If a person intentionally is destructive in causing a wound on Shabbat, he is liable. If a newly married couple were to have intercourse on Shabbat, the blood that might be caused by this "wound" could be evidence of a transgression on the part of the groom.
To determine whether or not intercourse could be permitted according to these circumstances, the rabbis use a similar case. What if a cloth stopper is used to plug a hole in a wine barrel on Shabbat? The cloth would inevitably become soaked with wine and would have to be squeezed out - and that action is prohibited on Shabbat. Is that destructive, unintentional action permitted/encouraged? The rabbis seem to misunderstand women's anatomy. They believe that the hymen does not stretch; it tears, and when it bleed, the blood is either 'pooled' behind the hymen or it is released from the blood vessels in the hymen itself. Either way, the fact that the rabbis speak of women's bodies in this detached, clinical and misinformed manner is difficult to read.
If a young girl who has not yet reached puberty has intercourse after her wedding, is there the same fear that her 'hymenal' blood, which is not considered to be ritually impure, will be menstrual blood, which is a source of ritual impurity? The rabbis decide that she has four nights to continue having intercourse; the groom need not worry that she will make him ritually impure. In our notes, we learn that the rabbis recommended that she rest from intercourse until she has fully healed from that first 'wound'.
Is it true that the couple could engage in intercourse after four days - on Shabbat? The rabbis argue further: just as walking through a narrow alley on Shabbat will cause pebbles to fall (also prohibited on Shabbat), a man is permitted to have intercourse with his virgin wife on Shabbat even it will cause bleeding/wounding.
And then the rabbis move into the realm of male insecurity. Men are exempt from saying the Shema for those first days following the wedding. Why? Perhaps they are afraid that they will not know what to do sexually with their virgin brides. Perhaps they are fearful that they will learn she is not a virgin. One way or another, he must be preoccupied with the act, and so the Shema is omitted. But there are other circumstances when men are preoccupied. They are not allowed to forego the Shema in those situations.
The rabbis agree that men are exempt from saying the Shema over those first three nights. And then they wonder about those men who are experts at 'diverting'; having intercourse with a woman without rupturing her hymen. They note that many men are experts at this; many other men can do it but cannot predict their success in advance. Thus they would continue to be preoccupied until the hymenal bleeding proved that the intercourse was successful. The Gemara wonders: if so many men are able to have intercourse without rupturing the hymen, what does the blood on the sheets prove? The rabbis answer: intention if of primary importance.
Today's daf ends with a bizarre juxtapositioning. The rabbis move into a conversation about lancing and removing pus from an abscess on Shabbat.
We are privy to the rabbi's lack of knowledge regarding women's bodies, women's emotions, and men's insecurities and preoccupations. It seems that the rabbis did not teach their students about how to stretch the hymen to cause young women as little pain as possible. They did not teach their students about the nature of blood and pain. They also did not teach their students how similar men and women would feel in that situation: ready to do what they are to do and fearful about doing it 'incorrectly.' Thus young men and women were distanced from each other in the moment that they could be building intimacy.
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