a radically new SEX LAW (Jan, 1964)
Source: Sexology ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1964
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Tags: sexuality
This was a remarkably progressive law for 1961. Texas enforced it’s anti-sodomy laws up until 2003 when a 6-3 decision of the supreme court ruled them unconstitutional.
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a radically new SEX LAW
Private sex acts of any nature between consenting adults, says Illinois. are no longer illegal. By Donald Webster Cory and John P. LeRoy
Mr. Cory is the well-known author of “The Homosexual in America” and editor of “Homosexuality: A Cross-Cultural Approach.”
Mr. LeRoy is a free-lance writer.The laws under which American men and women are regulated in their sexual behavior and are punished for sexual transgressions are written in the 50 different state penal codes of the United States and are interpreted in the courts of 50 states.
These 50 different state penal codes often stand in sharp contrast to each other. What is legal in one state becomes illegal if you cross the border; what is mildly punished by a light fine in one community is severely punished by a heavy jail sentence just a few miles away. And almost all of these state codes are outmoded.No wonder, then, that the American Law Institute has called for a revision of penal codes, particularly insofar as sexual behavior is concerned. The recommendations of the Institute have by and large been adopted, together with other reforms and changes, in a quiet manner in the state of Illinois. For in January 1961 the legislature of that state enacted into law a new penal code replacing completely an oat-dated and inconsistent one.
To bring the code into line with the needs of modern society, a committee was set up by the Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations, and was headed by Professor Charles H. Bowman of the Illinois University College of Law.
Why should sexual conduct be governed by law, the committee asked itself. The purpose of such law, it contends, is not to enforce standards of morality, but to protect the individual from violence, to protect the young from advances by adults against whom they are virtually helpless, to protect the public from open display of sexual behavior which disturbs the peace, and to protect marriage and the family so that it can function normally.
The code covers, in addition to other crimes, rape, deviate sexual conduct, contributing to the sexual delinquency of children, adultery, incest, bigamy, prostitution, soliciting, and obscenity. It is probably the most realistic and enforceable sex code that has been enacted into law in the United States.
In the section covering rape, one major change was effected. Rape no longer includes what has usually been termed “statutory” or “nonviolent” or “nonforcible” rape. In other words, it is not called rape unless the male uses force and violence against the female. If she gives her consent, but is under age, this is handled as “indecent liberties with a child” or “contributing to the sexual delinquency of a child.”
The male committing rape must be 14 years old or more; he must have intercourse by force and against the woman’s will, which may include her being unconscious or mentally deranged; and there must be penile-vaginal penetration. If the forcible act is noncoital, it involves deviate sexual assault, which is punishable, but is distinguished from rape itself.
In the sections of the code dealing with deviate sexual acts, only noncoital acts between humans come within the law.
Thus, the Illinois code removes from the books all punishment of sexual gratification in which one of the participants is an animal.
These acts, more widespread in the American rural communities, and particularly among adolescents, than any pre-Kinsey Americans had imagined, had been punished only on the rarest occasions. According to the committee, such acts are “usually brief, youthful ‘experiments’ rather than part of a pattern of conduct” and that to focus “public attention on the person who happens to be found in such an act serves no useful social purpose and may seriously impair the development of the accused to a normal life.”
The committee defined a deviant act as being “any act of sexual gratification involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another.” Such acts are illegal in Illinois only if they are committed by force and violence, or by the threat of force, by any person, male or female; or if they involve youth under age of consent, or if they offend public decency.
Thus, consenting adults committing such acts in private, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, are no longer violating the law.
A section entitled “Indecent Liberties with a Child” punishes anyone, 17 years or older, who has intercourse with, performs deviate conduct with, or lewdly fondles, arouses, or acts to arouse or to satisfy the sexuality of a child under the age of 18.
If the child has reached the age of 16 but is under the age of 18, this involves “Contributing to the Sexual Delinquency of a Child” and the punishment in the latter case is up to 1 year in jail (plus a fine) whereas in the former (the child being less than 16 years) the punishment is from 1 to 20 years in the penitentiary. A further category, punished less severely, is made, when a child under the age of 13 is solicited, but no act committed.
The traditional taboos against incestuous behavior are so strong that all societies reflect the prohibition in their criminal law. The Illinois code differentiates between the act when the male is the father, calling this aggravated incest, and applying penalties more severe than other types of incest.
Undoubtedly, this is because of the strong position of influence that the father can exert over the willing or unwilling daughter. Furthermore, if the daughter is not related by blood, but is a stepdaughter or foster-daughter, it is still aggravated incest, if she is under the age of 18.
Public indecency turned out to be an interesting catch-all for a variety of acts in public. These acts could involve actual intercourse, deviate sexual conduct (that is, noncoital sex acts), nudity or public exposure designed “to arouse or to satisfy the sexual desire of the person” or, finally, a lewd fondling or caress — but only if the other person is of the same sex. By public place, the code spells out its intent: “any place where the conduct may reasonably be expected to be viewed by others.”
But here the committee has made a very real differentiation between heterosexual and homosexual activities. It is quite all right for a boy to be engaged in mild petting with a girl on a park bench, but petting to the same degree, between a boy and a boy, would be considered indecent.
However, although two males cannot publicly engage in activities as intimate as those permissible between a male and a female, this
in no way punishes a male who might suggest to another male that they should engage in such acts in private.
Revision of the statutes against prostitutes covered not only female, but male, sex acts for cash. It is unlawful not only to be a prostitute, male or female, but to solicit for a prostitute, arrange for a person to practice prostitution, keep a place for it, patronize a prostitute, or be a pimp.
The acts of prostitution are clearly defined as those in which money is accepted in return for sexual intercourse or deviate sexual conduct. The law does not define the granting of sexual favors in return for non-monetary gifts, such as jewelry or furs, as acts of prostitution.
The new code in Illinois should go a long way toward reducing blackmail, reducing entrapment, reducing the fear in which many people live. In addition to numerous other changes, it radically affects the homosexual, for homosexual acts, committed in private, between two consenting adults, are now completely legal. Furthermore, even that widespread phenomenon, homosexual “cruising,” which results in so much blackmail and arrest, is now within the law.
A couple of interesting point, the new law decriminalized sex with animals, and the way this is article is worded, it sounds like a sex show between a child and an animal would be legal as long as no violence was in evidence or money was given to the child.
I wonder if paying for sex with stocks or bonds would be legal?
Comment by Bob — January 6, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Ugh…bad syntax in the title of the article. The law itself was radical, not the newness of the law.
Comment by Beauzeaux — January 7, 2008 @ 11:52 pm
Getting to maters that mater is something we seem to be able to get down to humbly; I would like to share this with you. This from my life experience is a true connection to the ties of races through our own sex laws which have been built on misconceptions and myth.
The Supreme Court just ruled on sex offender laws where some factions of our government think by some inert reasoning that sex offender should be quarantined like some virus steaming from draconian/Islamic law sex offenders should be executed. I have seen for myself, video taken in another country where a sex offender is placed on a pole much like the Catholics use to use a pyramid shaped object and have them sit on it and spin, the pole travels through the body looking for the throat but if not found its ok cause the sharpened end of the pole will come out somewhere. The heritage of the act is in its self a throwback to troglodyte’s who are so obsessed with sex they can find that the way to deal with the issue is as revolutionary, as war, and two wrongs don’t make a right but has in fact called up deep rooted issues of people who have had to put up with this kind of “hierarchy” of historic hysteria far to long. A word taken from hysterectomy, hysteria is tied to castration used to make animals less threatening right? Good old Monty Hall. Well no wonder it’s wrong, right?
Anyway we are supposed to be the most advanced nation and we still have a death penalty when the rest of the world except for nations we are still warring with, {think!} While other nations went home our weapons dealers and torture lovers delighting in support for the death of people they don’t know or want to simply because they don’t know how to get money with out taking it from someone by force, is that supposed to includes mutilations? In my humble opinion that alone are terrorist activities as much as severed hands, ears, heads, or making a case with nothing more than an obsession justified by lies.
The truth about the sex offender registry will come out soon enough. When it does, People will see how the use of the registry was created, and by exactly who and why and the devastation it has created and the worthlessness of the use of it. It’s origin in the Crow laws that brought disgrace to our nation allowing thieves and murderous societal bigots who have trashed any shot at making good of a program in its design to make money destroying our nation and its people. We can not play god and we can not survive using this behavior model because we are compounding the problem.
It’s a ruse designed by people who are getting rich off the castration/hysterectomy/health care/physic care of people through sex laws that have gone wild. What about the people who are being used by the Medicare programs that requires these mutilations for both men and woman after they take their means of support? Can’t you see? You have created the model and it is worthless! Why don’t you just indiscriminately kill people you don’t know that’s statically the next sex offender because over 90% of all new offences are people not on the sex offender registry and the numbers are increasing not decreasing so as a behavior model the chumps put together is really screwed up and they were told before they tried it. So what is the use of such laws as the sex offender registry other than to terrorize people? With the murder of so many sex offenders and the continued disregard for life by the use of the registry it’s just a mater of time before the federal government will be held liable for the deaths through federal court.
In a nation where a statement may have a double or triple meaning and our entire linage can be traced through mud, guts, and beer it’s nice once in a while to get the picture of what is meant instead of what some thinks someone may have implied. So it is from the trenches to the hill. Remember the game where someone says something in someone’s ear then passes it the same way to the next; the person advocating such destructive laws are the ones who need to be section 8 by simple brake down of the issue not sex offenders. Best regards
Comment by Keith Richard Radford Jr — September 20, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Keith Richard Radford Jr: Keith you need to go back to whoever prescribes your meds. I mean, you’re either getting too big a dose or not enough.
Comment by Firebrand38 — September 20, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
Well Fiber Man you can go look again at what I sais and let it sink into your hard headed personage and maybe even re read it again because you are out and so are sex offender laws.
Comment by Keith Richard Radford Jr — October 2, 2009 @ 2:06 pm
Oh, it’s FIBER BRAN? I get it, you’re a CEREAL.
But I’m curious what “Misconceptions” that our laws are based on. I remember when a sweeper truck driver around here witnessed a gang rape in hte middle of the night and drove on and never said anything. When the police eventually questined if he’d saen anything, he told them everything, and said he went off and ignored it “In case she wound up having a good time.” Laughing as he said it. Let’s just say I heard him say it. Has he identified one of the misconceptions here?
I mean, if it’s just a myth that it’s wrong to drug a 13 year old unconcious and rape her, you’d better let the L.A. courts know; or this Roman Polanski thing will just keep dragging on.
But I get the idea that the box of cereal is wrong, you’re not just a nut with something to babble. You’re on that registry, aren’t you. I didn’t read much of your nonsense the first time, but I did this time; that’s one advanced psychosis you have going there, trying to justify yourself. Or do you just know you’ve done things that COULD land you on that registry?
Meanwhile, let’s make the commercial for the cereal:
. FIREBRAND38
. (Speaking before crowd)
Fiber bran is also good with milk poured on.
. (All near him dowse him with milk)
Not ME, the CEREAL.
Comment by -DOUG- — October 2, 2009 @ 2:54 pm
-DOUG-: The pity is I’m lactose intolerant. Doug, you got it in one. I have to wonder how such an asshole takes such a great picture?
http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/cg.....ng=ENGLISH
Now me, I wish I had a smile like that.
Well, Keith…anything else you want to share with the class?
Comment by Firebrand38 — October 2, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
Though it came in as law much later, also in Illinois it is not a felony for two minors between the ages of 13 and 17 to have consensual sex. The law was changed because far to many 15, 16, and 17 year old boys were going to prison for having sex with their girlfriends. Though personally I feel children should wait until they are 17 before having sex, realistically I know many kids just can’t wait.
Forced sex with minors is just wrong.
Comment by JMyint — October 2, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
Keith, did you say something? I didn’t think so.
Comment by Firebrand38 — October 5, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
I don’t Know if you wait with great antispation for my next statment on you blog sir but your “Keith, did you say something? I didn’t think so.” is a cut and sounds like a kid I once knew and hoped to forget, never the less you will be seeing this step being stepped over by many more. The law is bad and must be changed because it is not for the good of anyone but people who write garbage like “Keith, did you say something? I didn’t think so.” Yes I have much to say! ~its just started~
Comment by Keith Richard Radford Jr — November 2, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
Keith Richard Radford Jr: Gee freak! I’d hate to be compared to a kid that you knew! I’ll bet there are a couple of kids that are trying to forget you as well. News flash dude, you’re a registered sex offender. I get it, you don’t like sex offender laws. Unlike the other blogs you’ve posted your nonsense on folks here know what you are. Is that grown up enough for you, you sad bastard?
Comment by Firebrand38 — November 2, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
On some other sites you complain about the microchip that was implanted in you. Right. Rather than a microchip under your skin you have your head up your ass (that means you can’t wear a tinfoil hat). Based on your rambling posts and inability to spell did it ever occur to you that Videocartoonz.com failed not because you had sex with a minor but rather because you’re incompetent? How’s that for grown up? Jerk.
PS
It’s Charlie’s blog not mine. In fact I don’t really exist, I’m just a figment of your imagination.
PPS Was that reference to “~its just started~” supposed to intimidate me? News flash Ace, I’m not some underage school girl, so it takes more than you to make me pause and catch my breath.
Comment by Firebrand38 — November 2, 2009 @ 2:09 pm