Alabama vs. Dildos

Attorney General Troy King stands hard against stimulators by David Holthouse


Similar to the way head shops sells bongs as “herbal tobacco water pipes" rather than drug paraphernalia, Williams now claims to be selling medical devices, not sex toys. This is because the dildo ban contains a gaping loophole. It allows exceptions for otherwise banned devices so long as they're sold for “ bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial, or law enforcement purposes."

Ironically, as historian Rachel P. Maines describes in her definitive tome The Technology of Orgasm: Hysteria, the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction, all clitoral vibrators and dildos were primarily considered medical devices from the time they were first invented in the late 1880s until the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, and “artificial" (non-intercourse) inducement of orgasm in women as a medical treatment has been prescribed by physicians since Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C.

“One of the most popular masturbatory devices in today's market for vibrators is the Hitachi Magic Wand, which is marketed for "standard health care use,"  and thus could be legally sold in Alabama," Maines explained in a 2001 affidavit. “Laws like Alabama's that target the appearance, packaging or marketing of these devices, rather than their functionality." They do not prevent or mitigate the supposed "evil of commerce of sexual stimulation and auto-eroticism, for its own sake,"  as Attorney General King described the ban's target in a legal brief that same year.   

Despite the obvious absurdity of the law, there is a real danger it will result in prosecutions. Last November a prosecutor in Jefferson County, Ala., asked a local judge to order Williams to immediately close her Huntsville store or face arrest. The judge refused, declaring the language of the law too vague to justify such a harsh judicial order. Even so, the Alabama Citizens Action Program and other fundamentalist groups are clamoring for stringent enforcement of the law.   

“We can laugh [at the dildo ban] but this extraordinary erosion of personal liberty, coupled with the massive disrespect of and fear of sexuality is no joke," says Dr. Marty Klein, author of America's War on Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust & Liberty. “The Supreme Court has declared our orgasms a battlefield, and sex toys another casualty."

Last December Rep. John Rogers (D-Birmingham) fired back by filing a bill to strike the dildo ban from Alabama's anti-obscenity code. “A shower head can be a sex toy," he says. “It's just a matter of bringing the state into the 21st Century."  And Loretta Nall continues to exhort protesters to purchase “the most humiliating sex toy they can find"  and have it shipped to the Attorney General's Office. “There's nothing in the constitution that says Troy King can tell me what I can and can't insert into my orifices," Nall says. A spokesman for King refused to disclose how many sex toys the Attorney General has received or the fate of Ms. Piglet.   

Meanwhile, it's hard to tell which side of the Great Dildo Debate is helped more by the recent and highly publicized death by “accidental mechanical asphyxia" of a prominent Baptist preacher. He was found dead on his living room floor in Montgomery, Ala., wearing a rubber suit and mask, with a dildo shoved where the sun don't shine.  

On the one hand, the kinky preacher's tragically comic demise speaks to the dangerous side effects of sexual repression. On the other, it could bolster the case for dildo-phobia: After all, If the good Reverend hadn't been able to legally purchase a dildo, he might not have submitted to temptation.   

“Sometimes you have to protect the public against themselves," says Rev. Dan Ireland. “These devices [sex toys] should be outlawed because they are conducive to promiscuity, because they promote loose morals and because they entice improper and potentially deadly behaviors."

 

David Holthouse lives in Montgomery, Ala. and works for the Southern Poverty Law Center, though he's now considering a second career as a dildo bootlegger. 

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