{"id":119384,"date":"2018-01-02T11:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=119384"},"modified":"2017-12-19T16:44:44","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T21:44:44","slug":"sex-in-the-garden-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/02\/sex-in-the-garden-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex in the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>We\u2019re away until January 3, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2017. Enjoy your holiday!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_115366\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/but536.1.4.wc_.100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-115366\" class=\" wp-image-115366\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/but536.1.4.wc_.100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"715\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/but536.1.4.wc_.100.jpg 660w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/but536.1.4.wc_.100-293x300.jpg 293w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-115366\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Blake,\u00a0<i>Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve\u00a0<\/i>(detail), 1808.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The serpent, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field, had observed with interest the humans\u2019 sexual intercourse in Paradise. He saw that Adam calmly willed his penis to stiffen and then gently inserted it into Eve\u2019s vulva. The act caught his attention in part because he thought that Eve was extraordinarily beautiful and in part because he had already noted a certain resemblance between Adam\u2019s penis and his own body, which he could also harden or soften at will. One day, he approached Eve\u2014Adam was away surveying a different part of the garden\u2014and proposed that he stiffen his body and enter her, as Adam did. Lacking any knowledge of good or evil, Eve gladly consented. The snake made himself hard and penetrated the woman, moving his head this way and that to see what might be of interest. But it was dark inside and, after a while, concluding that Eve was more beautiful without than within, he withdrew. Eve, however, had experienced something intensely pleasurable, and she determined that when Adam returned she would teach him how to imitate what the snake had done. (Williams 57\u201358; Slavonic Enoch)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/14\/sex-in-the-garden\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re away until January 3, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2017. Enjoy your holiday! &nbsp; The serpent, the subtlest of all the beasts of the field, had observed with interest the humans\u2019 sexual intercourse in Paradise. He saw that Adam calmly willed his penis to stiffen and then gently inserted it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1244,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32152],"tags":[17674,8684,21688,3281,10171,1786,179,8553,5505,6179,28812],"class_list":["post-119384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2017","tag-adam-and-eve","tag-legend","tag-legends-of-the-fall","tag-myth","tag-paradise","tag-religion","tag-sex","tag-stephen-greenblatt","tag-the-bible","tag-the-fall","tag-the-rise-and-fall-of-adam-and-eve"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sex in the Garden<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stephen Greenblatt retells the legends of the fall. 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