Fornication: Definition, History, and Cultural Perspectives

Until the 1960s, for example, masturbation, extramarital or premarital sexual intercourse, adultery, and homosexuality (also "pederasty") and zoophilia, which used to be called "unnatural fornication" or "sodomy", were classified as fornication in Western countries. Depending on the religious and ethical environment, this classification can also be found today. Corresponding forms of sexuality, however, are no longer prosecuted in Western countries within the framework of cultural liberalization and the principle of sexual self-determination, and are increasingly accepted in society. In recent times, however, there has been an opposite tendency towards criminalization in the case of zoophilia, also known as "sodomy" in German.

The term also covered the fornication of minors, i.e. consensual sexual intercourse between adolescents and children. The language of the present has abandoned the moralizing term "fornication" and replaced it, for example, with the general term "sexual acts" in the German criminal law reform of 1973. It also restricted the punishability of the facts that were previously subsumed under fornication. At the same time, the subject matter is viewed in a more differentiated manner and negatively viewed facts are referred to as sexual abuse, sexual coercion, moral endangerment and deviant sexual practices.

In China, for example, just a few years ago, masturbating teenagers were advised to "wear loose underwear, do hard physical labor, and study the writings of Mao Zedong."

In many African and Asian countries, a girl is expected to enter marriage "untouched" as a virgin. There, sex before marriage is considered fornication and is covered by social taboos. If the family's honor is soiled by a violation, it must be restored, such as by punishing or outcasting the woman. Circumcision of female genitalia is intended, among other things, to prevent or help curb fornication by the girl or wife.

Fornication (Arab. Zina) is also condemned in Islamic states. In many places it is socially ostracized and the lewd person is shunned. In some places, such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, northern Nigeria and Yemen, fornication is punished severely, for example by stoning to death for adultery or anal intercourse.

Germany

In the context of social liberalization, the term "fornication" was abandoned as a legal concept in Germany: The Federal Court of Justice ruled for the last time in 1962 that coitus between engaged but unmarried partners was fornication and its promotion by providing a home was punishable as procuring. With the Great Criminal Law Reform of the Kiesinger Government (first Grand Coalition) from 1 September 1969, the offences of adultery and procuring were abolished, among others.

In German jurisprudence, the term "fornication" is no longer used. In the Criminal Code, the term "fornication with minors" is no longer found. Section 176 StGB refers to "sexual abuse of children".

Austria

In Austria, the term fornication only appears in the Criminal Code in § 219 StGB (announcement to induce lewd intercourse). Furthermore, the long title of the Pornography Act is "Federal Act of 31 March 1950 on the Suppression of Indecent Publications and the Protection of Youth against Moral Endangerment." It also uses the word "lewd" in its definition of pornography.

United States

Fornication used to be a legal crime in the United States. This meant any sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons and also between spouses all sexual practices except vaginal intercourse. In some places, certain positions were also forbidden between married persons, except for the missionary position. In Michigan, for example, what was prohibited for all sex constellations was called gross indecency (Michigan Common Law 750.338, 750.338a, and 750.338b regulated the gay, lesbian, and heterosexual varieties, respectively).

In the late 20th century, many of these laws were revoked or rarely enforced; those that remain are not enforced today because, according to the Supreme Court's July 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, they constitute a violation of the right to privacy implicitly (i.e., not explicitly) guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Sexual acts with persons below the age of consent are still punishable as Statutory rape.