Of the more salacious stories to grace the pages of the Technician, the story of the tennis player accused of sexually assaulting his teammate that ran on Nov. 2, certainly had enough disturbing details to raise eyebrows. Yet perhaps most curious of the details is the crime he is charged with: “crimes against nature,” a Class I felony under North Carolina law.

Just what is a “crime against nature?” Section 14-177 of the North Carolina General Statute does not even define it, simply stating, “If any person shall commit the crime against nature, with mankind or beast, he shall be punished as a Class I felon.” The “crime against nature” statute traces its origins back to common law, typically associated with “unnatural” acts such as sodomy, oral sex, bestiality, and necrophilia — whether or not the act occurs between consenting adults.

Given the particular details of the case — the victim alleges that the accused performed oral sex upon him without his consent while he was asleep — why is this not simply charged as a lesser degree of sexual assault? Chapter 14, Section 27.5 of the North Carolina General Statutes defines a second-degree sexual offense (a class C felony) as one where the assailant, “engages in a sexual act with another person: 1) By force and against the will of another person, or 2) Who is mentally disabled, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.”

In this case, “physically helpless” is defined by Section 27.1 (3) as, “(i) a victim who is unconscious; or (ii) a victim who is physically unable to resist an act of vaginal intercourse or a sexual act or communicate unwillingness to submit to an act of vaginal intercourse or a sexual act.”

Clearly, a nonconsensual sexual act performed upon a sleeping person should be considered a second-degree sexual assault. Unless we are to begin to parse what the definition of “is” is, the act of performing oral sex upon another clearly qualifies as a “sexual act,” meeting every criteria of the law for a second-degree sexual assault.

And thus we come to the ultimate question — why does North Carolina still have a crime against nature statute in its books? Acts of assault can clearly be charged as such and if the laws are ambiguous, legislators have all the more incentive to clarify and broaden their scope. Meanwhile, North Carolina is one of the illustrious seven states to still have “crimes against nature” statutes on its books; the other six states include Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oklahoma and Virginia. When even Georgia and Texas have more progressive legal codes than North Carolina, chances are we may have a problem.

The fact is such laws have an unhealthy history of being put to service as tools of bigotry and repression — the reason they were created to begin with. Given that sexual assault is a crime no matter who (or how) it happens to, we have little need for over-broad statutes that criminalize even consensual behavior between adults, and even less need to employ them.

What do you think about the sex laws on North Carolina’s books and Steve’s view on them? E-mail your comments to [email protected].