Modernizing Sex Laws

For centuries, Connecticut residents who kissed their girls in public were li able to prosecution and imprisonment.

Adultery, fornication and homosexual acts were also against the law, as was "lascivious carriage," a curious catchall offense loosely defined as "conduct which is wanton, lewd or lustful and tending to produce voluptuous emo tions." All that has now been changed.

In July, Governor John Dempsey signed a broad new penal code that becomes effective in October 1971.

The new code, the result of a six-year study by a special commission of the Connecticut general assembly, reforms a number of antiquated Connecticut sex laws, some dating back to 1642. Accepting the commission's recommendation that all sexual activity be tween two consenting, mentally competent adults "is no business of the criminal law," the code eliminates adultery, homosexuality and lascivious car riage as punishable acts.

The change was long overdue. From 1965 to 1968, the number of prose cutions for fornication and lascivious carriage had dropped from 1,048 to 349, and the number of convictions from 790 to 169. "We hardly ever make a mor als arrest any more," said New Haven Police Chief James Ahern. Even so, the breadth of the old laws invited ar bitrary interpretation and unequal en forcement. All that was needed to prove lascivious carriage, for example, was some sign of sexual activity. "Oh, you know -- rumpled sheets, both of them in a state of undress -- that sort of thing," said one policeman. The police also found lascivious carriage a handy stat ute to invoke against anyone whose conduct displeased them. "When you see a black boy and a white girl together," said a Connecticut policeman, "well, you just know what's going on."

Ardent Lover. In most other states, sex laws are still so archaic they would make Hester Prynne feel at home. Sev en years ago, the American Law Institute proposed a Model Penal Code that would eliminate traditional penalties for sexual relations between consenting adults in private. Connecticut, and to a degree Illinois, have followed the rec ommendations. Montana, Oregon and others are considering similar action.

Elsewhere, most sexual relations out side marriage -- and some within -- are criminal offenses. Adultery and forni cation are commonly outlawed. Sodomy is illegal in nearly every state, even be tween spouses; New York is an ex ception that does not bar it within marriage. Until a new code goes into effect next July, a too ardent lover in Kansas can get up to five years at hard labor for successfully luring his girl friend to bed, and up to 21 years for merely trying. In Indianapolis, simply entering the motel room of a person of the opposite sex (subject to a number of exceptions for relatives, young children and others) is punishable by a fine of up to $25 and as many as 30 days in prison.

New Uses. Since such laws are usually invoked only in cases of flagrant indiscretion, there is little public pressure to abolish them. But the laws are by no means dead, and new uses are occasionally found for them. Recently New Jersey successfully invoked its rarely used 179-year-old law prohibiting fornication. The case involved a pregnant mother on welfare and her former lover. Though the defense counsel argued that being pregnant when on welfare was the woman's real offense, the court gave her a suspended sentence of six months and placed her on probation for two years. Her lover was sentenced to three months in jail.

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