Through an examination of sixteenth-century Ottoman criminal codes pertaining to sexual crimes and their punishment, the article builds on the work of others who have attempted to streamline Islamic legal discourse and new legislation, mainly in the era of Süleyman the Magnificent. An emerging governing elite, recruited through slavery and attached to the sultan's household through marriage and patronage, attempted to create a legal system that, while committed to the tenets of Islamic law, promoted the new values of a dynamic group of people, which differed in many ways from those envisaged by the sharī a. The new legal codes suggest a change in discourse and outlook regarding various aspects of sexuality, gender differences, and concepts of crime and punishment.