In New Orleans, Oral and Anal Sex Are Felony "Crimes Against Nature"

Should getting paid for oral or anal sex carry a far harsher penalty than illegal sex work of the more vanilla variety?

"Crimes against nature" laws number among those creepy old statutes you can find still sitting on the books, but hope nobody actually tries to use. Louisiana law defines a crime against nature as "unnatural carnal copulation" (or the solicitation of for pay), which generally translates into "oral or anal sex." Legislating morality at its finest -- and don't forget the nice homophobic touch!

Normally, a first-time prostitution conviction is a misdemeanor leading to less than six months jail time. But Jordan Flaherty reports in Colorlines that many New Orleans sex workers are being charged for selling oral or anal sex under the crimes against nature law, which carries a first-time felony penalty of up to five years prison time and requires them to register as sex offenders.

When used against sex workers, these controversial registries, created to keep communities aware of child molesters, become a severe rights violation that endangers an already vulnerable population, and wastes resources that could be directed toward dangerous offenders. The New Orleans Police Department's own website on sex offender awareness states that only 4% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by women -- yet in New Orleans, women make up the vast majority of crimes against nature convictions, which account for a whopping 264 out of the city's 861 actively registered sex offenders, according to registry statistics provided by LA state police spokesperson Doug Cain.

Though the registry doesn't keep track of how many of these crimes against nature were for solicitation of sex, it's safe to assume that we're looking at convictions for sex workers -- the alternative would be that investigations are occurring into the private, non-commercial, consensual sexual relationships between two people, which would be a rights violation of a whole other magnitude.

Josh Perry, a former New Orleans public defender, estimates that about half of prostitution arrests get tried as crimes against nature. This is up to the discretion of the police and district attorney, and sex workers and their advocates allege the harsher law is disproportionately utilized against black and transgender women.

Flaherty reports an array of problems, such as that women registered as sex offenders are excluded from regular storm shelters. (And New Orleans isn't exactly lucky on the natural disasters front.) The sex offender shelters lack separate safe spaces for women -- a problem made worse by noting that the New Orleans Police Department's website on sex offender awareness specifies that the majority of offenders exhibit "crossover" behavior, committing other sexual crimes such as rape against adult women.

Furthermore, since a crimes against nature conviction is a felony right of the bat, unlike a normal prostitution conviction, these women -- who in many cases turned to sex work due to poverty and a lack of other options -- are unable to get public assistance such as food stamps. Many of these women are homeless, and if sympathetic non-profits did not allow them to use their locations for a permanent address, they would end up violating the terms of their sex registry.

Charging sex workers with crimes against nature utilizes a ridiculous morality law to treat them as felons and sex offenders, severely limiting their options to ever get out of sex work or poverty, and putting an already vulnerable population in further danger. The district attorney and New Orleans police need to stop pursing convictions against sex workers engaging in oral or anal sex for "unnatural carnal copulation," and this vestige of another era needs to be taken off the books entirely.

Photo credit: kyz