The Justices have declined to consider whether a Texas law making it a crime to promote sex toys shaped like sexual organs is hilarious unconstitutional.
As the AP explains, an adult bookstore employee in El Paso, Texas, sued the state after being arrested for showing two undercover officers a device shaped like a penis and telling the female officer the device would arouse and gratify her.
As we pointed out a few issues ago, sex toys fill a lucrative—and increasingly mainstream—niche of the multi-million-dollar-a-year sex industry. And let’s just say they are increasingly being wielded, brandished, and generally waved around as weapons in the culture wars. Take Alabama, where it’s a crime to engage in the production and sale of “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”
Keep an eye out — this might become a wedge issue.