Sodomy law

A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood and defined by many courts and jurisdictions to include any or all forms of sexual acts that are illegal, illicit, unlawful, unnatural, or immoral. Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, manual sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced to target against sexual activities between individuals of the opposite sex, and have mostly been used to target against sexual activities between individuals of the same sex.

As of September 2025, 63 countries as well as 3 sub-national jurisdictions have laws that criminalize sexual activity between 2 individuals of the same-sex. In 2006 that number was 92. Laws in 40 of these 62 countries criminalize both male and female same-sex sexual activity. In 11 countries, sexual activity between two individuals of the same-sex is punishable with the death penalty.

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed an LGBT rights resolution, which was followed up by a report published by the UN Human Rights Commissioner which included scrutiny of the mentioned codes. In March 2022, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women found that laws criminalizing consensual same-sex activity between women are a human rights violation. This case, brought by Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, was the first United Nations case to focus on lesbian and bisexual women.


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