Because the law focused exclusively on penile-anal penetration, consensual sex between women was technically legal in Kentucky until 1974.
In fact, in 1909 the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a ruling in Commonwealth v. Poindexter involving two African-American men arrested for consensual oral sex.
In 1974 Kentucky revised its statutes as part of a penal code reform advocated by the American Law Institute.
[2] Jeffrey Wasson, a 23-year-old nursing student, was arrested in 1986 and charged with solicitation of same-sex sodomy as the result of an undercover sting operation conducted by the Lexington police.
[4] In its recitation of the facts, the Kentucky Supreme Court noted that there "was no suggestion that sexual activity would occur anyplace other than in the privacy of Wasson's home.
[10] Citing these cases, the Kentucky court wrote: "Thus our decision, rather than being the leading edge of change, is but a part of the moving stream."
At the time, the decision - which was based solely on interpretation of the Kentucky Constitution - was at odds with federal case law on the same subject.
The United States Supreme Court had previously held in Bowers v. Hardwick[11] that federal constitutional protection of the right of privacy was not implicated in laws penalizing homosexual sodomy.
It was not until years after the Wasson case that the United States Supreme Court revisited the issue and reversed its holding in Lawrence v.