Summary: The Effects Of Megan's Law On Sexuality

If given the opportunity to plan a week of instruction for the History of Human Sexuality course, I would focus lecture on U.S. Supreme Court cases pertinent to shaping sexuality and gender, the policies on which they ruled, and the political and social climate that influenced the type of decisions given by the Justices.

My assigned articles for week 16 entitled “US Society & Sexuality” would be and excerpt from the book Sexuality, Gender, & the Law and a recently published study entitled The Effects of Megan’s Law on Sex Offender Reintegration.

The former would be assigned in order to remind students of the mindset of US citizens during the early 20th century and reemphasizes the attempted medicalization of sexuality that we had discussed

earlier in the course. Though the court cases and policy actions I would be discussing during lecture would often be much older and cover larger issues in broad strokes, I believe that this article is interesting and helpful for providing and understanding the importance of historical context.
The second article is a study by Professor Jill S. Levenson published by Lynn University. It touches on a law whose mandates many may be familiar to many, but whose psychological effects will only have been recognized by few. I chose to have a study incorporated into the final week of class in addition to the article that examines past social context in order to get students, not necessarily to agree with the outcomes of this study, but to use their knowledge of the past to help influence and pave the way for a better future. The article discusses the psychological issues imparted on the offenders who are forced to have their past criminal offense follow them with little incentive to change as they now feel their place in society has already been set in stone. I believe that students would find the results of this study interesting and that it would make them question the overall efficacy of the policy as well as whether or not it may need to be revisited for amending.
Beginning on Monday, I would show the documentary on the Kanopy database entitled Before Stonewall. This documentary focuses on the social climate of the United States from the 1920’s leading up to the Stonewall Riots in 1969. It, similarly to the first article, helps to provide context to the sorts of social issues being faced by early American gay and lesbian citizens. Because the Stonewall Riots were discussed briefly earlier during the semester, I thought I this documentary would be particularly interesting to students since they will now be able to see some of the early American struggles that lead up to one the most significant events for gay and lesbian individuals in US history. Because the documentary is about an hour and a half in length it will take up the entirety of the Monday class period.
On Wednesday, I would begin class by answering scribbles that I imagine would have to do with the articles and documentary. The question I would most expect to see would be “This most likely was not the first time that gay and lesbian activists attempted to rise against the forms of oppression that constrained them. Was it the media coverage that made the difference for this issue?” I would answer their question by saying that that is a perfectly logical conclusion to reach based off of the capability of mass media at the time, but that no. The media was not taking the rioting as a serious social issue and from were still somewhat passive as to the significance of this event. In fact, a cover story following the event read, “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad.” They make references to the foot being put down on this issue to be a spiked heel, and homosexual individuals quoted were noted as having had lisps to make them seem more effeminate and comical. There was no opportunity missed to make the rioters seem eccentric and unusual. What made this riot strong and significant was not the help of the print media, but rather the strong unification of the gay community.
On Wednesday, my lecture would encompass Supreme Court cases, the policies surrounding them, and some of the reasoning behind the ruling. I would cover three main areas of legislation having to do with the legal regulation of sexuality in the US over the course of the class period. I would begin with laws related to sodomy and their effects, then move through obscenity, and prostitution.
We begin to see the opposition to sodomy as a legal practice early on during the days of American history. From the early 17th century to just around the end of the 18th, sodomy was considered a grievous offense. As a matter of fact, during the 1600s, there were 5 documented death sentences carried out after men were found guilty of sodomy. Because there were only 162 known death sentences issued during the 1600s in America, which would mean death due to the offense of sodomy comprised 3% of the total. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill in Virginia that called for the castration of male offenders who have engaged in sodomy. He also prescribed the death penalty as the maximum penalty for the crime. However, thanks to some more reasonable legislators, the law was not passed in Virginia. In 1801, US Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801. This extended the laws of sodomy already in place in Maryland and Virginia to be extended to the now formally structured district. During this time period, Virginia had in place a law that sentenced all free persons to anywhere from one to ten years of free labor to public works projects, while those enslaved individuals who were found guilty of this crime were sentenced to death.
Next, I would discuss some of the laws, but primarily the rulings of court cases that, over the course of US history, have shaped how we define the word “obscene” and what constitutes a criminal obscenity offense. The first significant piece of legislation passed relating to this topic was the Comstock Act of 1873. This act put the government in the business of censorship of so-called obscene materials. This act made criminal the “publication, distribution, and possession of information about or devices or medications for unlawful abortion or contraception”. Being charged and convicted of a violation of the Comstock act could result in up to five years of imprisonment with labor as well as a fine of up to $2,000. They also established even stronger punishment for the distribution of these “obscene” materials through the mail.
The first significant case related to more explicitly defining what was unlawful under the Comstock Act was the case of the United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries. In this case, a doctor ordered a special type of diaphragm from Japan, which, upon arrival into the US, was promptly confiscated. This case was initially tried by a lower court that ruled in favor of the defendant. It was appealed by the government to the US Court of Appeals who agreed with the decision of the lower court.
The next case that was significant in furthering the legal definition for what constitutes obscenity and was tried by the Supreme Court is Roth v. the United States. This case was argued and decided in early 1957.
Another case I would discuss is one more widely known, Roe v.

Wade. In this case, she filed a class action lawsuit arguing against the constitutionality of a Texas law that made it illegal to attempt or obtain an abortion except in cases where the pregnancy is determined to be fatal to the mother. The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that the enforcement of a policy prohibiting women from having safe access to an abortion was unconstitutional. They found their grounding for this ruling in the fifth and fourteenth amendment that have to deal will due process, which they defined as being inclusive of a right to privacy. This was another step forward and away from the once prohibited actions made illegal by the Comstock act. Roth was in charge of operating a book business in New York and was accused and convicted of mailing obscene circulars that were supposedly in violation of the federally enforced obscenity statutes at the time. The Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 decision that obscenity was not constitutionality protected under the first amendment. They reasoned that the intention of the first amendment was not to defend and protect every form of expression especially those that do not carry with them any value of social

importance.
Then I would move on to prostitution. Which is a topic that had been previously discussed in class, but this time I would teach it with a specific focus on its importance in the US. On March 3, 1875, the Congress of the United States approved the passage of the Page Act of 1875. This act banned the importation of women from China, Japan, or any “Oriental country” into the United States for so-called “immoral purposes”. This act mandated that every transportation vessel that was to arrive in the United States was subject to inspection under the person overseeing the port. Furthermore, if he had reason to believe that people were onboard for such purposes, he was well within his rights to inquire and assess the validity of the passengers. If they are determined, in the opinion of the dock manager, to be prostitutes, the importation of these “undesirable” immigrants is thereby legally denied.
In 1910, the Mann Act was passed. This law made the interstate transpiration of women with the intention of prostitution illegal. The problem with this is that the law was so broadly and poorly worded that there are records of many courts criminalizing many acts of consensual sexual activities, and was soon under the employment of destroying the political careers of some through blackmail. During this time period, the industrial revolution brought with it a changing role for women in society where they were no longer limited to the work of maintaining a household. As a result of this, they were seen as being subjected to more temptation. As people began to call attention to this issue, they used foreigners as a scapegoat for displacing a domestic problem. Immigration provided a supply of foreign prostitutes as well as men to entice American woman into immorality. Journalists only added to the panic surrounding this issue by printing vivid stories of good, innocent girls being taken off the street, forced to take drugs, and smuggled out of the country. This implementation and hysteria surrounding this act were important for setting the stage for further legislation and advancement in policy and social awareness.
An important case that I would discuss that relates to policy surrounding prostitution is United States v. Hoke. The defendant, Effie Hoke, was accused of persuading Annette Baden to accompany her from New Orleans, Louisiana to Beaumont, Texas for purposes of prostitution. She was charged with violation of the Mann Act by knowingly, willingly, and unlawfully engaging in interstate commerce for the purpose of prostitution. The Supreme Court upheld the significance of the Mann Act by reiterating the ability of Congress to regulate interstate travel for purposes of prostitution. However, the regulation of the prostitution within the state was wholly up to the state and what kind of policy it wished to enforce.
In 1918, the Chamberlain-Khan Act was passed by the US government granting itself the power to detain and quarantine any women who were suspected of being infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Medical examinations were mandatory is suspected of being infected. If the test results turned out to be positive, the discovery could be considered proof of prostitution. As a result of this act, 20,000 women were quarantined by the federal government under suspicion of spreading STDs. Over time legislation and court rulings have expanded upon the abilities and jurisdiction of the federal and state governments, and now prostitution is legal in eight counties in Nevada.
From this I would want the class to draw conclusions, based off of the knowledge gained from these broad strokes of policies and social context over the years, about where they believe the United States is heading in terms of policies that affect human sexuality, and which ones have affected us in the past, and in what ways.