Homosexuality among men was called an abomination, in contrast to ancient Greece(Gen. 19:1-19). The tale of Sodom and Gomorrah indicated clearly for which sins God destroyed the cities— the inhabitants had demanded Lot’s three guests in“order to be intimate with them” and Lot sought to satisfy them by offering his two virgin daughters. There is a similar tale in the Book of Judges (19:15 ff) in a“time when there was no king is Israel ”; the wicked of the city demanded that the host bring out his male guest so that they could “know him.” After a vain effort to dissuade them, the master of the house brought out his own wife and they so abused her through the night that she died the following morning. This outrage caused a civil war among the Israelite tribes. Both tales dealt with sexual hospitality. Elsewhere, Leviticus prohibited“sodomy” and other sexual laxities that were considered typical of the Canaanites and Egyptians because Israel was a“holy” people(Lev. 18:1f.) Aversion to homosexuality also underlies the prohibition of women wearing men’s clothing or men, women’s garments(Deut. 22:5).
The tale of Onan(Gen. 38) shows that interrupted coitus to avoid pregnancy was also frowned upon. Onan’s name gave rise to a term for masturbation, but this interpreted the tale incorrectly as the Bible was concerned with the refusal of a brother to perform the levirate marriage.
On the other hand prostitution was viewed with indulgence (Josh. 2:1f,, Jud. 16; 1 Kgs 3:16) although it degraded the girl and her family(Gen. 34:31). No disapproval was expressed when Judah , a son of the patriarch Jacob and the father of Onan,“comforted himself after the death of his wife with a woman whom he thought to be a prostitute.” Unfortunately, she was his own daughter-in-law Tamar , who had disguised herself in order to shame him as he had not given her his third son in Levirate marriage after the death of Onan(Gen. 38:12-26). A man should lot allow his daughter to become a prostitute(Lev. 19:29), however, nor could the hire of a male or female prostitute be used to pay for a religious vow(Deut. 23:19).