One step closer to the feds raiding your toybox...

[splat@14]

Note: The picture below may be considered inappropriate. You may wish to avoid scrolling down if you are at school, in the workplace, or if you are South Carolina state Rep, Ralphy Davenport.]

Very soon, big drug cartels may start adding a few new products to their shipments to South Carolina.

A new blend of heroin perhaps? Maybe a cleaner methamphetamine? Nope...

Dildos, vibrators, and butt-plugs.

Via Boing Boing:(http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/22/south_carolina_may_o.html)
Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys. But banning the sale of sex toys is actually quite common in some Southern states.

The South Carolina bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport, would make it a felony to sell devices used primarily for sexual stimulation and allow law enforcement to seize sex toys from raided businesses.
Get ready for Sex Toy Prohibition, kiddos. It's gonna be one heckuva public policy.

I just have to chuckle at the thought of S.W.A.T. teams kicking down the doors of private businesses and rummaging through merchandise to find "devices used primarily for sexual stimulation."

"Officer Smith, does this Pez dispenser look like a sex toy to you?"

"Hmm... check to see what the manual from the Office of National Dildo Control Policy has to say."

"It's rather ambiguous. It is pink and plastic and about the size of *ahem* well, you know. But it also dispenses small tart candies."

"Hrm. Better bring it into the lab for testing."

All jokes aside, the ridiculous lengths to which many of our elected officials are going in order to push their own brand of morality are getting quite scary. "Life, liberty..." and what was that last one, Mr. Jefferson?If the puritans of the South Carolina legislature are successful in criminalizing the pursuit of kinkyness, drug prohibition may give us some warning signs of what to expect. Lucrative black markets for pleasure gadgets will spring up overnight, putting armed salesmen on every urban corner. Sexually experimental youngsters will roam the streets looking for a fix, eventually coming across their first "gateway dildo" to harder plastics. Prisons will be clogged with people whose only crime was trying to relax with a hot bath, some candles, and 'Johnny Depp Junior' after a long day at work. Worst of all, shady opportunists will fashion vibrators out of cheap household appliances, maiming or killing unfortunate masturbators with electrical malfunctions.



Undoubtedly, some concerned citizens will stand up to Sex Toy Prohibition and fight to restore a safe, regulated market for the products. They will be ruthlessly pigeonholed as perverts and sexual deviants, but will continue their fight for a more sensible society. The student movement, of course, will be unstoppable.

Update 4/24:

Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama have already outlawed the sale of sex toys(http://hammeroftruth.com/2006/04/24/the-latest-buzz-on-sex-toys/). Initially, I really didn't think the South Carolina proposal had any legs... but it looks like the prudish precedent has already been set.

Thanks for the heads up, Hammer of Truth.

http://daregeneration.blogspot.com/2006/04/legislating-boredom.html

[CoffeeCat]

1. Ummmmm....isn't that Elian Gonzalez in that picture?

Cover the boys eyes!

[notadmblnd]

2. What are these guys afraid of

That women will choose dildos and vibrators over men?

[LiberalPartisan]

4. They're afraid of women having ANY choice

These are 'christians' - and women are property.

[Kittycat]

3. Photo is in poor taste, you should have PSd the child out.

:( Not cool.

[splat@14]

8. Sorry KC, didn't mean to offend. n/t

[peace13]

10. Unfortunately many things in our world are hard to look at.

People need to wake up to the path we are headed down. Reality in America....horror on so many levels. Peace, Kim

[Kittycat]

15. It wasn't the dildo or the cop - it was the child.

The photo gives too much resemblence to child abuse/porn. You wouldn't pull out your bedroom play toys for your kids to play with, would you? Nor would you run around with your child and giant dildo in your arms. Have a little sense! I'm quite aware of what is going on in this country, and I don't agree with it. At the same time however, I find no humor in a picture that on the surface looks like the guy holding the child, was most likely abusing him - that is why the officer is there. I know it's from the Gonzales issue, but the again - the child, the dildo - ummm - NO.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Considering all the dildos in...

legislatures, they may end up outlawing themselves.

It does bring up the interesting possibilities of smuggling toys down there to up the ante when bringing cheap cigarettes, fireworks, and guns back up here. Smuggling ain't only for drugs, as you point out.

This has comne up before here and other sites, and I do remember something on the news a year or so ago about a woman holding house parties selling toys. The great state of Texas came down hard and heavy to save their virtuous women from purchasing such temptations to evil pleasure.

If it wasn't really happening, I'd be laughing my ass off at these idjits.

[Obamarama]

6. And only use cash to buy phallic-shaped vegetables.....

They might be able to track you if you use credit or debit cards to purchase vegetables like hot-house cucumbers and zuchinni. There very well could be an "improper use of vegetable for lewd and lacivious purposes" ammendment made to this laughable, ridiculous piece of legislation.

The people who draft legislation to outlaw dildos just befuddle the mind. Do they lay awake at night dreaming this stuff UP or what? They need serious help.

[notadmblnd]

7. OMG... we'll be forced to grow our own....

....and those poor people who enjoy keilbasa, what will they do?

[Obamarama]

9. I just sent this email to the SC rep who wants to outlaw dildos:

Inspired by my previous post in this thread. I'll let you know if I get a response.


SUBJECT LINE: Thank you for making South Carolina safe!

Dear Rep. Davenport:

I read with great interest that you are proposing legislation to outlaw sex toys in the State of South Carolina. I am so grateful that there are some lawmakers who have their eyes on the ball of the real perils facing our nation, and the State of South Carolina. If there’s anything I fear more than crooked, criminal Republican lawmakers, Osama Bin Laden, or the debate of who came first – Jesus or the dinosaurs – it’s got to be the possibility that my neighbors are right next door to me possibly pleasuring themselves with cleverly fashioned hunks of latex and rubber. As Professor Harold Hill proclaimed in the Music Man” There’s trouble, right here in River City (well, in this case, South Carolina), and it begins with a capital T (or in this case, a capital “D” – you know…for dildo).

Thank the Lord there are brave and courageous lawmakers like yourself who are willing to go forward like proper Christian soldiers and stamp out what could soon become public enemy #1: dildos.

However, I think your proposed legislation doesn’t go far enough. Think about it: what are people going to do once you outlaw sex toys? I suspect there is going to be a dramatic rise in the sale of vegetables such as cucumbers and zucchini, and fruits such as bananas to replace those sex toys you so valiantly want banned. Then what?

What happens to the good-intentioned, dutiful housewife who only wants to have dinner on the table by the time her husband gets home? What if she were to go shopping, only to find the produce section completely sold out of the zucchini and cucumbers she had planned to buy as part of a healthy, well- balanced meal?

Or maybe someone’s grandma has to take a diuretic, which depletes her potassium level. What if she were to go to the market only to find there were no bananas because they were grabbed up by sinful heathens concerned only with their own carnal pleasures? What are we to do – let granny go into electrolyte imbalance and collapse into potassium-depletion seizures right there in the middle of the grocery store? I think not!

That’s why I think you should immediately begin work on drafting an ammendment to your bill that would limit the number of phallic-shaped fruits and vegetables a person could buy at one time. You could call it the "Defense of Phallic Shaped Produce Act". The store clerks could even get in on the action by reporting anyone trying to purchase more than one bunch of bananas to the local authorities for further investigation.

Please take these suggestions into consideration before it’s too late!

[Delphinus]

12. Good job!!!

:rofl:

[splat@14]

14. Great letter! Davenport is also the sponsor of a bill to send drug

offenders and child predators to overseas prisons; (http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess116_2005-2006/bills/4865.htm) I'm not defending the latter, but in the case of drug offenses, it would be funny to send Rush to a nice Turkish detention facility....just a thought!
Splat

[Pastiche423]

17. Wonderful and witty letter!

But I must post this warning:

Never use a banana as a sex toy. Once they get too hot, the outer skin of the banana splits, then they explode!

[nashville_brook]

11. tennessee has a similar bill -- don't know where it's at, tho

[liberalpress]

13. It was pretty much laughed out of harm's way

[lectrobyte]

16. When cucumbers are outlawed...

only outlaws will grow cucumbers!