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The elaboration of an article on “unnatural acts” in the 1942 Swiss Penal Code makes it possible to analyse the competing influence of legal experts and psychiatrists, as well as the formation of a consensus between French and German criminal traditions. The new norm decriminalised same-sex activity between adults, but specifically punished acts committed on minors (under twenty years old), abuse of distress, and homosexual prostitution. The goals were, inter alia, to avoid scandal and cases of blackmail, as well as suicides. In addition, the law sought to prevent the development of an activist movement as highly visible as the one witnessed in Germany before the Nazis’ rise to power.