Judith Plaskow Good Sex Analysis

This paper carries on Judith Plaskow’s “Authority, Resistance, and Transformation: Jewish reflections on Good Sex” and Patti Jung’s “Sanctifying Women’s Pleasure” conversation on Good Sex. Judith Plaskow critiques Judaism and other religious traditions conception of good sex, which undergirds patriarchal mindset and values that tend to be oppressive and do injustices to women. Therefore, she argues that authority about good sex ought not be established by tradition alone, nor by traditional patriarchal interpretation of biblical texts, but reformulated from positive strands of religious traditions and as envisioned by communities of resistance and transformations. Likewise, Patti Jung critiques the church’s failure in sanctifying mutual sexual …show more content…
Therefore, this paper claims sex as honorable, pleasurable, and paradisal; and it is great sex when it is mutual, reciprocal, exclusive, and uninhibited. I shall prove this by a heterarchical interpretation of Genesis 1:26-31 and 2:18-24 and commenting on the literal interpretation of the Song of Songs with focus on both texts’ theology of sensuality and …show more content…
I take on Carol Meyer’s stance that ancient biblical Israel is not a patriarchal society, but rather a heterarchical culture where different power structures and gender balance roles existed. Women were highly regarded and enjoy equality with men in the private domain. Men in ancient Israel do not have complete domination over women in all aspects of life; women have power over men in the private realm, especially in managing households, family business or livelihood, finances, and sometimes in relationships. Her methodologies are social science research through sociocultural anthropology with data supplied by ethnography and feminist anthropology along with textual and archeological materials. Moreover, Elisabeth Tetlow and other scholars’ research revealed that women enjoy almost equal rights as men in the oldest civilizations of Sumer, Old Assyria, and Old Babylonia. Contrary to modern scholarship, many scholars conclude women’s high status in the OT; Richard Davidson cogently argued, with extraordinary depth and extensive bibliography, that the rapid decline of women’s status came about only after the OT times. Furthermore, ancient Egypt’s high regard for women, I believe was embraced by ancient Israel since it has been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, and their leader, Moses,