ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The terms “sodomy” and “deviate sexual assault” will be stricken from New York’s law books under legislation approved by lawmakers in a recent session.

The substitution of new terms does not affect criminal penalties for those acts, but advocates said it is important to expunge archaic language that stigmatizes sexual assault victims and GLBT people.

“It has been excruciating for a woman who has been raped to be told, read in the papers, have to sign complaints and testify on the stand that she was ‘sodomized’ or subjected to ‘deviate sexual intercourse,”” said Susan Xenarios, director of the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Crime Victims Treatment Center.

The legislation replaces the term “sodomy” with “criminal sexual act” and replaces “deviate sexual intercourse” with “oral sexual conduct” or “anal sexual conduct.” The changes were included in a bill negotiated by Gov. George Pataki and legislative leaders that amends a far-ranging sexual assault law enacted three years ago.

That 2000 law, among other things, formally repealed New York’s law prohibiting sodomy between consenting adults. But Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said having the term sodomy linger in the law books was insulting to the gay community.

“It carries with it unnecessary moral baggage,” he said. “It comes from such an antiquated way of describing people’s sexual behavior.”

Advocates contend that though the term sodomy is often associated with anal sex, most sodomy charges in New York involve oral sexual assaults by men against women.

Foreman said about 35 other states have already modernized sexual assault terminology.