LHMP #483 Godbeer 1995 The Cry of Sodom

While this article is (necessarily) focused primarily on m/m history, it does have useful details of the early legal history of female same-sex relations in America. I’ll be focusing on those details and so this summary won’t cover the article as a whole. The general approach is to compare the “official” (church and state) position on same-sex erotics with the evidence for how specific individuals were viewed within their communities, including some startlingly lax responses to men notorious for their sexual interest in other men.

Official discourse did not consider the issues of desire or specific orientation, being concerned only with the specifics of the acts and whether they were approved or forbidden. In Puritan-influenced areas of the colonies, sex outside of marriage of any sort was in the “forbidden” category, but to some extent equated with other moral concerns such as drunkenness.

In contrast, non-official records indicate a recognition that certain individuals had a specific inclination toward same-sex behavior. Without applying an anachronistic concept of sexual orientation, this does lean more towards a perception of “identity” rather than a focus only on “acts.” Furthermore, communities had a variety of attitudes towards sodomy accusations and were often unwilling to apply the (theoretical) official penalties, as long as essential social harmony was not badly disrupted. Sodomy was not approved, but might be considered less significant than other aspects of a person’s contributions to the community.

Clerical and legal references to f/f sex as a parallel with m/m sex were inconsistent. John Cotton (1641) referred to “unnatural filthiness…of man with man, or woman with woman.” This phrasing including “woman with woman” was also used by Thomas Shepard (1664), Charles Chauncy (1642), and Samuel Whiting (1666). In general, New England opinions on the definition of sodomy focused on the same-sex aspect rather than a definition of anal sex, which could be enacted between a m/f couple.

Legal codes, in contrast with clerical opinions, focused almost exclusively on m/m sex. Codes from Plymouth (1671), Massachusetts (1641), Connecticut 1642), and New Hampshire (1680) only penalize m/m sex. A draft Massachusetts law by John Cotton in 1636 included women, but this was not adopted. Only New Haven (1655) identified f/f sex as a capital crime. (All of these law codes specifically cited biblical language as the justification for considering these crimes.) The New Haven law was, in general, much broader in the sexual crimes it covered, including m/f anal sex, sex with prepubescent girls, and public masturbation as well as any non-procreative acts.

The article notes only two instances of women being charged in courts for sexual activity with each other. Elizabeth Johnson received a whipping and fine in 1642 in Essex County for “unseemly practices betwixt her and another maid.” [Note: “maid” here presumably means two unmarried women rather than a reference to employment?] Another case, commonly cited in the literature, was in 1649 in Plymouth Colony, against Sara Norman and Mary Hammon for “leude behaviour each with other upon a bed.” In neither case was the activity labeled as “sodomy” in the record. [Note: I believe from other sources that they received a warning only, but I’m not finding a clear citation.]

Only two men (and specifically men) are known to have been executed for sodomy in the colonial era, and in both cases this seems to have been motivated not only by the number of occasions they transgressed, but because they non-consensually targeted boys. In contrast, several cases are discussed where a man’s habitual sexual interest in other men was known to and tolerated by the community, even over a significant period of time, if the community felt that the situation was being adequately addressed by social pressure and a whisper network. (This topic gets a lot of discussion and details, but is not relevant to the Project.)

The article notes that during this same era, London was developing a subculture catering to men who had sex with men, including the distinctive culture of the “molly houses” that included cross-dressing and role-playing, creating a popular connection between sodomy and effeminacy. But this culture was relatively restricted to London and has not been identified either outside that metropolis in England, or in any of the developing cities in the colonies. Nor is there any evidence that the colonies associated cross-dressing with sodomy. Even so, there is at least some evidence for an understanding in the colonies of something resembling an orientation toward m/m sex. (There is insufficient data on f/f relations to conclude anything.)