Sad news for sex-positive folk in Mississippi: a federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by an adult shop challenging that state's ban on the sale of sex toys. In other words, it remains a crime for responsible adults to sell vibrators to other adults there, but a gun? No prob!
Adam and Eve and ZJ Gifts LLC, the Memphis-based owner of Christal's chain of adult stores, sued the state of Mississippi in 2000. The company, which closed an adult store in Southaven in 2001, claimed the law barring the sale of certain adult devices was unconstitutional.
A Hinds County judge ruled in 2003 that state law does not extend the right to privacy to the commercial sale of sexual devices. The Mississippi high court said there is no fundamental right of access to buy sexual devices.
The justices said while a federal court had found a similar Alabama law was unconstitutional, other courts — including ones in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas — have rejected attempts to expand the right to privacy to include the commercial sale of sex toys.
Link (Thanks, Baptiste; image: Big Teaze Toys)
