Eroticism and Death in the Tale of Jael

A ssociations between eroticism and death and between sex and violence are old and intimate ones reverberating in the various cultural artifacts of Western and non-Western tradition, reflecting and, in turn, affecting the essential nature of human self-consciousness. Eroticism or the sex act itself may be equated with dying, as in Song of Songs 8:6, ¹ or slaughter with sexuality, as in the battle imagery of the ancient Greeks explored brilliantly by Emily Vermeule. ² Death itself may be imagined as a gay seducer, a male lover, as in the “harlequin” tradition explored psychoanalytically by David C. McClelland; ³ while other equally powerful traditions portray erotically charged and sexually potent goddesses as violent warriors who wade through the bodies of slain soldiers, ⁴ who wreak vengeance on the enemies of their beloved, ⁵ or who threaten the love objects themselves even while making offers of immortality and bliss. ⁶ Attraction and revulsion, longing and fear—images of love and death.