Did you know the penalty for certain acts in Florida or Nebraska was 20 years in prison?
Want to know what could get you jailed in the 1960s? This list, published in 1964 by the pioneering gay rights group the Mattachine Society, shows the penalties for things like sodomy, fornication and adultery in the United States.
To be fair, this does not explicitly say man, although the penalty for women was less time and cost connected to any offense.
But I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that men, particularly those suspected of having “unnatural sexual activity”, were the primary targets for these laws. Fear of being caught and outed, and the legal, financial, and social consequences was, and in many cases still is, a primary tool used to keep gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the closet.
Changing laws about cohabitation, sex practices, and privacy have been huge reasons men have been able to come out and live openly, gay or straight, and speak more openly about their lives.
Check out the bizarre figures below, and take a moment to be thankful we don’t live in the “good old days”:
h/t Queerty
Images: New York Public Library Digital Collections
Photo: Suzan Petersen/Flickr
