What is your understanding of...

[ActRaiser]

****sexuality is only the straw that broke the camel's back. Not the cause... It was a cause. Not the cause however.

[Columcille]

The text starts in Genesis 18.20-19.29.

The main verse within there is in 18.20-21 and 19.4-8.

Verse four of chapter 19 stats "But before they went to bed, the men of the city beset the house both young and old, all the people together."

Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton's translation of the Septuagint also affirms this:

'But before they went to sleep, the men of the city, the Sodomites, comp***ed the house, both young and old, all the people together."


It seems to me to suggest that the p***age in question, concerning what follows, is quite clear that this is not just a minor group of the city. It is not some sort of straw that broke the camel's back. It is the "men" of the city, "young and old, all the people together." The sin they wanted to commit to the men under Lot's care was ****sexual rape. Of course, the Hebrew word for Sodom, I believe is "scorched." I can look it up on the libronix library. But I feel the context of the p***age demonstrates not only the act of rape, but specifically of ****sexuality. What follows is Lot trying to persuade the men to rape his daughters rather than the men. But they were insistent in raping the men--thus the connection for everyone to see where we got the word Sodomy from, even though the root "Sodom" may in Hebrew just connotate the Lord's destruction of that city.



Just to demonstrate its usefulness to ActRaiser, I wanted to add some words from the OED.

sodomy:

("sQd@mI) Forms: 3–5 sodomye (5 zodomye), 4, 6–7 -ie, 6 -i, 5– sodomy. [a. OF. (also mod.F.) sodomie: see Sodom and -y.]
1. An unnatural form of sexual intercourse, esp. that of one male with another.
1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 9038 Mid þe vile sunne of sodomye yproued hii were echon. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) III. 5 Mempricius+forsook his wyf at þe laste, and vsede sodomye as a schrewe schulde. c1440 Jacob's Well 162 Þe xiiij. fote depth is sodomye, þat is, synne aŠens kynde. 1536–40 Pilgr. Tale 407 The prophet+which knew before of there sodomi. 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades (1592) 236 The abhominable sinne of Sodomie+is plainly forbidden. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. 198 Wicked Sodomy, a sin so hateful to Nature it self that she abhors it. 1727 Swift Poisoning E. Curll Wks. 1755 III. i. 151 Heaven pardon me for publishing the Trials of sodomy. 1782 J. Brown Nat. & Revealed Relig. i. i. 23 Polygamy must occasion+sodomy, bestiality, or the like. 1864 tr. Caspar's Forensic Med. III. 336 It is no secret that the unnatural connection of men with animals, sodomy in the restricted sense of the word, still sneaks about. 1395 Purvey Remonstr. (1851) 7 Symonie is gostli sodomie and eresie.

1395 1577 1782
1297 1387 c1440 1536–40 1650 1727 1864




2. An act or instance of this.
1593 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. Wks. (Grosart) II. 271 Agrippa detesteth his monstrous veneries, and execrable Sodomies. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. i. iii. ii. iv. (1651) 205 Those rapes,+Sodomies, buggeries of Monkes and Friers.
1593 1621

Sodom:

("sQd@m) [The name of the early city beside the Dead Sea, the wickedness and destruction of which are recorded in Gen. xviii-xix.
The Hebrew form of the name is S'dZm; the Sept. has R¾dola, the Vulg. Sodoma, neut. pl. and fem. sing.]
1. An extremely wicked or corrupt place. Freq. coupled with Gomorrah (see Gomorr(h)ean a. and n.), the name of the other of the two wicked cities of the plain in Gen. xviii–xix.
1649 C. Walker Relat. & Obs. ii. 257 To the prejudice of our other New States-men, and their New erected Sodomes and Spintries at the Mulbury-garden at S. James's. a1704 T. Brown Walk r. London, A Tavern Wks. 1709 III. iii. 3 A Tavern is a little Sodom, where as many Vices are daily practic'd, as ever were known in the great one. 1782 J. Brown Nat. & Revealed Relig. v. iv. 461 How could he dwell in a dead carcase, a Sodom of filthiness? 1862 Queen Victoria Let. 7 June in R. Fulford Dearest Mama (1968) 67 It was intended he should come home through Paris stopping only a day in order to have got over his visit to that Sodom and Gomorrah. 1864 Trollope Can you forgive Her? I. xxiii. 179, I always regarded the States as a Sodom and Gomorrah, prospering in wickedness. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 11 Sept. 8/1 Two, even in this military Sodom, had the courage to proclaim Dreyfus innocent. 1972 I. Hamilton Thrill Machine xv. 63 It wasn't exactly Sodom and Gomorrah—the ladies kept their clothes on. 1974 Listener 24 Jan. 121/3 Heliogabalus+reduced Rome to a kind of post-Christian Sodom and Gomorrah.
1899
1782 1864 1974
1649 a1704 1862 1972




2. Sodom apple. a. Apple of Sodom (see apple n. 3). So †Sodom-fruit. Also U.S., the horse-nettle, Solanum carolinense.
1615 R. Brathwait Strappado (1878) 48 See painted Sodom~apples faire to th' eye, But being tutcht they perish instantly. 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 237 They are Sodome Apples, enduring the Eye, not the Touch. 1706 in Phillips (ed. Kersey). [1736 J. Bancks Young's Last Day 22 Through life we chase, with fond pursuit, What mocks our hope, like Sodom's fruit.] 1738 M. Green Spleen 33 And Sodom-fruit our pains deceives. 1855 Mrs. Gaskell North & S. iv, The mocking way in which over-fond wishes are too often fulfilled—Sodom apples as they are. 1905 W. J. Rolfe Shaks. Sonn. 19 The ashes to which the Sodom-apples of illicit love are turned in the end.
1738
1654 [1736]
1615 1706 1855 1905




†b. A variety of cider-apple. Obs.
1676 Worlidge Cyder (1691) 212 The Sodome-apple or Bloudy pippin is a fruit of more than ordinary dark colour.
1676




3. Sodom egg-plant (see quot. and cf. 2a).
1842 Penny Cycl. XXII. 196/1 Solanum Sodomeum, Sodom egg-plant, or apple of Sodom.
1842


MLA format is as follows
"Sodom." The Oxford English Dictionary. CD-ROM. V3.1, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press. 2004.

btw, you could probably shorten Oxford University Press to just OUP. It might also be eliminated as demonstrated in the next citation.
I find that MLA citations frequently change the order in different books. I can see using the twelfth edition of Harbrace College Handbook various differences from Joseph Gibaldi's "MLA handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 5th edition." I mean how many editions does it take to get it right the first time?

If you find the OED in the college library, the MLA will be like the following:

"sodomy." The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.

One other thing, there is an online version of the OED that most universities and colleges may offer if not copies of the OED CD-ROM.

Since you are thinking about an English major, try to use this dictionary over any other preference. It is the most scholarly.