When I stumbled across a copy of Erotica Judaica: A Sexual History of the Jews in a used bookstore, I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into. I opened the font cover and read: "Erotica Judaica, A Sexual History of the Jews, views the remarkable role that sex has played in the development and destiny of the most vital, viable, and influential culture in the history of humanity." Hmm. Pretty lofty claim, I thought, but it sounded intriguing, so I picked it up.
Bearing in mind that it was written in 1967, and uses a style that is part clinical/academic, part Victorian, and part giggling envelope-pushing; I was anticipating Jewcy-erotic tales, but what I got instead was, admittedly way better. I say "way better" not to knock a good schtup-tale, of course, but because this book is a buffet of cited sources and of references Talmidic and literary, a hint of intellectual WTF-ism with a similar feel to Codex Seraphinianus' genius-absurdist vibe, with a good dose of bleh, bleh, bleh thrown in for good measure. For example:
"And Y-hweh said to Joshua, 'This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you' (Yahuahu; Midrash Rabbah. The verb galal, to roll away, refers to the removal of that reproachful ring of flesh encircling the glans penis.) 'When Joshuah circumcised the children of Israel,' states Midrashic Rabbi Levi, 'he made a heap of their foreskins. And the sun shone on them and they bred worms, and the odor arose to the Holy One like the odor of incense from the fire offerings…"
That's all well and good, but just because we're talking about a sex organ does not erotic history make. Fortunately, keep reading and you get your fill of lit-schtup in the very next chapter, a chapter called "Sexual Hospitality":
"…the ancient Arabian traditions of hospitality. Jeal, Heber's comely wife, gave Sisera to drink of the milk of refuge, she invited him to share her carpet bed in physical rest and restorative emotional release. Talmidic Rabbi Johanan deduced, from the text of Judges 5:27, that Sisera had seven sexual connections with Jael: Between her legs he squat, he lay he spurted; between her legs he squat, he lay; where he squat, there he lay stiff."
(Original Shoftim reads something like: bayn ragliyeh kara' nafal shakab, bayn ragliyeh kara' nafal, b'ashr kara' sam nafal shadud.) And with footnotes like:
"The verb kara' (to squat) expresses a coital posture common to Easterners… the pregnant verb nafal (to fall, to lie prostrate) is used in the sense of a man allowing a woman to mount and ride him, which in the patriarchal East is indicative of feminine domination…. Shakab (to lie with a woman) is literally the Arabic sakab (to pour out, to ejaculate… Bayn ragliyeh, consistently mistranslated as at her feet, is too clear for comment."
…it's not, you know, hot-and-bothered, but it's a fascinating, geekin'-on-the-freakin' read.