If sex toys weren’t the focus of Alabama’s infamous anti-vibrator bill, then why did the bill include a line banning the distribution of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of the human genital organs”? The senator says he was trying to shut down the strip clubs — and if that’s the case, there is no reason to mention devices at all.
Sex toys never ‘focus of bill’- al.com
Sen. Tom Butler, D-Madison, didn’t set out to ban the sale of sex toys throughout the state, launching Alabama on a nine-year legal battle that last week reached the U.S. Supreme Court.“Sex toys were not even the focus of the bill,” said Tim Morgan, the district attorney in Madison County, who helped Butler compile the information for the 1998 anti-obscenity law.
Adult retailer Sherri Williams has fought this bill for nine years, and now that the case has gone to the Supreme Court, it’s the last chance for sanity to reign.
I wish I were more hopeful, but I sense such a strong current of anti-woman and anti-sex bias in this entire debacle that I am not optimistic. Pretty soon we’re going to have to set up a sister program, in which those of us in the more enlightened states partner with a person in Alabama and send them sex toys. (A gift from one person or another is not distribution, marketing, or sales, now, is it?)
6 responses so far ↓
1 dbx // May 22, 2007 at 5:26 am
How do they define “device”? Device is defined as an “invention serving a particular purpose, especially a machine used to perform one or more relatively simple tasks.” (thefreedictionary.com)
So this definition could be applied to anything. Vibrator? Medical tool? Shower heads? Magazines? Computers/ internet? Another person? Dryers? Um… gym equipment? With this definition, anything and nothing might apply.
2 dissonance // May 22, 2007 at 7:14 am
Sadly, I just found this article about the a lingerie store employee being arrested for selling “obscene” items.
http://www.familybadge.org/index.cfm/act/newsletter.cfm/category/texas%20police%20news/menuitemid/112/Startrow/6/MenuGroup/Home/NewsletterID/18443.htm
3 Peregrine // May 22, 2007 at 7:49 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYXUUsDGxkU
4 Peregrine // May 22, 2007 at 7:50 am
Sorry. Should mention that link might be on the outer fringes of what might be considered safe for work.
5 moo // May 22, 2007 at 8:48 pm
If you think about the overall objective of your proposed sister* program, I think you will see how it would indeed be considered distribution. Shipping from a state where sex toys aren’t illegal should certainly help, but it might be possible for Alabama to extradite the ringleader(s) of what they would no doubt consider a law-flouting scheme.
All in all, Alabama really needs to get this law off the books. I feel bad for the free spirits living down there! And nice video Peregrine, it just demonstrates so well the absurdity of regulating sexual pleasure.
*would I get a sister too to mail me boy toys?
6 gob // May 23, 2007 at 10:47 pm
If Butler hadn’t been trying to legislate morality by banning nude dancing there wouldn’t be a problem.