Tennessee Senator Dismisses Sex Toy Showdown

"Senator Dismisses Sex Toy Showdown"

A controversy over sexual devices is over before it even got started. State Senator Charlotte Burks had proposed a bill that would make it a crime to sell or even own sexual devices and toys.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Senators' office said she has decided to pull the bill from consideration. The House version is expected to be killed Thursday.

Nashville adult business owners said they think lawmakers should have better things to do.

Lawmakers do not plan on reworking the bill and introducing it again this session but it could come up again in the future.

Original story found via yahoo news rss feed. Originally aired and posted by WKRN - Channel 2 news Nashville.


As Previously Reported in the Nashville Scene - There had been a new State Law to Ban Sex Toys, In the State of Tennessee:

Down With Dildos!

Two state legislators say no to sex toys

by John Spragens

Thank God the state legislature is back in session. When they’re gone, political columnists are forced to take up serious topics like the deputy governor lobbying subordinates on local political issues, U.S. national vulnerability to cyber-attack and the police chief threatening to storm out of a neighborhood meeting. But now that America’s dumbest criminals have reconvened their lawmaking body, it’s easy street for journalistic bottom-feeders to meet deadlines.

To wit: Senate Bill 3794 (House Bill 3798), legislation that would make it illegal to sell, advertise, publish or exhibit to another person “any three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs….” For that matter, if you offer to show someone your dildo collection—or possess a vibrator with the intent to show it to someone—you’d be violating this proposed state law. And don’t even think about wholesaling those three-dimensional sex toys.

Of course, as with all good public policy, state Sen. Charlotte Burks and Rep. Eric Swafford have included a few exemptions for responsible dildo-users. College students and faculty are allowed to enter the sex-toy trade—as long as they are “teaching or pursuing a course of study related to such device,” like Auto-Erotic Stimulation 101. Your doctor or psychologist will similarly be authorized to prescribe the regular use of a sex toy “in the course of medical or psychological treatment or care.” And finally, employees of historical societies, museums, public libraries and—wait for it—school libraries are allowed to traffic in devices named Thruster, The Emperor and The Horny Hare, provided they’re doing their official duties. That means the Carnton Plantation would remain free to put up that “Dildos of the Antebellum” exhibit Robert Hicks has been pitching.

What do Burks and Swafford have against genital stimulation? Your guess is as good as ours. At press time, staff members hadn’t returned messages left Tuesday morning, probably because it’s hard to defend such stupid ideas. Attorneys for the state of Georgia couldn’t defend them either: two weeks ago, a federal appeals court overturned portions of a similar Georgia law on the grounds that advertising bans violate free speech rights.

Nonetheless, this Tennessee legislative tag-team went ahead and introduced their bill last Thursday, and on Monday, it passed a perfunctory first reading. In other Monday developments, Tennesseans died from a lack of health care, remained poorly educated and were among the most obese state populations in the nation.