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Strange Sex Laws
If you've ever been in the middle of a hot and heavy session in a parked car and heard a tap on the glass followed by a flashlight's harsh glare, you know that the long arm of the law can interfere with a perfectly good sexual encounter. Luckily we live in a time of fairly liberal sex laws, but you'd be surprised at the ones still hanging around in various jurisdictions throughout North America. By and large leftovers from more prudish times, they are rarely, if ever, enforced, but chances are that we have all unwittingly broken one or two in our years of salacious singledom.
An Oral Defence
Think oral pleasure escapes the reach of jurisprudence? Think again. In South Dakota, laws threaten a 10-year prison term for "copulation by means of mouth." In Utah, the same act brings six months in jail and a $299 fine; in Rhode Island, the "abominable, detestable crime against nature," brings seven to 10 years; and Florida metes out 20 years for some downtown action. Luckily for Californians, the law that sentenced husbands and wives engaging in oral sex to 15 years in prison was repealed in 1975.
A Single Misdemeanor
If getting caught by your parents while having sex is embarrassing, feel comforted by the fact that it could be worse in you lived in Michigan. Singles caught in the act in this state are fined $5,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. Similar punishments await singles in Texas (a misdemeanor and a $500 fine), South Carolina (six months in prison and a $500 fine), and Arizona (three years in prison). If you want an interesting souvenir, try getting nabbed in Rhode Island where singles found in flagrante delicto are merely fined $10 and told not to be so conspicuous next time.
The Wheels of Justice
Given North America's love affair with the automobile (and the backseat teen trysts it spawned) it's no surprise that laws try to keep couples from shifting the action into high gear. In Tremonton, Utah, women are banned from having sex with men while riding in ambulances--"Ooooh doctor, it hurts right here." In Liberty Comer, New Jersey, accidentally sounding the horn while frolicking in a parked car can land both parties a jail term; while in Norfolk, Virginia, no one may have sex in a motorcycle sidecar. And Buckfield, Maine, is the place for those who like mixing business with pleasure: legislation there makes it illegal for cab drivers "to charge a fare to any passenger who gives him sexual favors" in return for a ride home from an establishment serving alcoholic beverages. Tipping must be an interesting process in Buckfield.
Pleading Temporary Insanity
And then there are the laws so strange they almost defy explanation. In Kentucky, the law states, "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway... unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club." It is illegal to use any sexual position save the missionary in Washington, D.C.; no man in Connorsville, Wisconsin, may shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm; and couples are forbidden from having sex while standing inside a store's walk-in freezer in Newcastle, Wyoming. But the topper of all must be in Minnesota, where they actually have a law making it illegal for men to have sex with live fish. The tales that Minnesotan men must tell about the ones that got away.
Representative John Thomas
Not even the makers of such laws are immune. Take Nevada, where, "It is illegal for any member of the Nevada legislature to conduct official business wearing a penis costume while the legislature is in session." I'd hate to be around when Nevadan politicians start spouting off.
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Sep 25, 05
