The part about snakes leading us to temptation with fruit (an obvious sexual reference) is a reference to humanity descending into debauchery.
There are many interpretations. I did see something about an apple being a symbol for seduction. Thing is, Genesis does not mention an apple. It mentions a forbidden fruit. So the "obvious" sexual reference is perhaps not so obvious.....
Genesis 3:6 reads: "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." Not sure how a desire to become wise like the gods would be a tendency toward debauchery. Note here that not even the man with libidinal cathexis on the brain (Sigmund Freud) went for a sexual explanation of the Fall.
The idea was evidently to become like divine beings in terms of knowledge of good and evil. This knowledge was doomed to be incomplete. And by the very nature of its incompleteness, it would lend itself to a loss of perspective. The Genesis story of the Fall can be seen as a prototype episode of what happens when a finite understanding of things is mistakenly seen as equivalent to Divine Knowledge.
You might this describe the Fall as a "lapse into anthroprocentrism" (~ Prof. Carol Newsom). This development can be seen as an inevitable byproduct of humans' efforts to cope with the uncertainty of being finite creatures who were differentiated from G-d through the dispersal of created forms and beings throughout the phenomenal world. At any rate, the mind's anthroprocentric lapse provides a backdrop for the equally inevitable lesson in humility. It's pride before the fall. The illusions of self-idolatry are shattered.
Interestingly, it would appear that G-d set the stage for this development by allowing the human to classify the animal species ("the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field") and by specifically authorizing the exercise of "dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26, 28)
The primordial unity was dramatically changed by Adam and Eve's disobedience. Their quality of life was diminished as a result. The 'punishments' of sin included chaos and spiritual death (banishment from Paradise), broken/unequal relationships (Eve's subservience to Adam), and even physical pain ("thorns and thistles"). This is our here and now state of Fallenness and Lostness.
The consequences of mistaken self-importance are apparent if one chooses to pay attention. An earnest effort at correction guided by genuine contrition and openness to the leadings of the Holy Spirit will lead to new values and an improved set of choices. Someone who lauds the beauty of forgiveness but doesn't actually incorporate the better choices into their living hasn't really accepted the gift of forgiveness. If they had, they wouldn't keep doing the same thing as before. In a very real sense, the failure to apply the new values is a rejection of Grace. It shows disdain for the freedom to ditch the old and try something new and different.
The unwillingness to learn the lesson of humility continually adds to one's karmic burden, especially when it takes the form of conscious and willfull rejection of the Divine Possibility by means of a deliberate, inveterate, and self-propelled descent into negativity. Wouldn't this act of rejection stem from the mistake of defining oneself in terms of the lack? Isn't this identifying with one's own incompleteness and mistakenly thinking the lack is the self?
The attachment to self perpetuates a "vain, repetitive, vicious circle of recurrent birth and rebirth" - i.e, the individual is reborn yet again into the same old world of sleaze as the same old shabby self instead of accepting G-d's invitation to the New Life in Christ. I keep asking, but get no answer: Why? Why would anyone hold onto the old?
