knowledge is placed way down on the list, something on the order of knowing the speech of demons, as opposed to the various branches of Torah-knowledge proper, including knowledge of the Oral Torah and the aggadah, which are placed very high on the list.
4
The citation, by placing its statements in the mouths of angels, is not codifying them as Torah-knowledge, that is, as normative statements, but as "scientific" or practical knowledge. The form of the assertions themselves implies this pragmatic orientation, for instead of saying that it is forbidden to engage in such activities and relating that the punishment will be such and such, the assertions merely claim that these sexual practices give rise to certain undesirable procreative results. The type of control attempted here fits Foucault's descriptions of the modern discourses of medical control of sexuality better than it does the way that the medieval church exercised its control (Foucault 1980, 3738) through canon law and the system of penances.
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Rabbi Yohanan rejects, however, both the content of Rabbi Yohanan the son of Dabai's statement and, implicitly, its claims to scientific status. He promotes it from the category of "good advice" from a knowledgeable source to the level of Torah discourse, that is, to the discourse of the forbidden and permitted according to religion, but he does so in order to
reject
its religious validity. While Amemar's explanation seems farfetched, in a sense it is necessitated by Rabbi Yohanan's intervention, because the latter had introduced a discontinuity into the discursive frame by saying, "The halakha is not like Rabbi Yohanan the son of Dabai," as the latter had ostensibly not made a halakhic statement at all. In any case, the upshot of Rabbi Yohanan's pronouncement is to disqualify Rabbi Yohanan the son of Dabai's statement twice, as lacking both the scientific status of angelic knowledge and any correctness as Torah-knowledge. The Torah disqualifies itself from any interference in the private sexual practices of married couples, who may behave sexually as they please with each other. Moreover, as if Rabbi Yohanan were not authority enough, the Talmud backs up this judgment with an authority even greater than his, that of Rabbithe author of the Mishna itself, who, in actual practical situations advises two women that they have no recourse or complaint to the rabbis against their husbands' desire for an "unusual'' form of intercourseeither woman on top or, somewhat less likely, anal penetration (see below)because the Torah has permitted it. Note
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 | | 4. See Sukkah 28a and Baba Bathra 134a.
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