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Now That’s An Oral Argument I’d Like to Observe

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Alabama journalist Gita Smith imagines the Supreme Court oral argument that will take place if the Court accepts a challenge to Alabama’s law banning the sale of vibrating sex toys. The 11th Circuit held in favor of the state, writing that there is no right to sexual privacy in the state. Gun sales? Go for it. Vibrator sales? Too dangerous.

The (ridiculous) Alabama law is similar to a Texas statute that the late, great Molly Ivins took on a few years back. Ivins really nails it. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you not to watch the clip at work.

(via C&L; also at LGM).

37 thoughts on Now That’s An Oral Argument I’d Like to Observe

  3. I just don’t understand. I can’t. Why do they care so much about what women put in/on their hoohas? I understand it must be an extreme fear of female sexuality…do their dicks really wilt like flowers imagining women getting off on these things?

  5. Hmm, just realized: not that women are the only ones who use vibrators. But the legislators’ anxiety probably stems from their association with female sexuality.

  6. Micheyd, I think the lege’s anxiety stems fromthe fact that their own little pee-pes won’t stand up (hah!) very well when compared to a real orgasm.

    A woman who’s learned what fun feels like in bed isn’t as likely to believe it when her bubba hubby tells her that this is 10 inches. Or when he says, “I’m great in bed honey, you must just be frigid.”

    They simply like to keep women as sexually ignorant as possible, because it lowers the bar for their own behavior in bed.

  9. I can imagine the bumperstickers:
    “When dildos are outlawed, only outlaws will use dildos”
    “I’ll give up my vibrator when they pry my cold dead hands from it”, and the anti-sex toy one:
    “The West wasn’t won with an electrified dong”

  11. Hey, Hector, I didn’t look at the posts, but I see you said the same thing!

    We should form some kind of MRA, Mastabators Rights Association.

  12. The sad thing is that the sex toy ban was not even something the Alabama Legislature met to enact at all. If you study the Legislative history, it turns out to have been the result of sloppy drafting of a bill to more heavily regulate strip clubs. Unfortunately, the GOP has made it almost impossible for the Democratic majority in the Legislature to accomplish anything lately, including fixing this error.

    While this ban is nonsense, it was not actually something that was intended (as fun as speculating about such motives might be).

  13. We should form some kind of MRA, Mastabators Rights Association.

    Good idea, Rose.
    There’s a lot to be said in favor of masturbation. As Diogenes said, imagine if you could satisfy your hunger just by rubbing your belly. And as Woody Allen said, it’s sex with someone you love.

  14. Imagining the logistics of this law is comical.

    I know that they wouldn’t sell them in the stores there, but with internet shopping, they couldn’t stop women from buying them & the vibrators being delivered in inconspicuous boxes as many companies do. is the state going to open the boxes ot check?? are there going to be warrants to go through women’s underwear drawers?? is probable cause going to be: police officer, “she was looking flushed & very happy, i figured there had to be a vibrator in her.”?

  15. haha freudian slip…..

    i meant to write….i figured there had to be a vibrator in her car….not in her….ya know how cops have probable cause to search your car….

    but i guess the mistaken slip works too.

  16. What’s the definition of a reasonable state interest? We do have rights that aren’t enumerated ,and this seems like a textbook case for the state regulating something that is not in anyone’s interest.

  17. Even if they did pass the law, won’t it just end up like Texas, where stores still sell dildos, they just call them by different names?

  18. What next? Are they going to start chopping people’s hands off if they catch them rubbing themselves at night? This is ridiculous.

    Fortunately you can buy these things online.

  22. Wait a minute. The U.S. Circuit Court says there’s no right to privacy now? The right to privacy has been considered part of the Constitution ever since Griswold vs. State of Connecticut.

    This is scary. The right to privacy is the basis for legalizing gayness, abortion, and contraception.

  23. @Bianca Raven:

    Nope, Sanrio pulled the rights for that version right after it got to be popular. It was supposed to be a back massager, so they say, and they didn’t want to be associated with vibrators. Or that’s the party line, anyway.

    But there is a new Hello Kitty vibrator coming on the market soon…it’s a vibrating figurine of Hello Kitty dressed in a cartoon horse costume. There’s like seven colors, or something. I wish I could find the link for you. Best “back massager” ever. You have to wonder what goes through the heads of marketers. Personally, if there’s a Hello Kitty version of ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous, and the price difference is not great…I’ll buy it. They got me trained, all right.

    I think online sex toy retailers ought to give a discount to people with shipping addresses in Texas, just to make up for it. Or at least a money-back guarantee if your package is seized at the border or something.

  24. You write:

    Gun sales? Go for it. Vibrator sales? Too dangerous.

    It’s bad enough that Ms Filopovic deigns to opine about constitutional issues, I really seriously advise you to eschew further attempts to comment on legal issues, if which you obviously know nothing. (The same could be said for economics, history, and many other subjects of just about anyone connected with this silly forum.) The S. Ct. has long held that there is no individual right to private gun ownership protected by the Constitution, just as the circuit court here is holding that there is no constitutionally privileged right to sex toys. The issue, at least so far as guns v sex toys go, is ultimately a political matter, not a constitutional one.

    Jeez, why are feminists so frequently silly and uninformed? sigh.

  25. The S. Ct. has long held that there is no individual right to private gun ownership protected by the Constitution

    The Supreme Court has held nothing of the sort. Even if they had, the last time the Supreme Court ruled on the Second Amendment was in the Stone Age of individual rights: for example, they also ruled that ethnic Chinese were Colored, and thus could be made to go to the Colored school.

  26. How about we allow both. Cannot get behind any gun ban/regulation as I trust officials of any stripe not at all.
    Now about sex toys well go for it.

  27. Wait a minute. The U.S. Circuit Court says there’s no right to privacy now? The right to privacy has been considered part of the Constitution ever since Griswold vs. State of Connecticut.

    This is scary. The right to privacy is the basis for legalizing gayness, abortion, and contraception.

    According to the 11th Circuit decision, there is no fundamental right of sexual privacy outside the marriage and procreation sphere. They cite the Lawrence v. Texas decision, where the court conspicuously did not hold that there was a fundamental right to gay sex (altho in his dissent, Scalia baited the majority to find one), arguing that not everything that happens in the bedroom is protected by a fundamental right of privacy. They then performed a Glucksberg fundamental rights analysis, and decided that the right to buy a vibrator didn’t measure up.

    Laws implicating a non-fundamental right receive only rational basis review, where the plaintiff has to demonstrate that there is NO rational basis for the law. Alabama’s desire to preserve “public morality” was held to be a rational basis.

  28. To Steve: changing the state statute might be easier. Having read an article on the history of the vibrator, I think a proposal to make them available only by prescription, to combat “neurasthenia” or “anorgasmia,” would fly even in the Bible belt. Then the Pleasure Chest could reopen as a sort of medical marijuana dispensary.

  29. Your OT Hello Kitty goodness:

    http://store.yahoo.co.jp/fine-rubbers/massage013.html

    A bit less phallic, I guess, but still massagers. They’re also keychains. “Whenever, wherever, you can relax.” Relaaaax, riiiiight. *winkwink*

    On-topic, I think next they’ll push to outlaw nudity within one’s own home. Seems like a logical step to me. And then mandating wearing socks over one’s hands when going to bed.

  30. the court distinguished lawrence v . texas as legal authority because it was dealing with a private behavior (sodomy in the home) as opposed to a public behavior (selling vibrators commercially).
    The law doesn’t prohibit the use of vibrators, just the sale.

    I’m not saying I agree, but thats what the court said.
    Besides, everyone knows the best deals on vibrators are online.

  31. The sad thing is that the sex toy ban was not even something the Alabama Legislature met to enact at all. If you study the Legislative history, it turns out to have been the result of sloppy drafting of a bill to more heavily regulate strip clubs.

    The law precisely prohibits the commercial sale of devices designed for genital stimulation. It says:“It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute, possess with intent to distribute, or offer or agree to distribute any obscene material or any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for any thing of pecuniary value.”

    I just wrote a paper about this case this summer and I’m stoked to see it go to the SC. Although I don’t know how much confidence I have with it being overruled.

  32. thanks, lucie, I didn’t understand how the court’s ruling could be taken that way. As the dissent points out, the majority acknowledged there is no constitutional distinction between a ban on the private use of sex toys and a ban on the sale of sex toys. See Majority Op. at *21 (“For purposes of constitutional analysis, restrictions on the ability to purchase an item are tantamount to restrictions on the use of that item.”). So they’re telling us to ignore what they told us earlier in their argument.

    I have a new idea now for complying with the statute: the Vibrator Gift-with-Purchase. If you buy $100 of say, Clinique, you get a free vibrator in a handsome travel bag.

  33. Re# 31,

    The Alabama Legislative Leadership got confused about which law they were passing and did not realize that this in it.

  34. ammo belt filled with dildos

    and

    Mastabators Rights Association.

    are two of the greatest ideas evar.

  35. below is a letter i wrote to Mother Jones, which reported on this issue. i still wonder if ‘pursuit of happiness is a constitutional defense.
    Dear Editors,

    Good luck to Sherri Williams in her court battle to keep sex toys legal in Alabama. ( bad vibes May/June 2006 p.18) I have heard that it is not universally agreed that the Constitution guarantees us a right to privacy, but our founding fathers did hold that our Creator gives us the unalienable right to the pursuit of Happiness. If a citizen buys a sex toy in Ms. William’s store, and pursues happiness in the privacy of her own home, on whose rights is she infringing? She might be a libertine, but Liberty is in the Constitution too. It should be a slam dunk.

    Sincerely,
    Nancy Green

  36. As iamcuriousblue said, this may well be the first step toward reversing Lawrence. It’s very bad news that the Supreme Court is taking cert on this one, because you can bet that it’s not going to be to overrule the lower court.

  37. Can you give something away with purchase? Like if you pay $20 for a plain brown bag, you can get a personal massager or sex education aid free?

    (and yes, I do know the actual price range for the toys. And yes, I’d be a felon in S. Carolina for my home collection. But then, I’m a hobbyist.)

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