Sodomy

François Elluin, Sodomites provoking the wrath of God, from "Le pot pourri de Loth" (1781).

Template:Wiktionarypar Sodomy (Template:IPA2) is a term of biblical origin used to characterize sexual acts that have been attributed to citizens of ancient Sodom. In the Middle Ages, sodomy was defined as sexual acts not related to procreation and therefore deemed counter nature, specifically homosexual acts. More recent definitions of the terms include sexual acts other than coital sex between a male and female. Therefore the range includes everything from anal penetration to oral sex to masturbation to paraphilia. It is sometimes used to describe human-animal sexual intercourse (also known as bestiality or zoophilia); this is the primary meaning of the cognate German language word Sodomie. Sodomy laws forbidding certain types of sex acts have been instituted in many cultures.

The English term buggery is very closely related to sodomy, in concept, and often interchangeably used in law and popular speech. In the various criminal codes of United States of America, the term "sodomy" has generally been replaced by "Deviant sexual intercourse", which is precisely defined by statute. The remaining criminal interest is largely confined to acts where the victim did not or could not legally consent.

Understandings of “The Sins of Sodom”

For a more traditional discussion on this topic, see the article on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Views prior to the Medieval period

Jewish views

Within Judaism many people and especially religious scholars still know to speak Hebrew, the original language the story of Sodom was in, and their views, stating that Sodom's gravest sin had been "inhospitability", or prejudice towards strangers, mainly echo a text in the book of Ezekiel:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters,

neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took

them away as I saw this. (16:49-50, KJV).

Accordingly, the thirteenth-century Jewish scholar Nachmanides wrote, “According to our sages, they were notorious for every evil, but their fate was sealed for their persistence in not supporting the poor and the needy.” His contemporary Rabbenu Yonah expresses the same view: “Scripture attributes their annihilation to their failure to practice tzedakah [charity or justice].” [1]

The Book of Wisdom, which is included by Orthodox and Roman Catholics, but excluded by modern Jews (Judaism had obviously still included it in the first century AD), Protestants, and other Christian denominations, makes reference of the story of Sodom, further emphasizing that their sin had been prejudice:

And punishments came upon the sinners not without former signs by the force of thunders: for they suffered justly according to their own wickedness, insomuch as they used a more hard and hateful behaviour toward strangers.

For the Sodomites did not receive those, whom they knew not when they came: but these brought friends into bondage, that had well deserved of them. (19:13-14, KJV)

Same-sex activitites (# 157-159) as well as bestiality (#155-156)[2] are among the 613 commandments as listed by Maimonides in the 12th century, however these are only literal quotes from Leviticus 18 which famously does not contain the word sodomy nor bears any reference to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis.

First century Christian and Jewish opinions

Modern English translation of Jude

The Epistle of Jude in the New Testament echoes the Genesis narrative and potentially recalls the sexually immoral aspects of Sodom's sins: '…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire (v. 7, English Standard Version). The phrase rendered sexual immorality and unnatural desire is literally translated strange flesh or false flesh, but it is not entirely clear what it refers to.

• The ESV translators situated in the year 2001 supply one plausible paraphrase for "false flesh", arguably influenced by more recent Christian views, in making the phrase refer to alleged illicit sexual activity of the Genesis account (cf. the language of the epistle to the Romans 1:21-32 not specifically referring to Sodom).
• Another theory is that it is just a reference to the “strange flesh” of the intended rape victims, who were angels, not men. There is a counter-argument that focus on the fact that the men of Sodom did not know that the strangers were angels.
• A third opinion is based upon the fact that the same term of "false flesh" is used in the Mosaic laws were within the context it is clearly referring to cannibalism as was common in the people of Canaan that the Sodomites were part of.

Josephus

The Jewish historian Josephus used the term “Sodomites” summarizing the Genesis narrative: “About this time the Sodomites grew proud, on account of their riches and great wealth; they became unjust towards men, and impious towards God, in so much that they did not call to mind the advantages they received from him: they hated strangers, and abused themselves with Sodomitical practices” (Antiquities 1.11.1 [3] — circa A.D. 96). The final element of his assessment goes beyond the Biblical data, even in the New Testament.

Islamic views

The Qur'an makes a more explicit scriptural connection between homosexual aggression and Sodom. The city name ‘Sodom’ does not appear there, but the Sodomites are referred to as “the people of Lut (Lot).” Lot is the nephew of the Hebrew/Arabic patriarch Abraham and, in the Judaic Sodom stories, is head of the only family allowed by God to survive Sodom's destruction. In the Qur'an, he is also the divinely appointed national prophet to his people. Since their national name was unrecorded and “people of Lot” was the only available designation, the Islamic equivalent of ‘sodomy’ has become ‘liwat,’ which could be roughly translated as “lottishness” (see Homosexuality and Islam).

Arguably though, the Islamic view of Lot/Lut might have been influenced by the original interpretation of Byzantine Justinian I about a century earlier (see next section).

Medieval Christianity on sodomy

Dante and Virgil interview the sodomites, from Guido da Pisa's commentary on the Commedia, c. 1345

Justinian I and Byzantine power politics of late antiquity

The primarily sexual meaning of the word sodomia for Christians did not evolve before the 500s CE. It was Byzantine Emperor Justinian I who in his novels no. 77 (dating 538) and no. 141 (dating 559) amended to his Corpus iuris civilis was the first to declare that Sodom's sin had been specifically same-sex activities and desire for them in order to create homosexual scapegoats for recent earthquakes and other disasters of his time, but most of all to enact anti-homosexual laws that he used upon personal as well as political opponents in case he could not prove them guilty of anything else.

Justinian's weren't the first Roman laws prohibiting homosexual behavior (earlier such measures had been included in the Lex Scantinia dating from the year 149 BCE and the Lex Julia dating from 17 BCE, both constituting death penalty for homosexual behavior, while we have allegations that even before Lex Scantinia, such laws existed but direct evidence was lost), however while sticking to death penalty by beheading Justinian's legal novels heralded a change in Roman legal paradigm as in that he introduced a concept of not only mundane but also divine punishment for homosexual behavior. Individuals might ignore and escape mundane laws, however they could not do the same with divine laws if Justinian declared his novels to be such.

Benedictus Levita and the Pseudo-Isidore

Justinian's interpretation of the story of Sodom would be forgotten today (as it had been along with his law novellizations regarding homosexual behavior immediately after his death) had it not been made use of in fake Charlemagnian capitularies, fabricated by a Frankish monk using the pseudonym Benedictus Levita ("Benedict the Levite") around 850 CE, as part of the Pseudo-Isidore. Benedict's three capitularies particularly dealing with Justinian's interpretation of the story of Sodom were:

• XXI. De diversis malorum flagitiis. ("No. 21: On manifold disgraceful wrongs")
• CXLIII. De sceleribus nefandis ob quae regna percussa sunt, ut penitus caveantur. ("No. 143: On sinful vices due to which empires have crumbled, so that we shall do our best to beware of them")
• CLX. De patratoribus diversorum malorum. ("No. 160: On the perpetrators of manifold evil deeds")

It was in these fake capitularies where Benedictus utilized Justinian's interpretation as a justification for ecclesiastical supremacy over mundane institutions, thereby demanding burning at the stake for carnal sins in the name of Charlemagne himself (burning had been part of the standard penalty for homosexual behavior particularly common in Germanic protohistory, note that Benedictus most probably was Frankish), especially homosexuality, for the first time in ecclesiastical history in order to protect all Christianity from divine punishments such as natural disasters for carnal sins committed by individuals, but also for heresy, superstition and heathenry. According to Benedictus, this was why all mundane institutions had to be subjected to ecclesiastical power in order to prevent moral as well as religious laxity causing divine wrath.

Medieval Inquisition, hereticism, and witchcraft

For delaying reasons mentioned in the article Pseudo-Isidore but also because his crucial demands for capital punishment had been so unheard of in ecclesiastical history priorily based upon the humane Christian concept of forgivefulness and mercy, it took several centuries before Benedict's demands for legal reform began to take tangible shape of consistency and coherence in larger ecclesiastical initiatives with the Medieval Inquisition in 1184. It was then that a convenient target was found in the sects of Cathars and Waldensians, and these heretics were not only persecuted for alleged satanism but hence increasingly accused of fornication and sodomy. When these two sects had been stamped out and new victims were needed, the Inquisition turned to the witch hunts that were also largely connoted with sodomy.

Also of High Medieval origin is the etymology of the closely related term buggery derived from French bougge­rie that related to the similarly prosecuted sect of Bogomiles from Bulgaria, however this etymological relation also dealed with the fact that the Cathars originated in Bulgaria as well.

Undoubtedly this strong association with hereticism, satanism, and witchcraft supported by the Inquisition trials added tremendously to the infamity of sodomy which proofed a strong motivation for continuing discrimination and persecution of homosexuals and sexual deviants in general long after the Medieval period had ended. In this context, it is crucial to note Benedict's rationale of broadening the meaning for sodomy to all sexual acts not related to procreation that were therefore deemed counter nature (so for instance, even solitary masturbation and anal intercourse between a male and a female were covered), while among these he still emphasized all interpersonal acts not taking place between human men and women. From the Age of Reason onwards, Justinian's claim that sexual sins if not persecuted yielded epidemics, natural disasters, and downfall of the state found a fruitful reception in pseudo-scientific ideologies of alleged pathology (such as in the popular concept of moral insanity) and mental as well as social and political consequences of sexual deviance.

The arguably gay Richard I of England was ordered by a priest to keep in mind "the sin of Sodom".

Sodomy in Europe since the Age of Reason

Examination of trials for rape and sodomy during the eighteenth century at the Old Bailey in London show the treatment of rape to have been lenient, while the treatment of sodomy to have been generally severe. From the 1780s the number of cases grew. Blackmail for sodomy also increased and was made a capital crime.

In France in the eighteenth century, sodomy was still theoretically a capital crime, and there are a handful of cases where sodomites were executed. However, in several of these, other crimes were involved as well (for instance, one man, Pascal, had supposedly murdered a man who resisted his advances). Records from the Bastille and the police lieutenant d'Argenson, as well as other sources, show that many who were arrested were exiled, sent to a regiment, or imprisoned in places (generally the Hospital) associated with morals crimes such as prostitution. Of these, a number were involved in prostitution or had approached children, or otherwise gone beyond merely having homosexual relations. Ravaisson (a 19th century writer who edited the Bastille records) suggested that the authorities preferred to handle these cases discreetly, lest public punishments in effect publicize "this vice".

Periodicals of the time sometimes casually named known sodomites, and at one point even suggested that sodomy was increasingly popular. This does not imply that homosexuals necessarily lived in security - specific police agents, for instance, watched the Tuileries, even then a known cruising area. But, as with much sexual behaviour under the Old Regime, discretion was a key concern on all sides (especially since members of prominent families were sometimes implicated) - the law seemed most concerned with those who were the least discreet.

Between 1730 and 1733, the Netherlands experienced a sodomy scare, in which 276 men were executed.

Modern Christian views

Though the etymology of the word sodomy is clear, there is a dispute about what the nature oft the sin of Sodom actually was. Within Christendom there are basically two schools of thought.

1. The traditional interpretation, where the primary sin of Sodom is seen as homoerotic sexual acts.
2. Some recent scholars, starting with Derrick Sherwin Bailey, claim that the sins of Sodom were related more to violation of hospitality laws than sexual sins.

The traditional interpretation claims there is a connection between Sodom and Leviticus 18, which lists various sexual crimes, which, according to verses 27 and 28, would result in the land being “defiled.”:

for the inhabitants of the land, who were before you, committed all of these abominations, and the land became defiled;

otherwise the land will vomit you out for defiling it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

The more recent re-interpretation claims that the explanation primarily is with the quote from Ezekiel.

Some scholars, such as Per-Axel Sverker, align this passage with the traditional interpretation, claiming that the word abomination refers to sexual misconduct, and that while homoerotic acts were not the only reason Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned, it was a significant part of the picture. Others, such as the aforementioned D.S. Bailey, claim that this passage contradicts the traditional interpretation altogether.

There is an ongoing exegetic and hermeneutic debate on this issue, including many other nuances in the text, and the scholarly world is far from consensus.

Sodomy laws in the United States

Main article: Sodomy laws in the United States

From the earliest times in the United States, sodomy (variously defined) was prohibited, although some historians suggest that early sodomy laws were mainly used to address issues of non-consensual behavior, or public behavior. The earliest known United States law journal article dealing with sodomy was in 1905 in West Virginia. Attorney E.D. Leach argued that "perverted sexual natures" were related to crime. "Sodomy, rape, lust-murder, bodily injury, theft, robbery, torture of animals, injury to property and many other crimes may be committed under these conditions." 18th and 19th century judges often editorialized about the act of sodomy as they handed down their rulings. "That most detestable sin", the "horrid act", "the horrible crime", "that which is unfit to be named among Christians" characterized some of the colorful language used by British and American jurists when punishing sodomites. Indeed, emphasis is usually on the notion that the act of anal penetration is so abominable and offensive "to God almighty" that the term Sodomy (literally, that which occurred in Sodom) is the only appropriate way of designating the activity. In other words, it was understood that when reference was made to "an unspeakable act" having occurred, it was clear that the act in question was none other than anal penetration. Some say, however, that the "Sin of Sodom" accurately referred not to anal penetration but rather to the agglomeration of ALL the unholy activities said to have occurred in Sodom and that it is thus inaccurate to imply a one-to-one relationship.

In the 1950s, all states had some form of law criminalizing sodomy, and in 1986 the United States Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the United States Constitution bars a state from prohibiting sodomy. However, state legislators and state courts had started to repeal or overturn their sodomy laws, beginning with Illinois in 1961, and thus in 2003, only 10 states had laws prohibiting all sodomy, with penalties ranging from 1 to 15 years imprisonment. Additionally, four other states had laws that specifically prohibited same-sex sodomy. That year the United States Supreme Court reversed its 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick ruling and in Lawrence v. Texas, invalidated these laws as being an unconstitutional violation of privacy, with Sandra Day O'Connor's concurring opinion arguing that they violated equal protection. See Sodomy law.

However, Lawrence v. Texas has not changed the Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 125 that bans all servicemen and women from engaging in “sodomy”. The United States Armed Forces Code defines the offense thus:

Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

Evolution of the term in other languages

In modern German, the word “Sodomie” has no connotation of anal or oral sex, and refers specifically to zoophilia. (See Paragraph 175 StGB, version of June 28, 1935.) The same goes for the Norwegian word “sodomi” and the Polish "sodomia". “Sodomy”, therefore, can be considered a 'false friend,' a word that English speakers will think they know the meaning of, but which actually holds a different, though in this case related, meaning. Responsible for this was the eccessive broadening of the term sodomia by Benedictus Levita (see above).

Popular use

• The word "sod", a noun used as an insult, is thought to derive from sodomy. However, its connotation tends to suggest someone who is foolish rather than a bugger, as such. Sod is used often in everyday language in the UK and Commonwealth and is only mildly offensive.
• A 1924 entry in Evelyn Waugh’s diary states that an English High Court judge presiding in a sodomy case sought advice on sentencing from Lord Birkenhead. “Could you tell me,” he asked, “what do you think one ought to give a man who allows himself to be buggered?” Birkenhead replied without hesitation, “Oh, 30 shillings or 2 pounds; whatever you happen to have on you.”
• In the song La Vie Bohème from the musical Rent, known for its themes of sexuality, members of the cast sing “…to no shame, never playing the fame game, to marijuana, to sodomy, it’s between God and me.”

See also

• Anal sex
• Anal rape
• Homosexuality and Christianity
• Prison rape
• Human sexual behavior
• Religion and sexuality
• The Bible and Homosexuality

References

• Robert Purks Maccubbin (Ed.), 'Tis Nature's Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality During the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1988)
• Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
• Richard B. Hays (2004) The Moral Vision of the New Testament (London: Continuum). pg. 381

External links

• Sodomy laws around the world
• Sodomy by Prof. Eugene F. Rice