The diary of a doll

08 August, 2004
9:18 p.m.

Bad, Bad Sex-Shops
Listening to: H.I.M.: Your sweet six six six
Mood:

I got this article from Sexual Intelligence, it actually caught my eye because somehow this seems like going backwards instead of forward. Well maybe sex-shops are filled with terrorists and I didn't know but anyway, check this out.

Kisses from your devilish and confused diva; Disco Doll

Heads Spin Over Vibrator Sales Ban

The Alabama sex-toy wars continue. As previously reported, the state's been trying to ban the sale of vibrators--yes, vibrators--for almost a decade. A U.S. District Judge has twice ruled against the state law banning sex-toy sales, saying it violates the constitutional right to privacy. The state appealed both times and has won again.

In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals said the state Constitution doesn't include a right to sexual privacy. Thus, Alabama has a right to police the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating.

The court indicated that finding a right to sexual privacy could lead to even worse outcomes, such as being required to give that right to future cases "including, for example, those involving adult incest, prostitution, obscenity, and the like."

Circuit Judge Rosemary Barkett disagreed, saying the decision was based on the "erroneous foundation" that adults don't have a right to consensual sexual intimacy and that private acts can be criminalized to, ostensibly, promote "public morality."

Actually, both sides are right. It is, of course, a perversion of our democracy that American adults don't have the right to private consensual sexual behavior, and that their government decides which sexual activities they may legally engage in. It is also frightening that private behavior can be criminalized if it is deemed to challenge "public morality," a political philosophy we associate with the Taliban, Iranian Mullahs, and North Korean police state.

But the court speaks a kernal of truth when it says that "giving" (there's the problem right there) people private sexual freedoms sets society on a slippery slope. Why should private interactions such as prostitution, so-called obscenity, consensual adult incest contraception, and sex clubs be under the state's jurisdiction?

On the other hand, if they are, what private interactions shouldn't be the state's business? It's a slippery slope, too, from controlling our bedrooms to controlling us everywhere. For proof, look at politicized zoning committees, school boards, and CDC decisions that have censored sexual information across your community.

In two related matters...

1. "Sex Shops Infiltrate Small Towns," screamed the headline in USA Today this winter. Were they describing terrorist cells sneaking in, or "Rebel Without A Cause" gangs shrieking in? No, just the predictable capitalist trend of adult stores moving into a dozen scattered Midwest towns after being zoned out of larger cities down the freeway. "Infiltrate" is hardly a neutral word to describe retail stores bringing jobs and sought-after consumer goods to Main Street, is it?

2. Attorneys have entered not-guilty pleas for an adult store in Abilene, KS on 29 counts of promoting obscenity (i.e., selling sex toys). The case is unusual because the indictment came from a Grand Jury impaneled by a petition drive, and several people who signed the petition ended up on the Jury. Can these jurors really be impartial when they've already announced their position before the trial? Would this be tolerated if huge fines and jail time were involved for any non-sex related offense? Or does the sexual content justify the traditional frontier justice of "Let's give 'em a fair trial before we string 'em up"?

Take the test, by Emily.

Pain/Pleasure