2. In medicine, a form of paraphilia, variously defined by law to include sexual contact between humans and animals of other species, and mouth-genital or anal contact between humans; in medical usage, it is restricted to human-animal contact and anal intercourse.
3. A term denoting a number of sexual practices variously proscribed by law, especially bestiality, oral-genital contact, and anal intercourse.
4. Etymology: from Old French sodomie, from Late Latin peccatum Sodomiticum, "anal sex", literally, "sin of Sodom", from Latin Sodoma.
Ultimately, it comes from Hebrew s'dom, "Sodom", morally corrupt city in ancient Palestine, said to have been destroyed, with neighboring Gomorrah, by fire from heaven (Book of Genesis, chapters 18-19). Sodomize was first coined in 1868.
Sodomy is a term of biblical origin used to characterize certain sexual acts that were attributed to citizens of ancient Sodom.
The term is most commonly used to describe the specific act of anal sex between two males or a male and a female.
The term sodomy also may include non-coital sexual acts ranging from oral sex to paraphilia (sexual deviation in psychology and sexology). It is sometimes used to describe human-animal sexual intercourse (bestiality, zoophilia). Sodomy laws forbidding certain types of sex acts have been incorporated in many cultures.