A Guide to America's Sex Laws
by Richard A. Posner and Katherine B. Silbaugh
University of Chicago Press 1996

"Richard A. Posner is chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit (Chicago). Among his many books is Sex and Reason (1992). Katherine B. Silbaugh is associate professor at Boston University School of Law."

Seventeen areas of sex crime are covered in seventeen chapters. Each chapter begins with a page or two of legal commentary on the kind of crime covered in the chapter, then gives for each state, and for the federal law of the United States, an abstract, including reference and date, of the statutes pertaining to that kind of crime. If a state or the federal government has no statute for a that kind of crime, this is noted. "Our summaries reflect amendments through September 1, 1994." (p. 4) The seventeen chapter titles are as follows:

1.   Rape and Sexual Assault
2.   Marital Exemptions from Rape and Sexual Assault
3.   Age of Consent
4.   Sodomy
5.   Transmission of Disease
6.   Public Nudity and Indecency
7.   Fornication
8.   Adultery
9.   Abuse of Position of Trust or Authority
10.  Incest
11.  Bigamy
12.  Prostitution
13.  Possession of Obscene Materials
14.  Bestiality
15.  Necrophilia
16.  Obscene Communications
17.  Voyeurism

There is a four page glossary covering a variety of terms, from terms as little known as per os ("through the mouth", usually referring to oral sex) and tort ("a wrong or injury for which the injured is entitled to seek compensation by bringing a civil lawsuit") to well known terms as AIDS and STD. Some terms have legal meanings that may differ from their common language use, such as fornication ("sexual intercourse outside of marriage") and physically helpless ("unconscious or for any reason physically unable to communicate unwillingness to participate in an act").

As may be expected, laws vary across states. Sodomy, for example, is a felony in the District of Columbia: "It is a felony to take the sexual organ of another person into the mouth or anus or to place one's sexual organ in the mouth or anus of another or to have carnal copulation in an opening of the body other than the sexual parts with another person. D.C. CODE ANN. § 22-3502 (enacted 1948). It is a violation to commit a lewd or indecent act. D.C. CODE ANN. § 22-1112 (enacted 1892)." (p. 67) It is also a felony in Virginia and Louisiana. These states expressly include both sexes in the statute. They are not limiting the crime to homosexuals. The Virginia statute is from 1950; the Louisiana statute is from 1975. In contrast, sodomy is a misdemeanor in Minnesota: "Any person who voluntarily engages in or submits to sodomy commits a misdemeanor. Sodomy means carnally knowing any person by the anus or with the mouth. MINN. STAT. ANN. § 609.293 (enacted 1967)." (p. 69) Arkansas defines sodomy differently: "Sodomy is any act of sexual gratification involving the penetration, however slight, of the anus or mouth of a male by the penis of another male; or the penetration, however slight, of the anus or vagina of a female by any body member of another female. Sodomy is a misdemeanor. ARK. CODE ANN. § 5-14-122 (enacted 1977)." (p. 68) There are many states with no statutes pertaining to sodomy: Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

It's fascinating to go through each chapter and see how states differ in their sex laws. In North Carolina, for example, there appears to be a complete exemption of spouses from prosecution for rape, whereas in Alabama there are no exemptions whatsoever and the crime is a felony. The age of consent varies across states, from 18 down to 14 (federal law says 16), and varies also according to the age difference between the individuals. In some states, not all, it is a defense that the offender had a reasonable belief that the victim was at or above the age of consent. Public nudity laws vary from no statute in Missouri to misdemeanors in most states, to the upgrade from misdemeanor to felony after a previous conviction in "any jurisdiction" in New Hampshire. Unmarried couples can copulate all they want in 33 of our 50 states, but watch out in Minnesota where: "When any man and single woman have sexual intercourse with each other, they are both guilty of fornication, a misdemeanor. MINN. STAT. § 609.34 (enacted 1967)" (p. 100) Arizona isn't much better: "A person who lives in a state of open and notorious cohabitation is guilty of a misdemeanor. ARIZ. REV. STAT. ANN. § 13-1409 (enacted 1977). (p. 99) Note that some statutes mention cohabitation and others, such as Minnesota's do not. Adultery laws range from none at all in Montana or Pennsylvania, among a few others, to it being merely grounds for divorce in, for example, Maine, Alaska, Texas and Vermont, to a misdemeanor in states such as Florida, New Hampshire and Nebraska, to the strange case of Minnesota where a married man cannot commit adultery with an unmarried woman (although the fornication law would apply) but it is a misdemeanor in the case of the woman being married, to states such as Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Idaho where adultery is a felony. I won't go through all of the chapters, but a surprising sight occurs in the chapter on incest where Rhode Island is said to have no statute forbidding it, and in Delaware it is only a misdemeanor, being a felony in all other states. Chapter fourteen, on bestiality, is also surprising. There are 22 states with no statute on bestiality, and in other states it ranges from a misdemeanor in, for example, Wisconsin and New York, to a felony in such states as Rhode Island, Oregon and Michigan. Necrophilia is apparently not against the law in 35 states. In some states, such as Alaska, Connecticut and Pennsylvania it is a misdemeanor. In Minnesota it's a misdemeanor unless "knowingly done in the presence of another" when it becomes a felony. It is also a felony in Oregon, Georgia and New Mexico, among others. Wisconsin's statute differs from the rest: "All sexual assault crimes apply whether a victim is dead or alive at the time of the sexual contact or sexual intercourse. WIS. STAT. ANN. § 940.225 (enacted 1987)." (p. 216) Lastly, voyeurism. Of the 50 states, 27 apparently have no statute explicitly outlawing voyeurism. It is a misdemeanor in all others.

As the authors say in their introduction: "So far as the regulation of sexual behavior is concerned, by crossing a state boundary one may be stepping into a different moral universe." Traveler beware.

The site FindLaw.com is a useful resource for any online study concerning law.

Richard Posner's website is here.

Katherine Silbaugh doesn't seem to have a website, but her faculty profile at the Boston University School of Law is here.