Steve Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi, came to speak at Tufts a couple of weeks ago. I was in complete awe of his courage in coming out in a predominantly anti-gay community. However, what I found most interesting about his talk was not what he had overcome, but rather his interpretation of Leviticus and how he did not read it as a barring of homosexuality.
I won't go into all the details, but the point that I wanted to discuss was his view on penetrative sex. He believes that Leviticus reads that male-to-male sodomy is a negative action because penetrative sex is an act of violence and power, not because it is a homosexual act. Therefore, he concludes that homosexuality is not forbidden by the text, but instead, it is violent, power trip penetration that is looked down upon. This got me thinking pretty intensely about two things: The relationship between penetration and power, and about the reasons that our society struggles so much with homosexual sex.
Here's the thing with penetrative sex - in literal terms, someone is always giving and someone is always receiving. Put more graphically, someone is entering a body, and someone's body is being entered. If you take out the human part of this equation - the emotions, the soul, the passion - this is what penetrative sex is reduced to. It is an invasion of a corporal orifice. The only time when society, as a whole, seems to see penetration as an "invasion," carrying the negative connotation that the word often does, is in cases of rape. But when a heterosexual couple has sex, because it is consensual, most of us do not consider the invasiveness of the act. But these societal views seem to have gaps. Consensual sex does not mean that one partner does not have, or want, more power than the other. In terms of equal giving and receiving during sex, this can become problematic, especially if the "receiver" is the less powerful of the two partners.
In an ideal world, sexual partners would always be on an equal playing field, and issues of power would not enter the picture. But the fact is, sex is often about power. Consider role playing. If someone seeks to be dominated, they are submitting to their partner's powerful role. If someone dominates, they are putting their partner in a vulnerable state. True role playing, because of this game of power, is something I have never been able to allow myself to give in to. Playing with power is a dangerous game, and can become harmful to the minds of one or both of the partners. The only way that role playing can be truly harmless is if the two sexual partners are already equals in one another's eyes.
Penetrative sex is an incredibly intimate act where bodies come together like puzzle pieces. If partners do not think of each other as equals, the physical invasiveness of penetration is bound to take on a power component; someone will be taking up power in an act of domination and someone will be surrendering their power and submitting to that of their partner.
My point here is that penetrative sex is a risky game whether is it between heterosexual or homosexual partners, regardless of whether the penetrative object is a penis or an artificial replica (i.e. dildo, strap-on, butt plug, etc.). So why do we, as society, have such issue with homosexual men engaging in penetrative sex? If we are to accept consensual penetration as a non-invasive act, which we seem to do for heterosexual partners, we should be able to accept it for homosexuals. And if we are going to struggle with the concept of invasion on principle, then the morality of penetration should have more to do with whether or not partners consider each other equals than with the sex of the partners.
Rabbi Greenberg argues that homosexuality is not forbidden in the Torah. He argues that the misuse of sex as an act to gain power is what we, as society, need to be wary of; it is penetrative intercourse during which one or both partners take advantage of the vulnerability that is inherent with sexual giving and receiving that is a violation of the principles of intimacy. So why don't we stop worrying so much about who's doing who, and try, as a society, to respect those who have reached a point in their relationships where the givers and receivers are indistinguishable from one another, those who are enjoying the healthiest, most admirable sex of all.
