[CrackMonkey] Anatomically correct condom education model.

[Nick Moffitt]

----- Forwarded message from glen mccready <gkm at petting-zoo.net> -----
Forwarded-by: Nev Dull <nev at sleepycat.com>
Forwarded-by: Captain Larry <larry at spack.org>
From: Keiran Haggerty <keiran at cenquest.com>
URL:  http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2000-08-11/xtra_feature2.html

Is That a Perfectly Legal, Anatomically Correct Condom Education Model, 
or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

BY ERICA C. BARNETT 

August 11, 2000: Cock rings. Anal plugs. Nipple clamps. Dildos. 

One of these things is not like the others. Can you guess which one?

Sure, they're all sex toys, but only one -- the humble dildo -- is
legally verboten in the state of Texas. According to the Texas Penal
Code, which details what devices good, law-abiding Texans may and may
not purchase for their personal pleasure, dildos (and all other items
made specifically to stimulate the genitals) can't be collected,
bought, or sold in the state.

What's that you say? You think you bought a dildo here in Austin?
That's an "anatomically correct condom education model" to you, young
lady. Which you would already know if you had read the release form
some local businesses have started making their patrons sign.

It's not that businesses are going to personally hold you to that
promise, any more than head shops really think you're going to use
that "water pipe" to smoke tobacco. It's just that they've been burned
before. The law is a harsh, unforgiving mistress, but what it says is
fairly simple: "Obscene devices" -- defined as anything, including a
dildo, vibrator, or artificial vagina, "designed or marketed as useful
primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" -- can't be
sold in the state of Texas (or in Georgia, for those keeping track),
except for "a bona fide medical, psychiatric, judicial, legislative,
or law enforcement purpose." If you can prove you're using those
models to demonstrate how to put on a condom, that's fine. If you're
thinking about using them for a more personal sort of education,
that's not. (Oddly, the law doesn't prevent people from owning sexual
devices; it just makes selling them illegal. But don't let your
collection get out of hand: If you're hiding more than six dongs in
your closet, that's intent to "promote" -- a class A misdemeanor.)

How much you can get away with depends on how strictly local police
choose to enforce the law; nothing requires, for example, that a
police department have a vice squad devoted to rooting out victimless
sexual crimes in the first place. Austin's 20-officer vice squad was
disbanded in 1998, and its responsibilities were devolved to the
various street response units, on the assumption that different
neighborhoods had different problems, not all of them directly related
to so-called vice.  According to APD Assistant Chief Rick Coy, who
heads the department's organized crime division and oversaw a major
reorganization of the department two years ago, the problems vary
widely from area to area; in Northwest Austin, Coy says, the biggest
problem is burglary; in most of East Austin, it's drugs.

Major long-term investigations involving sexually oriented businesses
continue under the department's organized crime division, but an APD
spokeswoman says most one-time "stings" on such businesses involve
sexual behavior -- e.g., indecent exposure and prostitution -- not
trade in sexual devices.

It wasn't always that way. As recently as the late Eighties and early
Nineties, at least two high-profile raids were conducted on local
shops by two prominent vice squad commanders. Forbidden Fruit was
raided by the notorious Bubba Cates in 1989 (for offering dildos,
vibrators, and other so-called contraband); and four years later,
Planet K got stung by Cates' successor Jack Kelly, for selling a
plastic inflatable sheep.

"They came flying through the door, busted in, and ransacked the
place, and took everything they could get their hands on," recalls
Lynn, the owner of Forbidden Fruit (who spoke to the Chronicle on the
condition that her last name not be used). According to a news report
in the Austin American-Statesman the day after the raid, the sting
"netted about 400 sexual devices and the arrest of the store manager,"
Carole Vise. After taking a huge loss in the raid, the store got more
careful about the packaging and display of its merchandise, most of
which is marketed almost exclusively to women.

The irony -- that most sex crimes are committed by men, yet the people
targeted by "obscene device" laws are predominantly women -- isn't
lost on Lynn, who speculates that the men writing the laws "must have
three-inch penises" to be so concerned about regulating female
pleasure. Still, no one has talked seriously about rescinding the law
since it was passed in 1973.

On the bright side, the dildo law -- or the "obscenity" ordinance, as
puritans would have it -- has made adult-oriented businesses more
creative about what they sell and how they sell it. Forbidden Fruit,
for example, could probably get by, financially speaking, on its
piercing and fetishwear businesses alone, not to mention its massive
(and perfectly legal) collection of bondage gear. They're even
branching out into e-commerce, but unlike such massive mail-order
companies as Xandria and Adam and Eve, they won't let any
"questionable" merchandise cross state lines. Instead, Lynn says,
they'll focus on things you can find only in Texas: custom body
harnesses, handmade leather restraints, and other toys the laws of
Texas smile upon.


----- End forwarded message -----

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