Remember 'Our Right to Bear Batteries?'

Maggie says:
Not too long ago I wrote about new laws in Mississippi and Alabama banning the sale of sex toys within their borders. Florida, Texas, and Georgia also have milder versions of these laws on their books.

What got me about the whole sex toy ban last time - although interestingly, I chose not to write about it then - was that these are Southern states behind this nonsense, which will only continue to deepen the blue state/red state dichotomy that's much too prevalent around the country. How can we convince young progressives to see past partisan politics and toward the real grassroots opportunities for change in Southern states when they hear they can't even buy a vibrator there?

Now don't get me wrong - how often does one really need to buy a vibrator, as as we know that can be taken care of online anyway - but these laws represent much more than their wording or their scope. In symbolism that I'm sure is not lost on their creators, the laws scream out that sex within those states is for procreation only, that women should not be pleasuring themselves (although Lord knows they're not exactly teaching their boys how to take care of that, either) and that sex is, basically, bad. Make no mistake about it: these sex toy bans are an extension of men trying to own women and their sexuality, which is as age-old as, well, sex itself. Sure, we can roll our eyes at these bans as long as we don't live there, Leno and Letterman can make a hell of a joke about them, and even Mikaela and I just laughed on the phone that we could start an underground vibrator supply business to Southern women, but the stakes are much more serious.

All of this is a preface to say that there's another sex toy ban in the works in yet another Southern state. Via the glorious Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend:

South Carolina ready to ban sex toys

Republican Rep. Ralph Davenport of Boiling Springs, SC, is the man with a plan to deep-six dildos. Under his bill (H. 4830), if you're convicted of selling a vibe you can receive up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. (Anderson Independent-Mail):

Lucy’s Love Shop employee Wanda Gillespie said she was flabbergasted that South Carolina’s Legislature is considering outlawing sex toys. ...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. "That would be the most terrible thing in the world," said Ms. Gillespie, an employee the Anderson shop. "That is just flabbergasting to me. We are supposed to be in a free country, and we’re supposed to be adults who can decide what want to do and don’t want to do in the privacy of our own homes."

The proposed law is completely based upon the premise that selling a sexual device is a violation of obscenity laws.

A person disseminates a sexual device within the meaning of this article if it is designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs and solely for the sale of prurient interest in sex.

Those who know me know I'm pretty serious about my North Carolina/South Carolina rivalry (or plain domination). But really... need I say more here? As I ponder my new business name and logo, I wonder:

How much will it take for those Chaaaahlston girls to get fired up and defend, you know, their right to bear batteries? Or for the male lawmakers in SC to realize just what makes their women and those drawls so damn appealing?

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