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Sim ilarly, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah shows that it is

essential to male power (to the power of men as a class) to protect

men from the sexual lust of other men— to protect men from

forced sex by putting women in their place. No legal piety interferes with protecting men from homosexual assault by other men (in the story of Sodom, homosexual gang rape). The story of

Sodom is meant to show that when the simple mechanical strategy

of using women, not men, as targets for nonconsensual sex breaks

down entirely, a patriarchal society w ill be destroyed. So God ordains; so the Old Testament describes: and it is an accurate assessment of the importance of keeping women the objects of forced sex so that men w ill not be subjected to it and need not fear it.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah begins with a conversation

between God and Abraham: God says that “[b]ecause the cry of

Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know” (Genesis 18: 20-21). Abraham asks God if he will

destroy Sodom if there are fifty righteous men in the city. God

promises that if there are fifty, he w ill spare the city. Abraham,

after a few more interchanges, gets God to promise: “I w ill not

destroy it for ten’s sake” (Genesis 18: 32). Two angels go to Sodom,

where Lot bows down to them and offers them hospitality: safety

in his home, washing of the feet, unleavened bread:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men

of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young,

all the people from every quarter:

And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the

men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us,

that we may know them.

And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door

after him.

And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known

man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye

to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Genesis 19: 4 -8

The crowd, “both old and young, all the people from every quarter, ” attacked; the angels who appeared as men pulled Lot inside to save him, and “they smote the men that w ere at the door of the

house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied

themselves to find the door” (Genesis 19: 11). The angels told Lot

to leave Sodom because they were going to destroy it. Lot told his

sons-in-law, but they did not believe him. In the morning, the

angels told Lot to take his wife and two unmarried daughters; he

lingered, the angels transported Lot and the women outside the

city. God told Lot to go into the mountains and not to look back;

Lot pleaded to be able to go to a nearby city; God said he would

spare that city for Lot’s sake: “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom

and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of

heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the

inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground”

(Genesis 19: 24-25). God remembered Lot, and spared him, and in

the wave of destruction of cities, God sent Lot into the mountains,

where Lot lived with his two daughters: “And the firstborn said

unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the

earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth: Come,

let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that

we may preserve seed of our father” (Genesis 19: 31-32). On successive nights, each had sex with her drunken father and both became pregnant. Both had sons, a blessing, and each of those sons became the father of a whole people, a blessing.

That the people of Sodom meant the strangers harm is clear.

The nature of that harm is less clear. The demand of the mob to

bring the strangers out “that we may know them” is sexual because

the use of “know” usually is in biblical diction. The attempt of Lot

to substitute his virgin daughters for the men suggests that the mob

would have gang-raped the men. Whether the women in the mob

were voyeurs or purveyors of other forms of violence is impossible

to know: and yet the threat to the men does not seem to be only