Still no joy toys
By Glenny Brock
If you’re in the market for a vibrator, today is the day to purchase it in person.
Sex toy retailers statewide have been warned to clear their shelves or face the penalities outlined by Alabama’s 1998 obscenity law – up to a year in jail and $10,000 in fines for a first offense and one to 10 years in jail for a second offense.
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Alabama ban on the sale of sex toys. Although the law has been in place for nine years, a federal injunction and a spate of legal challenges have made it unenforceable.
The obscenity dictate does not prohibit Alabamians from owning or using sex toys, provided that the devices are purchased out of state. The law specifically bans the distribution of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs for anything of pecuniary value.”
Exceptions will be made only for devices with “bona fide medical purpose.”
