I found this article. The 18 states they refer to still have old sodomy laws on the books. Oral sex was lumped in with sodomy as “deviant” sex practices. Course they haven’t been enforced in decades. I’m not sure why.
The history of these laws and their repeal would be interesting to know.
Singapore legalized oral and anal sex five years ago but only for heterosexuals. I believe it’s still illegal for gays but rarely punished. Singapore has a thriving gay community.
No restrictions in Thailand. Quite a few BJ bars, including one nationwide chain: [Noparse]www. lolitasbangkok.com[/noparse].
And the link in my previous post is definitely Not Safe for Work. I forgot to tag it as such and take the appropriate cautions. The lateness of the hour over here is making me sloppy.
The reason why a lot of the sodomy laws got struck down by state courts prior to Lawrence was that the term “sodomy” (or “deviant sexual practices” or whatever) was so poorly defined. All of these laws were basically targeted at homosexuals and only enforced against homosexuals, but depending on what definition of “sodomy” you were using they could outlaw a whole myriad of acts, both homo- and heterosexual.
IIRC, it was hinted in the Lawrence majority opinion (as opposed to O’Connor’s concurring opinion) that if states wanted to go back and re-write their sodomy laws they could do so in such a way that they passed constitutional muster and still did basically the same thing. But as far as I know none have. I suspect the sitiuation in a lot of states is like the one in mine, where the ultra-conservative faction of the state legislature won’t let them take the old unenforceable sodomy law off the books, but there’s no way in heck they could garner the political support to actually try to revise the sodomy law to make it enforceable.
Not really. At least, not under present law. I did a quick Google and could find nothing. It’s just not actively pursued from what I can tell. I believe you’d have to do some sort of civil-disobedience shtick before it drew attention, like maybe go down on your partner on Lee Kuan Yew’s front lawn.
There is this case of a cop getting two years in prison for having a 16-year-old girl go down on him, but that was in 2003, before the law was changed. Sixteen is the age of consent in Singapore, so it was not a pedophile issue, at least not in the legal sense. I remember this when it happened – IIRC, the girl turned him in because she was pissed off at something else – and it could have been part of what sparked debate to get the law changed. The linked article mentions the punishment at the time was life in prison, but I’m not sure that’s correct. I think it’s two years maximum for gays now.
BTW: In the Lolita’s website I linked to, Lolitas Patpong is still listed, but they had to close that branch a couple of years ago, due to, er, stiff competition in the area. Patpong is Bangkok’s oldest red-light district and home to several BJ bars, both locally and foreign owned. But the location was taken over by an American – Lolitas is British-owned – who turned it into another BJ bar, called Mike’s Place – Not Safe for Work: [noparse]www.mikesplacebangkok.com[/noparse] – and has been, er, holding his own ever since. Especially popular have been his occasional all-you-can-drink-for-1500-baht (US$50) specials, which include a complimentary BJ (although not from Mike himself). But the company still seems to be going strong. The Hua Hin branch has also closed, but the Pattaya branch has become very popular, with normal drinking customers too and live bands. And the Bangkok head-quarters retains a hard following. No word on how the new location up on the Mekong is faring. I am acquainted with the owner, and he’s a bit of a dick (appropriate, eh?).
Funny thing is prostitution is legal in Singapore but illegal in Thailand. Funny old world.
I unticked “Automatically parse links in text” in the post above, but it didn’t take in that post. Could a mod please go up and break that link? Thanks. Sorry about that.
It’s hard to say. Most common law jurisdictions criminalized “deviant” sexual conduct without actually explaining what it was they were criminalizing, by using euphemisms (crime against nature, unnatural acts, sodomy, deviant intercourse, etc.)
IAMNALawyer, but generally, in Europe it’s not illegal as long as it happens between consenting adults; the law is only against rape in different forms, sex between adults and underage people and sex if coercion could be involved (boss-employee, teacher-student etc.)
As long as a law about is on the books, somebody might decide to make a special case out of one incident for political reasons, so that is not a useful answer.
Its a very useful answer. If you are a political target; you have far bigger things to worry about then being caught on tape with your wife giving you a blowjob and if the regime is going to use that then they might as well not bother; its going to backfire badly.
If they are going to use sexual deviancy then they are going to allege an element of coercion or misuse of power or trust; check out Anwar Ibrahim’s case where the allegation is sodomy with firstly his brother and secondly an aide.
I don’t know about your respective countries, but in the US the sodomy laws had a very strong potential for use as harassment. If you were convicted under a sodomy law, you were put on the same sex offenders list as the rapists and child molesters, which could make it extremely difficult to get employment and housing (let alone political office). In some states you could even be disenfranchised. Like I said earlier, I don’t think these laws were ever really applied to heterosexuals but they certainly made life extremely difficult for those gay folks who found themselves being harassed by law enforcement using these laws.
I actually have a relative who is still having to register as a sex offender under our state’s (now nonenforceable) sodomy law. We’ve been trying to get him to take some action to clear his name ever since Lawrence, but he’s self-employed and lives out in a rural area so his sex offender status doesn’t really trouble him much. Given that he lives in one of the uber-conservative districts that keeps electing the people that keep the sodomy laws on the books, he’s more worried about publicity resulting from going to court over the matter, which is a shame. I don’t know how many other people across the country are in his situation too, but I imagine there must be at least some.
I didn’t say being a political target, but that a case can be used to make a political example, like the OPs example: somebody doesn’t like deviant foreigners coming, so they prosecute this case while letting others slide. There was a recent thread about a sheriff in the US in trouble because it’s a felony to have an affair. And so on.
