me why women traditionally do not learn the Talmud.  The stories and the acts that the rabbis describe are beyond ridiculous - they are insulting and frankly impossible.  The only justification that I can imagine for using these examples in this holy text is to facilitate male sexual fantasy.  Truthfully, some of the material that I read days ago regarding how grown men can manage to have intercourse with baby girls (under age three years and one day) won't leave my head. If women were part of the circle of our Sages, they would have laughed and said, 
"You have got to be kidding me, Meir!"

And all of this would be funny, except that the Talmud is taught and learned as a holy text.  The rabbis words are understood as truth.  Generation after generation of young men have been learning this material.  They have been led to believe that women can easily have sexual intercourse with animals - both vaginally and anally.  What have become the fantasies of young Jewish men if this is the "pornography" to which they are introduced?  Dapim like today's daf help to shape a view of women that is so far from reality that it seems as though this must have been a joke of antiquity.  But it isn't.