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I would like to see Neil or some other resident performance artist come up with some sort of justification for 20% of their top 50 pages having to do with homosexuality. Like maybe the gay freaks out Osama Bin Laden, and a deep understanding of the gay can help us defeat terror in our time.

Are you calling me a closeted lesbian?

Also, why is it that conservatives seem so stressed about gay men, while gay women seem to fly under their radar? Maybe because the most obnoxious of the conservatives are very male-o-centric anyways.

The same reason there's no mention of lesbianism, excuse me, Island of Lesbos, Female Carnal Pleasure in the Old Testament. There's no castration anxiety involved for the man who's afraid of being penetrated. 90% of those homophobic guys, if you could get them to talk candidly, would tell you that if you're the one receiving the blowjob you're not gay. I would bet you good money.** They make their ability to conform to a "manly standard" the centerpiece of their gender identity and as a result it's fragile, in the same way that all external standards are fragile.

**Euros.

Especially Solomon. Even as king, he clearly couldn't get a woman to willingly go to bed with him twice. Why else would he need so many?

I should probably beat myself for repeating this, but perhaps someone could confirm or deny for me as I'm not jewish.

I have a friend who is jewish and lesbian. Her comment to me is that within judaism, female homosexuality is at least not frowned upon, while male homsexuality is viewed very negatively. I have no way to evaluate this statement, but if so it would explain a bit as to why there's no mention of female homosexual behavior (as opposed to greek island lifestlyes) in the OT.

Feel free to trash her statement, it's hers, not mine, and I'll go whack a ruler across my hand for repeating.

I think this all comes from the supposed magical properties of a man's "seed". Jehovah is really into the man-seed; look what happens to Onan when he spills his upon the ground instead of knocking up his dead brother's widow like God wanted him to. Women don't have any magical man-seed, so, really, who gives a damn what sort of shenanigans they get up to with their genitals, so long as it doesn't involve any all-important man-seed.

EDIT: Is there a lolcat for "MY THEORY HAZ EXPLANATORY POWER?"

I think dhex pretty much nails it. If you look at the Old Testament, women are just kind of...not as morally important. It's not that they can't do anything wrong, but there's less focus on them. This is probably because the old Hebrews were a patriarchal, patrilineal society: the real crimes were those that threatened social structure and authority.

It's true, and why it's entirely possible to be Orthodox Jew and lesbian at the same time. There are Rabbinical writings from later that argue that lesbianism is unclean, but those don't rise to the level of a commandment, so it's not forbidden.

Well either way it's rough punishment to have your name turned into basically the scientific word for beating off.

Yes, I know. But the whole point of the story is that the seed was supposed to go into the widow, not onto the ground (note that her part in the story amounts to "the prop into which Onan put his dick, but not his seed").

You do wrong stuff with your seed, Jehovah hates you, bigtime. If you don't have any seed to spill, Jehovah doesn't much give a shit what you do, so long as it's not accepting any seed from other men or, of course, defending your man by grabbing at another man's seed factories.

It's all about the seed.

EDIT: Note also that men who have lost their testicles are not allowed to enter the temple. They don't have any seed, you see.

Shem,
I still think you're talking about an infinitesimal fraction.

1) Very few of these guys are secretly Muslim.

2) They know they'll never be allowed to bomb San Francisco.

Yeah, when it should be the scientific word for "money shot."