Old Law

[flashpig]

"Beginning in the 1830s, imprisonment was the penalty for practicing sodomy, defined as any kind of non-reproductive sexual contact, regardless of gender."

 

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/cops_others/oscar_wilde/3.html?sect=18

 

Any kind regardless of gender? Even oral sex between man and wife? How often did people get convicted for this stuff? Were there any cases of women turning on their husbands for asking for this or (and I'm serious in asking, though you may just think I'm messing about and writing a smutty question) anal? It would be arrogant to assume that people didn't then, because you sometimes hear oldies chuckling about youngsters thinking they invented sex.

[Yeah Bee]

It is still illegall in some parts of the US to practise anal or oral sex, but you can marry your sister

[Hgrove]

I have heard or read somewhere that in old divorce cases, where the wife was divorcing the husband giving the reason as "mental cruelty", it was a euphemism for the fact that he wanted oral sex.

[El D]

A policeman was prosecuted in singapore for having oral sex last year

[Peter Pedant]

Sodomy was unlawful at common law - and looking at Judge Judy it is pretty obvious that American Common law is the same as English.

Criminal law in England was partially codified by the Offences against the person act 1861, and this  missed out sodomy (so it now became lawful)

This omission was rectified by an amendment in 1886 to the Criminal law amendment act, in a clause moved by Henry Labouchere which made it unlawful again (until liberalisation in 1967). Labouchere, for extra points is not pronounced lar-boo-share, but Labbisher, with the accent on the first syllable. Same cadence as Canada.

It is said that Victoria refused to criminalise same sex for women because she refused to believe it took place. I am not sure if this is true.

I hope you're gonna tie your hands to the bed stead tonight