Disaster, Civil War and Rape

Before embarking on a history of the interpretation of Sodom and Gibeah, I will present my own interpretation of these two stories in an intertextual reading that explores the parallels and inversions of rape imagery in both stories. My reading of the stories will be in two parts. The first part is a literary reading of the intertextual relationship of the stories that recognizes Sodom as the paradigmatic disaster story, and I will draw on the insights of Susan Sontag and Maurice Yacowar into the disaster story genre in film and literature. The second part, using anthropological and historical analysis of Mediterranean cultures, examines the ways homophobia, rape and compulsory heterosexuality are integral to the events of both stories. In particular, I will draw on the anthropological work of Carol Delaney and the concept of monogenesis she identified in the gender structures of Mediterranean cultures. Richie McMullen's analysis of male rape and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's insights into the role homosexual panic plays in structures of masculinity will also be important.

In comparing the two stories, I will argue that the story of Sodom is an account of YHWH'S mighty deed in overthrowing injustice and oppression and not punishment for homoeroticism and same-sex love and desire. The story of Gibeah is one of a society in which injustice and oppression lead to social breakdown and civil war, but finally the oppressive system remains in place.