Sex & Sexuality Quiz

Judaism does not see sex as dirty or grossly physical, neither does it encourage sex outside committed relationships. How much do you know about Jewish perspectives on sex?

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Question 1. Does Jewish law recognize a distinction between male and female masturbation?
 Yes
 No

 

Question 2. What does the Sefer Hahinuch compare homosexuality to?
 Sexual congress with animals.
 Incest.
 Marrying a barren woman.
 All of the above.
 None of the above.

 

Question 3. What is a mamzer?
 A non-Jewish man married to a Jewish woman.
 A Jewish man who marries a non-Jewish woman.
 The child of an adulterous or incestuous union.
 A promiscuous person of either gender.

 

Question 4. Which Torah passage is read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur?
 The story of Adam and Eve.
 The passage forbidding homosexuality and various sexual sins.
 Abraham circumcising Isaac.
 The metaphorical "birth" of the Jewish people receiving the Ten Commandments.

 

Question 5. In 2006, the Conservative law committee published a responsum which was used to allow homosexual students to study to become rabbis at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The central legal argument in this paper was based on
 The principle that human dignity can over-ride a negative commandment in the Torah
 The authors' painful personal experiences with reparative therapies
 The realization that no matter what, Jewish law cannot change
 The comparison of male homosexual sex to female homosexual sex

 

Question 6. In 1977, which Jewish movement drafted a call to decriminalize homosexual sex and end all discrimination based on sexual orientation?
 Reform
 Reconstructionist
 Conservative
 Orthodox

 

Question 7. What is Judaism's opinion on celibacy?
 It is endorsed.
 It is up to the individual.
 Celibacy is only for rabbis.
 It is prohibited.

 

Question 8. What makes the biblical character Onan famous?
 He refused to perform a levirate marriage with his sister-in-law after his brother's death
 He slaughtered all the adult males of an entire city after one of them raped his sister
 He was the first nazirite
 He was a eunuch in the Holy Temple

 

Question 9. According to traditional Jewish law, when do women immerse in the mikveh (ritual bath)?
 Immediately after they finish menstruating
 Ashkenazic women immerse five days after their period begins, Sephardic women immerse four days after their period begins
 Seven days after they finish menstruating
 Seven days after they get their period

 

Question 10. In the Torah, what does the word yada or "to know," also designate?
 Being married to someone
 Having sexual relations with someone
 Being betrothed to someone
 Having raped someone

 

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