Prosecution of Foley:
Eugene writes: "Masturbating isn't a crime, fortunately, whatever the age of the person's who's masturbating; but getting a minor to masturbate for you might be, depending on the jurisdiction and on the minor's age." He then cites modern cases from California and New York which might support this theory.
It wasn't so long ago that statutory law was very clear on the subject. During the Progressive Era, there was a widespread, and successful, campaign in which medical science was used to promote laws against sexual conduct which was, supposedly, unhealthy and dangerous.
This effort led as far as statutes in both Indiana (enacted in 1881) and Wyoming (enacted in 1890) that included the following language in their criminal codes: "Whosoever entices, allures, instigates or aids any person under the age of twenty-one years to commit masturbation or self-pollution shall be deemed guilty of sodomy."Ronald Hamowy, Preventive Medicine and the Criminalization of Sexual Immorality in Nineteenth Century America, in ASSESSING THE CRIMINAL: RESTITUTION, RETRIBUTION, AND THE LEGAL PROCESS 78 (Randy E. Barnett & John Hagel III eds., 1977), cited in Randy E. Barnett, Bad Trip: Drug Prohibition and the Weakness of Public Policy, book review of America's Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs (By Steven B. Duke & Albert C. Gross. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993. Pp. xix, 348. $26.95), 103 Yale Law Journal 2593, 2607 (1994).
The Sodomy Law website cites the Wyoming statute as Laws of Wyoming 1890, page 139, ch. 73, §87, and notes that the statute was repealed in 1977.
The Indiana statute carried a penalty of 2 to 14 years. Acts 1881 Indiana, page 174, ch. XXXVII, §100. In Young v. State, an activist state supreme court construed the masturbation statute so broadly as to apply it to cunnilingus. 141 N.E. 309 (1923). In 1973, the anti-masturbation law was amended so that it applied to persons under 18, rather than persons under 21. Acts 1973 Indiana, page 1732, Public Law No. 320, at 1733-1734, §3. The law was entirely repealed in 1976 when the criminal code was revised.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Prosecution of Foley:
- More on the Foley Legal Issues:
- Legal Issues in the Mark Foley Investigation:
I fought the law
And the law won...
The "geniuses" in the mental health profession apparently use to believe that masturbation causes insanity.
I guess those geniuses must have all concluded that they were the lucky exceptions, able to survive puberty with their minds intact.
Unless they mean on someone else, the guilty party might be sentenced to join Cirque du Soleil.
Even worse, the men who repressed themselves so heavily as not to masturbate, became the judges of everyone else's "mental health." Brrrrrrr.
--Tho, as the current Foley brouhaha shows, those most vocal against a deviant practice are often those most attracted to it. On that theory, those guys probably couldn't keep their hands off themselves.
But let just defend my home state: The law HAD to be passed, in the public interest. Until the self-gratification ban, nothing else was getting done here.
Could we induce other countries to sign an international treaty to try and eliminate it? Would our next President pull out of it? Would he pull out in time?
Ah . . . It now becomes clear: You've accidentally reversed your intials.
An obscure right-wing blogger, Wild Bill, has outed one of Mark Foley’s victims, a former Congressional page. It is a despicable act. Wild Bill however, gets almost no traffic, so the damage done to the victim’s life could have been minimal.
All that ended, however, when some of the most highly-trafficked right-wing bloggers decided to direct their readers to Wild Bill’s site. First, Roger L. Simon, co-founder and CEO of Pajamas Media — a portal and advertising broker for nearly every major right-wing blog — posted a link to Wild Bill on his personal site. (The Pajamas Media portal also linked to Wild Bill.) Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit — probably the most highly-trafficked right-wing blog — followed suit by linking to Simon’s post and the Pajamas Media post.
here
I would bet that there are are plent of other such laws still on the books in other states. Presumably why vibrators are sold as "personal massagers".
That explains why feminists have been vocal about tolerance of rape--they are just desperate to have it happen to them.
That explains why so many parents get really, really angry about child molesters--they are just looking for a chance to do likewise.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?
See where liberalism takes you? Everything is properly within the sphere of government regulation! Even breathing, because it produces carbon dioxide, and thus contributes to global warming.
And which way did Scalia vote on Raich? See where conservatism takes you?
Also it's much a question of who you don't trust. Liberals won't let anyone make it illegal to hae private consensual sex. Many conservatives think the state should be able to outlaw sodomy.
I thought the eiphemism was something like crime against nature or something similar.
Self-abuse was another fun euphemism for masturbation - probably invented by those psychologists who thought it was harmful.
The constitutionality of the statute was summarily affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court as applied to consensual heterosex heterosexual fellatio in private (See Poe v. North Carolina, 445 U.S. 947, 1980). Poe affirmed a state Court of Appeals judgment which, in addition to turning down a privacy challenge. The case was overruled by Lawrence v. Texas, but the North Carolina Court of Appeals held in State v. Pope (2005) that the crime against nature statute survives Lawrence and always applies to whatever conduct, within its original scope, the Supreme Court of the moment permits. The Court of Appeals in the Poe case had used the words "conceding for purposes of argument that a husband or wife could not be prosecuted for engaging in fellatio in private with his or her spouse...", dicta strongly suggesting that the statute will apply to married couples the moment a change in Supreme Court composition permits it.
What an economic downer!!
I've often argued that the idea some activity is inherently economic and whilw other inherently not economic is often, at bottom, a moral judgment. Unlike many on this forum, I believe that the political branches of government, and States, have a right to make such judgments, and have the power to take some things off the economic table if they wish. I do not believe, however, that judges have any business deciding that marijuana and education are inherently economic while sex is inherently non-economic based on their personal moral and policy views.