desire bordering on disease

I remember distinctly the first time I saw pornography. It was in a cheap hotel room in Rome and I was a young teenager. I still remember the nauseating feeling as I discovered the well used stash of magazines in the bottom dresser drawer. I didn't understand exactly what use they were put to - nonetheless, it was a sickening moment which has stayed with me till now as a vivid memory.

Another one of those moments was experienced recently while reading Keil and Delitzsch page 103 - the same mixture of nausea and disbelief, the same loss of innocence. I read,

The woman had so broken through her divinely appointed subordination to the man; she had not only emancipated herself from the man to listen to the serpent, but had led the man into sin. For that, she was punished with a desire bordering upon disease (תְּשׁוּקָה from שׁוּק to run, to have a violent craving for a thing), and with subjection to the man. "And he shall rule over thee." Created for the man, the woman was made subordinate to him from the very first; but the supremacy of the man was not intended to become a despotic rule, crushing the woman into a slave, which has been the rule in ancient and modern Heathenism, and even in Mohametanism also, - a rule which was first softened by the sin-destroying grace of the gospel, and changed into a form more in harmony with the original relation, viz. that of a rule on the one hand, and subordination on the other, which have their roots in mutual esteem and love.

I wish I had never read this, had never known that bible commentators thought these things about women, thought that being ruled was a mark of mutual esteem, etc. etc. Now I know that apparently some men, in spite of the fact that men are not innocent of creating pornography, believe that it is women who are diseased in their sexuality. Nice!

A woman can never study bible commentaries with the same freedom as a man. I personally - clearly many women won't share my reaction - regard reading bible commentaries as risky business, knowing that I am exposing myself to unmitigated nonsense, and in some cases simple filth. Blogging about the bible, for women, can never be a light hobby, a satisfying preoccupation. It is more like wandering through a minefield, or more like walking across my backyard, after the dog has been lounging around using it for his own needs.

I would really like to find this kind of thing funny. I do my best. But ultimately, I have to resort to other sources for humour, that elixir of life.