Aug
Sex shopkeepers beware: Alabama’s new law against the sale of sex aids carries a maximum $10,000 fine and a year in jail.
Betty Faye Haggermaker is in her 25th year of marriage, but the 50-year-old still sometimes uses a vibrator to help her achieve an orgasm.
Sherry Taylor-Williams is a 48-year-old divorcee who first began using sexual devices while she was still married, after her medical doctor advised her that it could bring an end to a five-year inability to climax.
Most women would never admit to using anything battery operated near their privates.
But these two women happen to live in Alabama, a state that banned the sale of vibrators and other sex devices last summer. Along with four other women, they are suing the state, claiming the law walks all over their right to privacy.
The case is likely to be ruled on in the next two weeks.
Electric Diddly Forbidden Here
Am I supposed to go out and find a stranger every time I want sexual gratification? Excuse me? Men have Viagra, but as for women, the government is going into our homes and telling us what we can and can’t do.
–Jane Doe, one of the women suing the state of Alabama
But even with the help of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the women face tough odds.
At least 14 states around the country have passed laws that prohibit the sale of sexual devices, according to adult toy sellers. Georgia and Texas have upheld their laws despite legal challenges similar to this one. Some states have bans in only certain zip codes; others lackadaisically enforce their law.
The Alabama law, which was primarily intended to ban nude dancing, carries penalties of up to $10,000 in fines, one year of jail time or “hard labor,” for the sale, production, or distribution of “obscene” sexual devices that are deemed “harmful.”
To that, sex therapists and marital counselors can’t help but roll their eyes.
“Since when are sex toys harmful?” says renowned sex therapist Dr. Judy Kuriansky. “There’s no question that sex aids have proven for years to be extremely helpful — not harmful — and have sometimes even helped to repair damaged marriages.”
Americans should have free access to them and not think that there’s something wrong or sick about it, says Kuriansky, a counselor at the Center for Marital and Family Therapy in New York.
China’s ‘Happiness Machine’
Even people in China can get their kicks with state-approved sex toys, according to Asiaweek. In 1992, with the support of the Beijing Family Planning Commission, doctors at Beijing People’s Hospital opened the Adam and Eve Sex Health Shop. There, Beijingers can buy a vibrator called the “Happiness Machine” or a dildo shaped like Santa Claus hugging a bear cub.
Dr. Pepper Schwartz, a sex sociologist and board member of the 35-year-old non-profit group Sexuality Education Information Council of the United States, calls anti-sex toy laws “an embarrassment.”
“It’s a great argument for the need for more sex education in this country,” she says. “It makes all of us realize that we still have a lot of work to do.”
Lessons from the Past
Rachel Maines, author of the new book Technology of Orgasm, which is a guide to the history of vibrators, says the legislative trend doesn’t surprise her at all.
In her 20 years of research, Maines found that vibrator fear dates back to the 1890s, when doctors veiled the purpose of the machines by pretending they were needed to cure “feminine diseases.“
“They are always trying to clean up sex in America,” says Maines, a technology historian. “It’s not going to work, but they’ll keep trying.”
Legislators who voted in favor of the Alabama legislation have been conspicuously silent on the issue ever since it was passed last July.
Courtney Tarver, representing the state at a court proceeding on Wednesday, pointed out that the law banned only the sale — not the use — of vibrators. When asked by the judge for a reason why the law was passed, he said: “We see the Legislature acting within its powers.”
But that is not the way Sherri Williams sees it.
As owner of two Alabama stores that sell sex devices and other novelties, Williams worries about the future of her business. She sells roughly 20,000 sex devices to Alabamans each year, accounting for more than half of her $750,000 gross sales.
“It’s wrong for the government to be legislating morality,” she says. “Morals are individual choices, and the government shouldn’t decide what your moral standing should be.”
And who will say what the purpose of a vibrator is? When it is sold in Wal-Mart to soothe the muscles of someone’s aching back, it’s legal. But if the same product, same brand, is sold in Williams’ store, it’s against the law? For now at least, the answer to that is up to the federal court judge to decide.
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