Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Sodomy |
SodomyNoun1. Anal intercourse committed by a man with a man or woman. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "sodomy" was first used: sometime around 1280. (references) |
Etymology: Sodomy \Sod"om*y\, noun. [From Sodom. country mentioned in the Bible: compare to the French expression sodomite.]. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Sodomy is a term used in sodomy law for various forbidden sex acts
- Sodomy is a sometimes used to describe the specific act of anal sex
- Sodomy is a general word for sexual acts perceived by the speaker to be "unnatural", which may include some or more of homosexual sex, oral sex, bestiality, paedophilia, and anal sex
Biblical Sense
The term sodomy derives from the name of the ancient city of Sodom, which according to the Bible was destroyed by God for its misdeeds (Sodom and Gomorrah), and in today's common language identifies the practice of anal intercourse, even if in the Bible Sodom is not explicitly and unambiguously the town of homosexuality. Traditionally, the misdeeds of Sodom have been understood to be male homosexual anal intercourse; but some people today interpret its misdeeds to be homosexual rape, not sex within the context of a homosexual relationship. Further, this interpretation seems to be contradicted by Ezekiel 16:49 which states: "Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquillity; yet she did not support the poor and the needy". It is in the book of Jude (1.4, 7, 8) that an explicit recall to fornication is available: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities". It is around 96 AD, that Josephus first used (in his Antiquities) the term sodomy to mean homosexual acts.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Sodomy."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A sodomy law is a law which makes certain sexual acts into sex crimes, most commonly anal intercourse. Sometimes the definition of sodomy has been broader and included oral sex and bestiality as well. Following Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England [1], the crime of sodomy has often been defined in the past only as the abominable and detestable crime against nature, or some variation of the phrase. This language led to widely varying rulings about what specific acts were encompassed by its prohibition.
While many other parts of the world have, or had, laws against homosexuality or other sexual practices, the term sodomy law has mainly used when discussing the law of the United States.
Even though many of these laws target both heterosexual and homosexual acts, they are sometimes selectively enforced only against homosexuals; in some states of the US, this practice was codified and the laws prohibited only homosexual acts, not heterosexual ones. In the United States, most sodomy laws were broad enough to apply to female homosexuality, but were more commonly enforced against male homosexuality. It is a common misunderstanding that sodomy laws are laws against homosexuality, when many of them prohibit some heterosexual acts as well.
Overview of homosexuality and the law
Primarily due to religious edicts against homosexuality, homosexuality (and specifically anal sex) have been considered a crime in many cultures, in spite of its status as a consensual act (see consensual crime). In England, Henry VIII introduced the first legislation against homosexuals with the Buggery Act of 1533, making buggery punishable by hanging, a penalty not finally lifted until 1861. Heterosexuals have not historically been prosecuted for anal sex as much as homosexuals and some sodomy laws included all homosexuality or all non-coital sex. see oral sex , Frottage (sexology) , masturbation , vanilla sex, sexual intercourseThe Wolfenden report in the UK was a turning point in the legalization of homosexuality in Western countries. Many Western cultures have now legalized or decriminalised homosexuality and homosexual acts, including the USA, whose Supreme Court ruled in June 2003 in the case of Lawrence v. Texas that US state laws criminalizing private, non-commercial sexual activity (including homosexual activity) between consenting adults are unconstitutional. (See sodomy law.) A number of states in Europe (for example, the Netherlands and Belgium), and, tentatively, the provinces of Québec, Ontario and British Columbia in Canada have changed the law to allow same-sex marriages. Other jurisdictions (for example. Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, France, and the US states of Vermont and California) recognize in law long-term gay relationships as "domestic partnerships" or the like. A number of jurisdictions now allow gay couples to adopt children.
An increasing number of politicians have openly admitted either to being homosexual, bisexual or to having had past homosexual experiences. These include a former British Defence Secretary under John Major, Michael Portillo. An openly gay politician, David Norris, sits in the Irish Senate, while the current and previous Presidents of Ireland, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson were founders for the Irish Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, which led to decriminalisation of homosexuality in the Republic of Ireland. In France, the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, had already publicly admitted he was gay when he was elected. Four Canadian MPs are openly gay (two New Democrats, a Bloquiste, and a Tory.) There have been various US politicians who have served as openly gay, including Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
This trend among western nations has not been followed in all other regions of the world, where sodomy often remains a serious crime. At the extreme, homosexuality remains punishable by death in Afghanistan, Mauritania, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Lesser penalties of life in prison are found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Guyana, India, Maldives, Nepal, Singapore, and Uganda.
Along with alleged communists, homosexuals were investigated by the notorious senator Joseph McCarthy in the USA, who produced a report entitled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government".
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has historically had similar laws, but the offence was usually called there buggery, not sodomy, and was usually intepreted as referring to anal intercourse between two males or a male and a female. Buggery was made a felony by statute in 1533, during the reign of Henry VIII. (See Buggery Act.) In 1885, Parliament enacted the so-called Labouchere Amendment [1], which prohibited "gross indecency" between males, a broad term that was understood to encompass most or all male homosexual acts. It was under this law that Oscar Wilde suffered his well-known conviction and imprisonment. Sexual acts between two adult males, with no other people present, were made legal in England in 1967, and in Scotland and Northern Ireland somewhat later.
Canada
Canadian law now permits anal sex by consenting parties above the age of 18, provided no more than two people are present. Its sodomy laws were repealed in the 1960s by Pierre Trudeau who famously stated that "the government has no place in the bedrooms of the nation."
China
Sodomy laws have been abolished since the early 1990s in the People's Republic of China. Yet, there is no clear statute towards consenting parties above the age of 18. If person under 18 is involved, a criminal action suit will be applied. In a notable case in 2002, a person who had sodomy with a teenager was sentenced 3 and a half years in prison.
United States
Sodomy laws in the United States, laws primarily intended to outlaw gay sex, are historically pervasive, but have been invalidated by the 2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas.
See also: homophobia, gay rights, societal attitudes towards homosexuality, persecution of homosexuals
External links
- SodomyLaws.Org
- Going Down Down South: Fighting Absurd Sex Laws
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Sodomy law."
Synonyms: SodomySynonyms: anal intercourse (n), anal sex (n), buggery (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Sexuality | Perversion, deviation, sexual abnormality; fetish, fetishism; homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality; sodomy, buggery; pederasty; sadism. masochism, sado-masochism; incest. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Sodomy |
| English words defined with "sodomy": child molester ♦ paederast, pederast ♦ Sodomitical. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | This state looks down on sodomy (What's My Age Again?; performing artist: Blink-182) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Children | Jordan | Rape or sodomy of a child under 15 years of age carries the death penalty. (references) |
Civil Liberties | Malaysia | In January 2000, the editor and printer of Harakah, the newspaper of the opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), were charged with sedition in connection with an 1999 Harakah article that quoted an opposition politician's comments on the confession of Sukma Darawaman, Anwar Ibrahim's codefendant in Anwar's sodomy trial. (references) |
Economic History | Malaysia | Later in September, Anwar was arrested, beaten while in prison, and charged with corruption and sodomy. (references) |
Human Rights | Brazil | The report identified several patterns of torture, including the use of electric shock, beatings with iron bars, and sexual abuse including sodomy with foreign objects. (references) |
Malaysia | Later the same month, after a large and mostly peaceful demonstration in which he called for Mahathir's resignation, Anwar was detained for alleged corruption and sodomy. (references) | |
Malaysia | Opposition activist Tian Chua claimed that police beat him in August 2000 after they detained him during a demonstration outside the courthouse where Anwar Ibrahim was being convicted and sentenced on sodomy charges. (references) | |
Political Economy | Malaysia | He later was tried and convicted in one charge of sodomy. (references) |
Malaysia | The politically motivated convictions of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar on charges of corruption and sodomy in 1999 and 2000 demonstrated the judiciary's lack of independence. (references) | |
Women | Zimbabwe | It also expanded the definition of sexual offenses to include rape, sodomy, incest, indecent assault, or an immoral or indecent act with a child or person with mental disabilities. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Sodomy" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Sodomy" is used about 47 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 47 | 49,740 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "sodomy"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sodomi, marrëdhënie seksuale anormale. (various references) | |
Arabic | لواط (inversion, paederasty, pederasty), اللواط. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | содомия, педерастия (buggery, pederasty). (various references) | |
Chinese | 鸡奸 (Bugger, sodomize). (various references) | |
Czech | sodomie. (various references) | |
French | sodomie. (various references) | |
German | Sodomie (bestiality, buggery). (various references) | |
Greek | σοδομία (buggery), αρσενοκοιτία (homosexuality). (various references) | |
Hebrew | משכב זכור (buggery, pederasty), מעש" ס"ום (buggery, homosexuality, pederasty), רביע" (buggery, copulation of animals, mating of animal, pederasty), ס"ומיות (pederasty, sodomism). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szodómia. (various references) | |
Indonesian | semburit, seburit, memburit (commit), berseburitan (commit). (various references) | |
Italian | sodomia (buggery). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 獣姦 (bestiality), "色 (male homosexuality). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | な"しょく (disapproval, male homosexuality), じゅうか" (bestiality, running through, serious illness, traversal), "しょく (male homosexuality, warm colour). (various references) | |
Korean | 남색. (various references) | |
Manx | sodomaght. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | odomysay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | sodomia (buggery), pederastia (paederasty, pederasty). (various references) | |
Romanian | sodomie (paederasty), pederastie (paederasty, pederasty), homosexualitate (homosexuality, pederasty). (various references) | |
Russian | скотоложество, содомия (bestiality, buggery), мужеложство, педерастия (paederasty, pederasty). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | sodomija (bestiality, buggery). (various references) | |
Spanish | sodomía (buggery). (various references) | |
Swedish | sodomi. (various references) | |
Thai | การร่วมเพศทางทวารหนัก (buggery). (various references) | |
Turkish | oğlancılık (buggery, pederasty), homoseksüellik (being gay, homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, sod), cinsel sapıklık. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | гомосексуалізм (homosexualism, homosexuality), педерастія (paederasty, pederasty). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Classical Hebrew | 200 BCE-Modern | s'dom. (various references) |
| Late Latin | 300-700 | peccatum Sodomiticum. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "sodomy" (pronounced sÄ"dumē) |
| 4 | -d u m ē | academy. |
| 3 | -u m ē | alchemy, anatomy, anomie, appendectomy, Archenemy, astronomy, autonomy, blasphemy, dichotomy, keratotomy, economy, enemy, epitome, gastronomy, hysterectomies, hysterectomy, infamy, lumpectomy, mastectomy, monogamy, polygamy, prostatectomy, sesame, tonsillectomy, vasectomy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-m-o-o-s-y" | |
-1 letter: dooms, doomy, moods, moody, sodom. | |
-2 letters: doms, doom, mods, mood, moos, yods. | |
-3 letters: dom, dos, mod, moo, mos, ods, oms, sod, som, soy, yod, yom. | |
-4 letters: do, mo, my, od, om, os, oy, so, yo. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-m-o-o-s-y" | |
+2 letters: dayrooms, doomsday, somebody. | |
+3 letters: doomsayer, doomsdays, myriopods. | |
+4 letters: composedly, condylomas, dictyosome, diseconomy, doomsayers, doomsaying, doomsdayer, dynamotors, monkeypods. | |
+5 letters: amyloidoses, amyloidosis, dictyosomes, doomsayings, doomsdayers, lycopodiums, melodiously, monohybrids, stylopodium. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Non-fiction 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Translations: Ancient 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
