Sex

Given that time references in the story can be interpreted a variety of different ways, leading to no clear indication of Adam and Eve's age, I think most people picture Adam and Eve at an age pleasing to them. For me this age seems to be in their mid twenties. They are adolescent enough to be easily persuaded that God's word is wrong, which to me doesnt correspond with old age and wisdom. I think another important question is the range of time that the story covers. It is obvious that Adam and Eve are not children throughout the whole story, because they do produce children and therefore must be of age to reproduce. However, this doesnt mean that from the beginning of their creation they were of a mature age. The thought seems strange to me that God would create the first human beings to live an altered life timeline (no childhood) than all humans after them.
Genesis 1 deals with sex in an implied way with all the repetition of "after their kind" in the animal kingdom. The importance of a self sustaining earth relies on sex. More explicitly he tells the humans to "bear fruit and be many and fill the earth" (Gen 1:28). This is a more literal reference to birth, which is obviously linked to sex. In Genesis II the first overt mention of sex is in the statement "A man . . . clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). This statement itself was controversial when we discussed it in class, however the joining of flesh must be taken as a reference to sex and reproduction. The next direct reference to sex comes when "The human knew Havva his wife" (Gen 4:1). However, is this the first time they had sex? I originally thought that they did not have sex before they ate from the tree of knowledge, because they were "unaware" of their nudity and therefore would not have had the knowledge of sex. However, this becomes a greater question of god's intention of immortality. If god never intended Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, he surely still intended them to multiply and fill the earth, which implies sex. So, it is not entirely clear when the first time Adam and Eve could possibly have had sex.
In the rabbinical interpretations, sex is used for a variety of different purposes. First, sex is used as a selection process to find Adam a mate and realize the need for Eve. Here there is no negative connotation given to sex. Another interpretation gives much negative connotation to sex, pinning it as the snake's motive towards tricking Eve. It is a passion for Eve that god punishes because the snake "set his eyes on that which was not proper for it" (E&A 86). There is no consistent mold that sex fits into in these interpretations, especially the one referring to Adam as an androgene. I'm not exactly sure what to make of this interpretation, but it was exciting to read because i recently took a class on ancient greek and Hindu mythology and saw many creation stories centered around androgynous beings. One that I particularly liked was in "The Symposium," where one of the party members told a story about how the earth was primitively filled with two faced beings. Some of these beings were entirely male, some were entirely female, and some had both sexes. At one point a divine power split these beings in half, and the rest of the story becomes an etiology of how humans spend their lives searching for their "other half," be it the same sex or opposite sex. I feel that these short passages are a glimpse into the reality that sex can be used in just about any way, good or bad, to support an interpretation.