several other states, applicable to sex offenses, likewise failed to disclose an instance of its use.

The law, however, is and always has been very much aware of homosexuality, that is, sexual practices between two human parties of the same sex.

The state statutes on our subject are generally a single, short paragraph, They prohibit all unnatural sexual practices, a prohibition that, by reason of the definitions used by American courts, includes certain heterosexual acts and bestiality. This naturally has led to some confusion of thought and terminology. Some time ago a city prosecutor stated to me that he had just had one of the most interesting homosexual cases of his career and then proceeded to relate a case of bestiality, that is, a situation that involved an animal.

In this paper, I have used the phrase "unnatural sexual practices" chiefly because it is the ordinarily found expression in the opinions of the judges. I trust it will stir up no quibbling discussion, for it can be said that it is unnatural for man to fly and when so used, the expression arouses no argument. The wide scope of the statutes is revealed by their very titles: The applicable Ohio statute is headed "Sodomy"; the Utah statute is headed "Sodomy unnatural and detestable practices;" the Virginia statute is headed Crimes against nature;" the California statutes (for we, uniquely, have two separate statutes) are headed "Crime Against Nature," and "Sex perversions."

In this discussion we are concerned only with sexual practices between human parties of the same sex. Pedication, fellatio and cunnilingus are, of course, embraced in this definition. Many forms of masturbation and use of various surfaces of the body, such as the armpits, are not; for an essential element of this crime, like the crime of rape, is penetration.

The enforcement of the law, in actual practice, is concerned almost solely with male offenders; one medical legal writer, Herzog, in a book written in 1931, says he never heard of a prosecution of female homosexuality but he points out that the statutes are broad enough to cover at least one form, namely cunnilingus.(2) Henry, in his two-volume work, has an illustration by Dickinson showing the use of a contrivance labelled a Double Dildo. The use of this device undoubtedly brings both participants within the definition of the crime, Actually, in Los Angeles city, there are a dozen arrests a year of female homosexuals. They generally plead guilty and I have therefore been unable to find a single instance of a female homosexual appeal from the many score of homosexual cases that are reported in the Appellate records.

The legal history of homosexuality is very old,

In Leviticus XX;13 we find, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them shall have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

Leviticus makes a clear distinction, in definition, between homosexuality and bestiality and does it very succinctly. Two verses after the above quoted one, we find: "And if a man lie with a beast he shall surely be put to death, and ye shall slay the beast," and the following one: "And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and slay the beast."

The ancient origin of our legal concept is emphasized by some of the words used. Sodomy, or male homosexual love, is derived from one of the Scriptural twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; Lesbianism, or female homosexual love, is named after Lesbos, the ancient name for the Greek island of Mitiline; the Greeks also have given us a synonym for pederasty, "Socratic" love, (3)

The more modern legal handling of the problem was just as harsh as that of the ancients and has the following history:

Early in the Christian era the Roman Emperors legislated against homosexuality and Justinian's Code, in 538, condemned offenders to the sword; this became the foundation of social opinion and legal enactment for the next 1,300 years.

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