Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Sodomy

Anal or oral intercourse between human beings, or any sexual relations between a human being and an animal, the act of which may be punishable as a criminal offense.

The word sodomy acquired different meanings over time. Under the COMMON LAW, sodomy consisted of anal intercourse. Traditionally courts and statutes referred to it as a "crime against nature" or as copulation "against the order of nature." In the United States, the term eventually encompassed oral sex as well as anal sex. The crime of sodomy was classified as a felony.

Because homosexual activity involves anal and oral sex, gay men were the primary target of sodomy laws. Culturally and historically, homosexual activity was seen as unnatural or perverse. The term sodomy refers to the homosexual activities of men in the story of the city of Sodom in the Bible. The destruction of Sodom...