Sodomy is a legal term for oral or anal sexual contact between people. Under federal law, the conduct covered includes contact between the penis and the anus, contact between the mouth and the genitals or anus, and penetration of the anal or genital opening by a finger, hand, or object. Private, consensual acts between adults have been constitutionally protected since the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, but non-consensual acts remain among the most severely punished crimes in American law.
What Acts the Term Covers
Federal criminal law no longer uses the word “sodomy” at all. It defines a “sexual act” to include three categories of conduct:
- Contact between the mouth and another person’s genitals or anus.
- Penetration of the anus by a penis, however slight.
- Penetration of the anus or genitals by a hand, finger, or any object.
Even the slightest penetration meets the legal threshold. For object or digital penetration, the federal definition requires an intent to abuse, humiliate, degrade, harass, or sexually gratify, which keeps legitimate medical procedures outside the criminal definition.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2246 – Definitions for Chapter 109A
The definition turns on the mechanics of the contact, not on the gender or orientation of the people involved. It applies the same way whether the participants are the same sex or different sexes.
State laws use a range of labels for the same underlying conduct. Some still say “crime against nature.” Others say “deviate sexual intercourse.” A handful keep “sodomy” in the statute title but describe the prohibited conduct in modern terms. The practical meaning across all these labels is the same: sexual contact involving the mouth or anus rather than vaginal intercourse.
Is Sodomy Still a Crime?
Between consenting adults in private, no. Until 2003, states could criminalize consensual sodomy, and many did. The Supreme Court upheld that power in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986. Seventeen years later, Lawrence v. Texas overruled Bowers and struck down a Texas law that criminalized intimate sexual conduct between same-sex partners. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy said the petitioners were “entitled to respect for their private lives” and that the state “cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”2Justia. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 US 558 (2003)
Lawrence protects a specific set of circumstances: private, consensual conduct between adults. The Court was explicit that its holding did not extend to public sexual conduct, acts involving minors, or prostitution.2Justia. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 US 558 (2003) The private setting mattered. Sexual acts in a public or semi-public place have no constitutional shield.
Old State Statutes Still on the Books
Roughly a dozen states have never formally repealed their sodomy or “crimes against nature” laws. Those statutes are unenforceable after Lawrence, and any conviction based on them would be overturned on constitutional grounds. Repeal efforts have stalled in several states, sometimes because of political inertia and sometimes because of active resistance.
Those unrepealed statutes drew renewed attention after the 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Justice Thomas wrote in his concurrence that “in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”3Supreme Court of the United States. Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, 597 US 215 (2022) No other justice joined that portion of the concurrence, and the Dobbs majority said its reasoning did not apply to Lawrence. The call to reconsider still came from a sitting justice, which is why those dormant state statutes carry more than symbolic weight for some observers.
When It Is a Crime: Non-Consensual Acts
When oral or anal sexual contact occurs without consent, or involves a minor, it falls under some of the most severely punished crimes in American law. Modern statutes have mostly replaced “sodomy” with terms like sexual assault, aggravated sexual abuse, or criminal sexual conduct in these contexts. The change in wording reflects a focus on the absence of consent and the harm done rather than on the specific body parts involved.
Under federal law, aggravated sexual abuse, which includes forced oral or anal penetration, carries a potential sentence of any term of years up to life in prison.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2241 – Aggravated Sexual Abuse State penalties vary but follow a similar pattern. Convictions are high-level felonies in every state, most carry mandatory minimum prison terms, and sex offender registration is a near-universal consequence, with lifetime registration common for the most serious offenses.
Proving the crime requires showing that the defendant used force, threats, or coercion, or that the victim could not legally consent due to age, unconsciousness, or incapacitation. The evidence centers on the absence of consent, not on classifying the particular type of sexual contact.
Sodomy Under Military Law
Military law moved on this issue more slowly than civilian law. Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice historically criminalized all sodomy, consensual or not, as “unnatural carnal copulation.” That provision was used to prosecute both forcible assaults and private consensual acts between service members.
Congress repealed the consensual sodomy ban in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Non-consensual acts are now prosecuted under Article 120 of the UCMJ, which covers rape, sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, and abusive sexual contact, and which specifically addresses non-consensual sodomy.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 920 – Art. 120. Rape and Sexual Assault Generally Punishment is set by court-martial and can include confinement, dishonorable discharge, and forfeiture of pay.
Why the Word Is Fading
“Sodomy” is disappearing from active legal use. Federal criminal statutes avoid it entirely in favor of clinical definitions of specific sexual acts. Most states that have updated their penal codes in recent decades have replaced it with phrases like “criminal sexual conduct” or “sexual assault,” usually broken into degrees based on severity. The states that still use the word tend to be the ones that haven’t comprehensively revised their sexual offense statutes since before Lawrence.
For practical purposes, the modern legal system treats the conduct in one of two ways. Between consenting adults in private, it is a protected liberty interest. Without consent, or involving a minor, it is prosecuted as a serious sexual offense under whatever label the jurisdiction uses, with penalties that rank among the harshest in criminal law.