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intended to forbid, according to the talmudic resolution, was speaking of other and distracting matters during the sexual act. Even the angels permit couples to speak of sexual matters, which is what Rabbi Eliezer and Imma Shalom did. According to the redactorial level of the talmudic text, then, one is permitted to speak of sex during sexual activity, as it is considered conducive to the creation of intimacy and warmth between the partners. This is, then, consistent with the stated reason for the Rabbi's behavior.
Let us read this story a bit more closely. It is important to know at the start that the word that Imma Shalom uses for "intercourse" is "talking." Literally, what she says to the Rabbis is, "When he talks to me, he does not talk to me at the beginning of the night, nor at the end of the night, but at midnight." I think that the linguistic echo is significant, because the story, like the entire talmudic passage, is about the discourse of sex, that is, at least in this case, about talking about sex. 14 Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai's angelic communication has been cited as illustration of the principle that modesty is vitally important. Accordingly, the conversation that takes place between husband and wife during intercourse (which in English, too, means conversation!) is an example of immodesty according to that tradition. It is that notion that the text of Imma Shalom is motivated here to counter.
However, at first glance, one would think that far from countering or opposing Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai's tradition, the story of how Rabbi Eliezer conducted his sexual life would seem to support that tradition. If
13. That is, mirabile dictu , the text is cited as a permissive one!
14. I do not agree with David Biale (1989) who sees here a misunderstanding of the word and claims that the Talmud cites this as an objection on the basis of a literal understanding here of "talking."

 
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he did not undress her or himself, uncovering only the bare necessary minimum, then he certainly did not "look at that place," let alone kiss it. Nor, seemingly, could he have taken the time to talk to her at all, since he was conducting himself as if driven by a demon. What does the Talmud mean, then, by citing the story as an objection to Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai? The Talmud understands that she asked him to explain his strange behavior (and note that by this it is marked as strange) during the act itself, and, moreover, that he answered her at the same time. They spoke to each other during sex, which is what constitutes the apparent refutation of Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai. In any case, according to the Talmud's refutation and resolution of the apparent contradiction, this problem disappears: the only sort of speech that is forbidden is speech that distracts from the intercourse, not speech that enhances it, and even that restriction is rejected in the end with the total rejection of Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai. According to the talmudic passage, in fine, the Torah seeks control not over the physical aspects of married sex but only over the emotional side of it.
The Contradiction of Discourses
As the Talmud explicitly argues, in fact, the two attempts at control of married sex contradict each other, for repression of visual, tactile, and conversational intimacy would have a chilling effect on that very closeness of the partners' desires and wills that the other voice wishes to promote. We have two contradictory discoursesthe discourse of control in the conjugal bed and the discourse of free intimacy. By citing the Rabbi Eliezer and Imma Shalom story dialectically, the Talmud makes sure that we realize this point, for indeed, otherwise this citation is irrelevant, nothing but a local objection and modification of an utterance by Rabbi Yohanan ben Dabai that the Talmud intends to reject entirely. But it makes this very pointthat such control and intimacy are in