For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. [Romans 1:26]
I’m curious, Jack Howling Wolf Snyder — what do you think this verse means? In my experience, a lot of Christians assume it’s a reference to lesbianism, but I’m not sure. If the Apostle Paul had wanted to make it completely clear that he was talking about lesbians, he could’ve used a phrase like “women lusting after women” or “women defiling themselves with each other.” But he doesn’t — instead, he just says that women were doing “that which is against nature.”
It seems to me that he might have been talking about women who engage in heterosexual sodomy with men as an illicit means of birth control — and this interpretation fits just as well with the “likewise” in verse 27 that follows. (It depends on how you understand “likewise”; does Paul mean that the women’s behavior resembles the men’s behavior because they’re both engaged in erotic passion with members of the same sex, OR because they’re both engaged in buggery?)
