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RAPING SODOMY AND SODOMIZING RAPE: A MORALITY TALE ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATION OF MODERN SODOMY JURISPRUDENCE

NCJ Number
146336
Journal
American Journal of Criminal Law Volume: 21 Dated: special issue (Fall 1993) Pages: 37-126
Author(s)
L C Backer
Date Published
1993
Length
90 pages
Annotation
This article examines the forces shaping modern criminal sodomy. While the article focuses on one State (Oklahoma), there is a moral for all States that continue to incorporate within their criminal codes divisions between different types of sexual activity.
Abstract
This examination of sodomy follows the transformation of consensual sodomy from a crime of moral deviance or mental disease to one of coercion, and on sodomy's merger into the traditional crime of rape. Part 1 sets the stage by describing the notion of sodomy in the criminal law as a crime used as a catch-all proscription of violations of religious sexual conduct taboos. Part 2 begins the focus on the state of Oklahoma and the state judiciary's nearly century-long struggle to give content to classical sodomy as the "detestable and abominable crime against nature, committed with mankind or with a beast." First tracing the genesis of the classical definition of sodomy, Part 2 then explores the manner in which the courts have transformed classical sodomy in the last quarter of the 20th Century. Part 3 analyzes the transformation of the underlying basis of sodomy jurisprudence over the last century. Part 4 applies the transformative notions underlying criminal sodomy to scrutinize the increasing emphasis on coercion that has begun to reshape sodomy into the quintessential crime of coercion - rape. Part 5 offers an appraisal of the effect of this century-long sexual game played between the State and its citizens, what it might portend as States transform their notions of sodomy into a distinct subspecies of rape, and the moral that it might hold for jurisdictions still tampering with sodomy. Part 6 concludes the article and discusses Oklahoma's proposed legislation in the area of sexual crimes. Footnotes

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