The University of Richmond Collegian 03/02/95

Staff Editorial

by Jeffrey Carl, Opinion Editor

What We Think

an Opinion from the Collegian Staff

“Bedroom Eyes”

We here at The Collegian are great fans of the great Commonwealth of Virginia. For the most part, we think our adopted state is the cat’s pajamas. We do, however, have at least one bone to pick with the Old Dominion.

This may seem like a rather touchy subject, whatever your position on the matter, but it is worth probing seriously: Virginia has some of the most restrictive laws against consensual sex acts in the nation.

But, you say, this really doesn’t affect me. I am a law-abiding citizen, my fake I.D. aside, and surely this law is meant to prosecute people who are molesting sheep or putting the moves on inanimate objects or the like. Think again.

Oral sex is illegal in Virginia, whether heterosexual or homosexual. So is sodomy, which refers technically to any sexual position aside from the traditional “missionary” position, either between opposite- or same-sex partners. So is any form of intercourse between partners under the minimum age of consent, sixteen.

Now, how many criminals do we have out there?

Okay, you say, but nobody actually enforces those things, do they? Is somebody actually checking up on this, traversing the cars in R-Lot with a night-vision telescope? Do the oral sex police haunt bedroom windows with peering eyes? If they aren’t enforced, what’s the big deal?

Point taken. But then, why have them on the books at all? Even if they aren’t going to drag you out of bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night because you like to dress up in a Little Bo Peep costume, these laws are still dangerous.

By virtue of these laws, it is illegal to have homosexual sex. Therefore, practicing homosexuals are criminals, and can be denied anything from custody of children to basic civil rights. If the police stop by for any reason and happen to discover you doing the “horizontal mambo” in any way but the state-approved one, you can be prosecuted. You aren’t safe in the privacy of your own home to do as you desire, and be free from “bedroom eyes” watching.

To paraphrase Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, if the First Amendment means anything, it is the right of a man – or woman – to do what he or she wishes in the privacy of their own home, so long as it hurts no one else. Maybe Virginia should take notice.