What exactly is sodomy?
Question:
What exactly is sodomy? My understanding is that it is oral sex with either the same sex or between man and wife, but I have had many arguments with other people who say oral sex is OK between married people. This is such an embarrassing topic, but I really want to hear your opinion.
Thank you so much for being there to answer.
Answer:
The word "sodomy" as currently defined means: "sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation." But when you ask whether something is right or wrong, then you are looking for a biblical definition. "Sodomy" has not been used to translate any Hebrew or Greek word in the Bible in any of the major translations. According to Online Etymology Dictionary, the word "sodomy" started to be used in the middle ages. "c.1300, "unnatural sexual relations," such as those imputed to the inhabitants of Biblical Sodom, especially between persons of the same sex but also with beasts, from Old French sodomie, from Late Latin peccatum Sodomiticum "anal sex," literally "the sin of Sodom," from Latin Sodoma. In Middle English also synne Sodomyke (early 14c.)." Thus, the word developed in the Middle Ages to describe the sin that took place in the city of Sodom, i.e. homosexuality. "Homosexuality" was not developed as a word until about 1890, so "sodomy" is an older word for the same sin.
In the King James Version, published originally in 1611, "sodomite" was used to translate qadhesh, a Hebrew word for a male prostitute connected with idolatry. "It is clear from the texts available that the male or female prostitutes were tied closely to pagan concepts of fertility religion, which included imitative or sympathetic magic. Through intercourse with the devotees of the gods, the worshipers believed that they influenced the gods to grant them fertility and increase their families, lands, and crops." [The Complete Biblical Library]. It is assumed that it is generally males who visited these prostitutes, so male prostitutes were involved in homosexuality. More modern translations translate qadhesh as "perverted person," "cult prostitute," or "male prostitute."
It is not hard to see how "sodomy" took on its modern meaning. Homosexuality involves anal and oral sex; thus, the word was generalized because it isn't politically correct these days to point out that homosexuality is sinful.
Homosexuality is clearly condemned in the Bible (see: Notes on Homosexuality). Sex outside of marriage (fornication and adultery) is also condemned (I Corinthians 6:9-10). Anal sex involves the risk of disease, even when practiced by married couples (see: Is anal and oral sex between a married couple a sin?). Oral sex could be argued as being allowed if both the husband and the wife accept it (see: Is oral sex between a married couple a sin?)
