Esther

I was recently thinking about the midrash that Esther lay "still as the ground", which is the reason she was not responsible for committing adultery by sleeping with Achashveirosh (according to this midrash, Esther was married to Mordechai).

I find this fascinating on a few levels:

1. The midrash is assuming if a woman lies still and expresses passive resistance, she is not responsible for the sex that occurs, because she was forced into it - ie raped. The idea that rape victims who do not physically fight back against their agressors are still rape victims and their lack of physically attacking the rapis is not evidence they subconsciously wanted the sex, is one that modern society is still coming to terms with.
2. No mention is made of nidah - does this mean that when the rabbis say "giluy arayot", sexual impropriety, is one of the three negative commandments one must die for if given an ultimatum (the other two are idol worship and murder)* they only mean adultery, and that violating nidah to save one's life, despite its deoraita status, would be ok?

That is an interesting question, because I know many Orthodox people who beleive that since shemirat negiah today involves women not going to mikvah, one would hypothetically have to die rather than violate shomer laws, since violating them would involve intimate physical contact with the opposite sex while the woman is in nidah. (These people beleive it is a deoraita law that there be no sexual touching or foreplay between two members of the opposite sex while the woman is in nidah - the deoraita-ness of the anti-foreplay-in-nidah laws are a machloket Rambam-Ramban - Rambam beleives they are deoraita.)



* I love the equality of rabbinic reasoning: You can't kill an innocent person to avoid being killed, because who are you to say you deserve life more than they do? We're all equal. You can kill someone in self-defense though - so if someone breaks into your home in the middle of the night, you can kill them, because you can assume they might be willing to kill you in order to rob you, and are entitled to kill them before they get the chance to kill you. The person gives up their right to immunity when they choose to engage in the harmful action - thus, your right to kill them is a direct result of their choices - this is a system based on personal responsibility.