Just as there are states with trigger laws in place to ban abortion once its federal protections were erased, there are still many states with laws banning sodomy, including oral sex and anal. Sodomy laws are legal provisions that define certain sexual acts as crimes While the precise sexual acts are rarely specified in the law, sodomy is typically understood to include anal sex, oral sex, manual sex, and bestiality As of 2025, 63 countries and 3 sub. Supreme court declared sodomy laws unconstitutional Historically, many states criminalized sodomy—acts of anal or oral sex—even when those acts were performed in private between two consenting adults
While prosecutions for acts performed in private were generally rare, the existence of sodomy laws was used to justify discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation. Under common law, sodomy mainly consisted of anal sex However, in the u.s., the term eventually included oral sex as well as anal sex As recently as 1960, sodomy was considered illegal for everyone in the u.s., but the law banning sodomy was often enforced only against homosexuals.
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