Re: CHAT: closet conlanging >> definitions?

vardi wrote:

> As for sodomy, I agree with Christophe that sodomy (in English, as in
> French) refers to anal sex, regardless of whether it's male-male or
> male-female.
If you're going for a dictionary definition, yes, but as an American,
once I hear "sodomy law", myriad mercurial definitions, like the ones
Matt listed, come to mind. I'm no legal whiz, but my understanding is
that a little less than half of our United States still have sodomy
statutes on the books with definitions varying from state to state. So
in some states, a woman could technically be hauled in for performing
oral sex on her husband (D.C. repealed its sodomy law in '92 -- Monica
squeaks by), though obviously that's tricky to enforce (Could you
explain, Officer Smith, how you came to be loitering around the Jones'
back bedroom window on the night in question?). I recall seeing a
"Donahue" several years ago that dealt with heterosexuals who'd been
arrested on such picayune charges, but as Matt pointed out, these
outmoded, rarely enforced laws are now mostly selectively enforced
against gay people.

Check out the language of the law from my home-state, Massachusetts:

Crime against nature.

Section 34. Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against
nature, either with
mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state
prison for not more than
twenty years.

and...

Unnatural and lascivious acts.

Section 35. Whoever commits any unnatural and lascivious act with
another person shall be
punished by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than one
thousand dollars or by
imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or in jail
or the house of correction for
not more than two and one half years.

Gotta love those pilgrims.

Kou