Colonial America adopted English common law, yet early American judges faced a technical hurdle: the strict common law definition required proof of anal penetration by a male. As public health initiatives and moral policing expanded across the United States in the late 19th century, state legislatures realized their existing statutes failed to criminalize other forms of private intimacy.
Between 1880 and 1920, state lawmakers launched a widespread push to rewrite their criminal codes. Prosecutors had grown frustrated because defense attorneys routinely won dismissals by showing that oral sex did not meet the common law threshold of buggery. State legislatures responded by enacting broad statutes targeting "crimes against nature" and "deviate sexual intercourse." These expanded laws deliberately brought oral sex, fellatio, cunnilingus, and mutual intimacy between women within the reach of criminal law.
By 1960, every single American state had an active sodomy statute on its books. Penalties varied wildly across state borders. A conviction could result in a misdemeanor fine in one state, or 20 years to life in prison in another. Some jurisdictions mandated commitment to psychiatric wards or forced chemical castration. Far from applying exclusively to same-sex couples, early 20th-century statutes were technically drafted so broadly that they criminalized basic consensual intimacy between legally married heterosexual couples behind closed doors.
