by Richard A » Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:53 pm
The fact that lesbian sex was already legal may be a legacy of the colonial era. Although gay sex was famously illegal in the UK up to the 1960s - as Oscar Wilde and others found out - lesbianism never was. The reason? Originally sex between any couple of the same gender was to be banned. But Queen Victoria apparently refused to believe that women got up to such things and so refused to sign the legislation until it was made male-specific! A lot of colonial-era laws stayed on the statute books after independence are are still there. Although the British didn't actually hang people for it, as I gather Malaysia does.
However, this reminds me of an amusing case my boss was involved with when I was in legal practice. This involved anal sex between a man and a woman - a French couple who were holidaying in England. (I think I may have told Arneb this story.) By then gay sex had been legalised in the UK, but sodomy of a woman remained a crime and consent was no more of a defence than it had been to gay sex some decades earlier. In France, in contrast, sex was sex - as my boss explained, provided that it didn't tick any of the boxes for rape, "you can put it in any hole or orifice you want". The incident had come to the attention of the police through it being reported by the woman, who did so following an argument. She knew - unlike her boyfriend - that what he considered to be a normal part of their relationship was illegal in the UK - and handed him over for what she thought would be a good beating but nothing worse. But he ended up before a Crown Court somewhere in rural England. His sole mitigation was that not only was there consent but it was legally permitted in France and he didn't know it was a crime here. At that point, the judge delivered the immortal line, "Right! I want an expert witness on French law! I refuse to believe that even the French can be that disgusting!" Enter, stage left, my boss - in the capacity of expert witness rather than barrister for once - who gave the explanation above. The judge went a particular shade of purple and gave him a conditional discharge.