There are many sexual innuendos throughout the story, but I consider Samson's encounter with Delilah particularly interesting. For it is in this encounter that Samson's "heterosexuality" starts to implode and, to use a phrase by Teresa Hornsby and Ken Stone, 3 finally dissolves back into queerness. As Delilah has a name and a voice, she is more powerful than the two women Samson has previously shown interest in. Her aim is to weaken Samson's strength and then hand him over to the Philistine men, who want to put an end to the destruction and death Samson spreads in Philistia. Although there are several indications that Samson is aware of Delilah's intentions, it doesn?t keep him from playing with her. As she asks ritual questions, binds him several times and finally shaves his hair, the scene has several characteristics of a bondage game. While "natural" sexuality centers around male genital penetration of a woman--which is what Samson had so far shown interest in--BDSM is a [BEEP] practice because it involves the eroticization of other body parts than the genitals and because the power dynamics are more ironic and less stereotypically gendered. After Samson has provided (partly false, partly true) answers to Delilah's repeated question, he finally confesses that if his hair is cut, he will lose his strength--and that?s what happens. As he had turned his long hair from a sign of his Naziriteship into a phallic symbol, the cutting of his hair symbolizes his castration. The reason why Samson plays this bondage game with Delilah and why he finally reveals his secret, is that this mysterious and powerful woman has made him unable or unwilling to continue keeping up his "heterosexual" appearance.
One of the aims of my article is to show the value of focusing on the construction of Samson's masculinity. This fits in a recent growing interest in the study of masculinities among Biblical scholars in general. 4 A few decades ago, feminist scholars such as Mieke Bal 5 and Cheryl Exum 6 have argued that the female characters in the Samson narrative are victims of male violence (by Samson, other Israelite men and the Philistine men) and that they have been negatively depicted by the narrator and negatively evaluated by many interpreters (esp. Delilah as a femme fatale). I agree with most of this, but the problem is that they hardly pay any attention to Samson, the construction of his masculinity, and the numerous men he slaughters. I have argued that Samson?s sexual ?interest? in women and his violence against men are interrelated as being two operations of his libido dominandi.
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Nyctophilia
