An excerpt from Carter, Warren. "Cross-Gendered Romans and Mark's Jesus: Legion Enters the Pigs (Mark 5:1–20)." Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 1 (2015): 139-55.

The languaging of Legion’s request in terms of “enter(ing) into” (εἰσέρχομαι) the pigs adds military and gender dimensions to the scene.

First, this verb, “enter into,” is commonly used to denote imperial-military scenarios of entering, occupying, and defeating an enemy space and military force in battle. Such “entering into” expresses military power exercised by male commanders and troops. Legion’s use of the verb in Mark 5:12 constructs Jesus as a military commander authorizing an invasion. Conquest is what a legion does, on command.

Yet, second, with the military language come gender and sexual dimensions. The demon’s request to be sent into the pigs reads literally: “so that we might enter into them” (5:12 [my translation]: ἵνα εἰς αὐτοὺς εἰσέλθωμεν). The language of “enter into” employs, as Joel Marcus notes, though without elaboration, a sexual innuendo for sexual intercourse. While Derrett reads this innuendo in terms of bestiality, rape seems the more appropriate category, given a conventionally close connection between language of military power, sexual violence, and imperial claims.

The sexual overtones of the verb “enter into” (along with its previously discussed military meanings) cannot be contested. Liddell and Scott define the nonprefixed verb ἔρχομαι as “sexual intercourse … go in to her, to him” referencing Herodotus 2.11.5 and 6.68.44. The prefixed form εἰσέρχομαι commonly references sexual intercourse in the LXX. More significant, the verb εἰσέρχομαι appears in contexts of forcible sexual penetration, situations that contemporary readers would identify as “rape” in which a woman’s consent is absent. Forcible penetration (rape) is, of course, a long-practiced tactic of occupying armies in humiliating woman and subjugating an enemy.

Language of sexual violence, military actions, and imperial claims frequently intersect in constructing scenes of victory. In discussing Rome’s sacking of cities, the urbs direpta, Adam Ziolkowski argues that central to this act of direptio is the loss of all control in “the soldiers’ freedom to slaughter, rape, and plunder.” Ziolkowski’s analysis brings together motifs of military action, taking property, taking life, and sexual violence, all of which are evident in this scene involving Legion’s entering the pigs. Josephus mentions rape in the contexts of military campaigns (J.W. 4.560), though he denies any such activity himself (Vita 80, 259). The Hebrew Bible instructs warriors to “take as your booty the women, the children, the livestock” of a conquered town and “enjoy these spoils” (Deut 20:14 NRSV). Attentive only to male desires and knowing only a male gaze, it sanctions—not forbids—a male warrior “entering into” (εἰσελεύσῃ πρὸς αὐτήν; Deut 21:13) a foreign “beautiful” woman taken captive in battle, though after one month has passed to allow her to mourn the loss of her family (Deut 21:10–14)! Her rape is appallingly re-languaged as marriage. Also from the perspective of a male gaze, the Hebrew Bible presents scenarios of cities overrun in battle as the rape of a woman. Several such passages use the sexual language of “enter into” or “go into” to image military action against cities as rape (Isa 47:1–4, εἴσελθε; Lam 1:8–10, εἰσελθόντα εἰς).

Third, gender and sexual overtones pervade the request’s multivalent language of Legion’s desire to enter into the pigs. The term “pig” has well-established sexual associations with female genitalia. Liddell and Scott in their entry (!) on χοῖρος identify its first meaning as “pig” as a synonym for ὗς in referring to the literal animal. Their second definition does not include an English translation, employing only the Latin phrase pudenda muliebria. While the phrase remains untranslated and without English synonyms, they offer an explanation, “frequently in Comedy Poets who are always puning on the word and its compounds.” The untranslated phrase means literally “shameful womanly things” and refers to female genitalia; perhaps modesty prevents the editors from translating χοῖρος as “vulva.” ...

Henderson notes that Aristophanes did not invent the association between “pig” and female genitalia but employs popular slang. And certainly the association continued for centuries long after Aristophanes, including through the performance of his plays. James Adams notes in his study of Latin sexual vocabulary that the term porcus (“pig”) is “a nursery word used by women, especially nurses, of the pudenda of girls,” listing Varro, Rust. 2.4.10.

I have argued that Legion’s double request, “Send us into the pigs so that we might enter into them” (Mark 5:12 [my translation]) employs multivalent language embracing imperial, military, gender, and sexual dimensions. The request seeks to maintain imperial control over land and its production. The verb “enter into” denotes military violence and occupation, as well as sexual intercourse, particularly the weapon of war, rape. The noun pig denotes both literal animals and female genitalia. The request to enter the pigs made by the demon Legion draws together these various dimensions of gendered, imperial, military violence.