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In this journal another writer1 interpreted the myth of the Fall of Man with the help of symbols. The snake which seduced Eve and every woman who came after her is seen as the phallus; the gay tree which is a joy to eat from and lovely to look at means the same, while its fruit are the male testicles and penis and, when proffered by a woman, the breasts and vagina. The validity of this explanation is confirmed by what follows in the story of the human couple who feel ashamed about their nakedness as soon as they have eaten from the tree of knowledge. Only those people who suffer from a sexual guilt complex are ashamed of nakedness and can be ashamed of it.2 The fall of man is really the sex act between man and woman, and the expression Erkenntnis (knowledge) has the meaning it often has in the Bible of knowing, mating, cohabiting with the woman.
Considering the facts of the matter, it would be silly to say that analysis arbitrarily superimposed the symbolism of snake, tree, and apple on the story. It was there already, and whoever has eyes to see can see it. Even more difficult is the assumption that there is an artistic intention when the story is continued. God utters a curse on snake, woman, and man which is curiously interlaced with symbols. ‘Upon thy belly shalt thou go’, he says to the snake, ‘and dust shalt thou eat all the days of your life’; with every step a man takes the penis swings to and fro from the belly and its mouth is turned towards earth. Further, ‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ This is the symbolism of the sexual struggle, the bruising of the head is the slackening of the penis after erection and ejaculation, and the bruising of the heel, which lives on in nursery tales as the stork bite, is the act of giving