[Ibby]

This can be demonstrated by analyzing those famous texts in which men argue about whether the love of women is inferior or superior to the love of boys. Each side accuses the other of effeminacy and can claim some logical grounds for doing so. In Plato's Symposium, where Aristophanes is made to relate his fanciful myth about the origins of the different kinds of loves, man for man, man for woman, and woman for woman, it is taken as natural that male-male love is the most "manly" (andreiotatoi) of all three (192A). In the Symposium no one attempts to argue the opposite, more difficult case. In Plutarch's Dialogue on Love (Moralia 7 48E- 771 E), the man defending the love of women does accuse the penetrated man of malakia and thLlu tes, but the speaker advocating the love of boys is given the stronger case. He says that the love of females is, of course, more effeminate (750F); the love of women is "moist" (hygron), "housebound," "unmanly" (anandrois), and im- plicated in ta malaka, "softness" (7 51A-B). Men who fall in love with women demonstrate their effeminacy (malakia) and weakness (astheneia, 753F; 7600) by the fact that they are controlled by women.

Similar mutual insults are exchanged in the Pseudo-Lucianic Affairs of the Heart. The man advocating the love of women is portrayed by the author as the more effeminate. He is said to be skilled in the use of makeup, presumably, the narrator comments, in order to attract women, who like that kind of thing (9). True, in his own turn, the "woman lover" complains that the penetrated man in homosexual sex is feminized; it is masculine to ejaculate seed and feminine to receive it (28, 19; note malakizesthai). But the man advocating the love of boys counters that heterosexual sex taints a man with femininity, which is why men are so eager to take a bath after copulating with women (43). Male love, on the other hand, is manly, he says, associated with athletics, learning, books, and sports equipment, rather than with cosmetics and combs (9, 44).32

I cite these texts not to celebrate homosexual love. What strikes me about them is rather their rank misogyny.33 But that is just the point. The real problem with being penetrated was that it implicated the man in the feminine, and malakos referred not to the penetration per se but to the perceived aspects of femaleness associated with it. The word malakos refers to the en- tire ancient complex of the devaluation of the feminine. Thus people could use malakos as an insult directed against men who love women too much.34

At issue here is the ancient horror of the feminine, which can be gruesomely illustrated by an example from Epictetus. In one of his especially "manly" moments, Epictetus praises an athlete who died rather than submit to an operation that would have saved his life by amputating his diseased genitals (1.2.25-26). Whereas we might think the paramount issue would be the man's wish to avoid an excruciatingly painful operation, the issue for Epictetus is the man's manly refusal to go on living if he must do so without his masculine equipment-the things that set him apart from despised femininity. It is better to die than be less than a man. Or, perhaps more to the point, any sensible person would rather be dead than be a woman.

There is no question, then, about what malakos referred to in the ancient world. In moral contexts it always referred either obviously or obliquely to the feminine. There is no historical reason to take malakos as a specific reference to the penetrated man in homosexual intercourse.35 It is even less defensible to narrow that reference down further to mean "male prostitute."36 The meaning of the word is clear, even if too broad to be taken to refer to a single act or role. malakos means "effeminate."

Why has this obvious translation been universally rejected in recent English versions? Doubtless because contemporary scholars have been loath to consider effeminacy a moral category but have been less hesitant in condemning gay and lesbian people. Today, effeminacy may be perceived as a quaint or distasteful personal mannerism, but the prissy church musician or stereotyped interior designer is not, merely on the basis of a limp wrist, to be considered fuel for hell. For most English-speaking Christians in the twentieth century, effeminacy may be unattractive, but it is not a sin. Their Bibles could not be allowed to condemn so vociferously something that was a mere embarrassment. So the obvious translation of malakos as "effeminate" was jettisoned.

Consequences

Being faced with a Pauline condemnation of effeminacy hardly solves the more important hermeneutical issues. Suppose that we wanted to be historically and philologically rigorous and restore the translation "effeminate" to our Bibles. What do we then tell our congregations "effeminacy" means? As I have already illustrated in part, in the ancient world a man could be condemned as effeminate for, among many other things, eating or drinking too much, enjoying gourmet cooking, wearing nice underwear or shoes, wearing much of anything on his head, having long hair, shaving, caring for his skin, wearing cologne or aftershave, dancing too much, laughing too much, or gesticulating too much. Keeping one's knees together is effeminate, as well as swaying when walking, or bowing the head. And of course there were the sexual acts and positions: being penetrated (by a man or a woman), enjoying sex with women too much, or masturbating37 the list could go on-and that contributed to the usefulness of the word as a weapon. It was a malleable condemnation.

Naturally, many of these things do not make a man effeminate today. If in trying to be "biblical," then, we attempt to "take seriously" Paul's condemnation, do we condemn what Paul and his readers are likely to have considered effeminate-that is, take the historical route? Or do we condemn only those things that our culture considers effeminate? And what might that be? Taking piano lessons? ballet dancing? singing falsetto in the men and boys' choir? shaving one's body hair for anything but a swim meet or a bicycle race? being a drag queen? having a transsexual operation? camping it up? or wearing any article of "women's clothes" (unless you are a TV talk show host trying to make a point)? refusing to own a gun? driving an automatic transmission instead of a stick shift? drinking tea? actually requesting sherry? Or do we just narrow the category to include only those people most heterosexist Christians would really like to condemn: "gays" and "manly men" who are careless enough to get caught? Condemning penetrated men for being effeminate would also implicate us in a more elusive and pervasive problem: the misogyny of degrading the penetrated. The ancient condemnation of the penetrated man was possible only because sexist ideology had already inscribed the inferiority of women into heterosexual sex. To be penetrated was to be inferior because women were inferior. Let us also be clear that our modem culture has in no way liberated itself from this sexism. This should be obvious every time a frat boy says "This sucks!" or "Fuck you!"-thus implicating both his girlfriend and possibly his roommate in the despised role of the penetrated. The particular form taken by modem heterosexism is derived largely from sexism. People who retain Paul's condemnation of effeminacy as ethical grounding for a condemnation of contemporary gay sex must face the fact that they thereby participate in the hatred of women inherent in the ancient use of the term. In the face of such confusion and uncertainty, no wonder modem heterosexist scholars and Christians have shrunk from translating malakos as "effeminate." I myself would not advocate reading a condemnation of effeminacy out loud in church as the "word of the Lord." But to mask such problems and tell our fellow Christians that the word "really" refers just to boy prostitutes or, worse, "passive homosexuals" is by this time just willful ignorance or dishonesty. Some scholars and Christians have wanted to make arsenokoités and malakos mean both more and less than the words actually mean, according to the heterosexist goals of the moment. Rather than noting that arsenokoites may refer to a specific role of exploitation, they say it refers to all "active homosexuals" or "sodomites" or some such catch-all term, often broadening its reference even more to include all homosexual eroticism. And rather than admitting the obvious, that malakos is a blanket condemnation of all effeminacy; they explain that it refers quite particularly to the penetrated man in homosexual sex. Modem scholars have conveniently narrowed down the wide range of meanings of malakia so that it now condemns one group: gay men-in particular, "bottoms." In order to use 1 Cor. 6:9 to condemn contemporary homosexual relationships, they must insist that the two words mean no more but also no Jess than what they say they mean. It should be clear that this exercise is driven more by heterosexist ideology than historical criticism.