Until 1998, even a husband and wife who could have been convicted of sodomy in Georgia.
Is there a web site that tells what consentual sex acts were/are illegal, where, and when? Now I'm morbidly curious.
Here is an old website about US sodomy laws by state, compiled on January 28, 1998, which is before Georgia repealed its sodomy laws:
http://www.sodomy.org/laws/Here is the more current sosomy law for Massachusetts, in case you are interested:
MASSACHUSETTS
F 272-34, Crime Against Nature, 20 years. F 272-35, Unnatural and Lascivious Acts, 5 years/$100-$1000. Crime Against Nature applies only to anal intercourse. Unnatural and Lascivious Acts has been held not apply to private consensual adult behavior. Commonwealth v. Balthazar, Supreme Judicial Court 1974. It has been suggested that such a ruling would apply to Crime Against Nature.
Here is where you can find some more up-to-date articles:
http://www.aclu.org/search/search_wrap.html?account=436ac9516921&q=sodomy&imageField.x=19&imageField.y=3For example, this article is from the ACLU website:
Why Sodomy Laws Matter (6/26/2003)
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/crimjustice/11896res20030626.htmlA short excerpt:
How the Laws Were Used Traditionally
Today's decision in Lawrence v. Texas arises in one of a mere handful of cases since the American revolution involving two adults - straight or gay - actually prosecuted for being intimate in private. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, sodomy laws were used as secondary charges in cases of sexual assault, sex with children, public sex and sex with animals. Most of those cases involved heterosexual sex.
Originally, sodomy laws were part of a larger body of law - derived from church law - designed to prevent nonprocreative sexuality anywhere, and any sexuality outside of marriage.