Definition
A historical criminal law term denoting conduct characterized at common law as the "infamous crime against nature" — principally sodomy and buggery. The term was used in statutes, indictments, and judicial opinions to criminalize anal intercourse, and was sometimes extended to oral sex, bestiality, and other non-procreative sexual acts, depending on jurisdiction and era.
The term has no meaningful independent legal content today. Its operative significance is almost entirely historical: it appears in older penal codes, reported decisions, and legal dictionaries as a descriptor for a category of sexual conduct that was once broadly criminalized and is now substantially decriminalized in the United States following constitutional developments in the early twenty-first century.
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Common Confusion
UNNATURAL OFFENSE, SODOMY, BUGGERY, and CRIME AGAINST NATURE are not technically synonymous, though historical sources treat them as interchangeable. In practice:
- SODOMY was the most commonly used statutory term in American penal codes and typically referred to anal intercourse, sometimes extended by statute or judicial interpretation to oral sex.
- BUGGERY is the older English common law term, derived from ecclesiastical law, and historically referred specifically to anal intercourse between men or between a human and an animal.
- CRIME AGAINST NATURE is a phrase used in many American statutes as a broader umbrella, sometimes encompassing acts beyond sodomy strictly defined.
- UNNATURAL OFFENSE functioned as a generic descriptor used in charging instruments and opinions when drafters wished to invoke the moral opprobrium of the category without specifying the act in terms courts considered too explicit for formal legal writing.
Researchers should not assume these terms have identical scope in any given source. The breadth of each term was defined by individual jurisdictions, and the same conduct might fall within one statutory label but not another.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational hazard in historical legal research for several reasons.
First, the term deliberately obscures. Courts and legislators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often refused to describe the covered conduct with specificity, relying instead on the phrase "unnatural offense" or "crime against nature" as a self-evident moral category. This means that indictments, jury instructions, and statutes using this language may provide no textual clue as to what specific act was charged or prohibited. Researchers analyzing historical prosecutions must look to the underlying facts, not the charging language.
Second, the constitutional landscape shifted dramatically. State sodomy statutes survived constitutional challenge in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) but were invalidated as applied to consensual adult private conduct in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which overruled Bowers. Any primary source — case, statute, or treatise — written before 2003 must be read against this background. Statutes using "unnatural offense" or "crime against nature" language that remain on the books in some states are largely unenforceable as applied to consensual adult conduct, though enforcement against other conduct (e.g., bestiality) may continue under separate or surviving provisions.
Third, scope varied widely by jurisdiction. Some states construed their "crime against nature" statutes narrowly to reach only anal intercourse; others extended them to oral sex, and courts disagreed vigorously. A researcher tracking how a particular jurisdiction defined this offense must consult that state's case law, not simply the statutory text.
Fourth, the Latin maxim appended in both Black's editions — "Uno absurdo dato, infinita sequuntur" (One absurdity being allowed, an infinity follows) — is a quotation from Coke and does not define the offense. It appears to reflect the view that once courts began specifying the acts covered, no logical limit remained. Its inclusion in both editions of Black's, without further explanation, is a reflection of the era's judicial reluctance to engage the subject analytically.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary define the term identically in substance: "the infamous crime against nature; i.e., sodomy or buggery." Both append the same Latin maxim from Coke. The brevity is itself significant — it mirrors the reticence of the courts these dictionaries described.
Neither edition attempts to define the scope of the offense beyond the reference to sodomy and buggery, and neither addresses the distinction between those terms. This leaves the historical researcher without guidance on the critical question of whether a given statute or indictment reached oral sex, same-sex conduct exclusively, or conduct with animals. The dictionaries reflect the willful vagueness of the law they documented.
Later editions of Black's (post-1960s) gradually provide more explicit definitions, eventually tracking statutory and constitutional developments. The shift in editorial treatment across editions is itself useful evidence of how the legal culture's approach to this subject changed.
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Jurisdictional Note
After Lawrence v. Texas (2003), sodomy statutes as applied to consensual adult private conduct are constitutionally unenforceable under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Some states retain statutory language criminalizing "unnatural offenses" or "crimes against nature" but have not formally repealed it. Researchers should verify current statutory status in any given state, as the landscape of formal repeal versus dormant retention varies.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No direct match in the Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia. The available entries (Gambling Offenses, Hazing Offenses, Drug Paraphernalia Offenses) do not address this subject.
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