Homophobia and Rape in Sodom and Gibeah: A Response to Ken Stone

Michael Carden

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Biblical Studies and Interpretation Gender and Feminist Studies Theological Perspectives and Practices

Abstract

Readings of Genesis 19 and Judges 19 that highlight homosexuality as an interpretive device ignore the different historical and cultural context behind these texts and the contemporary politics in which these texts are enmeshed. The anthropological literature on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures reveals a phallocentric construction of gender and male sexuality. Under this structure, men who are penetrated by other men are stigmatized as queer, in Western terms, considered homosexual. The penetrators are not stigmatized and are equivalent to heterosexual men in Western culture. Male rape of outsiders in this context relieves the homosexual panic of the insiders, reinforcing their heterosexuality (honour) by inscribing the outsider as queer and the queer as outsider. Male rape in Genesis 19 and Judges 19 is an act of homophobic violence signifying the abuse of outsiders and the breach of the community of Israel.

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1985Between Men 1985Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.1978Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape 1981Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality 1988The Construction of Homosexuality 1988Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean 1985Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives 1981Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

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2018Homophobia and Rape Culture in the Narratives of Early Israel 2007Revisiting Judges 19: A Gothic Perspective 2013Sleeping with the Enemy: Recent Scholarship on Sexuality in the Book of Judges 2010How the Methodist Church of Southern Africa read Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 in view of homosexuality

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