It may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity including manual sex. Two angels sent to the cities are invited by Lot to take refuge with his family for the night. The men of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand that he bring out the strangers so that they may "know" them a euphemism for sexual intercourse. Lot protests that the messengers are his guests and offers the Sodomites his virgin daughters instead, but then they threaten to "do worse" with Lot than they would with his guests.
Then the angels strike the Sodomites blind, "so that they wearied themselves to find the door". Genesis β11, KJV. In current usage the term is particularly used in law. Laws prohibiting sodomy were seen frequently in past Jewish, Christian, and Islamic civilizations, but the term has little modern usage outside Africa, Asia, and the United States. These laws in the United States have been challenged and have sometimes been found unconstitutional or been replaced with different legislation.
The word sod , a noun or verb to "sod off" used as an insult, is derived from sodomite. Sod is used as slang in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and is considered mildly offensive.
The word 'sod' also has a meaning of " clump of earth" with an unrelated etymology, in which sense it is rare but not offensive. In those languages, the term is also often current vernacular not just legal, unlike in other cultures and a formal way of referring to any practice of anal penetration; the word sex is commonly associated with consent and pleasure with regard to all involved parties and often avoids directly mentioning two common aspects of social taboo β human sexuality and the anus β without a shunning or archaic connotation to its use.
In modern German the word Sodomie has no connotation of anal or oral sex and specifically refers to bestiality. The Norwegian word sodomi carries both senses. In Danish , sodomi is rendered as "unnatural carnal knowledge with someone of the same sex or now with animals ". While religion and the law have had a fundamental role in the historical definition and punishment of sodomy, sodomitical texts present considerable opportunities for ambiguity and interpretation.
