That is not what the story says. It says they could not because they lacked the knowledge of anything that had good or evil applications. That would include procreation and sexual matters.
You are putting the cart before the horse.
One cannot know what to order when there is no menu known.
That can’t be correct because it would prevent them from doing literally anything. They couldn’t pick up a stick because it might be used to hit someone or poke out an eye. They couldn’t use their hands because hands can be used to strangle someone. Feet … kicking someone. Etc.
If Adam can use his hands without doing harm then he can use his penis without doing harm.
Which would mean either apple did not contain just knowledge, but also some strange irrational stuff, OR being naked is equivalent in kind, though not degree, to acts like rape. Which would be weird.
The story almost seems to imply that it is not knowledge, but the judgment of things being good and evil is the problem. Like they swallowed a concept that is harmful and not the truth. But then much of the Bible seems to clearly indicate that there is good and evil, and thus it is not a false set of categories.
Well, we’re not talking about you or me in modern day Canada. We’re talking about Adam and Eve feeling ashamed of their nakedness when viewed by God who had sanctioned their nakedness. Which makes no sense.
I don’t call it junk, but if me and my wife were the only humans, of course I would go outside, on warm enough days with no clothes on. It’s illegal in most places, so I don’t. I have done it where it is legal, gone skinny dipping. I have in other contexts. I never, ever worry about God or animals experiencing my body as sinful or shameful. And presumably God can see through clothes and further is not offended by what he created. Is it the trees they should have been ashamed in front of?
If I get undressed in a locker room, am I sinning because other people are changing also?
I actually think they would answer as I do, were they real individuals.
Under no definition of either love or hate in my dictionary is a mention of the Eden story.
I agree with Phyllo that this story is about dualism as a human perspective.
To see how this sense of dualism emerges in the human psyche, read the first chapter in the book of James KJV.