Sweet Home, Alabama Dildos
Yet another state gets to outlaw “genital
stimulating devices,” as God just rolls her eyes
SF Gate,
March 4, 2005
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
I cannot imagine not being able to walk into a nice clean
well-lit store staffed by friendly funky well-informed employees with
interesting haircuts and walk out with an armful of friendly dildos.
I cannot imagine not being able to walk right in on any
given Christian Sunday to Good Vibrations here in the City (or Toys in
Babeland in Seattle or the Hustler store in LA or any number of other such
clean ‘n’ decent ‘n’ prurient storefronts around the land) and stock
up on sex lotions and potions and gadgets and gizmos on a whim, on a second
date, on a weekend, before Valentine’s Day, on Easter, on Christmas, just
for the hell of it or because the SO winkingly suggested it or the giddy
carnal urges demanded it or because I needed to buy sexy birthday gifts or
just because my supplies were running low and I have yet to install that
in-bedroom three-gallon Astroglide wall pump.
I cannot, in other words, imagine living in Alabama. Or
Texas. Or Louisiana. Or Georgia. Or Tennessee. Or in any of the handful of
terrified and morally convulsive states where they prohibit such activities,
where the selling of “genital stimulating devices” is outright illegal and
deeply dreaded.
And stores that sell such nightmare devices are declared
a threat to the community and a hazard to the soul and a sure sign of the
devil and if you are caught selling a vibrator or using a dildo you could get
10 years in prison and/or be condemned to live in Alabama for the rest of your
life.
Alabama. Illegal dildos. In the spotlight recently, as
the U.S. Supreme Court just declined to review the constitutionality of the
state’s law banning the sale of such naughty and phallically radiant toys.
Did you see the story? Did it make you cringe and sigh and reach for the
Hitachi Magic Wand? Aren’t we just a proud and deeply misguided nation?
Oh, it is fun to laugh. It is fun to mock and point and
say, aww, how cute, those lost and weird and backass Southern states where
most people are just trying to live noble upstanding honest lives but where
they still insist on putting stickers on biology textbooks to warn of the
“dangers” of the theory of evolution.
Places where raw honest sexuality is a foreign language
and homosexuality is considered a disease and where they lovingly allow sales
of Viagra and Cialis and where they inject vats of Prozac and Xanax into their
bodies alongside truckloads of deep-fried obesity-happy everything, but the
thought of someone using a sex toy to please herself or her lover and to add
to the overall positive orgasmic vibe of the planet is considered on par,
legally speaking, with pedophilia, or burglary, or being from France.
And it’s nice to think that, with the exception of a
handful of sexless lawmakers and deeply repressed religious leaders who
apparently possess genitalia so shriveled and sad not even their favorite Thai
prostitutes can revive it, the vast majority of Americans scoff at this sort
of law, sigh and shake their heads and move on. Yes, even those who live in
Alabama, or in Texas (certainly in Austin, which mostly sort of pretends
it’s just visiting Texas and doesn’t actually live there).
And sure, furthermore, you might argue that this is what
makes America great, yes? Diversity. Diversity of opinion and diversity of
education and diversity of sexual understanding, one educated progressive
open-minded sexually open side understanding that sex is the divine nectar
that makes the human flower moan and smile and bloom, and the other sneering
and scoffing side merely shuddering and convulsing at the very sight of the
naked human form, and not in a good way.
Call it dramatic tension, healthy debate, a fascinating
slice of human drama. Always good for America, right?
Wrong. This isn’t what makes America great. Alabama’s
isn’t the type of tremulous sexual dread and religious puling that makes us
a stronger and more unique and exciting and fascinating country in which to
live and loathe and pilot our SUVs through the mud puddles and over the
playgrounds and into other cars.
This dildo thing, and the mind-set it represents, it is
the type of thing that makes us small, keeps us lost, confused, torn; it’s
emblematic of what holds us back from true progress and heat and joy. It is,
in short, what makes us silly and actually quite pathetic in the eyes of a
wild and deeply sensual and body-glittered ambisexual God.
And moreover, as the last deeply disturbing election
proved, we on the dildo-happy side of the fence must be very, very wary, on
alert, keenly observant of these rigid and dangerous little laws and of these
genital-free religious leaders, as Alabama’s is the mind-set that put Bush
in office and these are the voting blocs that keep noxious abstinence programs
alive in public schools and this is the viewpoint that buys 20 million copies
of the Left Behind series of silly apocalyptica, all hoping for the End of the
World real soon now so why not abuse the planet as we damn well please and
wait for the Rapture, uptight and righteous and dildo free.
I know, I know. Relax. It’s just dildos. It’s just
some silly sex toys and some silly laws in some silly small-minded states no
one of any salacious awareness or cosmic curiosity really pays any attention
to. Let them have their sad little mind-set. After all, it keeps them
occupied, keeps them from getting into any serious trouble. The rest of us
will merely have to double our orgasmic output to compensate for the black goo
they insist on pumping into the universe. Yes. I know this.
But then again, we are still in a world where brutal,
undeclared war is considered noble and the human female nipple is considered
traumatizing to children, and the pope, mustering one of his last wheezing,
homophobic breaths, declares gay marriage to be part of the “ideology of
evil,” and millions believe him, especially the BushCo Right, especially
those evangelicals who, for some sad reason, now hold the reins.
So then. They’re not just dildos, baby. They’re a
flag of righteousness. They’re an emblem of all that is right and good and
delicious and that must be defended to the death. Dildos are, in short, a
beacon of hope. Wave yours high, won’t you? And then point it in the general
direction of Alabama, and laugh.
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