ABSTRACT
A queer gaze does not wholly contradict the feminist view of the marriage metaphor as a tool that validates an oppressive patriarchy, but it offers an invitation to consider the implications of the loose boundaries of desire pictured within it. First it blurs the distinction between the male element of the tenor and the female element of the vehicle. Second, it requires the male reader to associate himself with the rle of a woman. Many feminist commentators find offence in what they consider to be the insistent emphasis on the female as the model of immorality a sponge to soak up male guilt. The queer point of view does not deny the offensiveness, but it sees it as not an incidental effect of the metaphor but a deliberate device intrinsic to the metaphorical process. The marriage metaphor requires men to think of themselves and their relationship to the divine in a way that wholly undermines their cultural expectations.
